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RfC on secondary school notability

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According to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Schools, commonly referred to by its abbreviated link WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, "Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools are usually kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists". However, a number of recent AfDs on secondary schools have closed either with no consensus or with consensus to delete. The closing summaries of two of these AfDs, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Eden English School Btl and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Bal Vikash Secondary School, have included recommendations that an RfC be held on the notability of secondary schools. Following discussion of this at Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Need for an RfC on schools' notability, there is agreement to hold this RfC, with the following question:

Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable? Cordless Larry (talk) 19:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Support. I am in favor of keeping and improving articles about accredited, degree awarding secondary schools as long as that information is verifiable through reliable sources. This has been standard practice during my 7-1/2 years of editing. These schools are important institutions within their communities and biographies of notable people often discuss their educational backgrounds including their attendance at secondary schools. An encyclopedia with well over five million articles certainly has room for such articles. If the existence of any given school cannot be verified, then I support deletion of such an article. One of the fundamental principles of Misplaced Pages is that it "combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." Providing articles about degrees awarding educational institutions is entirely in line with that goal, in my opinion. Cullen Let's discuss it 19:45, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support keeping status quo. Generally, high schools are important enough that there is almost always significant coverage in reliable sources, which may not necessarily be easily found on the Internet. A high school in the developing world could be widely covered in papers that have no online presence, and most AfD participants are Western and native speakers of English who would have difficulty locating those sources, causing systematic bias as US high schools are much easier to defend against deletion even though they are no more notable than their counterparts elsewhere. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Everything should be subject to GNG. GNG exceptions should be narrowly focused if made at all. If there are no reliable sources then there is nothing we can responsibly write about the subject. This is a particular problem with the thousands upon thousands of schools, academies etc in India but can be as bad with US schools as well. These articles are magnets for vandalism, promotionalism and BLP violations. Jbh 19:51, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Government websites and publications can be a source of reliable information on government-created entities despite not being independent, something which is not true for private organizations. That's why a town with a population of 3 in Wyoming is notable despite perhaps having only trivial mentions in reliable sources (e.g. a list of cities in Wyoming). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  The problem which arises is with private and for profit educational institutions. At a minimum these should be subject to WP:NORG. For what are considered 'public' schools in the US they can be mentioned in the article about the locality. One of the defining points of Misplaced Pages is that we are a tertiary source. Making exceptions to this may increase the number of articles we have but it does nothing to help the quality. I do not generally like GEOLAND since I think there is a qualitative difference between an encyclopedia and a gazetteer but geographic places generally do not pose the same problems with NPOV etc that schools do. Jbh 20:15, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  I would not be opposed to excluding private schools from this criterion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:25, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  This s not quite quite accurate JB. We have G11 and G12 which are rigorously applied to promotional school articles. Other CSD criteria too whenever appropriate. It would be incorrect to say, for example, that all high schools are notable irrespective of any deletion criteria that can be applied. They are not immune from PROD either. I also live in Asia and I can safely say that only a tiny a minority of schools here are for profit, although the situation might possibly be slightly different in the very rich micro-states of Singapore and Hong Kong. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

