Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 51

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I run into the problem constantly, that articles about faculty members get treated by the faculty member, their department administrators, and many editors here, like a typical faculty profile page. Many of these folks even link to "their" Wikipedia page on "their" actual faculty webpage.

In my view these faculty articles are perfect conceptual trainwrecks of people mistaking WP for a personal webhost (NOTWEBHOST/NOTCV), like it is a place to record news about themselves (NOTNEWS) including of course their latest book that is coming out in a few months, and every article they ever published, and a vehicle for promotion (PROMO).

So with respect to this policy (!) here is the conceptual compare/contrast question about

a) a faculty profile page at a university website and

b) a legit WP encyclopedia article about a faculty person.

1. What is the difference (there is no need to mention that the WP article needs to pass N or that the WP articles needs to have sources and needs to be free of puffery, etc. This is trivial.)
2. How are they the same

Can we articulate any meaningful conceptual difference? I don't believe we can. Jytdog (talk) 15:01, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Presumably academics are familiar with encyclopedias and thus with what encyclopedia articles look like. It shouldn't be too hard to explain to them that WP:NOTCV applies when an article looks more like a "faculty webpage" or a résumé than an encyclopedia article. Deor (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Not helpful. Please do answer the questions above. What is the difference, conceptually? How are they the same? Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

As you say, I think item 1 is obvious: reliable, independent sources talking about the person in-depth such that notability is established. That won't show up in a CV. What won't show up in a WP page are "character references" and information about the person or his activities which have not been published by reliable sources.

What might be the same: A list of publications which he has authored or been involved in, per WP:SELFPUB. A list of worked at-places might be reasonable. A list of fields of interest. Important contributions to his field of interest. (Hopefully, these are WP:RSd per BLP, but we might reasonably accept more WP:SELFPUB as long as the publication occurs-first elsewhere per WP:OR/WP:V.) There might be some other things here and there. --Izno (talk) 15:50, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

At least one difference is: whereas a university webpage is bound to have a a full list of publications and patents and presentations by the academic, our pages should only include key papers. (although we should fully document all books they wrote completely or edited). The full list is CV-type material, but unimportant for the long-term. --MASEM (t) 15:54, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

So far, no sharp differences content-wise except the WP article should not include the full list of articles published. On that, please note that there is a very old argument in WP about that. There are people who vehemently believe a full publication list should be included, and if it gets too long it should become a separate bibliography page. (See the language here and here and here which say nothing about "selection" but rather flatly say "books or other works created by the subject of the article" and the like) Pinging User:DGG as I believe he has been part of the arguments over this in the past. Also interested in his take on the OP. Jytdog (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Please also be aware that per WP:NPROF there are lots of people who believe that GNG is not relevant to notability for academics. We cannot even say anything like "multiple independent reliable sources" or much of anything about independently sourced content for articles like this. This is part of why we are in a situation where as far as I can see, there is no conceptual difference between a normal university faculty page and a WP article about the person. Jytdog (talk) 17:07, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

First, there is no need to meet the GNG. This is one case where the guideline is unambiguous that the standard is not in addition to the GNG, but an alternative. The GNG is of course relevant if the person is also known for something other than academic importance--if they are for example a member of a legislature. It is undecided if the GNG can be used as an alternative for the academic work, or whether it is altogether irrelevant to that aspect of notability. The question arises when someone who doe not meet WP:PROF nonetheless has received writeups in the press--the most frequent example is young people whose accomplishments may be impressive for their age, but not meeting the WP:PROF requirements;another example whose interesting sounding medical idea is picked by the press but not the profession. AfD decisions here have gone both ways for fairly similar cases. (I'd tend to look also at NOT ADVOCACY for these, to remove promotional articles--promotions do not have to be commercial)

Second, the basic requirement is that their work be influential. This can be shown by prizes, appointments etc. as provided in WP:PROF , but the basic way academics are influential and recognized as authorities is by being cited. This is the rule the profession uses--nothing much counts for promotion except well-cited publications in good journals or books by major academic publishers. In science and other fields where notability is by journal articles, the most cited journal articles are what show notability. It is not the h value--any number of mediocre publications does not bring notability, and that's what h measures. Eugene Garfield who invented the method in the 1960s thought of it primarily for biomedicine, and considered the key level to be articles with 100 citations or more. The number depends on the field, and is best thought of as the citation density--the number of citations per article. In the physical sciences and mathematics the key value is lower than 100--in chemistry it is probably around 60, in math lower. There are all sorts of special cases: multiple authorship, self-citation, high counts from review articles that do not represent original research, etc. It is possible to actually determine this objectively by comparison with people widely recognized as highly notable--for example, by the other criteria. In the articles, we usually list only the 4 or 5 most important papers, which are normally the most highly cited, or the most highly cited recent work. The rest can be found in the CV. This is different from what we do for filmographies and the like, partially because we have an objective standard for importance. We usually pay attention only to papers in peer-reviewed journals, not conference presentation, except in those fields of engineering where peer-reviewed conference papers are considered of equal or greater importance.

For people in the humanities and history and any other field where books are the method of publication the reviews of the books are as important a the citations. All books from academic presses are exhaustively peer-reviewed before publication, and 2 or 3 books is the general standard. They will always be reviewed, and the number of citations depends on the field but is inherently low, because the citation density of books is much less than articles because of their much more substantial nature. It's normal for someone in these field for us to include a list of all the books authored or edited but not any book chapters, journal articles , or other publications, none of which counts all that much. (note that all this needs to be interpreted different before about 1950--certainly before 1900-- and in esoteric fields and non-Western traditions.)

There's a simple shortcut we should use, but is still not a formal criterion. Anyone holding a full professorship in a major research university will invariable meet the requirements for influence by publications. The reason is that we use the same standard they do. We should trust the interpretation of a tenure committee in such a university much mroe than what we can do here.

The difference between an academic CV and an encyclopedia article is that an academic CV lists everything-- every committee, every guest lecture, every conference talk, every interview. encyclopedia articles do not do this. The difference between an encyclopedia article and a press release is the an encyclopedia article list the education and positions in chronological order giving specifics of dates, and gives specific publication data and links, letting the journal articles or books speak for themselves, while a press release focuses on the latest position, is often vague about dates, often is sloppy about exact references to the publications, and describe in enthusiastic language what a great advance their work is, and why they are important to major world problems. (That's actually a distinguishing characteristic nature of press releases in all fields of endeavor). DGG ( talk ) 22:41, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

As with all writing, the key aspect that shapes the tone and content is the intended audience. A faculty profile is targeted for students and other professors to learn primarily about the professor's professional career. It generally will have a limited length, compared with a biography. It will focus on professional accomplishments, possibly with a greater emphasis on more recent ones, and usually will downplay any criticism or controversy, if it is mentioned at all. A biography takes a more complete view of its subject, covering personal as well as professional history. This can include numerous details about the subject's life, hobbies, and personal views, unrelated to the person's career.

At an individual sentence level, assuming a neutrally-written faculty profile, there probably won't be much difference: a sentence written in a profile could well appear within a biography. But a biography will encompass a greater scope and accordingly will have a greater length, as it is targeted at a broader audience with a more general interest in all aspects of the subject's life. isaacl (talk) 03:17, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I appreciate the time people have taken to reply, but nothing here is helpful to guide the admin of a professor who was told to buff up/update the professor's article. I have seen no concrete differences between a faculty web page (the question was not asking about the difference between a WP article and a CV - that difference is obvious). Where there is controversy that is an obvious difference but is a rare situation. And Isaacl hell no - WP articles are not places to list all kinds of trivia like someone's hobbies. for pete's sake.

Here are some concrete examples (the first three have recent issues; the last three are just random):

• Zbyszek Darzynkiewicz (autobiographical, still getting, um, polished, but even when that is done, it will look like a faculty webpage)
• Martinus Richter (faculty webpage actually links to the German WP article, of which this was initially a translation)
• Matthias Hentze (his admin is currently trying to update this)
• Ruedi Aebersold
• William R. Brinkley
• David F. Dinges

Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

You asked us to assume that notability, etc. were already taken care of. Obviously, anything contained within an article has to meet Wikipedia sourcing standards. This does mean that if someone's hobbies have garnered notable attention, they can be covered. (Claude Shannon, for example, is known to be a juggler.) If not, then they won't.

Yes, it's difficult to provide guidance, because a neutrally-written faculty profile can certainly be a stub biography. isaacl (talk) 19:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I apologize if discussing the different natures of a faculty profile vs. a biography isn't helping you with your objectives. I was hoping that the discussion might help prompt any interested contributors to discern some greater differences that would help you. I'm sorry if it hasn't been any assistance. isaacl (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Isaac i am sorry for being snappish. I think the community consensus on this is probably that there is almost no difference. I appreciate you providing input. Jytdog (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see this thread posted here without reference to Jytdog's previous discussion on the same topic. I'm not sure there's a different answer forthcoming from posting the same issue on a different page, and to be frank I don't think your argument has improved with age. Of the handful of examples with "recent issues", in one case you appear to have reverted neutrally worded and easily verifiable updates to a BLP on the grounds that the person who made those edits acknowledges a COI.

In any event, the simplest explanation for the similarities you say you observe is that readers come to both Wikipedia articles about academics and to faculty pages looking for similar information, i.e. their place of work, their career history and affiliations, and their research or scholarly activities and how they fit into their broader academic field. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Opabinia regalis. This had nothing to do, whatsoever, with notability. The question asked explicitly assumes that status quo of PROFN and does not question it. The misrepresentation is noted. What you appear to be saying is that a WP page about an academic who meets PROFN is, appropriately, basically same as a typical faculty web page and that for academics to use WP as a professional webhost (like your average academic uses their faculty webpage, which tend not to be ridiculously promotional) is just fine. Thanks for providing your input. Jytdog (talk) 05:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Edit break

I've started a number of pages on historians (User:K.e.coffman#Historians), so my comments apply most to those in humanities. In my mind, the requirements for an encyclopedic article are two-fold:

1. The lead establishes why the person is significant in the field: i.e. major research; notable publications; awards that are significant and well known, etc.
2. The bulk of the article consists of 3rd party analysis of the subject's work.

The difference between the uni profile / CV and an encyclopedia article is that the former generally does not include Part 2 (3rd party analysis). Compare: Wendy Lower, faculty profile and Wendy Lower.

