(Forgive me if I'm not doing this in exactly the right place; I'm a long-time editor who has somehow never waded into the Pump yet, to the best of my recollection.)

The InternetArchiveBot, perhaps best known for adding archive links for references, has in recent months been aggressively linking mentions of books to copies of those books stored at the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is widely viewed within the publishing industry as a pirate site when it comes to under-copyright books, and they are currently facing a lawsuit from several of major book publishers over that fact. If we accept the publishers' claims over rights as at least potentially valid, this puts the bot in violation of WP:COPYVIOEL, which tells us "If there is reason to believe that a website has a copy of a work in violation of its copyright, do not link to it."

Additionally, the bot is linking not just in references, but in the body of text (such as this example, which goes against "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be placed in the body of an article." (WP:EL)

I recommend that InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) be halted and not allowed to run until it is changed to no longer link under-copyright works, or until such time that the ending of the current case deems it to not be a copyright-infringing site. Cyberpower678 (talk · contribs), who is operating the bot as a paid agent of the Internet Archive, should be requested to undo all the edits that have been inserting such links (which I expect can be done largely on an automated basis.) To the degree that it does link books beyond that, the bot should be restricted to doing so within ref tags or in the external links section.

(And to make any concerns about any conflicts that I have clear, yes, I am both a writer and a publisher. I am not currently involved directly in any lawsuit, but the lawsuit does include publishers who have published my works in the past or who have bought out such publishers and may still hold publishing rights, but not for anything that has generated royalties for me in a long time.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:52, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

NatGertler, Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InternetArchiveBot 3 and subsequent linked discussion demonstrating consensus supporting this task. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:16, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Among the five people involved in that discussion (counting yourself, a paid agent of the IA), I see absolutely zero consideration to the concern raised about how this comports with our policies regarding copyright. Its approval was based on the claim that "this task is uncontroversial", but clearly it is controversial - if not before the lawsuit, then certainly now. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Leaving aside for the moment the legalities of this case, do we need online links to references in any case? If anyone is interested enough to look they can look for the cited text online or in a physical library as they please. I have seen many cases where links are provided to Google Books and the references have been removed because the particular page was not linked at the time that the remover looked, as if the reference was to the link rather than the book itself. Wikipedia should aspire to be more that just what is available on the Internet, and part of that is to educate readers that citations to academic books and papers are valid even if they are not freely available online at all times. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

And if the goal is to allow verification of the existence of the book and such publishing particulars as publication date, author, publisher, etc., there is always the fine service of WorldCat. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You are saying we should force people to use a physical public library by intentionally removing links to online digital books so that they learn a lesson not everything is available online? -- GreenC 18:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Removing links to sources that are (currently) available online does not force people who have internet access to go to a physical library. It may force them to do some online research to find the available online copy of the book. BD2412 T 18:52, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Please note that, according to the notice he gives way down the bottom of his user page, User:GreenC is also a paid agent of the Internet Archive. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

My name is also on every edit made by the bot. -- GreenC 19:28, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, @GreenC:, your name is there. Given that this discussion is clearly leaning toward disapproval of the bot (particularly among editors not being paid by IA), you should probably pause the bot's activities until when and if a consensus is reach otherwise. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I have placed a notice at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Approval of InternetArchiveBot 3 has been contested that the approval of the bot is being contested. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• As long as right now the links are not considered illegal (by the unresolved), our act of linking to them is legal. (I suspect if Wikipedia was based in Europe, this would change greatly due to the newer copyright directive there). So now the question is more the morality of linking to something that may or may not be legal, and which has a possible effect on author some who are editors on WP. I would tend to argue that because we avoid links to sites like scribd, academia, researchgate, etc. all which have "questionable" uses of published materials, not yet proven out in any court, we probably should take the same stance here until at least we have a preliminary decision from the District Court. The current page one gets to via the magic linking of ISBN or similar numbers is fine for current purposes until we are satisfied Open Library is working within US law (and yes, assuming its legal which might disappoint authors as the Google cases had as well, we'd still want to use that resource). --Masem (t) 20:17, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with Masem, we already apply the precautionary principle in a number of areas. While the WMF is not going to be held liable in any manner, should a court case go in a certain direction, both editors (who enable the links to the material) and the readers (who follow the links and download the material) could be in for legal troubles. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  Is VPP really the appropriate place to discuss editors' and readers' potential legal liability related to linking to copyrighted material hosted outside of WMF servers? If we have copyright-related legal questions, we should probably request assistance from WMF legal staff. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:24, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, copyright issues fall under policy. For example, we can't linkj to known copyvios outside WP. That's not saying this is the case now, but it is a concern. --Masem (t) 01:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• I already refuse to place links to Google Books in citations because they are a commercial service and we should not give them preference over other providers of books such as Amazon. See the fever hospital DYK for a recent example. What this bot is doing seems to be link spam because it is promoting yet another rival book provider. And the fact that we have paid editors here lobbying for this is outrageous. This matter is certainly controversial. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Perhaps you want to wake up to the fact that IA is also using books that have been scanned by Google, so your refusal there is a bit selective. Eissink (talk) 01:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC).

• What is selective about an editor saying that he will link to neither Google Books nor the Internet Archive? This is treating online sources even-handedly. Linking ISBNs, which links to Special:BookSources, was decided on many moons ago as a neutral way of providing people with the ability to check the content of cited books. If the copyright status is deemed acceptable then the Internet Archive can be included as one of the many sources there. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• I apologize, I see now that I have interpreted Andrew incorrect. I totally misread here, thinking that he would only link to IA. I'm sorry. Thanks, Eissink (talk) 22:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC).

• I agree with Masem: while we haven't done anything wrong, we normally err on the side of caution (WP:ELNEVER), and should discontinue the bot linking until the situation is clear. I did raise the issue when the bot run was first approved (as did Masem). I wouldn't be prepared to say whether WMF would be held liable given recent developments in the United States, but this isn't our concern. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Even if we err on the side of caution, there's nothing to err on here - the copyright issue that's being sued over directly relates to the National Emergency Library, not with the actual lending process itself, or the storing of the material digitally. It would make absolutely no sense to stop the bot from linking based on the fact there's a lawsuit pending that's not based on the storage of the material, but rather an action taken by the company during COVID which doesn't change the underlying copyright of the material, but rather would be a violation of the distribution right of the material by the company, which has no impact on us at all. SportingFlyer T·C 01:35, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

That's simply not true. The lawsuit covers the entire "Open Library" project, including the creation and storing of the digital editions ("2. Defendant IA is engaged in willful mass copyright infringement. Without any license or any payment to authors or publishers, IA scans print books, uploads these illegally scanned books to its servers, and distributes verbatim digital copies of the books in whole via public-facing websites. ") --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

IANAL but am a person with interest in how law and the Internet interest, and did read through the suit. Keeping in mind Authors Guild v Google , "uploading scans of books to their servers" is considered a possible fair use (though I beleive this suit is outside the Second Circuit so its not clear if that ruling might apply or not), but the complication is the argument that because they have physical copies of those books, they have the right to share a DRM-tied electronic copy of those scans in a lending manner. Part of he suit does content that if you use the web-based interface for your loan, you can then make screencaps of the webbrowser and effectively make a copy of the book that way. The lawsuit documentation is set up to make assertions they believe are truthful (in what OL is doing wrong) but the judge make strike some of those statements. So just because the suit claims it is illegal doesn't mean it is illegal, yet. --Masem (t) 02:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

It's a Second Circuit case, the new one. I'm satisfied the Google case holds until otherwise shown fair use doesn't apply. (As a tangent, if I go to the library and check a book out, I can photocopy or scan the physical copy. And if I scan a physical copy of a book, someone has purchased it at some point in time.) SportingFlyer T·C 03:54, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind: with the Google Books, part of the fair use determine was the display of snippet view as a key feature; further in the secondary case that followed with HathiTrust, it was also adding cases of making the whole OCR'd text available to people with disabilities (accessibility) , and for giving copies to academic faculty within the libraries systems that lost their old work but could prove they owned it at one point. The test of whether first sale doctrine applied to fair use is the big question here. --Masem (t) 04:03, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

If SportingFlyer scans an entire library book then that's an elementary breach of copyright as the entire point of copyright is stop wholesale copying of this kind. Google got away with it because they are using the copies to provide an indexing and search service and the settlement decided that this was fair use. Google does not provide the complete text of the books, if they are in copyright, otherwise no-one would ever need to buy a book again. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• The bot should continue linking. All of the concerns raised here appear to be speculative. We shouldn't link to known copyvio, but that's not the case here. I do not work for Internet Archive. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 01:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• An important thing to consider is that it's not so much about protecting ourselves (or protecting the writers and publishers) as protecting our downstream users. We can basically defend quite well against any lawsuit that might arise -- we're rich. Our downstream users aren't, and its for that reason that they're possible targets for any unpleasantness.

We basically pledge "You may use our material in your own work, with confidence that you won't be called out for violating anyone's copyrights -- most of the material is either public domain or under a free license, and that that isn't conforms to accepted allowance under fair use; at least, we aim for this and expend much effort on ensuring that it's true". So I mean if there's a question, if there's active litigation... I don't see how we can make that promise and stand behind it, if we include this material. In theory at least we could be endangering our trusting downstream users. Definitely want to be conservative on that account. Herostratus (talk) 01:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

That's why I want to stress that right now the choice if we keep linking should be a moral/ethical one - we know authors don't like that site and some are editors on here, and they've asked us to stop, nicely (no legal threat here). Should we stop? That's the consideration here. --Masem (t) 02:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. The moral/ethical angle is paramount in any decision, in Wikipedia no less than real life.

So... about the authors (and publishers). I mean, I'm not a huge copyright fan, but... sending an e-mail (or text) is so different, so easier, than writing and addressing and stamping and sending a physical letter that they are different things. If you're talking to a colleague and she says "I'll send you Finster's phone number as soon as I get to the office", wouldn't you be surprised to get it in the mail three days later? They're different; they just are, is all.

Similarly, is not possible that going to a website and clicking a button to download a copy of a book is a lot easier than requesting an inter-library loan (for most books), and waiting for the book to be available and shipped to your library, and slogging down to the library, and reading it there or checking it out (and slogging back to return it later)? So much easier that maybe -- maybe -- they are different things? We know that libraries lending physical books is not something that disrupts the author-publisher-bookseller ecosystem to to the degree where that system can't handle it. Can we be certain that an online version of the library paradigm won't?

If the complaints and lawsuits are frivolous, or maliciously self-serving, that's one thing. Are they? Or are authors and publishers feeling real pain, or have reasonable cause to see a realistic prospect of feeling real pain down the road if we continue down this path? They seem to be saying they are. To prove they're wrong you'd have to see the future. Can you? I can't, and I don't want us to be a party to this until we are a lot more sure that we're on the right side here. Herostratus (talk) 09:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Short version: No they are not frivolous, but they are by no means completely valid either. The argument they are a library had some weight when they were lending books out one at a time. Likewise the argument that as brick and mortar libraries are closed, they need to suspend the one-at-a-time process is a decent excuse as far as it goes. Whats going to be telling is what happens once libraries are open again. Will they go back to one-at-a-time? Will they wait for the court cases to be over? They have used the covid situation to justify their current practices, but the key point of that is they are using the current situation to justify a practice that they know wouldnt fly in ordinary circumstances. Otherwise they would have done it that way all along. This is very much a fishing expedition on their part, and publishers and authors *have* to fight it, lest they be accused of approving of it by not contesting it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:16, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Extremely Strong oppose As someone who actually knows a lot about copyright and specializes in keeping Wikipedia free of copyrighted text, the Internet Archive; ESPICALLY the books and websites they host, is essential to keeping the copyrights of poorer, less known people safe. The offsite campaign to slander them is Clout chasing nonsense under the guise of "making sure writers/publishers get their money" and should be completely ignored- although I do not fault people for being tricked into supporting this terrible campaign. Moneytrees🌴^{Talk🌲Help out at CCI!} 02:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Got it - let's just ignore writers, publishers, and their concerns about their rights being violated. They (or in my case, we) can't possibly know what they're talking about or what they're going through here; let's just ignore Wikipedia guidelines to stick it to 'em. <sigh> --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• I have raised concerns about the mass removal of Google Books links in favor of Internet Archive in February, initially only because Google Books is so much easier to navigate (just scroll). And in the case that brought it to my attention, the book linked to on IA was a copy (a ripoff?) of the book scanned by Google! (Compare this book on Google to this book on IA.) It's a shame that If it ain't broke, don't fix it isn't official policy, because that could stop such nonsens immediately. Nevertheless, I decided to ask what was going on, but to my utter horror, I engaged a terrible attitude of the – paid – bot operator. I have summarized things, short, on Wikipedia_talk:Google_Books_and_Wikipedia#Unbalanced_opinion_and_faulty_arguments, where you'll find more complaints. You will also find my remarks on an IA bot on Wikimedia Commons, performing very questionable edits. And if you think this is all: it isn't. I just saw on the Dutch Wikipedia the discussion on an also very questionable IA bot that replaces working links by the dozens and tagging them as dead while replacing them for an IA link – that bot has been stopped earlier today. For those of you that think WMF might play a roll in resolving possible legal issues surrounding the linking the IA: I don't want to not AGF, but I cannot find any reason for the massive paid edits by IA bots other than that some institution is paying IA for their services, because I think they would otherwise use their resources on different things than on saving Flickr pages, the images of which have already been downloaded to Commons (and of course have the license checked already) – could it be that there is some sort of contract between WMF and IA? If so, it might be in good faith, but things seem to get rather messy at the moment. Greeting, Eissink (talk) 02:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC).
• Very Strong oppose per Moneytrees. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(You Asked?) (What I have Done.)} 02:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• comment - it's difficult to know everything about copyright - but I don't see how this effects Wikipedia at all. I can't see how we would need to do anything until a verdict was reached. It does seem like the case of "I support this lawsuit (and it potentially effects me off wiki if I'm reading right), so Wikipedia should also support this." Let me know if I'm way off the mark here. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Specifically: Wikipedia has a policy (WP:COPYLINK) which prohibits linking to material which is being made available in violation of copyright. The situation with the current 'library/not a library' court case is that publishers and authors are asserting the archive is hosting (and sharing freely) their books digitally in violation of copyright. The argument above is that some editors think as a precaution we shouldnt link to material that is currently being disputed in court until its settled, and other editors think we dont need to worry and should. There is also the added issue that in any situation involving copyright, there is a third group (often the more extreme end of the 'Free knowledge' activists) who think even if it does violate copyright we should do it anyway. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Do we actually have a policy on if we should change our policies due to something being in litigation? Surely we shouldn't touch it until a result is levied? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:COPYLINK is our policy on it (WP:ELNEVER is also a relevant guideline). As to the wider question of 'should we do something when its status is in doubt'. No we dont have a firm policy on it. Many adhere to the Precautionary principle. Many do not. Some people like myself adhere to the precautionary principle dependant on the risk and the liability. Here the risk is if a court case goes in a particular way, and we have been deliberately linking to illegally copyrighted materials, we could be held responsible for Contributory copyright infringement - this is mentioned in ELNEVER. The key part of this though, and personally why I favour the precautionary principle, is that the WMF is protected against legal liability in almost every situation under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Individual editors are not. And in fact the WMF is required, and has done in the past, provide details of its users/editors in order that they can be held liable in a court. If it was a case of 'oh we can do it until the court case is settled' and it would be the WMF who would be sued, then I would say fuck it, they have enough money to hire expensive lawyers. As it stands, I am not willing to potentially throw another editor under the bus because of a third party website's ambiguous legal nature. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Only in death: (edit conflict) Even assuming the maximum, that both CDL and NEL are found illegal after final appeal, it's incredibly unlikely that they'd go after an individual Wikipedia editor who added links to IA in good faith. This would be a PR nightmare. There is no way that will happen. Large corps like JSTOR show deference to Wikipedia and its editors for their volunteer work... there's just no way that they'd sue any one of us for actions taken before the resolution of the suit. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 08:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