  While Verifiability is a core content policy, the GNG is a guideline which does not apply in all cases. The exception that comes immediately to mind is WP:ACADEMIC. We often decide that an an academic is notable based on how often their work is cited by other scholars as opposed to the sort of coverage required for a singer or a fashion designer. Similarly, we keep articles about 19th century state or provincial legislators per WP:POLITICIAN even if the only readily available source is a mention in the legislature's own records. The GNG is important, but not all-important. If it were, it would be a policy rather than a guideline. Cullen Let's discuss it 20:27, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  I can see a GNG exception to public i.e. government run secondary schools but not for private/for profit schools. This RfC would allow a GNG exception for what are essentially diploma mills and businesses. I could support something which is more narrowly focused but GNG exceptions need to serve some articulable purpose which is a net benefit to the project. I do not see the net benefit here. Jbh 20:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Can someone please define "secondary school". Some of the explanation in the RfC opening comments and in the linked AfDs seem to be very US-centric. Eg: UK secondary schools never award degrees. - Sitush (talk) 19:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I am sympathetic to the "GNG or bust" argument here, but I do think that keeping the presumption of notability for high schools is the best way to go here. Simply put: even if this RfC agrees on a consensus that schools must be shown to meet GNG, I have zero hope that this principle will be applied to secondary schools in the Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States. There will be arguments over whether or not the extensive local coverage counts, but it will likely be resolved in favour of the high school. The consensus of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES will likely still be the de facto consensus for schools in these countries. This RfC was largely started because of outcomes of no consensus or delete for schools in South Asia. As has already been pointed out, it is likely that there is already coverage at the level that would be acceptable for secondary schools in any of the countries mentioned, it just isn't easy to find via a Google search. What you often find instead is proof of its existence on a government website, and that website might not even be the education ministry, it could be the agency in charge of elections because the school is a polling site. You also find sources about NGOs using these schools for events to immunize, teach reading, etc. These souces while scare confirm that the schools in question play the same role in their communities as secondary schools in nations where sources are more Googleable play in theirs, but they are hard to find. Making the standard be proof of existence and accreditation makes sense to me in order to prevent systemic bias, which undermine Misplaced Pages's credibility. I would happily !vote delete for a home school academy high school that has five students or something similar, but if the school is accredited, we should presume that it is notable and that the sources exist to expand it, even if they are not available online. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:06, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Schools in South Asia are generally all for profit institutions and we have to deal with promotionalism, NPOV etc. Making them de jure notable would take away even the limited ability we have now to fight the promotionalism. As for commercial institutions these schools should pass NORG. Jbh 20:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  I would be fine with a higher standard for for-profit schools in general, though I do think the locality matters (if the only school for 100 miles is for-profit, I would presume it notable.) That being said, I think there needs to be a distinction between private secondary schools and for-profit secondary schools. They are really two separate beasts. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes. And once we start getting into locality, we start making too many edge cases, until it no longer serves as a useful guideline. So I think it would be best to require evaluating private schools individually based on GNG. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:54, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Agreed that for-profit should be evaluated individually based on GNG, where I think the edge cases would likely go no consensus. Private schools I am fine with a broad exception. I don't really consider a boarding school set up by nuns to be in the same boat as a diploma mill designed to make a proprietor a profit. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, however the 'boarding school set up by nuns' is not necessarily the typical private institution and making the distinction between what is a private school and what is a diploma mill or business can be difficult - Sister Mary's School for Deserving Wayward Orphans and Puppies may be run by Scammers 'R Us. It is just too hard to tell without independent reliable sources. Aslo, without reliable sources Misplaced Pages can be and has been used to legitimize such schools. See the whole mess related to WifiOne. Jbh 21:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC) Last edited: 21:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  And if Sister Mary's school can be verified to be a legitimate institution that is what it claims to be, then it should be kept. If it cannot be verified to be this through reliable sources, then it should not be. The question being commented on here is about schools with reliable sources, not schools that lack them. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  The issue in your statement is "...verified to be a legitimate institution that is what it claims to be." There is a a huge difference between an independent reliable sources that verifies that and the massively low bar of proof of existance which is what this RfC wants to make the standard. You typically need independent RS for the former while we often accept self published sources like school websites for the later. Jbh 22:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  The RfC is specifically addressing if Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?. On the discussion about holding this RfC verifiability standards were brought up by at least a few editors, and I'm assuming part of the reason that Cordless Larry suggested this wording was because of that. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Hopefully I have worded the question neutrally, Jbhunley, and the RfC doesn't want to make anything the standard. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:15, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  @Cordless Larry: I should have said - 'should this RfC be closed in the affirmative' - I have no issue with the neutrality of the wording. Jbh 22:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  If there's a "massively low bar", then that is set by the current WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES essay. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Having a 'massively low bar' supported by an essay one thing. Promoting that to a formally community endorsed guideline, which this will effectivly do, is something else entirely. It removes flexibility and will codify a huge hole for commercial promotion. Jbh 22:47, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  I think the essay is treated like a guideline by many editors as it is, and debate about that is part of what led up to this RfC. Anyway, thanks for the clarification above. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:54, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