Does this help? K.e.coffman (talk) 21:12, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, this is a dead on, to the point answer. That is not how most articles about academics are written, and would provide a significant difference between a faculty webpage and a WP article about the person. Thanks! I am interested to hear people's responses to this. Thanks again. Jytdog (talk) 06:00, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Just providing a notification here that we are gathering proposals for an RfC to raise NCORP standards at the Talk page of that guideline; see here. Jytdog (talk) 18:23, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I reverted two edits from this article that appear suspicious, along with two redirects. [1] [2] [3] Could someone with more experience on this page review my reverts? Objective3000 (talk) 01:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Your reverts are correct. The language used is highly suspect, though there is a ring of truth of something we should be aware of, but we'd need deeper discussion to determine inclusion. --MASEM (t) 01:59, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

If there's a "ring of truth" that "we should be aware of", then how about we improve the "highly suspect" language instead? I formulated the now-reverted piece, and am here for the deeper discussion.--Froglich (talk) 05:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

A principle oft-repeated at WP:V is that we want "verifyability, not truth". If there is no reliable source that are challenging that a narrative may be presented, we can't cover that, per WP:V, per WP:NOR. --MASEM (t) 05:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the word "verifiable" means "able to be shown to be true" (c.f. veritas) The purpose of the maxim "Verifiability not truth" is that being true is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for information to be included. The information included has to go beyond merely being true, it needs to be able to be shown to be true. Mere assertions of truth are insufficient. If something false happens to be printed outside of Wikipedia, we are not obligated to repeat it merely because it was written down somewhere else. Truth is still a necessary precondition for verifiability. The purpose of the maxim is to remind people that they have to back up their assertions of factuality and that assertions of truth are insufficient without evidence. It isn't to say that truth is irrelevant, and that all that matters is citing some source, especially if it can be shown that the source is wrong. Froglich's addition is rightly reverted here; not merely because of its combative tone, but also because it's entirely redundant with well-established principles. --Jayron32 12:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I will add that there are proper questions of "blind acceptance of truth" or "refusal to consider critical viewpoints not considered in RSes" and to what extend WP should do this, but that is a much deeper and difficult set of questions to answer and can't just go into NOT without that discussion. I will agree that there are places on WP where editors have "circled the wagons" around what the RS says and only what the RS say, without willing to entertain the larger picture that can be shown, but only if one extend one's view past core RSes into the opinions and attributed statements from less-reliable ones (still can't treat these as facts). However, we have to be careful that is applied right as allowing that approach may benefit some areas where there has been a very narrow view would also allow any random conspiracy theory to get in as well, so there's a very difficult balance to get, again requiring much larger discussion before cementing in policy. --MASEM (t) 13:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

And that's why speaking in the source's voice is relevant, and that Wikipedia reflects mainstream consensus on a topic. Presenting a fringe theory as "Here's a fringe theory that has been widely discounted, but is commented on enough to bear repeating here" which is fine and "Here's a fringe theory which could also be true" which is not fine. --Jayron32 13:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

In the section on "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" we have the sentence, "...Similarly, articles on works of non-fiction, including documentaries, research books and papers, religious texts, and the like, should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents." Isn't that sentence missing an "not" after the word "should"? Because otherwise this implies that the articles on works of fiction, etc. should contain the entire work, which I don't think is what is intended here. I would have fixed this myself as it seems like an obvious error but I have been wrong too many times in the past and this is a high-profile page. Please advise. thanks. KDS4444 (talk) 22:32, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

If you read the whole paragraph, beginning Wikipedia articles should not be: (1) Summary-only descriptions of works..., it seems plain enough that the current wording conveys the meaning intended: Noyster (talk), 22:41, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

(ec) The current text is fine. It is saying that if there is a book about basket weaving, for example, then an article on the book should contain more than a summary of the book's contents. Johnuniq (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

I see why the OP was a bit confused by the text, and I tried to patch it up a bit [4]. I think that bullet could be tightened by combining the first bit (" fiction and art") and the second bit ("non-fiction, such as a documentary, research book or paper, religious text, or the like"), but I somehow don't feel like taking that on. EEng 22:47, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

I did the thing. (I await the inevitable reversion.) --Izno (talk) 11:18, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for doing the thing, and look! Not even revert! Well done, I say. KDS4444 (talk) 18:05, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I could revert if that would make anyone feel more at home. EEng 18:17, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

According to WP:EW you already did. :D --Izno (talk) 19:25, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Now, now, you boys! Go on home afore I spanks (thanks??) y' both!  :-) KDS4444 (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I wrote the original wording under discussion, and much prefer the compressed version I see now. The "... articles on works of non-fiction, including ..." verbiage was only added because the then-extant text was only but quite explicitly addressing fiction, the WP writing about which was in that era atrocious; the mood was not then conducive to removing a clear "do not write about creative works this way" instruction, only to adding "also don't do it with non-fiction". Glad to see the redundancy pruned.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:59, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Based on a lot of issues over articles over the past 2+ years, I think we need to add a new case under Not a Newspaper to specifically discourage/prevent editors from focusing too much on the the reactions, commentary, and analysis that flood the news after/during a current controversial event.

This needs to be clear that this is not the same as covering notable, breaking events, as there are times we cover these less controversial topics well (such as disasters). We do not want to discourage editors from that, but we do want to avoid trying to rush to include the endless parade of talking heads throwing their opinions in the ring, particularly if the event is the type that generates a lot of talk and controversy. Trying to cover the analysis and commentary in real-time while such events are going on can be problematic and does not reflect the fact that we rather have topics discussed in this manner after a long time has passed from the conclusion of the event so that we have a better judgement of how to apply UNDUE and the like. This might be days, weeks, or months after the event has happened, but this is how we'd approach any event that already occurred in the past. We should not be letting the availability of volumes of talking-head opinions in the immediate wake of our event coverage drive how that article is written in the short term. This is essentially hitting on WP:RECENTISM as well as elements of WP:DEADLINE. Of course, if it is the news commentary that affects the actual event, documenting that as part of the controversy should be done. We want editors to document a controversy, but go no further than that until they have enough sources far enough removed to figure out that picture. --MASEM (t) 05:48, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

+ ten zillion. We are not part of the blogosphere! Just the facts please. Jytdog (talk) 05:51, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I would strongly support this. I've made it clear I hate "reaction" sections on major event pages. I'd take this a step further and recommend a proposal to the MOS that reactions of (1) the head of state where the event occurred and (2) the regional leader (mayor, governor, etc.) are the only two notable ones by default. Others like NAACP (e.g., with Ferguson) or GLAAD (e.g., with Orlando) might be notable if major outlets report on it. Political candidates are generally not (the media reports a hard sneeze from them usually). Platitudes are not either. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:55, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

While "Reactions" sections to major events is definitely one area that I think this needs to cover, it does go beyond that too. A prime example of problem articles that this would influence is Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections; I don't edit this but there's seemingly a NPOV/N or BLP/N issue about it once a week because editors are rushing to add in talking-head commentary and putting aside actual, important reactions (like those actually involved in situation). It is very easy to use the endless stream of 24/7 news channels to support any viewpoint one wants, whereas weat this point should be aiming to only identify factual events in the larger picture. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:RECENTISM is a huge issue, but I've yet to see Wikipedia combat it well, except for occasional cases. The WP:RSBREAKING guideline already tackles "current event[s] in real time" and recentism. I don't think addressing it at this policy page will help much, but trying is an option. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:19, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Agree with this- should help separate the cruft from the actual topic, and provide a policy with which to deal with it. — fortunavelut luna 09:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Suggested shift of focus: In coverage of anything, not only the very most currtentest events, opinions, hypotheses and speculations are encyclopedic only if they have major impact or significant overage. Therefore the subject discussed here is a special case of WP:DUE. Of course, it may be reasonable to elaborate on it in the context of WP:NOT in this generic form, i.e., WP:NOTPUNDITFORUM: Not a collection of opinions of everybody about everything. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:06, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I have seen, not in exactly these words but in intent, that per UNDUE, if there are many published opinions about something (typically from the press that are part of our RS collective) who are otherwise uninvolved that per UNDUE we should be including those, to a point where the opinions/stances of those actually involved with the controversial event are then considered FRINGE views and not be included. Which is not documenting the controversy. UNDUE has a perfectly fine place, when the dust has settled and we're trying to write how something will be seen externally in the long-term, but we need language similar to what I or Staszek Lem are suggesting to avoid UNDUE being used in the short term. --MASEM (t) 20:25, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

There're a couple reasons I'm a little leery of this. One is... well, we're here to serve the readers. The most readers are often most interested in an event soon after it happens. Something happens, people go to Wikipedia to learn about it. They do. I don't see the advantage of not serving these people. Maybe it's necessary, if y'all say so and can demonstrate it, OK. But acknowledge that there's a cost.

(And IMO stuff like "I've made it clear I hate 'reaction' sections on major event pages" demonstrates little beyond people's personal interests in what they like to read, which, so what? Then skip it. If there's a demonstration that this stuff is inherently low-quality -- we get it wrong too often, or whatever, and this is essentially structural to the event being recent -- that's differnt of course.