See my below comment. I agree they would be unlikely to go after individual random editors, however they may decide to go after individuals who have been paid. RE JSTOR - you are barking up the wrong tree with that one if you dont think they will seek legal redress if you start sharing their materials illegally. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I am indeed familiar with the tragedy of Aaron Schwartz. All I meant to imply is that JSTOR allows our editors to access its materials for free with proper verification. So, given the public relations challenge of lodging cases against volunteers for linking to works they own before it was unquestionably illegal, other publishers are very likely to show amnesty in the same way. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 08:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Although to be fair, even in a worst case scenario, the editors pursued would be paid editors of the archive in question who is alleged to be violating copyright. So I wont massively lose any sleep over it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Our policy on linking to copyrighted works says "However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work." (Emphasis mine.) That's the realm we're in, reasonable suspicion... and that's the realm we're almost always removing such links in. We are not waiting for some legal proof of it; if we see a link to a scan of a book that isn't on the author's or publisher's website, that's reasonably suspect. (Indeed, if we waited until the results of court cases, we'd rarely have to, since the infringing copy should be removed as a result of the ruling.) That's the realm that we are in here, very reasonable suspicion - not only is IA not the authors' or publishers' website, but the publishers of a large portion of the books on the site are saying via their lawsuit that this is an infringment, a stance that many authors have echoed. So we don't even need to reach conclusions over any concern regarding whether editors can be sued; we have the basic question of "are these links within policy?"--Nat Gertler (talk) 12:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Is this really within the scope of the community's self-regulatory power, to decide a legal question like this, on how likely this lawsuit is to affect the WMF? Certainly if the WMF thought that this bot, and links to IA books, was a danger to the project, they would invoke their authority and block the bot and inform ArbCom of their decision? I suppose that as the community conceded to the bot, the community can withdraw its consent, but I don't know that it's helpful to try to get that withdrawal by appealing to the WMF, who seems content to allow the situation to continue. Have you tried requesting their intervention? Until then, I find the bot's edits useful, and think it likely that the IA will not face legal consequence from CDL. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 08:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per all the above. Our linking is not violating copyright nor policy, so it would put an unnecessary burden on the reader for no net gain for Wikipedia or the readers. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dennis Brown above, who put it succinctly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Do I understand correctly, that this bot basically forces all our articles to replace Google books' links? If that's the case, shut it off until there is an affirmative consensus (widely adverted) that Wikipedia is to be mechanically and universally replacing the links that the article authors (contributors) have provided. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Shut it off. I have commented above, but not "voted" yet. Now I am. I'm not impressed by the "oppose" arguments which mostly seem to come down to variations of "we won't be hurt by doing this, and who cares about anybody else?" or else self-serving analysis that leads to "naw, nobody's hurt if we do this." I don't believe it, and arguments like that me less, rather than more, inclined to wish to join with the people making them. Herostratus (talk) 00:12, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• Pinging a WMF legal member - @Jrogers (WMF): - just an FYI about this discussion on whether linking to a potentially problematic copyright issue is of note here and if Legal has any opinion, or is happy to leave it to the Community to decide (at least as things stand). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:19, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• I should have raised earlier that is that these pages that this paid-for-by-IA-bot is linking to are sales pages. IA bought out a major used book source last year, and these pages that they are linking to include a purchase link on them. To some degree, the bot is turning Wikipedia into a sales catalog for their bookstore. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:39, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • If true, this is worrisome, as is the conduct of IA bot operators and the edits of their bots on different projects as I have said earlier (see above). Eissink (talk) 19:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC).
    • You don't have to trust me on this. Here's an edit by the bot. Click on the link it added, and see the Purchase button right next to Log In And Borrow button. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:07, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Oh, and when looking for a reference for IA's purchase of Better World Books, it got worse. To quote the Library Journal on the purchase, IA founder and digital librarian Brewster Kahle told LJ’s Lisa Peet that the acquisition—and its pipeline of titles for digitization—would also facilitate broader ongoing efforts at IA to link internet content with relevant, reliable source material. “What we’re trying to do is weave books into the Internet itself, starting with Wikipedia,” Kahle said. [...] "We now have over 120,000 Wikipedia citations pointing to over 40,000 books, but we want to get to millions of links going to millions of books. The way we’re going to get there is by working really closely with Better World Books.” That's pretty blatant. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:14, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
      • [I hadn't seen the latter part of the above comment when giving this answer:]] Gee, a link to Better World Books... A few years ago, BWB was a very good place to find a quality book for a bargain or even less, but recently it has changed completely, it's one of the more expensive booksellers and I guess now I know why: "On November 6, 2019, Better World Books was acquired by Better World Libraries, a mission-aligned, not-for-profit organization that is affiliated with longtime partner, the Internet Archive.". Not-for-profit, yeah, right. Eissink (talk) 20:23, 17 June 2020 (UTC).
• While the discussion is split, there looks to me to be enough objection that we cannot say that the Bot has consensus to continue making such edits. Shall we turn the bot off from making further edits until consensus is achieved? We can discuss whether to undo the existing edits separately. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

  That isn't how consensus works. If there isn't a consensus, then the status quo is maintained. This is true for all consensus based discussion here, and literally every consensus based community on the planet. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and the "status quo" is the existing edit. Every new edit this bot makes is a change, not status quo. Reverting the exist edits would be against status quo, thought it's something that should be done. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Does this need to be escalated to the WMF? I think there needs to be a set of allegations that are investigated and found to be either true or not. What my reading of the situation is, is that (a) that the IA has unilaterally ignored copyright, (b) they have commissioned a bot to replace the current Google Books links, and (c) their links have purchasing options on them. If true this is worrying and the bot should be halted whilst this is investigated further. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 16:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Levivich, Moneytrees, etc. The WMF has a legal team to investigate any potential legal liability, we shouldn't make decisions based on speculative amateur lawyering. The Internet Archive is a legal entity in the same country - the same city even! - as Wikipedia's (for legal purposes) governing organization, so they are governed by the same rules. As long as they are legally open for business, there is no issue here that demands action, much less a profoundly silly one which would make the work we do that much harder. Gamaliel (talk) 16:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per most of the above, as far as IA goes, as the copyright debates are a problem for WMF Legal and until or unless they rule, it's a matter of WP policy if this is a legitimate site to which we link, and it is. "Linking to copyrighted materials" is a red herring argument, that occurs every time we link to a newspaper or any other work under copyright that can be read online. GreenC's note that the same issue occurred with Google is well-taken. We can't make the legal decision on that stuff, it's the courts' job to do so. At most, it's WMF's problem, not ours. In general, having bots that can update links to IA, Google Books, Hathi Trust or any of the other services that scan and make books available is very helpful and assists the eternal battle against linkrot. I was appalled to see one editor above say do we need online links to references? The answer, my friend is HELL YES! In general, the issue of linking is critical. "Just look it up" is a time sink, particularly for historic topics. Even if the link is to only an abstract of a journal or a snippet view of a book one has to buy to read in full, LINKS ARE CRITICAL. If you've ever worked on a major featured article with hundreds of sources, (the biggest I ever stuck a toe into was Richard Nixon), it is very difficult to find some types of works, you can't just "google it." Having a link to what might be online is extremely helpful, particularly where there are multiple possible locations. Montanabw^(talk) 20:44, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• I have some sympathies with Nat Gertler here. I don't think that the national emergency library is defensible and in effect did amount to mass copyright infringement, but that is over now so it is a moot point. Controlled digital lending is a different issue which I can see arguments for and against, and it is up to the courts to decide their legality. I think linking to old but still technically in copyright books from the early to mid 20th century are fine, but I can see why Nat has issues with linking to more contemporary works where real revenue for authors is at stake. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support per the precautionary principle and the principle of least harm; I also have concerns about the effect of this on authors and small/independent booksellers.— Preceding unsigned comment added by CactusJack (talk • contribs) 22:21, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Levivich and others. We aren't linking to (c) violations; we shouldn't act on unresolved legal challenges (not to mention weak ones); and as Denis notes it would put an extra burden on readers for no net gain. – SJ + 02:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support halting linking to copyrighted works. WP:COPYVIOEL is very clear, I haven't seen a good argument for why it should be waived for IA. The quote about IA using Wikipedia to drive traffic to Better World Books is concerning. -M.Nelson (talk) 20:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• I'd like to stress that the decision we should be making here should not be based whether or not OL is a copyright violation or not, but ethical/moral aspect of linking to a site that we do know that many authors (some as editors on WP) believe harms their livelihood. I fully agree that until the suit is resolved, we should presume there are no legal copyright issues but that does not prevent us from asking if we should do the right thing from an ethics standpoint until the case affirms (if it does) that OL is in the clear. --Masem (t) 20:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Why should we presume there are no legal copyright issues? That seems an aggressive assumption, and not one needed under our policies, which call for us not to link if we reasonably suspect a violation. If a publisher came on Wikipedia and requested that we remove a link because it is to an unauthorized copy of their material, we'd take that as a reason to be at least reasonably suspicious of the site we linked to. With the publishers suing IA, reasonable suspicion seems a fair description of the status. (And even if that were not an issue, we have the understanding now that this bot is intended to integrate Wikipedia with BetterWorldBooks. Would we at all accept if Amazon hired someone to write a bot linking our articles to their sales pages?) --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
    • In part to avoid this request sounding like a "legal threat" by asserting that the Open Library is "violating copyright" when nothing yet proves they do (as reason why most editors are opposing). --Masem (t) 00:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
      • That would seem to be reason not to presume there are legal issues, rather than to presume that there are not. Indeed, it would seem foolish to presume that there are not copyright issues when they are being sued in that very regard. And our standards are built around that uncertainty, which is why we avoid links if we reasonably suspect issues, rather than requiring presumption in one direction or another. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:24, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia's mission harms *many* people's livelihoods. For example, stage magicians are often very angry that Wikipedia has made well-sourced information on classic tricks easy to find. ApLundell (talk) 23:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Indeed, we don't make other content decisions based on claims that they would harm or benefit certain businesses financially. What's more, the harm that removing all these links would cause to Wikipedia and its readers is very concrete and direct, whereas the financial benefit that the proposer and his industry would derive is indirect and unproven. Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support per precautionary principle, I think there is a decent chance that IA is violating authors' copyright and we shouldn't be promoting their links. In order to be maximally verifiable links should usually go through the page numbers and link directly to the relevant material (|p=[url #]) Even without the copyright issues, the IA links block potentially useful links to Wikipedia articles about notable books. When I examined the case of The Business of Genocide, most of the backlinks were blocked by IA links, reducing the amount of in-wiki linking that could be done. buidhe 03:31, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support I am finding loads of instances where IAbot has changed what was previously a Google Books url and the replacement is less accessible that the original, While Google Books isn't great and has its own issues re: data harvesting etc, I'd rather be in control of what I link to and certainly do not want to see my watchlist lit up yet again if ever we have to revert this stuff. Indeed, would it be easily reversible by a(nother) bot? IA seems to be a commercial operation to me, so while it operates on a different model to Google, it isn't "better" unless the content it links to is actually free to read. - Sitush (talk) 05:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support stopping, and reverting previous additions by the bot.
  We should not bot-add external links like this to citations, and certainly not allow an external entity to conduct paid bot editing to privilege their service over other services. Whether or where to link a citation should be a call for the editors actually working on an article, and it should be subject to human judgement. IA also has a very dubious record on copyright (they practice the juvenile "nah nah nah I didn't hear that" stance: if they don't make any effort to discover copyvio, then copyvio doesn't exist; even before this "emergency library" nonsense) that is actively incompatible with Wikipedia's copyright policies (think ELNEVER and NFCC: linking as contributory copyright infringement may be a questionable doctrine in a purely legal sense, but in a moral and ethical sense it is disingenuous to claim we have such strict policies and then just link to a site that doesn't follow similar policies). And IAs bibliographic metadata is utter crap with zero interest in improving it (which problem I tried to raise with Cyberpower in the interest of discussing ways to improve their metadata, with literally no response, so this "relationship" is very obviously a one-way relationship: we promote their service and in return we get to promote their service).
  Also note that Cyberpower is not actually participating in this discussion. That does not suggest a great interest in addressing concerns, which is pretty, ahem, concerning for someone proposing to essentially add links to a website that paid them to do so to all 5+ million articles on the project. One can agree or disagree on levels of risk or what are acceptable tradeoffs, but no one can credibly claim that the concerns raised are not valid ones that should at the very least be addressed in some fashion. --Xover (talk) 08:26, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  Xover, I just want to let you know that I am actively watching and will implement any changes to the bot provided there is community consensus to do so. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:01, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Cyberpower678: But you have no input or comments on the copyright issues raised by the thread starter, or the other concerns raised in this thread? --Xover (talk) 18:23, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support stopping, and, per Xover, support reverting edits to date. I couldn't get worked up over the copyright issue when this RFC was first posted, but I am certainly very uncomfortable with this being done as a paid service by an outside agency. I believe I have seen this bot overwrite links to other repositories such as gbooks which really isn't on. I also think that if page editors have chosen to provide links to online copies only through the ISBN link, then that should be respected. Also, I don't much care for the clutter this is causing both in edit views and watchlists. SpinningSpark 21:13, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed that on the WP:BLOCK/WP:BAN there is no rationale that allows a user to block another user because of biting. Biting newcomers is just as bad as attacking or harrasing another user, as both can lead to the victim possibly leaving Wikipedia. As said in WP:BITE: "New members are prospective contributors and are therefore Wikipedia's most valuable resource. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience—nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility." A user that scares away newcomers should not be allowed to continue to do the same to other new users. The point of blocking is to be preventative; this would prevent future attacks. I also suggest that we increase number of levels of warnings for Template:Uw-bite (we could make the template a multiple level template [eg. Template:Uw-bite1, Template:Uw-bite2, etc.]). P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 15:28, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't really see why this needs to be a separate block reason. If someone is doing this to the extent that it merits a block it would fall under harassment or general disruptive editing. Spicy (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Do we want to wait until it gets to that point, though? P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 15:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