  Except that it's being used to justify creation of articles on secondary schools, rather than only used to prevent deletion of existing ones. While mechanically the process is the same, it is the case in point that it encourages editors to develop poorly sourced (read: primary, SPS, or locally-sourced only) articles on schools just because we tolerate them. --MASEM (t) 23:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unlike some other items that we presume to be notable, such as senior politicians, there is little reason to believe that secondary schools are normally covered in depth in reliable sources that go beyond routine reporting in local media. The vast majority of such schools are WP:MILL organizations; there are thousands of them, they are distinguished only by such trivia as age or number of pupils, and are generally not of interest to people other than those educated there. Such articles are also often a magnet for WP:BLP problems and vandalism ("Johnny sucks!!!") because many pupils will want to "creatively" edit them; and we do not need another area of additional maintenance overhead with little benefit. Such schools should therefore not be presumed notable. The solution to the systemic bias problem identified by TonyBallioni should be addressed by deleting the many non-notable Western school articles instead of adding more non-notable non-Western school articles.  Sandstein  20:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - Although schools are not covered often, they are important. The information just needs to be verified through reliable sources. RileyBugz | _Edits 20:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - Notability is a valuable guideline "to ensure that editors create articles that comply with major content policies" (WP:WHYN). On what do we base the content of an article if all we have is verification of existence? On what do we base an article if we have only primary sources? We inevitably become a directory of school facts and figures. A whole lot of schools are notable, and we should have articles about them, but there should be no inherent notability based on verifiable existence for any subject. I've seen a distinction made between "inherent notability" and "presumed notability", but they're functionally the same. If everybody goes into a deletion discussion presuming , the burden is shifted from arguing for notability to arguing a negative position -- that such coverage does not exist (an impossible task, when the presumption is that the sources do exist, even if they cannot be identified). Guidelines that provide shortcuts via indications of notability are helpful, but in the end an article needs to go by core content policies (again, effectively outlined in WP:WHYN). To say something is notable is to say it's received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Otherwise, we don't have anything to base an article on that complies with NPOV, V, RS, NOT, etc. An editor simply saying "it's important; significant coverage in reliable sources doesn't matter" wouldn't fly if we were talking about an internet meme, delicatessen, or philosophical concept, so why is it ok to simply say "they're important; significant coverage in reliable soruces doesn't matter" for this subject? — Rhododendrites \\ 20:36, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose The claim that there are always sources for secondary sources omits the fact that the bulk of those will be local, showing little relevance to the broader world. And as a symptom of systematic bias, the only type of coverage that I've seen routinely that's non-local about these sources are in relationship to sports (specifically only American football and basketball), which really is more about the athlete than the school. There are undoubtably notable secondary schools, but we should not be working that these are notable by default for just existing. That said, in most cases, coverage of these schools can at least be mentioned in the readily-accepted city/town article that the school is a part of, and redirects can be used to avoid disruption. --MASEM (t) 20:45, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support Status quo. Going in a different direction now will be just too disruptive (besides which, multiple (every?) high profile biography has link to the subject's upper schools as do some (probably not high profile) locations, so look at it as adjunct (or multiple split) encyclopedic information if nothing else). My rank speculation is this was, back in the mists of time, partly done precisely to get upper students interested in editing, which may are may not be bad, but it is long since done. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose this is one of these walled garden notability things that has gotten out of hand and are turning some parts of Misplaced Pages into mere directories. But WP:NOTDIRECTORY. The other thing to keep in mind here is with the privatization of education there are more and more private or public/private charter schools and Misplaced Pages is (as always) something people abuse for promotional purposes. If a school fails GNG it fails GNG. Jytdog (talk) 22:11, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support current status quo (NOTE this is not actually fully supporting the proposal, since it requires that the schools also be verifiably independently accredited). Now, we need to emphasize that this does not mean that high schools are automatically in as some people seem to think, but instead that it's a case by case basis which actually requires research to determine. ansh666 22:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: That Misplaced Pages:Existence does not prove notability is the very reason we have notability guidelines in the first place. The most important one of these is WP:GNG, and for the vast majority of topics it is indicative of notability. Some good, carefully crafted, exceptions to GNG apply. But as Jbh points out, they should "serve some articulable purpose which is a net benefit to the project". No accepted exception to GNG sets the bar as low as this proposal would, in a manner which defeates the purpose of notability criteria: if it exists, there can be an article on it. That is the antithesis of notability, the purpose of which is to keep information on Misplaced Pages from being indiscriminate and in violation of various WP:NOT. We are not an encyclopedia when it comes to most topics but the WP:YELLOWPAGES when it comes to high-schools; we are an encyclopedia all around. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support notability for verified accredited high schools, whether public or private, to avoid bias in favor of US high schools, as opposed to private high schools in developing countries. There is no assumption of notability for unaccredited high schools.secondary schools, such as someone's home schooling operation for their own children. No presumed notability for schools which stop short of the US 12th grade or foreign equivalents, but in some cases one might find sources to satisfy GNG or WP:ORG for schools which stop short of grade 12. I have seen many hours wasted in fights about some county high school, but in the end sourcing could be found. But coverage of major newspapers in some states is limited in online free databases, and it is unreasonable to demand that within a 7 day AFD period editors have to drive to the state a school is in and search the state's major newspapers on microfilm in some college library to find the significant coverage which is inevitably there. And this is in an encyclopedia where projects argue successfully that every dinky railroad station, every tiny section of numbered highway, every person who played professionally in one game of a sport, and every hamlet with 2 families deserves an article. A public high school today typically is a major cultural institution serving a significant population area, at huge expense, and for a long span of years, and has a big formative influence on perhaps generations of students. Edison (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I really see no case for changing the current status quo. This has all been gone into many times before, and the situation on the ground has not changed. -- Alarics (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• I beg to differ on your final point, Alarics. A number of recent AfDs have resulted in no consensus, and at least one, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Arya Kanya Girls Inter College, Hardoi, was closed as a delete. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