Could we see some specific examples of articles or other material that is problematic? Herostratus (talk) 21:04, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Right and what WP should do it is give the facts of the matter. That is how we best serve readers. To the extent we provide important player's perspectives, that should have less WEIGHT than the actual facts. Otherwise we just become an extension of the blogosphere and whatever battles are being waged out there, get pulled in here, which becomes just a tremendous waste of time for every body. The proposal helps us all avoid that. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

What I wrote above is my general approach in all the subjects I edit in. But you asked for an example - I have been working on Charlie Gard case and have been advocating there that we keep all the furore in the blogosphere at a minimum and give the most WEIGHT to what was wrong with the baby and what actually happened in the various court cases. People have been wanting to replay the arguments in social media and to even interweave them. Some of it has crept in despite my efforts but hey this a community project so one has to compromise. In my view we serve readers as I said above, by presenting the facts of the matter cleanly, and sketching interpretations separately. We don't get into the weeds of rehearsing those battles here per WP:Beware of tigers. Since i have offered this as an example, I will post there that I have done this. Jytdog (talk) 21:26, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Many of the most recent examples involve anything that has touched the last election and Trump-related articles. A very specific example is James Comey. Among other issues one specific point of concern was inclusion of other opinioned reasons of why Comey was let go from office in May 2017 that was different from what the official dismissal memo said. Now, considering how many moving parts there are on the election/Russia interference story, the dust over that and anyone involved, particularly Comey, hasn't settled, so we don't know how to see this situation properly from a longevity viewpoint. In an encyclopedic perfect world, we'd have noted only what the dismissal memo specifically said, and that the dismissal was seen as controversial, at least until a point in time where these events are a thing of the past, but instead, there's inclusion of several theories from RSes (so not in violation of any other content policy) that bloat it out, and written in a manner to be critical of the dismissal (and of Trump by that nature). At one point, one editor argued that the dismissal memo wasn't important because we can't trust that was the reason for dismissal. Editors like these are playing games with policy and the near-endless supply of Trump-critical opinions and analyses to maintain a certain viewpoint on articles, which may or may not be appropriate, we just can't tell right now. It is far better to avoid giving any more detail beyond what is the verified truth and possibly not appear complete, as that state then can be expanded on once we have the correct long-term view of the situation; rather than trying to crap a selective choice of opinion or analysis into an article while the situation is still happening. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree that it is certainly an issue. But degree-of-relevance is also relevant to this. :-) Per the framework at WP:Relevance, "reaction to" is one step removed from coverage directly of the topic, with greater selectivity required. While this issue may arise more with current news, coverage of reaction is a common way to tilt an article (a wp:npov issue). Also I'm not so sure that it's an issue for wp:not; it's probably more of an issue for wp:npov and our missing relevance guideline, and missing infusion of wp:coatrack principles into policies and guidelines. North8000 (talk) 21:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

That is a good point about NPOV and coatrack but a lot of this has to do with what people see WP as being for. In my view a lot of the problems addressed by the proposal are actually related to the SOAPBOX part of the policy, but addressing this under NOTNEWS in a subsection like WP:NOTBLOGOSPHERE or yes WP:NOTPUNDITFORUM would be immensely helpful to add clarity to help keep everyone on-mission. Jytdog (talk) 21:35, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

While reactions are one step removed and are secondary sources, what is at issue is short-term reactions, even by journalists and analysts that have studied the situation in depth but still speaking their opinion without considering the long-term. We want the long-term secondary coverage, once the matter has settled down to gauge opinions, but not while it is at a fevered pitch. The reason that it is suggested here at NOT is that it covers several different content issues. Some of this is NPOV issues, but there are, for example, the case of "reactions to major disaster" sections that certainly are neutral but when it is just a list of condolences, its not appropriate content, so falls under NOT. I also see this analagous to being not a newspaper, we're also not a talking-heads 24/7 news station ala CNN, FOX, or CNBC, which has news coverage but in a far different matter from a typical newspapre and also far from what an encyclopedia should be .--MASEM (t) 21:38, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Good points by both Jytdog and Masem. I'm always leery of provisions that overlap with other policies or try to fix a problem in the wrong place but I think that you are in essence saying (or led me to) that the issue is so much bigger in areas covered in wp:not (e.g. "not a newspaper") that it would be good to cover it here. Agree. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Proposed language - I want to hash this out first here, but I do think we need to have then a full RFC about this since it is a core concept policy and going to link in a non-policy page (RECENTISM) which some might balk at.

  Real-time news reactions, commentary and analysis While Wikipedia can excel at the cooperative development of detailed articles on breaking events in near real-time, editors should keep such articles focused on facts and immediate impacts, and avoid including opinions, reactions, commentary, or similar analysis generated in the short-term by the media or by others not directly connected to the event, despite the quantity of such sources that may be available. We seek to cover an event's permanence and, as there is no deadline to getting these articles right, should only include such commentary and analysis well after the event has ended so that we can evaluate the proper balance of long-term views of the event's significance. This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to document the controversy but not comment on it until the dust from the controversy has long since settled.

• I suck at policy language so feel free to adjust/amend/rewrite, etc. --MASEM (t) 16:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
• Question People commenting so far seem to have a certain type of Wikipedia editing in mind. Can anyone give some examples of Wikipedia article which was developed in this undesirable way? I can only imagine instances of good editing with news, like for example with various crisis situations and updates on politics to match the developing narratives. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

  It's not the worst, but recently there's been July 2017 Lahore suicide bombing of which about 50% of the post-lead text is a "reactions" section. It used to be a lot worse, but there's some dedicated editors who kill it when they see it. There's been a habit of expanding stubs on current events by putting every publicly available reaction from every famous person or national government one can find. If it doesn't happen as much its because people are actively removing it (as they should). But I think the OP is looking for policy guidance to give some meat to their work. --Jayron32 16:58, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

  Reaction sections like Jayron describes is one aspect, but the larger issue, as I've tried to identify above, currently exists with nearly every article around Trump and the last election relating to the possibility of Russia's involvement. There are very few established facts on the case - though clearly a timeline of events we can document and which we should document - but editors in these articles seem invested to make sure the media's stance (which is currently hostile to Trump, in broad terms) is included. We should be asking, once the matter is settled, in any resolution, would we be including all the current media's stance and opinions and analysis? To counterpoint, imagine the Watergate scandal being written in real-time compared to what we have now. Properly, this has a "role of the media" section to emphasize how the talking-heads at the time made this a big media thing, but in the long-term context, it's not outline all the opinions but the roles that had. The few reactions are from the major world players at the time, and thus appropriately summarized. --MASEM (t) 00:11, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I am unsure what to think. The content is not obviously bad or good to me. For an issue I cared about then I might want to see this content, especially if there is little other information on the topic. The reactions in the Lahore case demonstrate that people in positions of authority cared about the issue, which I would not realize otherwise. For US political reactions sometimes dumb items in the media still somehow direct large sums of labor, money, and other resources so I also am not sure that we should discourage this behavior. I also do not feel sure that we should have this - I definitely see why Wikipedia does not need this content. Perhaps I am unhappy both with leaving it and removing it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:41, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• That is a darn good first draft. I suggest changing the last sentence to "This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to describe the controversy, summarizing high quality sources; we do not participate in the controversy." Jytdog (talk) 03:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm not 100% sure on that change. I have seen people argue that if the NYTimes or BBC or other high-quality RS opine on something it should be included, and that's what we should be avoiding in the short-term coverage. Obviously a retrospective on the event by the NYTimes is extremely valuable. --MASEM (t) 04:09, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• How about "This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to describe the controversy, summarizing high quality sources reporting, not commenting on, the events; we do not participate in the controversy." ? Jytdog (talk) 21:59, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• Has anyone pinged EEng? I know he interested in a restriction like this. Personally, as long as "this talking head says the shooting is racial [1], while Yakkety XIV says this sudden bankruptcy is an industry wake-up call [35]" is kept to a minimum, I am opposed to attempts to restrict the recent addition of events to Wikipedia. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 21:29, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

  This is not an attempt to curb current events, NEVENT remains the core guideline to judge that. This is simply to prevent articles on current events from going too far into the weeds of opinions and analysis in the short-term, focusing on non-contested facts that are part of the event, and waiting to include the more analytical considerations well after the event has settled down. --MASEM (t) 21:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• I think we need to distinguish between "talking heads" and "blogosphere" and the reaction to notable events by notable persons. Also we need to recognize that the mode of transmission of those opinions and reactions today are frequently tweets. Even the Pope tweets. We all know you-know-who does. What used to be press releases and men in suits sitting in front of flags is now the same people twittering in their pajamas. Their doing so almost always results in pickup in reliable sources. Also NOTNEWS should not be used as a bludgeon to prevent notable events from receiving proper coverage simply because they are recent. I'm more concerned with the articles that seem to crop up after every major news event, thrusting nobodies like Richard Matt into prominence when they deserve to be promptly forgotten. Matt is a low-life who busted out of prison, whereas Charlie Gard, op cit, was the center of global controversy that received extensive coverage. We don't want NOTNEWS to mean "nothing recent please," and it can be misinterpreted as that sometimes. Coretheapple (talk) 22:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• • Actually, part of this is avoiding the inclusion of short-term reactions that people that have nothing to do with the event, at least while the event is going on, even if those people are notable. Or at least distinguish between the volume and influence of such reactions (which are fine if they affect the situation in the short-term), and exactly what they say. Taking the Gard case, there are some cases of proper reaction inclusion under this idea, and some that are not. The first para of "Political and public policy" is good, describing how those tweets (particularly Pope's and Trump's) influenced the situation and larger reaction. And to understand how they did, the contents do need to be mentioned (plus, they were actually talking actions to be taken, rather than just offering condolenses). But at the same time, Pence's comment isn't needed since it is just condolences, and has no clear impact on the situation. One needs to think how the article will be five years from now, if all those positions will be relevant. --MASEM (t) 23:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• • • In fact Pence did more than just offer condolences but made a political statement, which was indeed quite consequential from the standpoint of the political impact of the case. As for five-year impact, that's a tricky question. Re Pence, will he be president in five years? Will single-payer (the subject of his comment) still be consequential? If either is the case, it will be relevant. Which raises another issue: relevant to whom? To a taxi driver or a researcher or student? Do we pretend to be arbiters of what might possibly be relevant to unknown audiences in five years? That's not currently in this policy, but if you wish to add language to that effect, feel free. Getting back to this particular possible policy change, I guess my concern is that this may be a cure for which there is no disease. If there are specific articles in which this policy change would have come in handy, had it existed, I would like to know which articles and the impact this would have. The Comey article is one example but I think more would be useful. Coretheapple (talk) 02:05, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

• As another example, here is a case of where we really shouldn't have an article because while the story may be notable, it is pretty much all about talking heads, right now, and that is Google's Ideological Echo Chamber (tl;dr version: google employee releases internal memo critical of Google's diversity-driven hiring practices, ends up being leaked, guy is fired, analysts from both sides are fighting over this). There's not much "news" to the story yet, but it's gained more than a wealth of secondary sources speaking about the issues. But this is all short term elements - we shouldn't really be covering this part of the story, outside of noting that the memo's release sparked further controversy in the ongoing culture war. --MASEM (t) 21:49, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

  I nominated it for deletion, but I have a strong suspicion it will survive on formal grounds, rather on its encyclopedic merits. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