P,TO 19104, do we want to invent a new bureaucracy to beat people over the head with if they are trying to manage abuse? It is trivially easy to see how your proposal would be exploited by trolls, and difficult to see what it adds to existing policy. Guy (help!) 16:08, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Are we talking about blocking or banning? They're two different things. DonIago (talk) 16:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Doniago: Mainly blocking... sorry for the confusion with the title.

• Oppose - we already have systems in place for systematic abuse. These things go to ANI or another suitable venue for a block or a topic ban. A three-strikes policy for being poor to new editors isn't helpful, and likely get used to get experienced users in hot water over what could be a declined AfC nomination Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - the last thing Wikipedia needs is even more bureaucracy. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 18:39, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - indeed, support eliminating BITE entirely. There's no indication we are in need of new editors, and cleaning up after incompetent newcomers who have no desire to learn, or even improve Wikipedia is a significant factor in the burnout of solid competent editors. Most times when I see BITE cited it is by either PAID or SPA editors. We make a product here; this isn't a social club. John from Idegon (talk) 18:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

  I think the proposal is 100% wrongheaded, but I can't let pass There's no indication we are in need of new editors. Everything else you said I completely agree with, but that's just absurd. EEng 15:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

  • Oh, and just a question for the OP: Am I in your opinion bite-ing you for pointing out that despite your title, this ISN'T an RfC? John from Idegon (talk) 18:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Any offense which would rise to the level of "blockability" for biting the newcomers would fall under patent incivility.--WaltCip-(BLM!Resist The Orange One) 18:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per JzG's comment and per WP:CREEP, but with that said note that I already do block users who go out of their way to be uncivil to newcomers. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:59, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It is not just those who go out of their way to just be uncivil, it is also the people who show repeated patterns of being harsh or mean to newcomers. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 22:45, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose obviously; the last thing Wikipedia wants or needs is yet another layer of weaponised bureaucracy. "Biting newcomers" is something alleged a lot more often than it actually occurs, and in most cases translates as "one of those mean admins wouldn't let me insert my favourite conspiracy theory"; on those occasions that it doesn't, we already have perfectly adequate complaints procedures. ‑ Iridescent 19:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Rather senseless - If someone is continually biting newbs, it can be handled under existing policy. More policy doesn't reduce a problem, it just adds more bureaucracy. I'm certainly not going to block someone for a single instance of BITE, whether or not policy allows it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:41, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• I am not sure that "New members are ... Wikipedia's most valuable resource.", but we need all the new editors that we can get and really do need to treat them as welcome and valuable. In theory, plain good manners should be enough of a rational, but we have WP:AGF and WP:BITE to spell it out. Of course, if any user exhibits regular bad manners, to new editors or anywhere else, then there are already ways to comment and intervene. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 20:23, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support Support idea, needs better proposal - I think there is already a consensus that WP:BITE specifically refers to aggression or being unnecessarily rude to newbies who are not evidenced to be acting in bad faith. This is one reason why talk page warnings start off light and begin to escalate in the first place. If we ignored every policy or guideline that users (occasionally even a tag-team of users) are likely to game or deliberately misuse, then there would be no warning templates left. If users start claiming that they are being "bitten" just because someone made a valid reversion, that in itself constitutes a spurious allegation and is already considered bad faith behaviour. I see no issue with creating a user template for WP:BITE, though it is a valid point that it could be seen as ground already covered by pre-existing incivility templates. Though, it is unfortunate how common dishonesty is on Wikipedia, especially on noticeboards like WP:ANI. Darkknight2149 20:47, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Moral support We should block or topic ban editors who show a pattern of biting good faith newcomers. As others have said, we do not need to change policy to do so, and taking action against newbie biters should be handled by our existing processes. I agree with the spirit, but am opposed to the proposal. If OP or others think more warning levels for biting would be useful, you're free to make them and ask Twinkle devs to add them. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Ehhh While I do think there should be more action against routinely uncivil editors (which it looks like Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Anti-harassment_RfC#7._"Unblockables" will address), there are some content areas where most new editors are by default WP:NOTHERE to help but to WP:RGW right off the bat. If that wasn't the case, discretionary sanctions and WP:ECP wouldn't exist. Some of these areas attract users who only know how to use intellectually dishonest tactics that could appear to be civil if you don't look directly at it but are fundamentally incompatible with a productive environment for an encyclopedia. In some extreme cases, such as QAnon and InfoWars, you have new users who have flown so far beyond the Overton window that they can only assume that anyone who doesn't believe that the Democratic party is running a pedophile ring in the non-existent basement of a DC pizza parlor for the glory of Satan is just pushing a political opinion and we should give their "facts" a fair shot, too. These sort of users do not need a welcome. The only guidance they need is to get off the site until they've rejoined reality. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I will clarify that this isn't the case for all contentious topics. Even though there's DS for pseudoscience, we have to put up with the RGWs at evolution and creationism related articles because even if the majority of drive-by young earth creationists are simply never going to be productive, they're not peddling anything that's inspired people to shoot up family restaurants. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Moral support (but opposed to this proposal) We need to do better, but this is not a step along that path.S Philbrick(Talk) 22:30, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I think most biting falls below the level of blocking or banning. Trying to use those tools to counter it would only lead the biter to dig in and ultimately claim vindication. More constructive would be providing feedback: "Hey, maybe you were over-the-top in the way you responded to that new editor." It's easy to reinforce the view that biting is justified because it makes the bad editors go away. It's a lot harder to see the good editors we are losing because they just needed a bit of civility and guidance.--Trystan (talk) 23:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose this is like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. There are plenty of bad faith newcomers where I edit who would try to weaponise this. Plus WP:CREEP. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:24, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, surely this would be covered under WP:CIVIL anyway, and I feel as if this could easily be misinterpreted and result in unjust blocks. Ed6767 talk! 00:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support idea, oppose proposal - Yes, biting newcomers should be taken seriously. But in those situations where a block is the right move, one can already be applied under existing policy (civil). Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support idea, oppose proposal. We do need to take biting newcomers more seriously than they do, but this well-intentioned proposal is not going to get achieve that. Bitiness needs to be taken to AN/I sooner than it is and admins there need to act on it more harshly but if blocks are necessary they can already be applied - we just need to be better at doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support idea, oppose proposal, per Thryduulf. The big story of the past year is that we need to take WP:CIVIL more seriously. We're making progress there, but more needs to be done. As Thryduulf and others have pointed out, we've already got the tools, we just need to use them. It's more of an cultural education thing than needing more rules. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Often you can't tell someone is a newcomer. The ones that aren't really new would use this as a club to promote...whatever they're promoting.Jacona (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I definitely agree that we need to take civility more seriously! Jacona (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose we need to worry far less about civility and far more about toxicity. That's especially true of new users who, in a significant number of cases, aren't really new,b but are here to cause trouble, promote causes or advertise shit. We need to be kind and pleasant, but sometimes telling them forcefully they're wrong, they're being stupid or their proposal is idiotic is the only way to get through to them that they're, well, wrong, being stupid or their proposal is idiotic. Sugar coating stuff just gets people addicted to the coating. So no, no more bureaucracy. But be nice to other people, or fuck off. Nick (talk) 17:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as the classic solution putting out a small ad for a problem. If someone BITEs so often that we need a policy on it, then, well, we have that already. And if it's not frequent enough to draw attention to it then a policy probably wouldn't address it. And that's before the opportunities for wikilawyering over who qualifies as a newb begin: 6 weeks? 6 months? With less than X-edits? Etc... ——Serial ^# 17:25, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose and Nick put it better than I could. It's just going to be weaponised and make it harder to deal with actual problems. The proposal has my moral support, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose first-time offenses can be generally admonished without using the block button, and any further incidents can be treated as normal incivility, up to and including an ArbCom case. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 05:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, Nick sums up my thoughts exactly. Cavalryman (talk) 08:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC).
• ANI levels only—defined as urgent, chronic or intractable—c'mon, give 'em a break for first or minor offenses. Long-term? Okay that's a CIVILITY issue. I oppose the idea of a 4 level uw for BITE; I rather see something like {{uw-ew}} and {{uw-ewsoft}} where the soft one is for first time or minor offense and the uw-ew, the "hard one", is for ones that would be a general warning or for borderline ANI level biting. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 20:20, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Despite claims to the contrary this would be a punitive block since there is no way to know how a given editor will treat the next newbie that they come into contact with. If there is an ongoing pattern then a report an AN/I with evidence will lead to a block. MarnetteD|Talk 15:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose But biting the newbies is fun, their knees always seem tasty. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 16:03, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - We already have WP:Civility for intractable rudeness and I don't want to be sanctioned for occasionally chomping on a new editor who is clearly WP:NOTHERE. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Should the following sentence be temporarily added to Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration_of_adminship (in the "over two years with no edits" bullet)?

Adminstrators desysopped on or before November 4, 2019 may be resysopped if they have made at least one edit in the last three years (rather than two years), as long as they file their resysop request before 00:00 UTC on October 1, 2020. This means that admins that meet these criteria and were desysopped for inactivity may be resysopped if they have edited in the past two years (rather than one year).

In addition, admins that would have been eligible for resysop under the pre-2019 rules should be notified of the 2019 rule change and the existence of this grace period.