• It strikes me as rather desperate when the opponents of the status quo point to a single, solitary deletion as "evidence" that the consensus no longer exists. "It's in tatters" as one well-known school deletionist hopefully described it. Er, no! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

• I've not described it as "in tatters" myself, and admittedly there haven't been many deletions, but there does seem to have been an uptick in the number of no-consensus closes. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:34, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Existence does not prove notability, Misplaced Pages is not a directory, and Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of secondary schools many of which have nothing notable about them. I'm sympathetic to the arguments about how this reduces bias against non-Western schools, but I believe that can be better achieved without claiming every school is notable. Further, these pages of schools that are not notable or barely notable are not really of interest to anyone except students and faculty. There will be few page watchers and since they're prone to vandalism, it will likely stay there longer. High schools that are notable for alumni activities, outreach efforts, or superior skill in academic or athletic achievement are far more useful and more likely to be seen and maintained because of the attention they receive because of it (thus satisfying the GNG). We don't need thousands of permanent stubs. Wugapodes 01:52, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't agree with WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Every article should be judged on a case-by-case basis, as per the most fundamental notability guideline, WP:GNG. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per Sandstein. The support crowd seems to think we dare not challenge the status quo lest the braying masses attack us for deleting the article about their high school. That's not an argument for notability but a sad plea for a political carve-out. Let the notable schools pass GNG or NCORP. All the others can go. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. SCHOOLOUTCOMES has been a thorn in the English Misplaced Pages's side for too long. It, or at least the common interpretation of it, is wholly out of line with our notability guidelines, namely WP:GNG and WP:ORGSIG, the latter of which says:

  "No company or organization is considered inherently notable. No organization is exempt from this requirement, no matter what kind of organization it is, including schools. If the individual organization has received no or very little notice from independent sources, then it is not notable simply because other individual organizations of its type are commonly notable or merely because it exists."