  That's an example of NOTNEWS, for sure. I'm not seeing how this addition to the policy that is being proposed would be necessary to deal with this article. Seems to me that it's amply dealt with in the policy as currently written. Coretheapple (talk) 19:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

  You'd think, but look at the AFD currently. Far too many keeps claiming that coverage of it is there. There is extensive coverage but the bulk of that coverage is people throwing their opinions into the ring about the nature of the memo, and not so much about the event. If we had this bit for NOT, then we'd delete that article (or at least merge to a larger topic), and not go into all the reactions until it was determined down the road that it was actually a significant event and look at the analysis of that from the long-term perspective. --MASEM (t) 19:16, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

  NOTNEWS and WP:EVENT already are more than sufficient to blow an article like that out of the water. But the language being proposed here would not just impact (ineffectually in my view) on AfD discussions but on the articles themselves, adversely, hampering their development by giving ammunition to people who don't like the subject matter. I would suggest that if AfDs are your concern, the place to have this discussion is WP:EVENT, the notability guideline for news events. That's already pretty strong, and should already be sufficient to deal with this Google article and others, But do keep in mind that WP:RAPID works against deletion of articles on recent events. So the policy change being discussed here may fail to help with AfDs and only work against the articles after they actually exist, and may do real harm to articles that are legitimately kept. Coretheapple (talk) 19:46, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

  I'll have to respectfully disagree here. Using the Google memo AFD, if you do not consider this, editors are reasonably arguing that NEVENT does not apply (that is, that the article meets NEVENT and should be kept), namely because there is significant secondary coverage of it. But the type of coverage that it is being generated is all short-term analysis and everyone trying to get their voice out there in putting this in the context of the larger culture war. If we all recognized that this was short-term analysis that was far too soon to cover encyclopedicly, then the article would be stripped of most of the response commentary, and the article's inappropriateness would be obvious per NEVENT. Perhaps that if this were to be added here, NEVENT would also need proper updating to remind editors that a news event that generates a lot of short-term commentary is not necessary an appropriate topic would also help. There's a combination of several issues at play here. --MASEM (t) 23:51, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

  There is such passion to keep in such situations, even ones amply covered by the policy and WP:EVENT now, that it's hard for me to envision this policy change having much impact. (Not that it would have much practical impact but I think there would have to be major changes in WP:EVENT, not just updating, if this change were enacted.) Far more troubling to me is the possible impact on exiting articles. I'd like to see some examples of articles that are not currently at AfD, that exist now, that this policy change would impact, and what that impact would be. For instance, James Comey has been mentioned and I would be interested to know what would happen to that article if this policy change were implemented. Coretheapple (talk) 14:28, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

  There were two cases in Comey that I know would be touched on by this. First was his dismissal as the media speculated on reasons for his removal beyond what the official dismissal notification said. They're making guesses, and given that Comey's still tied to the ongoing situation over the Russian interference in the election, we're still waiting for dust to settle, so we shouldn't be including those third-party comments yet. Second was how much of a role Comey played in the election. It is necessary to identify the factual actions that he did, but to guess at how much weight they had by analysts (some saying he cost Clinton the election) is too much at this time, for the same reasons above - we're still in the stage where the election investigation is ongoing. This would not gut much from the existing article, just avoid commentary on situations that aren't resolved. If/when the election mess is figured out, we can then see what analysts say then to include back into here. --MASEM (t) 15:21, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

  Well I guess I'd have to know what specifically would be imperiled. Looking at the Comey article I'm not seeing anything terrible. You know, I !voted against that Google article and I still feel it is best as a merge, but I don't feel the "keeps" are totally out of whack. I did feel the Richard Matt "keep" !voters were way off base (I initiated that AfD) but in retrospect, I'm not so sure. Coretheapple (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

  It's only a few places: in the lede we have "His decisions are viewed by some analysts as having possibly cost Clinton the election."; some of the last para of "Release of information about the investigation", the latter half of the "Dismissal of James Comey", and now I see someone went and created Dismissal of James Comey. (That latter one I think is more a direct NOT#NEWS/ PROSELINE problem , trying to detail every minute timeline event. Even our articles on famous and well-documented battled in WWII don't go into that much minutiae). But focusing just on Comey's article, we're talking all of about 5% of it , at most, certainly not gutting it. Maybe Comey's not the best example of a problematic article but it shows the elements we should be avoiding in the short-term. --MASEM (t) 16:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

  Hard for me to judge in the abstract but those are significant points. Coretheapple (talk) 20:47, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• Not sure if exactly what was intended but related enough: I'd like to see something about in this addressing "breaking news". I started an essay a bit ago at WP:HOLDYOURHORSES/WP:DJTG about avoiding breaking news since they are often wrong. Not sure how to work it in here but thought I'd mention it. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:52, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
  • For that, we already have the base "Not a newspaper" ("Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories"), and application of WP:NEVENT to wait long enough to make sure a story is legit (collaborating accounts) before determining notability and making a standalone article. This concept is related but not quite the same issue (here, it is usually the news event is validated to have happened, but because everyone and their brother is opining about it in the short term, that's where we need to avoid the talking-heads analysis until the situation has settled down). --MASEM (t) 13:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

• If there are not other refinements offered to the proposed language this seems ripe to pose as an RfC. Are there any other suggested tweaks to Masem's draft above? Jytdog (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• More as a counterexample of what this language should be encouraging is the current state of the 2017 Unite the Right rally (permlink to current). There is a reaction section, but it is limited to key players, and notably the reaction to Trump's comment that many high level officials feel didn't go far enough. There is very few comments from non-gov't officials (read: the media) despite the fact that there's well over 1000s of opinion pieces issued on how this event reflects many issues today - eg we are avoiding the talkings-heads part despite the abundance of such availability. --MASEM (t) 14:02, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

• That's actually a very good example of the perils of this suggested policy change, and demonstrates for me why it is not a good idea. Compare that version with the current version of that article. If we're going to brand anyone other than "key players" as "talking heads," the outcome would be what you see in the version you cite -- an unnecessarily short, in fact grotesquely stunted article that is pretty much unusable for persons interested in learning about the subject matter. Yes there is indeed an "abundance" of so-called "talking heads" available because it is a "yuge" controversy. We mustn't set ourselves up as clairvoyants who will say "oh no, these are 'talking heads' who won't matter in five years." Truncating reaction sections as suggested would in fact present a very serious WP:UNDUE problem by failing to fairly and fully present all major viewpoints reflected in reliable sources. Coretheapple (talk) 13:38, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• Actually, I think it still applies (note when I made that comment, that was before more things happened as a result). Keep in mind that the goal of the proposed language is to avoid inclusion of near-term talking head analysis that is just there for the debate points, not actually part of the news. Nearly all the reactions/responses in the current Rally articles are ones that created further news coverage (and in turn created more reactions and coverage) that are completely appropriate: Trump's response and the fallout from that, the various online sites denying the use by the rallying groups + others, the statue removals, and the vigils. These are all things that are not real-time analysis without any impact, but actual news associated with it. Of the current section, only three are of the type of "talking heads" , that being Public Opinion, Religious Response, and Academic Responses, and those are very tame compared to what they could be if we included all the post-event talking head analysis that wasn't related the other reactions that happened. --MASEM (t) 13:50, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• There's no question, however, that this rule change would have hampered development of that article. I suggest that for clarity's sake that you provide an example of an article that is already "aged" and contains excessive quantities of what you describe as "talking heads" or other bad stuff that would not be there if this policy change was implemented. I've asked at least once before and no such exxamples have been produced. If there are no such examples then this goes back to what I was saying about this proposal being a cure for which there is no disease, as well as being not constructive. Coretheapple (talk) 14:40, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• Again, disagree. First, there's no WP:DEADLINE, and because we are not news (with or without this), we have no requirement to be up to date. Considering the biggest reaction that had impact was Trump's initial statement, it didn't need to be include until it started this criticism of it, and then it would have been appropriate to include.
• A key part of this is to discourage the creation of articles (or sections of existing articles) like Reactions to the 2017 Barcelona attack (which is at AFD at the moment). Or if we are going to have them, they need to be better curated like what we have at Boston Marathon bombing (distilling to principle involved people/groups and actions that really mean something rather than just words). --MASEM (t) 15:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• But that's the problem: not being "up to date" can and often does skew the contents of an article so that it is not neutral. I see your point re reaction articles, but I am more interested in seeing whether there are articles apart from that which contain content that would be affected by this guideline. Coretheapple (talk) 15:32, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• It's nearly always premature inclusion of talking-head commentary before understanding its role in the larger picture that causes the neutrality problems. An article that does suffer from this is Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, as the investigation is still ongoing, having all these intermediate reactions from individuals or groups not involved doesn't make sense. --MASEM (t) 15:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• Would it be correct to say that you want Wikipedia to be a newspaper without the controversy of analysis that cannot be a considered opinion without the passage of time?  Why do you want newspaper-style coverage on events in an encyclopedia without the perspective of time?  Unscintillating (talk) 16:28, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• No, as we shouldn't even be covering stories like a newspaper in the first place. The ideal, but completely impractical way, to write about an event is to wait fully until the dust settles and only then write the event article from the perspective of an encyclopedia; this avoids issues with proseline updates, we have been sense of what perspectives are appropriate per WEIGHT, and we can figure out how to present the event in a larger world context, and have a better sense of event's notability. But we can't stop editors from making articles on events moments after they happen despite NOT#NEWS. So if that's going to be the case, then editors need to stick to core facts (which should include statements and comments from those directly involved) and avoid the talking-head analysis that has no immediate effect. --MASEM (t) 16:38, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• Then perhaps what's needed is a change to WP:GNG and/or WP:EVENT. not a change in this policy. Coretheapple (talk) 16:48, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• That's been tried, it doesn't work. You can't prevent editors from making articles, and NEVENT was crafted to try to stem that tide, and trying to push editors to employ Wikinews has generally failed. So we do have to live with editors making articles on breaking events, but we can make sure that they stay on the focus on the factual aspects of the events rather than to shoehorn in reactions and responses, which at times can be done in a POV-ish manner depending on the event. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• Masem I reckon it is ripe to try an RfC? The discussion between the two of you is not going to resolve. Jytdog (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
• Is there a positive viewpoint to state why we are suddenly allowing breaking-news articles, beyond "our admins can't be bothered to move breaking-news articles to draftspace"?  Unscintillating (talk) 20:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• It's not just events. Why do we allow articles on an escaped convict when the escape itself is the subject of an article? That's how the AfD discussions turn out. But don't forget that this problem will not, repeat not' be addressed by this proposed policy change. Instead its sweeping language could be used as a blunt instrument to curtail the development of articles on significant issues of lasting importance. I still have yet to see produced here any examples of articles that have spun out of control with horrible, unnecessary "commentary" and "talking heads." Where are they? There should be at least 10-15 good examples of such articles before we wield a blunt instrument like this. Coretheapple (talk) 12:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, there is an entirely separate problem of people rushing to create articles that fail to meet the immediate needs of NEVENTS or fail BLP1E/BLPCRIME and a whole host of other things. Editors have tried to stem those, its very difficult because people read the GNG and think "widely-covered news story" equates to notable. Part of this is a lack of admins handling AFD to pay attention to that distinction here.
• This proposal is not trying to address that. It is addressing, where there has been evidence of a notable event, to make sure to keep the initial article focused on facts and not talking-head analysis while the event is ongoing. The biggest place is any breaking news that gathers a "Reactions" section that is a per-country list. This has been considered before [5] and as noted there this does point to a category where such reaction articles have been created Category:Reactions to terrorist attacks. But it does affect articles in other ways. Dismissal of James Comey is the type of article that seems far too narrow and overly focused on one specific event because talking heads have made it such a point. (Not that the dismissal doesn't belong somewhere in WP, but it makes much sense to describe it in context of Comey and/or the investigation of the election). If a year from now that dismissal is considered a key event, then full expansion of that separate article makes sense. --MASEM (t) 13:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