This is in response to a question raised at a resysop request on WP:BN. Hopefully this RfC will clear up confusion on this and any future similar cases. Feel free to suggest wording changes. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:59, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support idea, don't add to policy. While we can argue over whether admin activity requirements should be stricter or looser, when we do implement them we need to make sure we do so properly and fairly. In this case, there was simply no discussion of a grace period or what would happen to existing ex-admins. As the bureaucrat activity RfC (where there was discussion about a grace period) showed, how and whether to implement a grace period can be highly contentious, so it is unreasonable to assume that everyone who !voted in favor of the proposal would also be in favor of having the policy apply immediately and retroactively with no grace period. When we desysopped those users we told them of the prevailing policy at the time, and to change that with no notification feels sneaky. Defending it with "the wording said so" feels like fait accompli to me, since that's not what everyone explicitly !voted on (the exact implications were not presented to them for consideration). This notification/grace period should have been done in November/December 2019, but better late than never. We don't need to add it to policy explicitly, we can just ping the affected users with a relevant message on their talk page and email. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:14, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

  By the way, I support replacing the current requirements (which are arbitrary and easy to game) with 500 actions of any kind every 5 years, of which 100 must be admin-related, to be evaluated at the end of every month. At the 4-year mark, we would notify any admin who did not make 500/100 in the last 4 years to increase their activity in the next year or risk losing their adminship. We would begin implementation of this policy with a mass notification to all current and former admins so that everyone is aware, and anyone who is currently non-compliant has a year to make it up. This would be the perfect solution for admins affected by the November 2019 RfC as well, because we'll just give them their bits back upon request and they will have a year to demonstrate that they really deserve the tools. If they really increase their activity, they'll keep the tools, and if they don't, they'll lose them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:20, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

  @King of ♥: That argument is fallacious: it is equally true that it is unreasonable to assume that everyone !voting were in favour of a grandfather clause. Even more so in fact, since it is in direct contravention of the actual text of the policy as enacted, and you need much stronger evidence to support inventing policy not authorised by the actual text than to merely apply it as written. Especially when there was no discussion there supporting "some kind of grandfather clause" and merely a failure to reach consensus on the specific terms. --Xover (talk) 06:00, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  It contravenes the actual text of the message that was sent to affected users in 2018-19. I'm not saying that everyone would have supported a grandfather clause; rather, if there is no explicit discussion of something, we default to the interpretation that results in the least change. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:04, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  @King of ♥: Refresh my memory… Was the text of that message discussed by and !voted on by the community in an RFC? --Xover (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  It reflects previous policy which was of course enacted in an RfC. I consider it a duty to notify users when things we told them are no longer true. As Ched said at WP:BN, "Of course I'm from a day and age where a person's word was his/her bond; and that's kind of an obsolete concept these days." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:41, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  It is quite literally an obsolete concept. "My word is my bond" is fine if you're mediæval feudal nobility; but on a 21st-century global collaborative project, "Ched"'s word binds nobody to nothing. Not even "Ched" themselves, because such personal-honour based rationales are in direct conflict with a consensus-based project. Don't get me wrong, I understand the intent and appreciate the sentiment (thus why the user name is in scare quotes); but when the community enacts a new policy, "Ched" will have to break their word if it conflicts with that policy. Blindly honouring your word under those circumstances is actually disruptive. If the policy change was insufficiently or misleadingly communicated to those affected then that's an opportunity for learning, but otherwise tough noogies. --Xover (talk) 07:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Per Xover: dictum meum pactum is indeed a noble concept: but it is just that—a concept. And while it may have/had standing in real life, it's not an "obsolete concept" on Wikipedia for the simple reason that it could never apply or have applied to a crowd-sourced community. ——Serial 10:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• Like the sentiment, but don't add to policy. Jack doesn't seem to be gaming, but there are some sysops that will game it. That those gaming it mess up and forget to do a qualifying action, then get desysopped, is a blessing, and they should not be resysopped. Some show what I feel is blatant contempt for the community, especially in the presence of vocal opposition to their resysopping. Just give crats some discretion on the inactivity rules. If it's an admin who made no attempt to game the rules (although they easily could have), and they say they're back, crats should be able to AGF and give it to them. If it's someone who has been making token edits/admin actions since '07 just to retain their admin status, tell them to go to RfA instead. Any codified exemptions will just be gamed. As will a grandfathering clause, especially considering most admins who will be desysopped under that criteria will be pre-nov 2019 admins, so this explicit grandfathering makes that policy change slightly moot. The intention of that inactivity RfC was probably not to make requirements immediately harder for admins confirmed under the current, harder RfA process, and give existing admins a free pass for a few more years. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:28, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose the RfC didn’t include a grace period and likely would have failed if it had included one. The intent was to prevent admins from returning under these circumstances, not to allow older admins an opt out for a year after the proposal passed. This defeats the entire point of the RfC. Additionally, as this was in the admin newsletter at the time, no further notice is needed. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per TonyBallioni. It's regrettable that some inactive admins were counting on the ruleset they were familiar with and have not kept up with community policy changes during their inactivity, and I'm not intending to imply any malice on anyone's part, but the RfC was settled how it was specifically to prevent inactive admins not keeping up with policy changes from getting their tools back and inadvertently running amok. If we're going to carve out an exception to policy any time someone who wasn't notified falls on the wrong side of it, why bother having a policy at all? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 22:44, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't see why we would need different rules for different people. The admin tools are not an entitlement; they belong to the community and are entrusted only to those who use them for the benefit of the project. – bradv🍁 22:52, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I may have supported this if it had taken place at the same time as the imposition of the new rules, but it's too late to correct a perceived error in a November 2019 policy change in July 2020 * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:01, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as well. I agree with Bradv above that we do not need different rules for different people. Let us also remember that we are not barring these returning editors from re-acquiring the tools, merely that they no longer meet the requirements for automatic restoration. They are welcome to avail themselves of the usual process at any time, just like any editor. CThomas³ (talk) 23:15, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't agree that some admins are more equal than others. Admins are expected to keep abreast of policies governing their position. That some of them do not is not evidence that the system is flawed, but to my mind reinforces the very reason these controls were put into place to begin with. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per TonyBallioni ,Bradv and Beeblebrox.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:23, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose while this is a volunteer project, it is nevertheless incumbent upon those with advanced permissions to stay up to date on the policies that govern their ability to hold those permissions. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:54, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose basically along the lines of Tony/Ivan/Brad. We need to find ways to welcome back editors and reinvest them in the project. We do not need that way to be by giving them administrative toolset. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:45, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose & Snow Close This was supportable months ago, but is a little stale at this point. -- Dolotta (talk) 02:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Indeed the present state of affairs is regrettable but I think that making this change so many months after the policy was changed would be inherently unfair. --Rschen7754 02:47, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The ongoing gaming of the system is bad enough as-is. Why should we make it any easier? -FASTILY 05:13, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The mere fact that we now need a new RFC to enact the policy from the last RFC as written demonstrates clearly why we can't keep grandfathering in the old regime. By all means bring up perceived negative consequences of the enacted policy to check whether they were actually intended or if the community wants to modify the wording; but when the `crats and sysops (who were the overwhelming majority of those discussing this at WP:BN) resorts to counting angels on the heads of pins to avoid applying the policy as written to a specific case it is a clear sign we can't permit anything less than a bright-line rule.
  Dear mop wielders: I love you all to death for the work you do for the project, and all the crap you wade through so the rest of us don't have to. That gets you my deepest gratitude and respect. That gets you a sympathetic hearing when you occasionally mess up, as we all do from time to time. It does not give you any special treatment: having the bit is not a "privilege" that it would be "unfair" to take away. If I am inactive and policy changes while I am not paying attention, I get no notification or grace period, and there is no grandfather clause for me. Why in the world would there be one for admins? Activity requirements are there to make sure those with the tools are up to date, and removal of the tools for inactivity is not "punishment". "Fairness" is not a relevant factor unless they started paying admins while I wasn't looking.
  @Jackmcbarn: Here's a hypothetical for you: what'd happen if you withdrew your resysop request at BN and instead filed an RFA? I'd support you. --Xover (talk) 06:33, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Xover: At this point, it definitely looks like I am going to end up doing a second RfA. (Though certainly not now; I'd definitely wait a few weeks before doing that.) As for withdrawing my original request, I feel like at this point enough discussion has happened that it's probably better to let it conclude with a real consensus one way or the other, so that we don't have to start this all over again if another inactive admin returns in my same situation. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:39, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per the above. I'm not sure why we are going to such great lengths to rollback progress that has been made. Nihlus 06:57, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

  Someone must have accidentally clicked that darn "rollback" button on our progress, isn't it annoying how easy it is to hit? GeneralNotability (talk) 20:23, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The intent of the RFC was to ensure that only administrators who were at least reasonably familiar with the current rules and norms of en.wp were automatically able to return without a new RFA. That intent is not served by this proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 09:31, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The fact that the an admin hasn't edited in almost 3 years is exactly why this policy is in place. --Gonnym (talk) 09:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as, notwithstanding the near- Wikilaywering of Ironside proportions :) and however unintentionally, this flies in the face of the spirit of the previous RfCs which deliberately restricted barely or inactive admins from automatic restoration. ——Serial 10:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
•  Note: The proposer had closed withdrawn this proposal at 12:18 UTC today, however I think that letting it remain open for at least 48 hours before declaring precipitation would be appropriate, and re-opened it. –xeno^talk 12:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Note to the note: the proposer withdrew the proposal at 12:18 UTC (permalink). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Right, I was uncomfortable at the short runtime before however at this point it can probably be closed or re-withdrawn as unsupported now that other parties to the BN thread have been given the opportunity to comment. (@Pythoncoder: Are you still okay with withdrawl?) –xeno^talk 18:47, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose If anyone thinks anyone else needs a notice than do it, don't stand around saying someone else should give them notice of public discussions and policy they should be intimately familiar with, especially for a group of users, who are expected and entrusted to be on-the-ball. It's largely a trust issue and on the pedia trust is demonstrated in the doing. Trust is not built by carving out this or that special user treatment. But more so, yes, welcome back, it's great of you to rejoin -- trust the community, as you are asking the community to trust you, and please, put your application to them as the community has requested. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose the RfC which passed this had no grandfather clause and I don't see any good reason to add one. The view of the RfC was that people who had been inactive for this long shouldn't have administrator tools granted without a new RfA. This applies regardless of whether the admin was notified or not, and if someone needs the notification in order to make the tiny number of edits to avoid a desysop then that is an example of the type of case the rule is intended to deal with. The resysop criteria are already both very complicated and very generous. Hut 8.5 20:02, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - It was an honest oversight to not consider either grandfathering or notifying all potentially affected admin. This happens frequently, so we depend on Crats or admin (in other situations) to use their best judgement. In the middle of a slightly heated (but very productive) discussion with Jack at BN, that makes this the wrong time to change. I'm not fixed as to whether the Crats should or should not resysop, I trust them to do whatever prior consensus would say to do. I am against muddying up the policy with language that only applies for a short time, for a handful of people. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:55, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Absolutely not. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. As others have suggested, I think it was a mistake to not directly inform potentially affected inactive admins when the change was made. But the bigger mistake, which some people still don't seem to have grasped, is that we changed the rules in a way that made it immediately impossible for some affected inactive admins to do anything about it even if they had been informed. As a way around that, I think a grace period (or something similar) should have been included. But with so little time left before it becomes moot anyway, and the very small number of admins potentially affected (I think Jackmcbarn is the only one who's been caught like this, in the seven months it's been in force), I don't think we should go back and change it now. If there are any more similar cases, the crats can deal with them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:48, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• @Pythoncoder: I understand that you want to withdraw this proposal but the reasoning should be more clear in doing so. I've amended this to a SNOW close, hope that's fine with you. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Thread retitled from "Found a niche guideline that was never widely vetted".

In an ongoing discussion, I was pointed to Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines. Upon investigation, I cannot find any evidence that this purported guideline was ever approved by a community-wide consensus. Quite the opposite.

The page was upgraded from a proposal to a guideline here in 2009. The "statements on talk page" referred to must be this discussion. It's a very short and local discussion of 3 editors. One says, It's been in at least unofficial use for a long time now, and another says, I tagged it as official then. See what happens from there. And so it has sat with seemingly little scrutiny for over 10 years (although there were some complaints last year on its talk page here).

Some concerning quotes from the supposed guideline:

• dictionaries and encyclopediae should not be considered authoritative on anarchism (Encyclopedias are not authoritative?)
• If a source is a scholarly work and is not contradicted by similar or primary sources, it should be considered trustworthy, and may be represented as fact. (Letting primary sources overrule scholarly work?)
• Reference works that deal specifically with politics, philosophy, or other areas related to anarchism often suffer from the same problems as general reference works. (So reference works about politics are somehow a problem about a political philosophy?)
• though many of the websites listed below are operated by credible organisations, have editorial oversight and publish material authored by third parties. (But no one outside the topic area has verified this.)
• Because the vast majority of anarchist writings are published online and in zines, articles on anarchism are likely to rely more heavily on these sources than would be acceptable for most other Wikipedia articles. (Sounds like inappropriate exception-making. If good sources cannot be found for material it should not be included at all.)