  Per that guideline, verifiable information about non-notable schools should be included in articles about the municipality or district within which they exist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:23, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, there's a longstanding precedent (of sorts) against nominating schools at AFD, but this should not be made hard policy. Apparently we're starting to see articles on schools of such profound obscurity that little to nothing beyond mere existence can be verified (and in some cases not even that). If we can't verify anything, then an encyclopedia article on the subject cannot exist. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 08:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I think the current status quo works very well. It sets a very good threshold for assumed notability and it negates any systemic bias inherent in only including schools with strong references. The latter will tend to be biased towards fee-paying institutions which can't afford not to market themselves through the press. State schools generally won't have the luxury of paying someone or some entity to do PR for them, whereas fee-paying institutions will be strongly focussed on it. And it's not just schools where we do that. WP:FOOTY has strong inherent notability rules about football club articles. And they make sense. We also need to remember that school articles are often a first vehicle from young wikipedians. Deleting huge tranches of them as non-notable will only encourage vandalism and conflict in dealing with this future editors. No great reason to change. It's doing fine as is. CalzGuy (talk) 13:13, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I've been considering opening an RfC on this for some time. I find the use of this essay infuriating when presented by itself to argue for keeping articles on which no one can find any reliable sources. It's bizarre to me that we use the circular logic of 'schools are often kept therefore schools should always be kept' in these cases. Either "Secondary schools are always notable" should be enshrined in guideline/policy, or we need to stop using this essay argument at AfD. Sam Walton (talk) 13:14, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - per Jbh, Masem, and Sandstein. (I have to admit that typing that list of names together is a bit surreal...) Ealdgyth - Talk 14:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support, with emphasis on the whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources. Secondary Schools are a special kind of institution, found in every major settlement around the planet, and play a key role in lives of communities and individuals. They can give beginning editors or readers of Misplaced Pages a familiar topic to read or edit to get the feel of the place. They are special enough to merit their own "notability" rule, so we should codify what has has been de facto pretty much the case until now (editors citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, even though that's only an essay). PamD 16:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. There are no exceptions for a lack of sourcing. Whether or not you call it the GNG, what we need is better phrased as "whether there is an overabundance of coverage in reliable, secondary sources to cover the topic in depth without resorting to unreliable, affiliated, or primary sources". I've seen very few cases in which high schools are independently notable from their parent grouping (the school district or town article) by way of sourcing. And even if they have coverage, those sources tend to be local papers—not wider interest. The standard for similar subtopics is to merge into the parent (the school district or town): a place where the article can be covered in whatever depth warranted by secondary sources. (And it can always split out summary style if an overabundance of sources on the school upsets the balance of the article.)

As for what this discussion is really about—as I understand it—the precedent of keeping all secondary school articles comes from earlier in WP history where some basic categories of articles were presumed notable just to save some time and nonsense at AfD (a decade ago... when it was a free-for-all of new editors, especially high school boys writing about their high schools). But AfD works differently now, and all AfD discussions are essentially about whether the sourcing exists to support an independent article—apart from some specific topic areas, mostly sports biographies and, e.g., "school outcomes".

This discussion is also about our article quality. When a topic is a valid search term—as all established secondary schools are—we merge its sourced contents to a parent article so that readers can find sourced information on it. But we do little good for our readers by serving secondary school articles absent of the Misplaced Pages sourcing standards that we apply to the rest of the encyclopedia. Unsourced articles invite cruft (an empirically true broken references theory), and set lower expectations for the standard of acceptable writing on Misplaced Pages. It's time to extend our universal sourcing standards to secondary schools, and accordingly, to cover more unsourced topics in their parent articles (merging as appropriate).  czar 18:28, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose I never understood why schools got a free pass at AFD. GNG and to a lesser extent SNG's work well for other articles and they will be fine in this situation as well. Many school articles I come across are nothing short of promotion as the only source of information comes from their own websites. AIRcorn (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• Information that meets policy requirements should be kept. If there's not much, consider merging, but if the amount is too much for the merge target then split. They should only be deleted if nothing is verifiable to our standards. I'm not sure if this is a support or oppose - as articles may be merged whether notable or not. For many of these articles this probably means keeping the article but removing anything that lacks references. Peter James (talk) 00:04, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support until a viable alternative becomes available. The trouble with SCHOOLOUTCOMES as stated is that we're talking about different sorts of secondary schools as if they're all on the same level; some classes of schools, such as American public high schools, will pretty much always be notable as important community institutions, while other classes, such as some of the for-profit schools mentioned above, need to be evaluated on their own merits. Unfortunately, public vs. private isn't quite enough to separate these; in certain parts of America, private schools (and Catholic schools in particular) are held in a similar regard as public schools, while in other parts they aren't, and that's just the situation in one country.