*The Comey article is probably a pretty good example of how a policy change like this is good or bad as indicated by the way you are defining it. Yes, it is too long, in part because it shows the entire text of relevant documents. And it does have a "clear the notebook" technique of publishing everything in reliable sources. Now the controversy is over and I look at that article but I'm not seeing any area that requires massive cuts. If one removed what you call "talking heads," you remove an important aspect of the article, which was indeed the furor.

Thus I think it underlines the point I made earlier about this proposal running up against WP:UNDUE, When you have a controversy characterized by a media furor, the media furor ("talking heads") is part of the story, and removal skews the article in a manner not allowed by UNDUE. And again, who are we to say what will be of interest in five or ten years? Only in five or ten years will we know that. If we are writing about something that happened five or ten years ago, it is a different story. Then we can judge if WP:PERSISTENCE is applicable. (Events that are only covered in sources published during or immediately after an event, without further analysis or discussion, are likely not suitable for an encyclopedia article. However, this may be difficult or impossible to determine shortly after the event occurs, as editors cannot know whether an event will receive further coverage or not. That an event occurred recently does not in itself make it non-notable.) That's from the notability guideline but I think its reasoning is applicable here. Coretheapple (talk) 13:49, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• I disagree that the event is actually "over" - while his dismissal is now a few months old, the investigation is still ongoing, so what exact role in that is in question. Say the investigation completes, Comey not considered under any part of the gov't evaluation, and a year from them, academics and analysts, without pressure of time to press, come to conclusion that Comey's dismissal was not in any way a factor. In other words, the furor made by the media over it was over nothing. Should we still have an article that long, considering BLP , etc? This is the type of situation we get into when people flood news articles with media commentary as to make them seem more important before the more proper measure of time. And it's great we have WP:PERSISTENCE but that's a guideline (and not content for that matter) and gets trampled on at AFD. Since this is a broad situation and not just related to events (though frequently will happen most with those), we need policy-level strength to warn editors to not rely too heavily on media analysis and op-eds in the wake of breaking news but consider them well-after the fact. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, the Comey affair could be a big nothing, but right now it isn't. It could also help take down the Trump presidency. Do you have a crystal ball? I don't. Coretheapple (talk) 14:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• And to that end, that's where we should err on WP:DEADLINE and not try to include it before we actually know the situation. Stick to the facts of the story which aren't going to change, but editors shouldn't be trying to do analysis summary at this point. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• This has zero chance of passing, but badly needs to be done. We need to stop acting like a newspaper and start acting like an encyclopedia. We should limit all breaking news articles to a template that says "Wikipedia does not cover breaking news until it is at least 30 days old. Here is a link to Wikinews for those who want more current information." Then we need to nuke the "in the news" section on the front page. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:07, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Hear hear!  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:58, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• as discussion on the actual proposal stalled a while ago, I have posed the RfC below. Jytdog (talk) 20:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• I opposed below because there is nothing special about this situation. I would support abolishing WP:NOTNEWS in its entirety. It is a confused policy that only makes a difference when it is misapplied, to the detriment of the encyclopedia. You can rule out many reactions based on simple criteria of relevance, and one of the main ones is simply how removed it is from the event. Video of somebody getting run over is one step removed from the event, so should be of the highest importance to include, yet there are all too many shrinking violets afraid of providing "too much detail". A police officer who saw the event, transcribed talking to a reporter, is two steps. An op-ed writer, commenting about a politician's speech he saw on TV, based on what the politician heard from the news media ... well, that's more removed, less relevant. I don't claim I have an automatic article writing machine with this, but I think this is a useful way of thinking: our job is to dive to the source, and sometimes we can shift details that are five steps removed to principals who are three or four steps removed, at least, rather than the article about the event itself. Wnt (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Robert E. Lee High School (San Antonio) and the talk page history for a debate over whether including the fact the school's name will change as per school board order (even though the new name and the date on when the name will change are not yet determined) should be included in the article at this time (currently).

It is important because inexperienced Wikipedia editors attempting to update the article may possibly have their edits reverted, and we need to determine whether this should be done.

Please discuss the matter here: Talk:Robert E. Lee High School (San Antonio)

@John from Idegon: WhisperToMe (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

"If a school's name is changed" combined with "no new name selected yet" is self-contradictory. If no new name has been selected, then it has not been changed; they've simply decided they want to change it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Above, I criticized the misuse of opinion pieces that have not been recognized by any secondary sources, but rather are merely primary sources proving that the writer has expressed the opinion in question. Of these misuses of primary sources, I think the most egregious are when we do not describe any distinctive rationale in the opinion pieces, but rather we simply state the conclusion as an argument from authority, so that we are basically treating the matter like a vote by picking out notable voters who we think are most significant. This is a horrible way to write a Wikipedia article, especially about a current or recent event. Moreover, why favor academics over others? If a newspaper sees fit to publish a thoughtful op-ed by a longtime seasoned columnist, why should we omit that in favor of someone with tenure at Harvard? This whole kind of debate is currently happening at the Joe Arpaio BLP, but it happens all the time at other articles too. It's a collosal waste of time, and persistence usually wins. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:42, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. The problems arise when the determination for inclusion/exclusion of opinions/commentary is based on the number of editors who support it/reject it rather than what PAGs recommend, particularly when local consensus is involved. When/if an RfC is called, the result is subject to the closer's POV. There appears to be a mistaken but prevalent belief that when the same or similar opinions are published in multiple RS (including biased ones), such statements of opinion automatically become statements of fact which can then be stated as fact in Wiki voice without inline text attribution; the latter of which is noncompliant with one or more of the following policies: WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, WP:REDFLAG, WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:BLP, and the MOS guideline WP:LABEL. The bold or bully editors that participate in such discussions typically get their way. I think the prevailing policy in those situations is WP:IAR which is further encouraged by Wikipedia:What_"Ignore_all_rules"_means. It speaks volumes for subjectivity, tendentious editing and disruption. The real question is, does it help to change current PAGs that are already being ignored? ^{Atsme📞📧} 13:29, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

That is exactly, exactly exactly what went on in the events described in the topic I opened just above: not only are those 'selective opinion' (presented as 'widely accepted fact')-ers ignoring all the rules (or applying even these selectively), they're trying to get anyone persistantly promoting WP:V (their 'opposition') topic-banned. THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 13:42, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Moreover, why favor academics over others? If a newspaper sees fit to publish a thoughtful op-ed by a longtime seasoned columnist, why should we omit that in favor of someone with tenure at Harvard? Because the person with tenure at Harvard has proven many times over that they know what they're talking about. Longtime seasoned columnists have only proven that people like to listen to them. Given a few facts about human psychology, or even just a few facts about the fake news phenomenon, I think it should be obvious that "people like to listen to them" doesn't convey even the slightest authority. Indeed, it usually seems to suggest quite the opposite. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:44, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Well...if, IF the academic doesn't harbor a bias or strong political preference I would agree that the academic would have the edge. However, if we're talking about a Pulitzer winning journalist, and/or one who is known for their journalistic integrity, I think it's a toss-up. ^{Atsme📞📧} 22:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

If the columnist also has tenure at Harvard, or a Nobel, that would be fine. And everyone has opinions. Whether they have biases is another matter. Strong political opinions do not necessarily prove bias. Objective3000 (talk) 22:12, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

If newspapers devote columns to whichever columnists they think readers like to read regardless of the columnists' intelligence and sagacity, then presumably those same newspapers publish news reports about current events that merely tell readers what they want to hear regardless of the facts. So why should we treat any newspaper as a reliable source? Instead we can just use information and opinions from the personal websites of tenured university professors. Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:07, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@Atsme: if, IF the academic doesn't harbor a bias or strong political preference I would agree that the academic would have the edge. I (and anyone who is an expert at anything) couldn't possibly disagree with that more strongly. Biases certainly exist within experts, but the notion that they can nullify expertise is extremely spurious and easy to disprove (creationist doctors disprove it every day). Here's an example: I absolutely loooooove LISP and I honestly, truly believe it is one of, if not the best programming language ever developed. It writes, compiles and often runs faster than any other language (the last depends on your compiler and chip architecture), it's amazingly recursive and seems tailor made for any sort of AI code, machine code (there are computers for whom the actual machine code is LISP, something no other high-level language can claim) and a large number of other tasks. I could not possibly be more biased in favor of LISP.

(Note at this point that my expertise in choosing programming languages is a minor and possibly even marginal one; a greater expert than I will almost certainly be even better than I at the following.)

But if you ask me for my advice on which language you should use to write a given program in, I will almost certainly not answer LISP. Because one of the necessary steps to developing expertise is the ability to recognize and account for one's bias. I understand that the advantages of LISP rarely balance out the disadvantages of using n uncommon and sometimes difficult-to-learn language that will leave the programmer dreaming in parentheses for years to come.