I tend to think that this should be delisted as a guideline and turned into an essay (as well as moved to a title that does not imply it is a guideline), much as other WikiProjects have similar essays, absent evidence of wide approval. Same as was done with WP:POG (although that later became a big discussion to be properly listed IIRC, which failed). Use by Support from people within a niche topic area alone is too much of a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to call it a guideline, on par with, say, WP:RS. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:04, 29 July 2020 (UTC) clarified Crossroads ^-talk- 17:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support. "Use by people within a niche topic area alone" isn't necessarily a disqualifying factor, nor is the location of the discussion which certified it as a guideline. What is important is for any such discussion to be widely advertised (e.g. WP:RFC, WP:CENT, talk pages of major Wikipedia pages, major noticeboards, etc.) and to be widely attended, and this clearly wasn't met here. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:36, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I clarified the "use by" bit. What I meant by that is that in that tiny discussion it only had support from a few editors in that topic area; i.e. no wide scrutiny. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify... no need to delete, simply mark as essay and be done with it. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:11, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support delisting: I was also astonished to see this was a guideline when I saw someone mention it at Talk:A.C.A.B.. I don't see any massive issues with it but it hasn't had the scrutiny and input expected of a 2020 guideline page. — Bilorv (talk) 18:05, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• I remember seeing this guideline being quoted many years ago (sorry, but I don't remember which discussion was involved) and saying at the time that we shouldn't have a guideline that targets such a narrow topic. I still think the same. We need general referencing guidelines, not narrow subject-specific ones. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support Parts of this guideline seem to conflict with more widely known sourcing guidelines, such as WP:RS. Quoting from the guideline: "In the case of articles which chronicle a developing current event it is not a violation of Wikipedia policy to temporarily include links to blogs which contain contemporary opinion and observations about the event. A diverse mix is recommended, but the extent and selection of specific blogs is a matter of content to be determined by the editors of the article." — if this was ever common practice on WP, it certainly isn't anymore. (t · c) buidhe 19:14, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support delistiing - per Buidhe. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:16, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support delistiing - makes me wonder if anything else like this has slipped through the cracks - er the memory bytes - here at the 'pedia over the years. MarnetteD|Talk 20:21, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • MarnetteD, you might like to rummage around in Category:Wikipedia guidelines and its subcats and see what you find. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:02, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Crossroads thanks for the suggestion. I'm pasting the cat into my to do list and we will see if anything turns up. MarnetteD|Talk 05:11, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist. No apparent need for lower threshold sourcing requirements for this topic area that I am able to immediately discern. El_C 20:24, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support delisting Sounds like special pleading that could equally be urged for many other fields, but isn’t. Mccapra (talk) 21:12, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist Directly contradicts several key Wikipedia principles. --Jayron32 21:34, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
• Question - if delisted, what happens to it? Deleted? demoted to essay? Userfied? Blueboar (talk) 21:43, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd say we move it to something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Anarchism/Referencing, with an essay template at the top. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:59, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
    • This would be my preferred option too. I would certainly oppose deletion. — Bilorv (talk) 22:05, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks... I agree with DELIST. Blueboar (talk) 22:10, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• Delist - As no need for special requirements that I can see. Also there was not broad community support for promotion. I agree with the idea of demoting to an essay in WikiProject Anarchism. PackMecEng (talk) 04:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• WP:SNOW support. No broad community vetting in (or at least advertised at) a central project discussion space = nothing that qualifies as (or should be tolerated to purport to be) a guideline or other policy page. Hard stop, end of story. This is a good catch and follow-up on the part of Crossroads regarding this. In a converse light, whoever made this illegitimate promotion needs to be made aware of how inappropriate and out accordance with our most basic policies (those pertaining to codifying community consensus into policy itself) this action was. Snow ^{let's rap} 04:37, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support delisting - Master Of Ninja (talk) 10:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose deletion. Delisting OK I don't think the problems Crossroads identifies with the content are really problems once read in context and would oppose deletion. Articles on anarchism-related topics that become newsworthy (e.g. Antifa (United States) or A.C.A.B.) often suffer because of the issues these guidelines identify, and so I think the material is useful. However, if the text has not been through the rigorous community process required for guideline status, delisting makes sense. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist and convert to essay. This was proposed and became a guideline on Sept 1 2009, and the process seems legitimate (although more of a local consensus than general consensus). This kind of fine grained guidelines is really not needed when existing policy is all that is needed to determine sourcing. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Crossroads notes that 3 editors were involved in the discussion leading to its listing. In case people have the impression just 3 editors were involved in the writing of the page, it is worth having a look at the page stats which show 33 editors, the main ones being Skomorokh, Richard Blatant, Aelffin, NTox, Malik Shabazz and Netoholic, some of whom are still active editors, hence my pinging. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:17, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: the consensus to delist seems clear, so I don't feel the need to weigh in on that, but I oppose deletion (which, to be fair, I don't think anyone has proposed) and support maintaining as an essay. An additional point in favour of delisting, which I'm surprised hasn't been raised, is that academic work on anarchism has become much more prominent and voluminous since 2009. The guideline's points about mainstream media coverage of anarchism may still hold true, descriptively if not prescriptively, but there are many more good scholarly sources available now than when it was written. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 12:33, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
•  Note: I've re-titled this section and notified the Anarchism WikiProject, especially as it has been suggested to move the page under their project. –xeno^talk 12:48, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Demote per nom and lack of community endorsement, but leave it where it is unless WP Anarchy wants to move it themselves. There are nearly 2,000 pages in Category:Wikipedia essays (not counting its 44 subcategories) and the vast majority of those are top-level Wikipedia: space pages (not user or WikiProject subpages). No reason to move it unless WP Anarchy wants to. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:34, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

  If demoted, the present title might give the mistaken impression that someone is linking a guideline when referencing it. –xeno^talk 15:43, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, and most essays aren't WikiProject-specific like this one is. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:10, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

• Delist and I'd suggest moving it to a subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Anarchism. As noted several parts of it contradict widespread consensus and practice. Although WP:ARGH is a nice shortcut. Hut 8.5 17:50, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist Per Demote, a guideline may be re-classified as an essay if it no longer conforms with editorial practice. In this case it conflicts with Reliable sources. TFD (talk) 19:11, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist per all. Too niche (without adequate justification) for a guideline to begin with, and with concerning content per above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 06:16, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist. While I'm not entirely against an SNG here, the fundamental premise for the existence of this one is fake. It is not true that there is a shortage of reliably published sources on the topic in the early days of Wikipedia; gbooks has literally hundreds of results from 20th century books.[6] and there are quite a few from the nineteeth century also.[7]. There can sometimes be a basis for an SNG setting special criteria for notability (WP:PROF is the classic example) but anything that tries to weasel out of the reliable sourcing guidelines has to go. SpinningSpark 09:58, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I propose that if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should be allowed to use Wikidata for its tables. This would have the advantage that the same structured data would not have to be updated in several different places. I would use it on List of active coal-fired power stations in Turkey. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:10, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Is this table in tr.wikipedia drawing its information from Wikidata? Is the information in that table drawn from reliable sources that can be verified? Those are two questions that I would need answered before offering my opinion on the matter. -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

The table in tr.wikipedia is not currently drawing its info from Wikidata but it is tagged as not meeting standards (probably accessibility for a start) and also has the tag "Bu maddenin daha doğru ve güvenilir bilgi sunması için güncellenmesi gerekmektedir." which means that it needs updating. I hope reasonably soon to have the Wikidata in a better state than the tr.wikipedia table. I believe the sources are generally reliable (I will be checking details later) except the CO2 emissions which are much too generalised estimates. So before adding the carbon footprint to Wikidata I need to think more about that particular point. Chidgk1 (talk) 05:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

To echo the above, different language wikipedia's have different sourcing requirements. Lists on ENWP are required to be sourced in line with ENWP's policies and guidelines, not tr.wikipedia's. So while the list *may* satisfy the requirements, we cant automatically say 'yes we can use wikidata' since wikidata is even more unreliable than the various language-wikipedias when it comes to reliable sourcing. It routinely contains information imported from the various wikipedia's that may be reliably sourced in one language, but not another. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:57, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I wrote the proposal too vaguely. I am not proposing 'yes we can use wikidata' for every international list in English - that should be for editors to judge and argue the case on the English talk page for a particular international list. Can I now amend it to read "if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should not be technically blocked from using Wikidata for its tables" or would I have to submit a new RfC? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:37, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Thats actually an entirely different question that can suffer from the same core issues. If a list article is notable on ENWP, and another wiki has the same list whose data is on wikidata, you can use the information from wikidata, but you have to check it conforms to ENWP's policies. You can use something like User:ListeriaBot to pull the data to your sandbox then verify it before putting it in the article. What you cant do is automatically pull the Wikidata list directly to articlespace - due to the issues with reliability, sourcing etc already mentioned. If you want to propose a change to allow pulling data directly from wikidata into articlespace, I very much doubt you will get consensus to do that. Ever. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:48, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose using wikidata for anything. Very unreliable. Smeat75 (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Independently of the merits of using Wikidata, I don't see why the existence of a page in another language's Wikipedia makes using Wikidata in the English Wikipedia any more reliable. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:04, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I am not saying that Wikidata has to be used just that we should have the option. The data should be more reliable in some cases as it should be less effort to keep up to date. In many cases, as many say, the Wikidata will be unreliable - editors can judge for particular lists which is best.Chidgk1 (talk) 05:51, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• 'Oppose ... and can we please have a moratorium on suggested uses for Wikidata, on this page and indeed throughout the site. They're popping up all over the place eg: one recent proposal to integrate in citations is/was open. It isn't fit for purpose and will not be for years at the rate it is progressing, plus there is no commonality of standards. - Sitush (talk) 00:20, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• We have Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Wikidata, it's something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:15, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, I am generally a proponent of Wikidata, but there are so many issues with this proposal (among non-yet-named ones: what prevents me to create any list on the Lak Wikipedia where there are no regular users ) that the proposal is a complete non-starter.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I wrote the proposal too vaguely. I want editors to use human judgement - so in the case above another editor would presumably revert your change if you were trying some kind of trick. Can I now amend it to read "if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should not be technically blocked from using Wikidata for its tables" or would I have to submit a new RfC? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:46, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support The manually updated lists here are often poorly maintained, using Wikidata to maintain them would significantly improve their completeness and reliability. That's particularly the case for international topics where the Wikidata content is in use in those language Wikipedias and being expanded by those language communities. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:34, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, Sitush summed up my thoughts. Cavalryman (talk) 09:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC).
• Oppose we need to be reducing, not increasing, our reliance on Wikidata. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 10:14, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• Conditional support - i.e. support if the data is sourced, either at Wikidata (ideally), the other wiki or here (I don't know how this would work, but if it does it should be allowed). It should also be noted that this is entirely independent of the notability of the list: the existence of a list on another wiki and/or presence of data on Wikidata does not demonstrate notability for en.wp purposes any more than the absence of such a list demonstrates non-notability. Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I will be sourcing on Wikidata Chidgk1 (talk) 05:59, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Conditional moral support, if the Wikidata item references meet en-WP sourcing guidelines. This is basically me objecting to the consensus the consensus not to link to Wikidata from within Wikipedia article bodies, though, and it would only make sense to overturn that in a more systematic way, since at Ymblanter pointed out above, carving out an exception in this way doesn't really make sense. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:43, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I believe this exception makes sense because it is only about tables in multi-language lists. I don't want to waste my time trying to argue a general case. In this case I will ensure the sourcing meets both tr and en guidelines. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:04, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose as a watering down of en-WP sourcing requirements, which are stricter than those at either wikidata or most other language wikipedias. Cross-wiki collaboration and research-sharing is good in principle, but unfortunately there's so many wikipedias with so many different standards of referencing and content that blindly pulling data between them will tend us all towards a lowest common denominator. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:11, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I am certainly not suggesting doing anything blindly - editors need to check the quality of sourcing very carefully before using Wikidata for any particular list. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:22, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose- Wikidata is riddled with inaccuracies and I would be very wary about using it for anything. Reyk _YO! 10:03, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Wikipedias (whether English or other languages) are not reliable sources - neither is Wikidata - there is no shortcut for editors actually evaluating and checking the sources themselves. Wikidata does not know whether lists on other Wikipedias are sourced, it does not know whether any sources that are used meet en:wiki's requirements for reliable sourcing, and it does not know whether the source has been correctly used (and data has not been changed since the reference was added). All this requires human editors to check.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:18, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that human editors are needed to check refs - I am a human. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:03, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - WD is a very useful tool, but this isn't how you use it. If for example, we were interested in filling out information on rivers in Gabon, it may stand to reason that French Wikipedia, and in-turn Wikidata, are more complete in their coverage than the English Wikipedia. In that case, a tool like PetScan is extremely helpful in using WD to quickly identify missing articles and/or list entries, where we can then find sources and include the information here. In many cases, without these kinds of cross-wiki comparisons using WD, we would often not be at all aware that we are missing coverage of particular notable subjects. Women in Red for example has been doing this kind of thing for a long time now.
  But merely using WD as a source for blindly copying information just doesn't fly. That's not anything particular about WD. We do similarly for all sister projects where information is unsourced, or where we cannot as individuals read and verify the sources that are provided. GMG^talk 11:31, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying but I am not talking about "blindly copying information". Editors still need to use their human judgement and in many cases will judge that the Wikidata is not good enough. Of course the quality of Wikidata may change over the years but most lists need to be checked every few years anyway, so at that point the editor can check whether the Wikidata has improved enough to be used or deteriorated enough to be removed. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Forgive me if I misunderstood then. If you're just talking about "storing" the information in WD...I mean...you do still have the problem of people using sources in languages they don't speak. We've also had problems with this sort of thing before. In a more perfect world, where WD is maybe more integrated and more people were comfortable working across projects...In the real world? It has tended to mainly open up avenues for clever vandalism.