The reason I can't support just getting rid of SCHOOLOUTCOMES without an alternative, though, is it would make a lot of vulnerable articles subject to deletion due to the current situation at AfD. The point of presuming notability for certain topics is to correct an imbalance between what GNG is supposed to mean (multiple, reliable secondary sources) and what it usually turns into at AfD (multiple, reliable secondary sources that will probably only be looked for online, by a handful of people who are probably from North America and Europe, possibly only within Google results unless someone with access to a paywalled database stumbles across the AfD, with a seven-day time limit at best, and subject to people arguing that "multiple" means a higher number than what you found or that local or even regional sources don't count despite that not being part of the GNG). Given how many high schools are in rural areas, making it more likely that archived print sources won't be easily accessible, or in countries that don't have the same internet presence as English-speaking countries in the West, these are particularly relevant concerns, and I'm uncomfortable throwing existing articles on schools into that mess with no precautions to avoid deletion on account of sloppy research. I've pulled too many articles from the brink of deletion on account of nominators, and subsequent !voters, who did a poor job of WP:BEFORE to trust the process to work for these articles, and if AfD gets flooded with school stubs after a change to SCHOOLOUTCOMES there may not be enough editors able to do the research to prove all the notable ones really are notable within a week. TheCatalyst31 03:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of your point is that, because AfD has problems, we should ignore the GNG for schools. I'm sympathetic to your point about how this will impact the bias of our coverage, but I don't think we should be going around the GNG just to have thousands of permanent stubs. If anything, that's what the GNG is meant to prevent. It may well be the case that there are thousands of reliable sources on Example High School in Ruraltown, Statesota locked away in my grandmother's attic, but if no one knows that, we can't use the possibility that sources may possibly maybe exist somewhere but we just haven't looked hard enough to justify subverting the GNG. If sources can't be found to satisfy the GNG, it doesn't satisfy the GNG. Full stop. If sources are eventually found, it can be recreated. We shouldn't doom ourselves to eternal searching for sources because maybe we just didn't look hard enough. Wugapodes 03:54, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

In secondary school AfDs, a common argument is that while sources are hard to find online, they must exist offline and at some point, someone with the necessary language skills could find them and use them to expand and improve the article. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but do we actually have any examples of school articles where that has happened? Cordless Larry (talk) 07:26, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

@Cordless Larry: On the Spanish Misplaced Pages (which lacks Schooloutcomes) I started es:Liceo Mexicano Japonés and got an AFD: es:Misplaced Pages:Consultas de borrado/Liceo Mexicano Japonés - it took a lot of effort to keep the article. While it was a Spanish-language article, many of the editors could understand English, but several were doubting possible notability until I got someone at University of Southern California to scan parts of a master's degree thesis which talked about the school. One of the other articles was in Japanese but had an English title/abstract. I have been a longtime editor since 2003 and knew the "process" on how to keep articles; a novice I think would have had much more difficulty, even if he/she spoke Spanish. Also, there was one editor who was trying to force a delete even after I presented source after source after source, and I really, really grew to resent that (and I wasn't the only one who felt that way). I think having SCHOOLOUTCOMES prevents these kinds of scenarios from happening. WhisperToMe (talk) 06:32, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Sandstein and SamWalton. Merely existing should not make a school presumably notable. Blackmane (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Conditional support - I would be in favour if the wording included "government accredited secondary schools". It doesn't matter if they are public or private. A stub with the school's name, location, private/public status, and grades accredited sourced to a government website, and an external link to the school's website if any, should be fine. Any promotional stuff or unsourced information can always be removed. About the academic example above: peer-reviewed journal articles have editorial oversight and also are reviewed by several independent experts, so if many of them cite a professor or researcher, that's a very large number of independent writers who agree that his or her ideas are important. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

That's a good-faith and plausible suggestion, except that in some countries it is not the government that accredits schools. In the United States there are six regional accrediting commissions which evaluate and accredit schools and colleges. Example: the Western Association of Schools and Colleges is the accrediting agency for schools in California, Hawaii, and Guam, as well as foreign schools. I favor saying "accredited" but not "government accredited". --MelanieN (talk) 01:34, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