However, if we're talking about a Pulitzer winning journalist, and/or one who is known for their journalistic integrity, I think it's a toss-up. No. Again, not even close. A Pulitzer prize winning journalist writing an op-ed about how global warming is a hoax doesn't hold a candle in terms of credibility next to a recent grad with no real reputation in Climatology writing an op-ed about how global warming is real. Comparing the opinions and arguments of experts to those of even the best journalists show that this is an apples to oranges comparison.

@Anythingyouwant:If newspapers devote columns to whichever columnists they think readers like to read regardless of the columnists' intelligence and sagacity, then presumably those same newspapers publish news reports about current events that merely tell readers what they want to hear regardless of the facts. So why should we treat any newspaper as a reliable source? You may presume that all you want, but it is an absolutely atrocious line of reasoning that doesn't hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. For starters, it completely ignores the possibility that there is a consumer demand for accurate reporting; a possibility that does not exist with opinion pieces. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:53, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

There is no consumer demand for thoughtful, persuasive, insightful opinion pieces? Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:28, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm quite sure there is. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:53, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

It is interesting to read these and consider points made in this Pew Research 2017 survey/analysis. Not saying it affirms or refutes all points, but it does stress that there's a public awareness (whichever side) that media tends to take sides. --MASEM (t) 14:02, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

What's most interesting to me is the rarely-stated fact (and yes, it is a fact) that the perception of bias and the reality of bias are completely different things. Look at all the WP:FRINGE articles that have been subjected to drive-by comments from IPs and SPAs about how biased they are, when the reality is that they tend to be about as neutral as one can be. The perception of bias in the media is not necessarily reflective of the reality of bias levels. Almost everyone will perceive a truly neutral news story that reflects very badly upon their ideology (of whatever sort; religion, political, social, etc) as being highly biased.

Also interesting to me; why does the political right's perception of bias in the media not extend to non-traditional media? We often see vitriolic condemnation of the "Lamestream media" from individuals who would never bat an eyelash at preposterous claims stemming from a blog post. This phenomenon exists on the left, don't get me wrong, and it's just as damaging. But it doesn't seem to be as widespread. Instead, this sort of double standard seems to be more focused on science than the news media with the political left in the US (anti-vaccination, AIDS denialism, alt-med and other such topics tend to be more prominent there). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:14, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Keep in mind too that bias is in the eye of the beholder. There's been more than enough arguments across the board relating to NPOV between experienced editors if an article is biased or not. There is no absolute measurement of what "unbiased" is, its always a relative measurement; we'd just hope that most WPians would know what we try to aim for as "unbiased". --MASEM (t) 14:26, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I just said in my first paragraph of my previous comment. I'm not completely convinced that "unbiased" is a pipe dream, but I'm not going to argue tooth and nail that it's not, either. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:00, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps because academia is dependant on grants and news sites are dependant on ad revenue generated by bait & click. Follow the money. First-hand experience in publishing, tv journalism, and production for 30 years gives one a bit of insight. I was the one raising the money for public dissemination (public outreach, more often propaganda) for projects I initiated involving NOAA, USFW, BLM, USAC, and numerous other fed & state government agencies and academic co-ops, the latter being funded by govt. grants and private companies/advocacies to conduct the research. No doubt, there were good intentions, particularly by those of us out in the field but I can assure you that at the top, it's all about the money. What it all boils down to is survival of the fittest and what the end reader/viewer chooses to read/see, and research has proven that those choices are typically made based on one's own biases and beliefs. Without funding, an entity will no longer exist so human nature determines the best course of action. The trickle down result is that we now have scores of young and impressionable minds who were raised on the bait-click style of propaganda/outreach. All they know is bait-click journalism and many now believe that certain things should be free...including knowledge. Unfortunately, somebody still has to pay to make it & keep it free but what are we really getting in the long term and under whose terms will it be free? The line between fact and opinion has already become a gray area, and that is why we look to WP:CIR and WP:PAGs. It's the only way we'll be able to maintain the intended focus of this project as an encyclopedia and how it will be defined in the future. Page views are already being used to determine an articles "worth or value". Also notice that the examples used in that discussion were either directly or indirectly connected to "breaking events" but the problems arise when trying to distinguish the difference between fact and opinion, and that is where I see more work is needed for clarification. ^{Atsme📞📧} 15:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't address the point I made above. Nor does it really support your (implicit) claim that biased experts are less reliable than intelligent amateurs. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:40, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Atsme, forgive me, but I think this is an argument you have made on several talk pages, unsuccessfully. It sounds like you are saying that bias must exist in certain entities because bias would help those entities thrive. But, IMHO, that’s a biased view. A reductio example would be that sabotaging your boss would increase your chances for promotion, therefore humans are more than likely to sabotage their bosses. The first part may be true; but this doesn’t mean that most people would ever consider this. An argument made in some quarters is that you can’t trust scientists or academe because they are paid. But, you don’t see these people saying you can’t trust firemen, because they are paid to put out fires and therefore must use arson to increase overtime. Reliable sources, by wiki-definition, partially means sources that don’t fall victim to meaningful bias. We already have an RSN board and think we’re reasonably good at filtering out biased sources. Objective3000 (talk) 16:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Actually, WP:RS does in fact say that that an RS may have bias, but having bias doesn't disqualify it necessarily from being an RS; its how they handle that bias. We have disqualified Breitbart not because they lean heavily to the right, but in that leaning, they have taken several inappropriate journalistic steps that makes them unreliable. Daily Mail for the same. A bias source that keeps most of its opinions under "op-ed" headings while keeping objective in other reporting, doesn't commit journalism faux pas, and takes responsibility for misstatements with retractions/apologies, etc. will still be considered an RS. We should just be aware of the bias in any appropriate WEIGHT discussion. --MASEM (t) 16:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I think Objective3000 was referring to cases like Breitbart, where the bias is more important than adherence to the facts. Which is a level of bias that would be required in the sorts of disagreements we are discussing for it to matter. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:27, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, bias is everywhere. Reliable sources deal with it effectively. Objective3000 (talk) 16:31, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

May I recommend the following articles: CPTC.edu and Live Science? I'm not quite sure why I keep hearing the same argument that my argument doesn't address the questions, and then I'm forced to break it down one by one. I just responded to ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants above re: his misinterpretation. Objective3000 it is your opinion that my argument has been unsuccessful; I disagree. I've planted seeds for future thought; therefore, I remain optimistic. You said when comparing scientists or academia to firemen, you don’t see these people saying you can’t trust firemen, because they are paid to put out fires and therefore must use arson to increase overtime. As I stated above, I'm a pragmatist which means I compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges simply because they're both fruit. As for misstatements with retractions/apologies in journalism, I have yet to see a retraction make the front page headline, so when days or even weeks have passed before the retraction is printed in tiny letters in an obscure place, the accussed is still remembered for the alleged deed, not the retraction. Surely you understand that concept and how such ignorant mistakes can damage reputations and make derogatory labels stick - the latter is what breaking news/events can do/has done. I suggest a closer dissection of the anatomy of my comments...oh, and look at the time stamp to make sure the comment wasn't made during Happy Hour.^{<the latter being [FBDB] Atsme📞📧} 18:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

If you think that I was comparing apples to oranges, I think this is a manifestation of bias. Objective3000 (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

😂, oh ok. 🤣 Read the suggested articles, and hopefully you will arrive at a different conclusion. I'm done here. ^{Atsme📞📧} 18:24, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't see how I misinterpreted anything. I also don't see how those links help, except by adding snark (and I might point out that they would seem very ironic to anyone disagreeing with you, myself included). And again, I don't see how anything you said above support the implicit (yet necessary) conclusion that a well-educated and intelligent journalist is a better source of information than an acknowledged expert in the topic. I mean, that assertion is pretty much wrong by definition. Your earlier comments clearly stated that a good journalist is at least as qualified as an acknowledged expert, yet here you are in your most recent comment arguing that journalists can't be trusted. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:26, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

You consider my citing science and academia as "adding snark"? Yep, I'm done here. Cheers! ^{Atsme📞📧} 18:33, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Neither one of those links refutes anything anyone else has said. They don't even attempt to. (The ironic bit is that the second directly and intentionally refutes your earlier implications.) The first one looks like you suggesting that those arguing against you either don't know how to account for bias (which is a rather insulting suggestion), and the second looks like you suggesting that those arguing against you are only doing so due to their own biases. Both of those suggestions would be most generously considered snark, and less generously considered personal attacks. Now, I'm sure you didn't mean them as personal attacks, so I'm presuming snark. Also, neither one of those really constitutes citing science. And while the former is certainly citing some element of academia, I'm not sure that the Clover Park Technical College can really lay claim to making statements on behalf of academia. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:42, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

It's easy to throw a blanket of dispute over an entire discussion without supporting evidence. I've provided links to RS that clearly support my position despite the denials. Wikipedia also has an article on Funding bias and to that I add Liberal_bias_in_academia so happy editing, folks. My position remains unchanged. In fact, this Harvard study further analyzes media bias. If you accept the Harvard report (and many others) for media bias, and the multiple academic sources cited for academia bias, we don't need to further this discussion. Houston, we have a problem - whether we admit it or deny it - it's there. ^{Atsme📞📧} 21:21, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Nothing you pointed to proves anything of the sort. For example, the fact that RS give Trump's first 100 days a generally bad rating does not in any way indicate bias. It may just be true. 100% of RS claim that Texas is having serious flood problems. That does not mean they are all biased because they say the same thing. According to one study claiming bias, often cited on various talk pages, all major media outlets are biased against Trump. And, the data they used also suggested Fox News was biased against Trump. Which is a bit odd. Look, in order to show bias in any particular source, you have to show bias in that particular source. Broad generalizations don't make it. Objective3000 (talk) 22:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I've provided links to RS that clearly support my position despite the denials. I really don't see how either of those sources supports your position, except that the second source supports the position you took in the comment that included it. But that comment took a diametrically opposed position to your original comments. I agree with the claims of the last of these new links. Indeed, it matches pretty much exactly with my perception of media coverage of Trump. Of course, it's a huge leap to go from "negative media coverage" to "bias". Fox News was included in that study, mind. And CNN was the "worst offender" which is not at all surprising given Trump's frequent diatribes against CNN. The bias that shifts their coverage towards even more negativity might be more a result of a personal bias against a public figure who repeatedly and ignorantly attacks them, not a political bias against the right. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, here we go again with more of the same WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. There's nothing more I can do here. Cheers! ^{Atsme📞📧} 03:22, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I've asked you four times to clarify something that you claim I'm not getting. You've refused to do so each and every time. Yet another editor has fundamentally agreed with almost every problem I've pointed out in your arguments. That's not IDHT, that's an abject failure to engage on your part. I think what's most obvious here is that you're more concerned about winning the argument than you are even ensuring that the other side understands what you're arguing. But here's where it really gets ironic: everyone can read this for themselves. Everyone can see that I've repeatedly asked you to clarify yourself and repeatedly explained exactly what I've taken from your arguments, only to be met with accusations of bad faith and a refusal to engage. In trying so hard to "win", you're forcing yourself to "lose" the argument. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:07, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