Foreign language sources can be difficult without Wikidata - when I was reviewing an English article about an event in Mexico I could easily read the Spanish language sources with Google Translate but had no idea if their publishers were reliable as I don't know the country.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Probably no way to put this with out offending somebody, but the English Wikipedia has a bit of a reputation for being project-centric, and not necessarily always playing nice with others. It sometimes feels like pulling teeth just trying to get English editors to upload their images to Commons instead of storing them locally. You wanna talk about the proportion of editors that are comfortable with WD to do anything more than bare-bones linking the articles they create?..The "pool of people" there starts to get pretty small pretty quick. In the court of public opinion, people just aren't going to trust WD, and there's likely little to nothing anyone can do to change that in the near term.

So the best way to use WD tends to be "whatever way people can't tell you're using WD even though you are." GMG^talk 11:30, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per GMG. There's no issue with using either Wikidata or other-language Wikipedias to identify potential reliable sources or as a double-check that an English Wikipedia article hasn't missed something out, but there are no circumstances in which another wiki should ever be used as a source in its own right. ‑ Iridescent 05:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose As Iridescent says, we can reuse useful sources from Wikidata or other language Wikipedias, but the mere existence of information in Wikidata or other Wikipedias has nothing to do with whether it should be acceptable in English Wikipedia. Meters (talk) 06:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not saying that if data exists in Wikidata it is acceptable - that should be for editors to judge for each list. The problem is that reuseing sources and keeping them up to date across languages can be very time consuming. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:30, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

But that is exactly how this RFC is worded. If it's in Wikipedia in another language then English Wikipedia can use the Wikidata. Period. No mention of evaluating sources on a case by case basis. That would be an absolute nightmare. Meters (talk) 06:43, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Oppose Hell no. Wikidata can't even be trusted to get the short descriptions right. Importing information without a citation is a terrible idea and even worse is allowing it to be changed through edits on another wiki which aren't on our watchlists. SpinningSpark 08:52, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• oppose - it sounds like someone trying to automate creating lists articles. Whilst using wikidata to update lists might be sometimes something worth looking into - this suggests that we should create lists because they exist on other projects. That doesn't fly, because we still have notability guidelines for lists.

I entirely agree that a list might be notable in a foreign language but not English. In no way am I suggesting automating creation of new list articles.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:32, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Surely this also runs into a paradox, in that if an article doesn't exist we create with wikidata... But then the list exists, where we wouldn't usually base on wikidata. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I phrased my proposal badly - I am not proposing any change to creation of new list articles. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I HEREBY WITHDRAW THIS PROPOSAL AS BADLY WORDED - it seems some people misunderstand what I am trying to do. I may try again with a better worded proposal in a few months time.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:44, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I believe we should make the following an official part of the content guideline: Wikipedia is not in the business of debunking misconceptions. We report an aggregate of what experts in whatever field report. Even when the received wisdom in some field is obviously one huge misconception, we faithfully report it – but if there are enough counter voices, we report these as well.

Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth kind of says this already by saying [Wikipedia's] content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight. However, it is only an essay rather than a guideline. So, I propose what I wrote above be added word for word to either Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and/or WP:BIASEDSOURCES.

Based on what I have seen long-term editors here done and said in the past whenever this came up, I am going to guess that my proposal will encounter significant opposition but I will not be singling out anyone specifically. However, I do believe that when it comes to certain subjects especially those that are social constructs, an encyclopedia should not give undue weight to a certain authority (e.g. a government of a sovereign state) without including other points of view. Anyway, please present any rationale for your position. StellarHalo (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• There is some kind of point in there, but I would oppose it as it currently stands. Some things are widely accepted to be misconceptions and we should certainly be reporting the debunking information in those casses. A good example is perpetual motion machines. All scientists believe these cannot work for reasons of fundamental scientific principles, but some of them can be fiendishly difficult to see why they don't work. A prime example of this is the Brownian ratchet. Our article would be so much poorer if we weren't allowed to debunk it. At the other extreme, we would be entirely wrong to debunk New Age spiritualism, or just about any religion. In the middle are articles on investment schemes believed to fraudulent or novel theories of mind. What we do depends on what reliable sources are saying. This is more an issue of WP:UNDUE than WP:V. Really, I'm struggling to think of an example of a topic that is "obviously one huge misconception" but for which no counter sources can be found. It sounds like these topics were not notable in the first place and should not have been given an article at all. SpinningSpark 10:20, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• I can easily see how wording like "experts in whatever field report" and "received wisdom in some field" would immediately become FRINGE magnets. There are plenty of fields where reasonable experts disagree. But there are some "fields" that are entirely nonsense from beginning to end. When we write about Crystal healing or Ghost hunting, these are not fields where legitimate experts are engaging in reasoned debate. These people are only experts in the sense that your eight-year-old neighbor Charlie is an expert on Sunnyville, except Sunnyville is the town he built in Minecraft. Just because he's memorized all the street names doesn't make any of that information into "wisdom".

At some level yes, reliable sources will tend to come from experts and we will tend to prefer those sources. But we don't engage in the kind of epistemological relativism that would lead us to say that... some dude named Roger has spent the last 20 years looking for the ghost of big foot, and so Roger is the foremost expert in his field. Therefore we need to "receive Roger's wisdom", when in reality, Roger is just an air conditioner repair man, who thinks that he can talk to ghosts with his battery tester, and just because he is an expert in a bunch of made up stuff nobody cares about, doesn't actually make him into an expert, doesn't make his hobby into a field, and doesn't make his battery tester a form of wisdom. GMG^talk 11:00, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

"...bunch of made up stuff nobody cares about" – are you talking about mathematicians? SpinningSpark 11:15, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I think we can probably make an exception for Roger or Charlie in the case that their hobbies somehow put a man on the moon. As it turns out, people boarding a plan or taking a medication actually care very much about mathematics, whether they know it or not. GMG^talk 11:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• I'm opposed to this proposal. It comes off as overly aggressive and pointy, and other existing guidelines and policy already deal with the matter sufficiently, such as WP:V, WP:UNDUE, etc. --Jayron32 13:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose also - Jayron put it well. We already have policies in place that work and this is more or less a shortened version of WP:UNDUE. Doug Weller talk 14:17, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose also. In addition to what is mentioned above, a major cause of discrepancy between received wisdom and expert opinion occurs when information becomes outdated. (WP:NOTFALSE) We went through this some years back when an American politician made a complete hash of the story of Paul Revere. It was agreed that we did not need to report her version, nor debunk it, regardless of how widespread the misconception was. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:47, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per others who have pointed out that policies regarding this already exist. MarnetteD|Talk 21:54, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Clarification: As you guys have said, my proposal came across as too vague and general. For that, I apologize. Just to be clear, I am not intending for this to be used for the inclusion of any kind of fringe pseudoscientific theories. Rather, I am focused on making sure social constructs are not determined my governments and laws alone and that our articles on them should be able to be in direct conflict with national constitutions. After all, social constructs only exist because enough people treat them as such and governments alone cannot arbitrate their legitimacy since the latter are social constructs themselves to begin with. For example, the the talk page for the article on the city of Kiev shows that people have been fighting over the article name for 13 years straight. Even though the government of Ukraine has insisted that it is officially Kyiv and the Kiev City State Administration even sent an official letter to the WMF asking for the names to be changed, the reason article still calls the city "Kiev" is because that is still how most English-language sources would refer to it. Not exactly NPOV obviously but there is not much you can do in a dichotomy and WP:COMMONNAME is prioritized. Some of the sources that I am specifically concerned with include the New York Times, Le Figaro, Huffington Post, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle, and maybe Shashi Tharoor to name a few. I would like to utilize them and I wish to avoid editing disputes with any user who considers going against the written official laws or constitutions to be "perpetuating inaccurate delusions". If you guys are interested in knowing which users seem to believe this, I will not hesitate to name-drop some of them. StellarHalo (talk) 22:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 July 21#Is this directly stated somewhere in Wikipedia's official guidelines? and Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1069#How do I build a consensus and official guideline on controversial contents? for other examples.

@StellarHalo, if all of the disputes you're looking at involve geography and royalty, then I believe that there are narrower "rules" established for both of those. The start of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) may be helpful, and perhaps Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)#Hypothetical, dissolved and defunct titles would be handy as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

It seems discussions had already been had while I was not around. Oh well, I will just have to proceed with my edits and rely on the existing guidelines and policies for defense instead of strengthening my position first. StellarHalo (talk) 04:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Withdrawn If you guys believe that the existing policies and guidelines are enough to justify the use of reliable sources in going against laws and constitutions and make my proposal unnecessary, I will trust you guys. StellarHalo (talk) 05:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

WP:DRAFTIFY seems to allow draftification in only two cases: 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created. In addition, WP:DRAFTIFY's calling out of "backdoor to deletion" seems bad-faith-accusatory. On the other hand, WP:ATD has no such limitations; the WP:ATD-I section simply says articles that are not ready for the mainspace can be draftified, with the implication that an article that has sat unsourced (or inadequately sourced) for years could nonetheless be draftified, and/or that an article with a WP:PROD/WP:BLPPROD tag on it could be draftifed without discussion. I am seeking consensus here on Option 1: WP:DRAFTIFY's more limited approach (and rewrite WP:ATD accordingly); or Option 2: WP:ATD's more permissive approach (and rewrite WP:DRAFTIFY accordingly). UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Support Option 2 Look, I'm a pretty strong deletionist, but my view here is that six months in draft space, with a AfC template that is applied by the draftify script, can often be better than seven days with a WP:PROD tag (or even less time with an A7 tag): draftifying can have a higher likelihood of resulting in a viable article (and the creator is more likely to see the user talk notice before the article is deleted/more likely to use the draftspace going forward). This advantage is even more likely since the script adds the draft's talk page to any relevant WikiProject's Draft-class category, and the projects can make review of that cat part of their regular workflow. Of course, adopting this option would not require draftification, just have it as an available alternative. Pinging @Bradv:, with thanks for making me aware of the inconsistency. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Option 1 Draftifying is a "backdoor to deletion". Any user who can move a page can draftify any article that isn't move protected, the redirect left behind is deleted via CSD WP:R2, and 6 months later, the article now in draft space is deleted by CSD WP:G13. With all other deletion methods, objecting users can easily see the article and the deletion notice and raise their objections, and the deleting admin must be sure the deletion criteria are met before deleting. With draftifying, the only way any user could object is if they knew of the article's existense before it was draftified, or if they were notified of the draftification. The AFC template doesn't solve the problem either unless someone submits the draft to AFC, which in the case of draftified articles, should be treated as an objection to the initial draftification and moved back to mainspace (and possibly WP:AFD). Iffy★Chat -- 16:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I think I would support some kind of hybrid option based on the reasonableness of the above two options. 1) I like the draft system because it allows for more time to work on articles before they hit the main space and get tagged for deletion immediately. The ability to draftify a bad article is useful. 2) I don't like if articles are draftified against the creator's wishes without discussion. IF a creator requests it or IF it is draftified as the result of an AFD discussion, I consider that OK, but draftifying without the knowledge of active editors, it can lead to the kind of abuses noted by Iffy. If and only if the creator and other significant contributors to an article are made aware of the nature of draftification (removal from the main space, no redirect left behind, could be deleted if left dormant for 6 months) then it's a great system. --Jayron32 16:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2, because it's less bureaucratic - I mainly use it as a much kinder alternative to G11 / A7, both of which are issues that age does not fix. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2. The accusation that draftification is backdoor deletion is not well-supported. I have seen several instances of draftified articles being improved and restored to mainspace. Generally, an article that is draftified and then later deleted is one that could not be improved, because the sources never existed or developed to allow it to exist in mainspace. To be sure, though, I have created Category:Content moved from mainspace to draftspace to track content moved to draftspace from mainspace, to distinguish it from material originating in draftspace that was merely never promoted. BD2412 T 16:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the cat, perhaps you can also put a bot request so the pages from User:JJMC89 bot/report/Draftifications/monthly are automatically categorized there. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