In general, I agree with ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants on this. I believe tynat he has correctly identified a bias problem in the media, which leads to a bias problem in Wikipedia, because we mostly report what is in the media. The following editorial by John Stossel hits the nail on the head, in my opinion: [6]. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

There is one issue that remains unresolved and which makes a major impact on the outcome... Namely, is the overall leftward slant of the mainstream media (which I realize I've never explicitly acknowledged, but which I agree is there, even though we may differ on the extents of it) a representation of a predeliction towards leftist politics among journalists, or a stray towards neutrality from a rightward-slanted American political landscape? I think it's fairly clear that America is more conservative than other Western nations, so I think this is an important, if unanswered question. So the end question for WP would be, should we account for the RSes bias, or is their bias one which balances out our own biases? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Half of the problem is wiki-structural; actual reliability of a source include expertise and objectivity with respect to the item which cited it. The idea that Wikipedia treats "reliability" as categorical trait, with no consideration for those factors is an underlying flaw that leads to the above. "expertise and objectivity with respect to the item which cited it" should get prominently added to RS criteria. Second, when in doubt, we should lean towards information about the topic and away from other individual's opinions on and characterizations of the topic. Wit this distinctoin made, it becomes clear that the "source" is not a secondary source on the topic,it is a primary source on what that person's opinons are on the topic. North8000 (talk) 12:53, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

• Wikipedia has from the beginning been very unsophisticated about its use of sources. Sources cannot be divided into reliable vs. unreliable. No source is totally reliable for all purposes, no source is totally unreliable; it depends on the specific nature of the source being used, the nature of the subject, and what we are trying to document. But we tend to ignore that, and treat one newspaper article to be as good as another for most purposes; but not even all items in a paper are equal. We tend to use the most naive of sources--such as amateur websites--in areas in popular culture where there are nowadays serious books and academic periodicals. Partly it's that most people here just use what's free on the web, and partly because they do not realize the extent of the secondary material available. I'm not sure that everyone writing on film, or on children's books, is even aware that these are established areas of study, and we need not rely on contemporary reviews. In some fields we know better, such as MEDRS. And in politics, and anything else concerning human affairs, nobody write without bias. DGG ( talk ) 23:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I just saw these last two comments, so forgive me for the late response. This thread started as an argument that unqualified journalists should be seen as being just as reliable as qualified experts. For obvious reasons, I objected vociferously, as did a few others. The thread went downhill from there, but seems to have emerged (kicking and screaming?) back into usefulness with these last few comments (starting with the one from Guy Macon and hopefully including my response to it).

Ignoring the question of source bias that came up in Guy's comment, I want to agree wholeheartedly with what North800 said. This is a point that has been well-enshrined in policy, but still gets ignored all too often in discussions about reliability. Indeed, much of my objection to the OP was based on this (A journalist can be reliable for claims of fact regarding a sequence of events, for example, but their analysis of a complex subject is worthless compared to that of an expert in that subject).

DGG points out an interesting problem, and one that could probably stand to have a bit more light shone on it. Part of the reason, I think, for the specific examples given of film and literature, a major part of the problem is the inaccessibility of high-quality secondary sources. It's not just a matter of articles being behind paywalls, but the fact that much of the high-quality secondary coverage is organized by themes, genres and subtexts, instead of by individual works. If one reads academic coverage of films regularly, it's rather trivial to find instances of Star Wars being analyzed through the lens of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth structure. For the rest of us, it's all but impossible, as said coverage is more likely focused on the Monomyth structure itself than on Star Wars. Until (and here's why I picked this particular example) said coverage becomes of interest to popular culture. Then, numerous pop-culture articles appear doing the same thing, many of which are written by well-informed individuals who then direct us to those specific academic works which inspired them.

So to my mind, it seems like the eternal question "What can we do about it?" leads to a much more difficult and complex answer: do more to familiarize editors with high-quality academic sources. This would be a boon to coverage of politics (there are, for example, journals of political science which contain much more in-depth and well-informed analysis than the news), medicine and literally every single other subject. It would allow us to raise the bar, such that the question of whether or not Fox News or Think Progress is a reliable source for a certain claim becomes more easily answered in the negative. It's much easier to discard mainstream media sources when we have access to academic sources that may well refute or at least undermine the mainstream sources. An added benefit (to me, as someone who !voted to tighten restrictions in the survey above) is that academic sources tend to take longer to get around to covering issues, meaning our desire to use higher-quality sources will push us to wait until we have them before adding content.

The problem with that answer is that it's not something which is easily done. We'd need to get WMF involved, make contact with academic publishers of books and journals, and spend money to make accessing them easier. The current system of WMF helping editors gain access to academic sources is highly imperfect: a few years ago I requested access to scholarly journals to aid in my editing of science-based articles. I was accepted, and given access to a journal of African Art. Utterly useless to me, and -if I recall correctly- I only ever used that access once, to fill in a bare reference. Now, that's not WMF's fault. That's just how the system works: WMF gets a limited number of accounts to access academic journals, then distributes them to editors as best it can. If we can do something to help expand and improve this process, I think we will have done a lot to address all of the problems brought up in this thread and the one above. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:13, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed 100% with North8000. His comment beginning "Half of the problem ..." lays out two key points that experienced editors here understand and live by but which remain uncodified here. At least once per week I encounter someone asserting either that a source with no reliability for a topic is reliable just because of what kind of publication it is (a journal – which the experienced among us know mostly publish primary source research, peppered occasionally with secondary-source literature reviews) or how famous the author is (Chomsky, on economics rather than his actual field of competence, linguistics), or worse yet that every single thing in a particular type of publication which we usually cite for secondary material is necessarily secondary (e.g., that op-eds and book reviews are secondary sources because they're in newspapers). In all four of these example cases, of both sorts, the material is primary.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:12, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Note: since this RfC expired, I opened a new topic in the Village Pump idea lab, so this continues there.

Since Wikipedia is (one of) the world's most consulted website-references that 'anyone can edit', that makes it a prime target for anyone seeking to WP:SOAPBOX-'broadcast' it. I've seen this a lot in my ~13 years here, but have seen little done to counter it.

It takes a contributor/admin with a lot of patience and experience to see a widespread, organised 'slow attack' pattern any given conflict (because where there's soapboxing, there's most always conflict), but most are too busy/'here and now'-focused to see any larger pattern, and any admin intervening towards the end of such a conflict will find an unreadable talk-page mess almost impossible to unravel, which makes one tend to take claims at face value and only deal with the behavioural aspects of the situation, and this too works to the soapboxers' advantage.

But if there was a task force of a few dedicated to recognising/investigating/dealing with this behaviour/editing pattern (detailed below)?

THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 09:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Soapbox editing always seems to have the following hallmarks:

Most of the tactics used to impose and 'enforce' non-WP:V is a 'slow attack' that often passes under the radar (and over the head) of beleaguered admins and Wiki in general. Namely:

1. Refusal to engage in discussions over challenged content *
2. Off-wiki networking *
3. 'Us' and 'them' behaviour *
4. Poisoning and 'drowning' debate *
5. Targeting the opposition *
6. Multiple accounts and frequent name-changing *

THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 08:33, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

@ThePromenader: Can you give an example of a problem case? I fail to recognize the situation you are describing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:51, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I am presently involved in around the elimination of a 'persecution by atheists' category: with 'state atheism', it is an exclusively apologist/anti-atheist concept (not to be found in any history textbook or non-apologist reference), but a few would like to use Wikipedia to make it seem a real, widely-accepted 'thing'. Another example: I spent ten years helping to battle a single contributor (and their mostly off-wiki 'help') who tried to lead readers to believe that Paris' suburbs-alienation problems didn't exist (and that 'Paris' was the size of an entire state, which is akin to someone trying to tell readers that Hoboken is in New York City). THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 17:24, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry:? THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 06:46, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

@ThePromenader: I understand what you are trying to do. I am not aware of any policies or essays about this type of activity. I am not sure how anyone should respond or control this, but if I entered this space, I would probably start by giving the activity a name, writing an essay about it, then soliciting comments.

I understand the example that you are giving, and hear you say that there is no particular name or definition for the concept described by the category. I think what you are saying is that Wikipedia editors identify some nameless concept, identify instances where they imagine that nameless concept applies, then do original research to group them into categories in a way that no scholar has ever done. I confirm that this happens. Although I cannot immediately pull examples, I feel like this has been done both in ways that people like and in ways that are inappropriate. I am not sure how the line should be drawn between them.

Perhaps in addition to a definition/essay, we could compile a casebook. I am starting to hear more wiki editors talk about collecting cases as a prerequisite for having conversations, so that the cases can be a running log of what discussions happened before. I am not sure what to think. Where do you think this conversation should go? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind reply, @Bluerasberry:. I have no idea where it should go (but somewhere where it would get lots of 'veteran' attention, for sure), but already your idea makes for the most progress I've seen on this, ever. Perhaps if you (or I) would like to start a 'scratch' casebook page somewhere, we can add things to it until it finds a suitable 'home'. And if you can think of anyone who would like to join this discussion (who has had similar experiences/observations), perhaps let them know (and I can do the same). THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 14:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

@ThePromenader: I definitely share this concern, and combating the "slow-editwar" and "civil-PoV" tactics of people intent on abusing WP as a promotion or advocacy platform has been a consistent aspect of my entire history at this project. I'm unaware of any kind of "task force" or whatever looking out for it, but there should be one. Over the long haul, it's going to be a more pervasive and subversive problem than vandalism. We do have the WP:NPOV/N and WP:NOR/N noticeboards, but this isn't really much in the way of centralized vigilance. I started a quasi-newsletter about it at User:SMcCandlish/On the Radar, but do not regularly edit it. It could be un-userspaced if others want to update it (into a casebook or whatever). It was inspired primarily by the revelation of organized tagteaming by agents of the government of Pakistan to warp our coverage of the country and its conflicts.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:52, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, too, @SMcCandlish: It's extremely odd that the world's most consulted website didn't have the foresight to predict that it might be abused in this way.