"The accusation that draftification is backdoor deletion is not well-supported"... except for Guy saying, nine minutes before your comment was posted (so you probably didn't see it), that he uses draftifying as a way to get articles deleted in a "kinder" fashion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2. But, I'd add a couple of things. I'd update WP:DRAFTS#Requirements for page movers to also include notifying any projects the page is part of, and ask User:Evad37 if they could add functionality to User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to perform that notification automatically. Between all the individual page watchers, the project members, and Category:Content moved from mainspace to draftspace, I'm not worried that things will just be disappeared without anybody noticing. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Looking through the bot report I don't think large projects like WP:WikiProject Biography, WP:WikiProject Film or WP:WikiProject Music will be happy with the volume of automated talkpage notifications that would would result from putting these onto the project talkpage. Perhaps best to add draftifications to the project's article notification report that has its PRODs/AFDs? UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2. I don't think of draftifying as a sneaky deletion, but rather as a second chance for an <insert>newly-created</insert> article that is unsuited for mainspace in its present state. If send-to-draft wasn't available, I suspect many/most would just be nominated for deletion (whether speedy, prod, or AfD). I like RoySmith's suggestion of notifying projects, for articles that have any. edit to add after following comments I only think of sending to draft when it's a newly created article; I wasn't aware of it being done to established articles, and it doesn't seem like a useful option at that point. Schazjmd (talk) 17:42, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 If it's not suitable for mainspace and the article was not recently created, it should go to AFD not draft space. The community has the right to discuss what should happen to established articles, and there is potential harm in unilaterally draftifying (i.e., removing from mainspace without a redirect) articles which have been around more than a trivial amount of time. The page may be linked externally or readers may have see it and expect it to be there when they come back. Draftification is only appropriate for recently created article with rare exceptions. This is the point of DRAFTIFY's language about not being a "backdoor" to deletion, not accusations of bad faith. If something should be deleted, we shouldn't wait 6 months to do so, and if the article has been around a while, we should not remove it from mainspace unilaterally. Draftification isn't a "soft" delete, and it shouldn't be used as a substitute for our deletion processes. Given that it removes reader facing material without any review, we should be more restrictive with its use cases, not less. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Wugapodes. Draftifying articles as an alternative to deletion should only be done for brand-new articles where the author is still available to work on it, or in cases where someone asks to put it in draftspace so they can fix it up to avoid deletion. Otherwise we're just quietly disappearing articles without any review. – bradv🍁 19:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Those concerns can be eliminated with the implementation of the correct monitoring structure. A category tree of monthly mainspace-to-draft moves and a triage report of drafts in that category set to be deleted for inactivity would do it. Bear in mind, of course, that if an article with a stack of maintenance tags at the top is moved to draft, and no one notices, that means that no one considered it important enough to pay attention to that development in the first place. BD2412 T 20:23, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
    • That just creates yet another group of pages and categories that people need to monitor. If an established article is not suitable for mainspace it should be improved or nominated at AfD, where there are existing, well-established reporting and monitoring structures that allow the opportunity for community review. Remember that this process is available for all articles, not just those with "a stack of maintenance templates". Yes AfD is overloaded, but the solution to that is not to loosen standards of deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 20:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Option 1 per Wugapodes and Bradv. Draftification should be an option at AfD though if someone asks for it to placed there so they can work on it. Option 2 could see any article, however good or bad, sent to draftspace and then quietly deleted 6 months later without anyone really being aware of it. For this reason I'd also like to make it mandatory to inform all editors with significant contributions to an article of it being moved to draft space, regardless of why it is so moved. Thryduulf (talk) 20:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• MIXED OPINION - 1) New articles that have potential (but don’t currently pass muster) can be draftified without the need for AFD. Proper notification should be given to the creator and any contributors. 2) Older articles can be draftified, but only as a result of consensus at AFD. Appropriate notifications should be given, but this should be flexible (presumably some contributors were notified of the AFD, and so were already following the discussion... no need for further notification). Blueboar (talk) 20:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Though I always hesitate to increase bureaucracy, draftifying pages that won't have anyone edit them is definitely bad practice. If that means more AfD's, so be it. I think drafification should be used sparingly, and mainly on new pages (or for paid trash). It should only be used on old pages when it is assured that there is an editor who will save the article. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Best to let the Community consider it properly, even if it ups the AfD count a bit. I think PRODing is used too rarely, but in any case, the negative consequences are less severe with option 1. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. Moving to draft space for "incubation" inevitably means eventual G13 deletion if it is an old article. This really is backdoor deletion. The idea that someone is going to notice and work on it in draft is simple fantasy. Its best chance of someone improving it is an editor stumbling on it through an incoming wikilink. If it really doesn't belong then AFD is the correct process. Deletion by default because it is not "upt to scratch" is definitely the wrong process. SpinningSpark 01:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. If the page isn't notable, it's better to deal with the problem directly. If it is about a notable subject, then we shouldn't risk it being "accidentally" deleted six months later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 per JzG -- less beaurocratic and there is more room for variation in application. The draft space is meant to house new articles per WP:DRAFT as well as (to a certain extent) those needing incubation because of the need for improvement. Per WP:WAFC, the WP:AFC process (which the used draft space as a part of) is to peer review new articles. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 00:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Draftification is deletion from the outset because the entry in mainspace is deleted using the delete function and shows up as such in the deletion log. Proper deletion processes are therefore required. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 I agree, many use draftification to try to eliminate articles without going through the proper process. I've had that happen to me, and then just moved it back to mainspace, pointing out it had reliable sources confirming it meant the notability guidelines. There is no reason to let people have a backdoor to deletion. Dream Focus 17:03, 25 August 2020 (UTC).
• Comment Looks like the discussion os dying down; I'll request closure shortly. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:40, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 at least with prod, CSD and AFD the deleted edits remain in mainspace. Lots of things get deleted from draftspace that would not meet the CSD criteria, and many that I think would survive AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 10:14, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 I too have seen articles moved on notable topics that would pass AFD, and while certainly needing improvement, were better than other mainspace stubs that have existed for years. They are more likely to be improved in mainspace. MB 14:36, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Send an old article to the AfD instead of draftifying them. In AfD, the community can decide within some couple of days if the article can be improved or deleted. But for new articles that shouldn't exist in the mainspace, I don't see anything bad if they're sent to the draftspace. —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 14:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Edit: mixed feelings. Content should be preserved whenever possible. Benjamin (talk) 22:24, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta:, except I'm concerned that we aren't really upping the preservation rate this way, just having it deleted a bit slower and without any substantive review Nosebagbear (talk) 13:05, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@Benjaminikuta: option 1 preserves more content than option 2. With option 1 there is a requirement to do a WP:BEFORE prior to nomination which means that only content that has a likelihood of deletion gets nominated and there is a community review immediately afterwards that ensures content that should be kept is not deleted. With option 2 content that may or may not be worth keeping is shunted off to draft space only to be deleted six months later without anyone looking at it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - there is a third option, although we don’t use it as often as we once did: USERFICATION. Blueboar (talk) 23:42, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Userfication is fine if it is going to an active user who is actually going to work on it. But if it is going to a creator who is long gone off Wikipedia, then it is just another way of sending the article away to die without a proper review. Besides which, pages should not be userfied on the whim of one editor. That's actually worse than moving to draft. It should only be done for articles that have failed at AFD or meet some CSD criterion. SpinningSpark 14:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Draftspace is slightly more trawled by users looking for good drafts. However, a draft in userspace exists indefinitely unless action is taken upon it, while a draft in draftspace is deleted after six inactive months (see G13). Thus draftspace may lead more quickly to a removal from public view; WP:DUD. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 21:38, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

"Draftspace is slightly more trawled..." Not really, there is close to zero probability of an article in draft being reviewed unless it is actually submitted to AFC. But userfication should only be done at the request of, or by agreement with, the user concerned. It should never be in the spirit of a teacher handing back a piece of work with the comment "must try better", and absolutely never if there is a low probability of the user actually working on it, or even noticing it has happened. SpinningSpark 09:13, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1. Draftification is a unilateral move that doesn't require admin oversight, so there should be a very low bar for overturning it. Draftifying a new article gives the creator a chance to either improve the article so that it is ready for mainspace, or to contest the draftification, in which case a formal deletion process should be used. When an old article is draftified it's much less likely that anyone will notice it, even with the new tracking categories - an article being listed in a category doesn't have the same immediacy as an active editor receiving a message on their talk page. If an old article clearly doesn't belong in mainspace it should not be difficult to get it deleted through PROD or AFD; if it has issues such as being undersourced, promotional, etc. but doesn't qualify for deletion then it should be tagged or fixed, not moved to draftspace where it will almost certainly be deleted in six months' time. Spicy (talk) 15:38, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, restricted to when the author is still around which is what I have sometimes been using--not as a softer approach, but as one that sometimes can be more likely to be noticed. There are people patrolling material added to drafts, and an effort is made to clear up the ones that are improvable. In the course of the 6 months, typically several reviewers will have looked at the draft. I know that I, personally, check everything within my scope that is. about to be deleted via G13: I do rescue perhaps 5% of them, but the other 95% are well gone. Furthermore, if an article is eleted via G13, it is normally very easy for the author to ask for it back; that is not he case after deletion via AfD. DGG ( talk ) 02:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, restricted to when the author is still around. After reading this discussion, and after reading DGG's input I agree with Jayron and DGG, including the caveat. Their input addressed my concern that dratifying a years-old article might be sending it to the grave yard. I have draftifyed articles in the past and didn't have a problem with it, until this discussion. For me, draftifying was not about side-stepping the deletion process. But it seems there are others who think this is so, and this should be taken into consideration.

As long as we are not side-stepping deletion, then I am OK with the status quo for reviewers. It does take some of the load off AfD. I agree that article authors should be notified, and if we can set this up as an automatic process, like what happens when I propose CSD, PROD, and AfD, this would be helpful. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 - It is essentially backdoor deletion after six months when an article is draftified, given the current state of G13. Furthermore, it is potentially indefinite exclusion of potentially viable content from the sight of our readers on a whim (without any community checks, e.g. AfD). Draftification of a mainspace page should be extremely limited; the text at DRAFTIFY is better guidance. If something survives in the mainspace for several months or especially years, it should not be unilaterally removed. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 21:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. I have long criticized the practice of removing content from the mainspace by way of draftifying for the reasons mentioned above. And whatever those in favor might argue, once a draft is removed, the chances it will be deleted after six months per G13 are extremely high, thus making it indeed a backdoor deletion without any real oversight. In prior discussions, I had compiled a list of such moves and it was pretty extensive (can't find them all at the moment but quarry:44979 for example lists 10,000 such moves done by script within the last 11 months alone). I'm pretty sure that most of those never were moved back. Yes, draftifying can be an alternative to deletion, but only, if deletion would otherwise be the only possible outcome. Currently we have hundreds of moves made just because of the article being "undersourced" (these are examples from the last two hours(!) alone: [21] [22] [23] [24] [25][26] [27] [28] [29] [30]). Admins should be able to draftify if they believe the creator is able and willing to improve the article and if the article were otherwise eligible for speedy deletion (G11, A7 etc.) but not just any user who goes around thinking something needs more sources. At the very least, draftifying without the creator's consent should be treated as the deletion it actually is. Regards SoWhy 12:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Unless it is a new article with the author still around, or unless someone at an AfD agrees to take it on, it is just going disappear into the void and get deleted after six months.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:07, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Question: What should the general rule/principle/guideline be for categorizing current localities by historical administrative subdivision in Central and Eastern Europe? There are quite a few articles of cities and towns that have been categorized not only in which administrative subdivision they currently are in, but also by the former subdivisions.

Typical example: Eišiškės, a small town in Lithuania, is in these categories: Category:Cities in Lithuania, Category:Cities in Vilnius County, Category:Šalčininkai District Municipality, Category:Vilnius Voivodeship, Category:Lidsky Uyezd, Category:Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–1939). The first 3 categories reflect the current administrative subdivision. Vilnius Voivodeship was a subdivision in 1413–1795. Lidsky Uyezd was a 2nd-level subdivision sometime between 1795–1915. Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–1939) was an inter-war subdivision.

General options:

• A: categorization should be limited - by what? Whether it is referenced in the article? How long the subdivision lasted? How large the subdivision was? To the 1st-level former subdivision? To how recent subdivision was? Etc?
• B: categorization should not be allowed (i.e. current localities should be removed from the former subdivision categories; historical information could be preserved in a different venue like a separate list or an addition to the locality article or something similar to the "historical affiliation" box as in Görlitz#History)
• C: status quo; no general rules; specific issues with individual categories should be addressed at WP:CfD

22:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Major concerns with such categories:

1. WP:OR/WP:V: many of the locality articles do not even mention or reference former subdivisions. In Eišiškės example above, only Nowogródek Voivodeship is mentioned in the article body (added by me 12 years ago without a reference). What is the basis to claim it was in the Lidsky Uyezd? An editor looking at a map? Finding out former subdivisions is not always straightforward, particularly for smaller towns or for older subdivisions – some medieval regions did not have well defined borders, while in more recent years administrative border adjustments are frequent.
2. WP:NONDEF: if many of the articles don't even mention the historical subdivision, it cannot be the defining characteristic (which is the central goals of the categorization system).
3. Confusion for readers: in the example of Eišiškės above, could you tell which of the 6 categories is for the current and which is for the former subdivision? (this could be somewhat alleviated by better category names)
4. Clutter/maintainability: Görlitz lists 23 different countries/states (not to mention subdivisions) that it was a part of. Should all of these be represented in a category? If not all, then which ones?

Examples of categories: just some samples from different countries. Category:Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (did not have well-defined borders), Category:Republic of Central Lithuania (has other valid historical articles mixed in with current localities), Category:Telshevsky Uyezd and Category:Minsky Uyezd (2nd-level subdivision), Category:Lithuania Governorate (subdivision that lasted 5 years), Category:Ținutul Nistru (existed for 2 years), Category:Belastok Region (short-lived WWII subdivision), Category:Province of Catania (subdivision renamed in 2015), Category:Localities in Western Moldavia (without digging, can't tell whether current or historical subdivision), Category:Province of Westphalia.

Why this RfC? There were some CfD discussions over the years (ones that I am aware Aug 2015 (delete), Sept 2015 (delete), Oct 2015 (no consensus), Apr 2017 (no consensus)) but they did attract much attention (unlike AfD, CfD rarely attracts outsider attention), yielded inconsistent results, and did not hash out what should be done with these categories in general. And these categories keep proliferating. Therefore, looking for a broader principle-based discussion here, rather than individual consideration of specific categories at CfD.

Side note: some locality articles have "historical affiliation" boxes (example: Görlitz#History), though in some others it was removed as "nightmares" or "LISTCRUFT". And a user got blocked for adding them (and refusing to communicate).

Pings to users I came across editing related categories/CfD discussions (some might be inactive): User:Pamrel, User:Sabbatino, user:The-, User:Poeticbent, user:Lekoren, User:Biruitorul, User:Marcocapelle, User:Oculi, User:Peterkingiron, User:RevelationDirect, User:Dahn, User:Carlossuarez46, User:Laurel Lodged, User:Ejgreen77, User:Hugo999, User:Aleksandr Grigoryev, User:Piotrus. Notices posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories, Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Former countries, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Romania, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Moldova. Apologies if I missed anyone or any project. Renata (talk) 22:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Please place your !vote here.

A: definitely should be limited to may be current immediate subdivision and may be the historical in which a populated place was established. For the "historical affiliation" box mentioned above for Gorlitz, it should be avoided as a spam as it simply fails the Manual of Style for flags WP:MOSFLAG and infringes on original research WP:OR due to political speculations. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Aleksandr Grigoryev: I thought about it, and I don't think it's a workable solution. Many places don't have a specific founding date and they are just mentioned in written sources in year x, or even more broadly in century y. Plus what makes the first subdivision so special? Further, I don't think it's maintainable. If you think about it, it still means that there will have to be categories for all historical subdivisions of that region as localities were founded/mentioned in different times. So, for example, there will have to be a category for Vilnius Voivodeship that contains localities founded/first mentioned in 1413-1795 and for Lidsky Uyezd that contains localities founded/first mentioned in 1795-1915. But then, it's likely that someone will decide that the category on Lidsky Uyezd is not comprehensive and start adding articles purely by geographic location. Renata (talk) 03:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

A (Current Subdivision and Historical One at Founding) I'm with Aleksandr above, the current geographical subdivision and the original seems reasonable. So Marseille would be both in the current French subdivision and be noted as a former Greek colony. (I don't want this approach to throw out all historical/former city categories beyond subdivisions though: Category:Former national capitals and Category:Populated places along the Silk Road both seem defining.) RevelationDirect (talk) 00:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

C. This is far too broad a question and these things badly need to be determined on a case by case basis. Some of the above shouldn't have locality categorisation in this way. Some of them should. The idea that we can answer them on a global basis with reference to a handful of subdivisions in eastern Europe is the sort of discussion that leads to all kinds of ridiculous situations when applied to local situations in places nobody was giving thought to. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:54, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

The Drover's Wife: not really looking to write any policy here, but just to get a rough idea/consensus from the wider community on what categories should or should not be present in locality articles. It would be very helpful if you could expand on your comment "Some of the above shouldn't have locality categorisation in this way. Some of them should." -- which should (not) and based on what criteria? Even if just considering the examples listed above. Renata (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I am woefully under-educated about the history of this specific region and I'd hate to give pronouncements on things I don't understand well enough to have a sensible opinion. I'm just extremely cautious of a discussion like this creating a rule that then gets applied to completely different circumstances in other places. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

B (A if we have to): Limited to current subdivisions only, as has been the long established practice; bio articles relevant to the polity itself are also currently placed in the category named for that polity -- it is Category:People of medieval Wallachia, but not Category:People from Saac County (i. e. a defunct county in said Wallachia). This avoids a massive overcrowding. I don't see when populated places would be placed even in articles pertaining to those polities, let alone their subdivisons; only nostalgia and irredentism can be the driving factors here, and neither is encyclopedic. Current subdivision also establishes a neutral standard: populated places that were once in Romania are categorized by their current subdivision in Ukraine, but the same standards would apply to localities in Romania that were once in Hungary. Dahn (talk) 05:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

A or B, one could say "A, because we should allow this if a historical subdivision is a defining characteristic of a locality", but in practice it never is a defining characteristic, so A and B are very similar. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

A. Current and historical are enough. Historical division/subdivision should at least be mentioned in prose before including it. In addition, as already noted by other editor, the "Historical affiliations", including the mentioned problems, should be removed, because it is unsourced, trivial, and just takes up unnecessary space of the page. – Sabbatino (talk) 11:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Sabbatino: Can you clarify which "historical" is enough? All of the examples above are "historical" so you are not actually limiting to anything. Renata (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Country and first level division (governorate, state, province, etc). – Sabbatino (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

C I'm with The Drover's Wife on this. It's unwise to make policy decision on such a broad front. Examples can be listed of multiple short-lived political entities to which a city may have been attached over many centuries; it would probably be excessive to make the city a child of all of them. Cities changed hands multiple times in the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand some administrative sub-divisions, while practically defunct, nevertheless remain on the statute books. For example Thurles (civil parish) is in the ancient barony of Eliogarty. While Eliogarty no longer has a practical administrative function, it has never been legally abolished. I would not like to see Thurles being removed from Category:Eliogarty. In summary, such thingsare best decided on a case-by-case, CFD basis. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

@Laurel Lodged: As per your own comment, the barony in question still exists, in some definition, and the first verb in Eliogarty is "is". This is therefore an irrelevant example to this particular discussion, equivalent at best to including cities and towns in their traditional or cultural region. Dahn (talk) 10:03, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

C Per The Drover's Wife above. I believe handling this on a case-by-case basis and category-specific CFDs is the way to go.--Darwinek (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I have narrowed down the geographic focus of the RfC just to Central and Eastern Europe (because that's really where the issues are). Ping to editors who already commented, in case that changes their thoughts: Aleksandr Grigoryev, RevelationDirect, The Drover's Wife, Dahn, Marcocapelle, Sabbatino, Laurel Lodged, Darwinek. Renata (talk) 16:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

• No Change in View Based on the limitation of scope to the discussion. RevelationDirect (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - CFD Piecemeal Approach A CFD discussion is just as likely to suggest a global approach as this discussion might suggest a case-by-case approach. The area I have concern with is the subcategories of Category:Districts of East Germany, where we categorize literally every populated place that used to be part of the GDR by former region, which doesn't seem remotely defining to me. If I nominated that tree for deletion, it's likely to come up why I'm not nominating the Lithuania examples Renata provided. Does anyone see a difference between those two examples? RevelationDirect (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why it would come up. It doesn't follow that that what might be appropriate in one situation must be appropriate to another in a completely different geographical, political and historical context because they're both abolished institutions. If you think the German and Lithuanian ones you've both mentioned are equivalent and that they suck, nominating them both is a much better outcome than attempting to make global policy affecting thousands of situations you haven't considered. If you're preferring the few-heads global policy attempt because you think you're going to lose a CfD on the two (I don't know, this is emphatically not my area of knowledge in the world), that should tell you something. The Drover's Wife (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure anyone can name a situation when categorizing by past subnational entity would benefit anyone. Mind you, we're not talking about examples such as "Ancient Greek colonies" or "Former capitals of...", none of which actually refer to a subdivision. We are talking about subdivisions for all purposes defunct, and the type of info one would be able to recover from the article and/or a map. Nobody would benefit from having Places in modern-day Turkey grouped under their former Ottoman vilayets, though the article on both the place and the vilayet should include references to one another, at least once theyre both developed. Dahn (talk) 09:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
      • ...unless someone was trying to find out what happened to the cities that were once within a particular Ottoman vilayets. I'd expect that to be unusual, but I can imagine it happening (at least for larger cities). (That sounds like a great school assignment: "Pick one of the Ottoman vilayets we've been talking about this week, figure out what it's biggest city was, and find out what's happened to that city since then.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
        • @WhatamIdoing:: Except we are not a teaching aide (leaving aside that "go on wikipedia and click two links" isn't really a proper assignment at all). Dahn (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
          • Whether it's "proper" is going to depend on the context (e.g., age of the students and whether this is meant to be an important assignment or just a few minutes' homework). I do not say that we have to accommodate that reader. I only say that when billions of people have access to Wikipedia, the odds are high that at least one reader would sincerely appreciate whatever seems unimportant to any given editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
            • @WhatamIdoing:: The main point is that we're not here to offer that kind of assistance. Dahn (talk) 05:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
              • We should be here to provide every type of encyclopedic information. Some of our tools for doing this are pretty awful at the moment (consider, e.g., the necessity of Category:18th-century British women writers, when it'd be better to have a way to record the simple facts of "18th-century", "British", "women", and "writers" and let the software combine them). The same general type of system could be used for geography: Here is the location, and now give me a list of every relevant Wikipedia article. It'd be clunky to do this with just categories, but I hope that in the future, people will be able to look up any the patch of dirt and see all of its history, from well before being absorbed into the Ottoman empire, through the creation of the province/vilayet system, to the end of the Ottoman empire, and what's happened since then. I think that helping people understand history is consistent with our goals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
                • @WhatamIdoing: One can understand the point of having women who lived in the 18th century and practiced a certain trade, and were of a certain nationality, in a standalone category, however: the encyclopedic relevance of having articles placed in defunct administrative divisions is entirely unproven, and unargued -- beyond "it would help hypothetical students perform a hypothetical inane assignment with even more ease". What we do have from the above is your hope that we should all embark on this "patch of dirt" pet project (which, btw, is an immense task you unload on anyone writing articles on such topics, without offering them the option to refuse -- since once this is a standard, everyone will be expected to follow it). Instead of simply dreaming of how interesting it would be to have that goal materialized, you could consider that it has no objective use, while demanding a lot of work from "someone else". Dahn (talk) 06:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
                  • I don't think so. We already put {{coord}} in articles about geographical areas, and Special:Nearby already lets you find articles within a certain distance of your location. Wikivoyage (and other projects) is using Wikidata, Commons, and/or OpenStreetMap to mark territories (e.g., Alpine County#Communities – the region, not just a single point within it). It doesn't seem impossible to take that existing data and using something similar to Special:Nearby to find all the articles that are within that arbitrary shape, rather than all the articles that are within a certain radius of a single point. None of this would require any extra work from editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
• I'd go with B, with the usual allowance for exceptions in exceptional cases. This is a classic list role. All the problems that afflict using a category for this information would disappear if using a list. A list is also much easier to maintain and add any necessary qualifiers to (as might be needed for example if administrative boundaries shifted during the relevant historical period). As a bonus, a list is also much more likely to attract the attention of contributors with relevant historical expertise. I can see no reason why the approach would be different from one geographical area to the next; the arguments with respect to Central and Eastern Eurperiodically I ope would seem to apply equally well in any other geographical context. -- Visviva (talk) 04:33, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
• C. I'm not sure why this is such a contentious issue. If the town existed in the past as part of a former subdivision, why would it be inappropriate to note that? It actually sounds fairly useful; if I were trying to find out what was the extent of and former municipalities in, such-and-such of a now-defunct province, the categorization of places into such categories seems like a natural way to do that. --Jayron32 18:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Jayron32: Because it adds a million categories that could be simply replaced by lists in/alongside articles, and because it serves no purpose other than to satisfy dreams of lost glory? Dahn (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
• I'm leaning C (no particular rules). I'm not sure that every little village that was once part of the Roman empire should be categorized that way, but Vienna was the capital of multiple empires/nations, and it seems odd to limit its categorization to only the most recent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
• C. Should be treated case-by case basis, and the text must support categorization, with valid refs. In fact it is often important to know who belong where at a particular time, and periodically I am thinking about adding a kind of timeline template to articles about locations. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
• C (A if we have to): Definitely not B. When talking specifically about Central and Eastern Europe, some places actually have more connection to their former subdivision in terms of historical importance than their current one, so it would be strange not to categorize them by their former subdivision. Ejgreen77 (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Ejgreen77: can you give an example of "some places actually have more connection to their former subdivision"? Renata (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
• A/C Some of these categorisations (and not only for former east European areas, it goes for the whole of the world) are utterly confusing (at least in my opinion). There are objects that are categorised by current areas where the organisation never existed in that current area (organisations (in the most broad sense of the word) that have been discontinued well before the current area where they would have been if the organisation still existed existed (intentionally confusing sentence)). I had to look, but 1962 Northern Rhodesian general election was once categorised in Category:1962 in Zambia where Northern Rhodesia was renamed in 1964 to Zambia (this one has since been fixed: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 18#1935 establishments in Zambia; however, there is still Category:Elections in Zambia on the article ...). Within the volatility of the 'countries' in Europe in the past, there are many cases where things happen to an organisation while they are in A, then country changes to B and something else happens, country changes again, to C, and they stop existing, and if they would now still have existed they would now be in D ... Categorisation in these cases should be limited (A) and well thought through (which is basically what should happen now: C). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
• C I'm with User:Staszek Lem on this one: if referenced text in the article supports the historic categorization (and thus it's presumably appropriate text that does not violate WP:UNDUE), then the cat should stay. But if no referenced article text supports the category, then the categorization is the result of original research and should be removed. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
• Unarchived to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 00:58, 5 April 2020 (UTC)