Your 'slow editwar' description is completely on the mark and the reason that such tactics often make it 'under the radar': (often overworked or 'seen it all' blaséed) Wikipedia admins tend to work not in the long-term, but the 'here and now', and when alerted to a problem they see a pages-long talk page (filled with most often sophist/unverifiable claims and accusations, and (claimer/accuser-ignored) answers to the same, they tend to balk, 'skim', and focus the 'most noisy' behaviour and forget the content altogether (and, should they try, the same 'points' in previous arguments will just repeat again (because 'new audience'... it's an explainable but irrational thing, and I'd digress to get into that). And such 'push' efforts often use all the hard-to-detect underhanded tactics in the book (namely WP:CANVASSing and WP:MEATPUPPETry): it takes an experienced (and still-interested) admin to see through all that.

Perhaps it would be more useful to start a conversation where it would get more attention, and there, I'm sure the examples (thus further attention) would accumulate more quickly... and maybe even become a project (alert-board) in itself. ThePromenader ✎ ✓ 12:53, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Generally concur on all of that. As WP transitions (sometimes painfully) into a new organizational lifecycle stage, and has simultaneously become of of the top-5 most used websites in the world, and perhaps the no. 1 source for general information, intent to abuse it as a promotional or advocacy platform will necessarily, inevitably increase, as will the sophistication of the efforts to do so. I'm strongly reminded of the lax and "not getting it yet" attitude of system administrators about computer security, back in the early 1990s.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:56, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

You made a few case-specific suggestions, but do you know of anywhere where this might get an even wider attention? I'm not so sure how to manoevre this as certain topics even on this page get loads of attention and others don't. But that might be tl;dr and 'selective skimming' in action, another 'naturally-occuring' bane of long-term Wikipedia contribution. ThePromenader ✎ ✓ 09:14, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

PS: perhaps a simple WP:RfC as others have done here? ThePromenader ✎ ✓ 09:16, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I just saw this. I concur that a task force on this issue would be an excellent idea.

We have a serious problem with edit wars on certain "orphan" articles where all the editors with enough knowledge of the topic to recognize those edits are just plain wrong are too busy working on their priority "pet" articles to vigorously defend against such edit wars. The result is that those orphan articles tend to get captured by editors who are either ignorant or just plain nuts, and those orphan articles become a wasteland full of inaccurate garbage. Then any editor who does possess a deep knowledge of those subjects takes one look at those articles and decides they don't want to get involved. Which is one reason for why experts are fleeing Wikipedia like crazy. We need to develop better procedures for protecting against such takeovers of orphan articles by bad editors.

Examples of this phenomenon would be the naming wars over the articles Police power (United States constitutional law) (which should be moved back to "police power") and two-lane expressway (which should be moved back to "two-lane freeway"). If you read the talk pages, you'll see editors making silly arguments from ignorance that would draw hearty laughter from anyone with an informed understanding of constitutional law or transportation law. If I actually gave a damn about those articles, I would have taken the editors involved to ArbCom and requested strong sanctions like indefinite bans or suspensions to teach them to not waste other editors' time with such frivolous bad faith arguments. But I didn't bother, because there are too many other articles that I care more strongly about improving, like Law of the United States; the ArbCom process is now far too complex and time-consuming; and I have too many other demands on my time as a practicing attorney. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:53, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

What's funny about 'orphan' articles like those is that they seem to exist 'under the radar' from within wikipedia (as they're not on contributor 'pet page' watch lists, or are linked from misleading terms, etc.), but I've almost always found them through Google... this is how I came across the State Atheism article some years ago (and it's only gotten longer and worse since then), one of those 'true only on Wikipedia' instances. THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 13:41, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Our articles on pretty much everything connected to modern paganism also suffer this problem. They're effectively WP:OWNed by adherents/practitioners, and they chase off or wear down all the neutral editors.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:26, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

If you need diffs ThePromenader, don a flame retardent suit and head over to whatever article you can find about the 2016 presidential election or wherever else you can find that is rooted in political, racist or religious bias and motivated by obvious advocacies, intended or otherwise. There's a bumper crop beginning with the 2008 US presidential election right up to the 2016 election and all associated articles. I imagine the Brexit campaign has plenty to choose from as well. Common sense is not so common anymore, and the same can be said for NPOV. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:30, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

• There is soapboxing on every conceivable subject, but I agree that the issue can use more concerted effort. I suggest that you let this RfC run its course and see what kind of input comes in. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 19:03, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

• There are tons of essays on the subject. See WP:ADVOCACY and the essays listed therein. I think that if you propose a task force on this subject, and I'm not sure what that means, it would carry the burden of being duplicative with current noticeboards. Coretheapple (talk) 16:42, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I think yet another essay would be a thread in the wind (or a void ; ). By 'task force', I mean a (sign-up) list of contributors/administrators aware of and experienced with WP:SOAPBOXers and their methods (with patience enough to deal with them), on perhaps even a dedicated project page. THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 13:34, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Not sure about that, but maybe what you're thinking of would be a soapboxing noticeboard, so as to deal with the articles that involve soapboxing but fall through the cracks of the other boards. Not saying I support it, just throwing that out there. Coretheapple (talk) 16:49, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Say anything you like, that's why the RfC is there, and I don't think this is a vote on anything. But yes, much of it is 'off radar' (through the cracks) and between several noticeboards. Is it behaviour, or is it policy, or is it both? Where to report things like that? THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 17:03, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

If you like the noticeboard idea, you may want to start another RfC. I am not sure if this is the best place for it, actually. Coretheapple (talk) 23:24, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, but that's just one idea... let's see what comes out of this, first, and perhaps someone will have a better one. TP ✎ ✓ 23:28, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

A big part of the issue seems to just be numbers, as much as many of us would like to think consensus-building isn't about numbers. When I first started lurking on Wikipedia about 10 years ago there was an LTA case revolving around attachment therapy. A sizable group of editors controlled a bunch of related articles, downplaying or removing criticism of the controversial and sometimes dangerous group of treatments, puffing up support, and all manner of POV push. Sometimes it demonstrated some knowledge of Wikipedia; other times it was utterly ham-handed. It took a couple editors doing a deep dive, reading up on the literature, assisted by a children's advocacy group, doing detailed analyses of the users' edits, going to AN/DR/everywhere, and, at long last, getting enough evidence to show the entire group was one big sock farm started by a certain proponent of a related therapy. He was still at it as recently as last year, but nothing more than easily detectable ducks. My big question at the time was, well, what if they weren't sock puppets? What if it really were a big group of people pushing a POV? Would it be possible for a much smaller group of dedicated editors to remedy? At the time, I felt like the answer was yes. And in that particular case, since so many of the arguments were so bad, and misrepresentation of the literature so egregious, it's probably true that it wouldn't have lasted. But since then I've seen more sophisticated application of Wikipedia PAG in the interest of POV-pushing. I've been involved in some of the discussions ThePromenader mentioned above, and concur that it's a problem, but will sidestep and specifics as I don't want this to turn into yet another fork of those threads.

I think a key question is what a minority of editors working against multiple POV-pushing editors should do, when the ask for others to get involved is too high? It's often not the sort of thing that a third party can easily jump into, both because of the depth of the dispute's background and history and due to the highly active nature of its participants (a wall of text that has grown into another wall by the time one gets through it). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:18, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Please keep me in the loop. Well, most of the peeps commenting here are probably who to ping first, I suppose, when proposing something or drafting something to propose, or whatever.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:26, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I also forwarded this to the Village Pump idea lab. TP ✎ ✓ 04:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

That's just it: it's a numbers game. WP:V needs no numbers, as a preponderance of sources speaks for itself (n'est-ce pas?). So those 'out-voter-out-reverter' numbers have to be recruited (and those tactics 'working' require short-sighted administrators who don't examine/consider actual content (and instead 'stop all the noise' without separating allegation from act), and some of the canvassing-charge-evading stealth tactics I've seen are downright crafty; I've even seen some 'recruit' administrators (through complaining to them) for their past short-sightedness and heavy handedness as weapons to eliminate opposition...

While soapboxers learn from their successes and failures, Wikipedia does, too, but soapboxing seems to be still both above and below Wikipedia's mostly 'here and now' radar. TP ✎ ✓ 19:56, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

This is only an extra idea, but watchlist pages for use with the recent changes mode are commonly used by projects to monitor edits on a number of articles. On the other hand, the number of articles to put on such lists is quite large. I currently have over 900 pages on my user watchlist. This unfortunately requires approximately an hour or two per day to patrol. What could help would be a feature where the same recent changes could be marked as reviewed by one of the editors of a monitoring project to split the reviewing task among multiple editors. This would still of course rely on trusting other editors of the project to not flag as reviewed inappropriate edits, but that is not very different than for the existing new page reviewers and their backlog. Another existing similar feature is the pending changes reviewer (and those with the reviewer right who can revert/validate them), but we cannot expect all those sensitive pages to be under pending-changes protection. The current way generic new changes patrol works is also similar to the current watchlist/recent changes patrolling, in the sense that every patroller may duplicate the work of others. This adds eyes, but also wastes time. —PaleoNeonate – 22:01, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you... many great points in there. Perhaps transpose this to the continuation of this conversation at the Village Pump idea lab? I should have added a hatnote to this section (done now), sorry for my oversight. TP ✎ ✓ 22:16, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

A followup observation: If there's any key point in NOT that logically should also be in NPOV, etc., it's an easy matter to also mention it in that other page in some form. There are probably few cases where this has not been done, but it might be worth checking.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:20, 22 September 2017 (UTC)