In general I do agree that secondary schools should be considered notable - but there has to be a limit; if I, as a certified teacher, tutor three secondary students from the local high school in my home in the evenings, is my home a school which should have an article? I'd say it was more of a small business. Many people home-school their own children. Are they notable? "Accredited" doesn't mean anything if it doesn't say by whom; "with government-recognized accreditation" or some similar phrase would be more specific. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support, Considering only those schools taking pupils aged 11+ then the current situation seems to be accepted by most editors if one considers the total number of positive edits to such articles over time. As long as suitable references are available and listed correctly in an article then I prefer to maintain the status quo. I would be particularly concerned if the vote goes to the 'oppose' side that we suddenly find a huge number of deletions occurring. I appreciate that others have discussed this but it is still of concern as most editors will not be aware of this discussion. Paste _{Let’s have a chat.} 15:27, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment - While I'm normally in favor of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, there's something that's bothered me for years, and as of now I'm not going to give an opinion on this discussion, I have to let this out of my chest. While it's fairly easy for schools in the United States and other Anglophone countries to receive coverage, the same isn't the case in developing countries. For example, in my country (the Philippines), only schools in the major cities tend to get any form of coverage, reliable or otherwise. In the provinces, maybe outside of Facebook, there may be little-to-no online presence for private or even public schools. I think this tends to be the case for schools in other countries as well. This made me think something like "is WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES too Western-centric as its standards are based on Western educational systems?" Narutolovehinata5 16:08, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• The supporters of SCHOOLOUTCOMES often argue that it helps counter that bias, Narutolovehinata5, because it means that schools in developing countries are kept even if few online sources exist. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:31, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose And forbid SCHOOLOUTCOMES from being used in AFD discussions while we are about it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:46, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Support. The current standard is reasonably efficient, and removing it would result in an inordinate amount of time, energy, and resulting rancor as we debate (likely) hundreds if not thousands of resulting AFDs. This is not to say that carefully tailored exceptions could be carved out of the existing standard. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Please note that the concerns of massive timesinks of AFD noms is a point I tried to address in the section below, namely that we actually should avoid encouraging mass rushes of AFDs of secondary schools and use other processes. It is a very valid concern but we do have policy via WP:FAITACCOMPLI that would prevent that, and we should have a plan going forward if its removed. --MASEM (t) 18:15, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support as this counters the systematic bias that results in non-English speaking areas or developing countries that don't have online sources that can be read by people here. The sources are still likely to exist, even if they are not easily available. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• That's ridiculous. If we do that then we may as well abandon GNG entirely for vast parts of the world, and not merely in the schools topic area. That systemic bias exists may be true but we have to accept that some things (most things!) can't be fixed by WP alone. - Sitush (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support although to be liguistically correct, my answer to this excellently neutrally made RfC question Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable? should be Yes. Not only through the already tacit consensus as evidenced by thousands of AfD closures resulting in keep but also based on the arguments above in favour of maintaining the status quo, while pointing out for those providing inaccurate reasons to oppose, that OUTCOMES is neither a policy, nor a guideline, nor technically even an essay or opinion piece - it simply accurately documents a set of clearly evident long-time Misplaced Pages behaviours, and as such is indeed an acceptable a short cut to the rationale it represents without voters at AfD having to post a list of several hundred or a thousand examples. Not without reason either did the community reach a well established consensus that school articles may not be tagged for deletion per A7, and it was a Misplaced Pages founder's express opinion that high schools should be considered notable. Naturally G11 and G12 and other criteria remain valid in appropriate cases and should generally be rigorously applied if editing cannot resolve the issues. School articles are not exempt from PROD and where most school articles are made by SPA, deletion by PROD makes AfD unnecessary.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• I wasn't aware that Jimbo set policy or guidelines, and his opinion is of no more weight than mine or yours. Times change, and that OUTCOMES has become a self-fulfilling essay is all the more reason why we need to revisit it and address the underlying shortcomings that are now apparent and which make it problematic. - Sitush (talk) 22:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Thanks for your comment about the "support" versus "yes" wording, Kudpung. I see this as more about yes/no than support/oppose too. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:21, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• It shoudl be noted that Jimmy Wales' comment about schools was in the very early days of the project, after which we have actually developed the notability guidelines that hold us to higher standards, so resting too much on Wales' comment doesn't reflect the changing consensus. Comparing schools to Pokemon characters is definitely apples-to-oranges, but at one point we did have articles for each Pokemon but since have developed a WP:POKEMON test to follow notability practices. There is no reason we could now do the same with schools. (And I would expect that if SCHOOLOUTCOMES is nixed, that we would have to re-examine CSD criteria for schools) --MASEM (t) 23:42, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Just like every other institution, a school-article should prove their notability, not their existence. And it should prove it with sources IN the article, not by assuming/gambling that sources exist. Schooloutcomes is one of the many locally (i.e. WikiProjects) invented excuses to circumvent the common rules for notability. The Banner talk 23:54, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support Following Graeme Bartlett line of thinking. I am though uncomfortable with making a definite statement on whether all schools in the 11 to 18 bracket should be considered notable but the alternative is far worse. Firstly, the current obsession with just testing against online sources, skews the debate in favour of a small number of geographic areas, and secondly while my personal POVs against non-state funded 'dame schools', crammers and grooming parlours does not mean that we should exclude coverage. But thirdly, the thought of nights of detailed arguments about whether a vanity funded academy is merely commercial placement or does have some notability.. doesn't bare thinking. --ClemRutter (talk) 01:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support I have always supported this tradition for multiple reasons, most of which have been articulated already. It recognizes that high schools and colleges virtually always receive coverage (and if it's purely local, what's wrong with that?). It saves enormous amounts of quibbling over what sources are acceptable and what aren't (if most of the coverage is about the football team, does that count?). It avoids systemic bias, as noted already by many (sure, American schools can always cite online references in English, but how many other countries can say the same?). To me it is like the SPORTS notability guidelines: if a person has played in a fully professional league, they get an article, no quibbling, no agonizing - because such players have virtually always received coverage, and with the guideline it isn't a matter of debate in each and every instance. BTW my understanding is that this guideline applies to "diploma-granting and degree-granting institutions", not just schools for ages 11 and up - thus ruling out middle schools, trade schools, etc. I would support adding "accredited" to the guideline, although it may not always be possible to provide a link to the accrediting agency and I would not require that. --MelanieN (talk) 01:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support status quo Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:58, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support If people would really like to double the amount of work at AfD, then a good way of doing it is to remove the practice of treating secondary schools as if they were notable. The practice that we do so is not an attack on the fundamental principle of WP:N or the GNG, but a question of convenience. In that connection, I have to mention the other half of the compromise : not usually treating elementary schools as notable. Before we had the compromise, I and others were quite willing to argue for their inclusion. Some of the arguments were successful, and I have a few hundred US primary schools in mind for which I could realistically try to write articles. The results will, as usual at AfD, depend on who shows up to discuss, as much as on the merits of the article. DGG ( talk ) 05:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I'm a long-term supporter of this rule for the reasons elucidated here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support this seems to be the way the community generally regards the notability of schools so it it is appropriate to confirm the situation. Thincat (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose schools shouldn't get an automatic free pass at AFD, and merely being mentioned in secondary sources isn't good enough to warrant an article. Actual depth to coverage in such sources is also a must. We shouldn't ignore any instance were WP:GNG isn't met. In all honesty, this is why the mentioned bit above from WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is fucking bullshit. I also concur with Sandstein, Masem, The Banner, Jonesey95, and Czar. Snuggums (talk / edits) 20:32, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support with hesitation, because I've sounded off in the past about the lamentable quality of many school articles, which are often the last ones we would pick as models or training grounds for budding new editors. So I'm more bothered about what's in these articles than whether they exist at all. I hear those who are unwilling to make further exceptions to the GNG, but the fact is that with schools that bird has flown, long ago, and I can swallow a special status for schools similar to that for villages or pro footballers. The hope would be that once this special status is recognised and regularised, editors would be more willing to bring the articles up to standard. This means: trim promotion and non-neutral prose, trim excessive, trivial and evanescent detail, look for whatever useful information can be found in independent reliable sources, and watch out for those vandals: Noyster (talk), 01:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose any form of "inherent notability" for anything. Notability comes from being noted, no more, no less. Schools are long overdue for a cleanup, and in practice, many of them are not notable. There are certain cases where we really can presume every single example of something to be notable (US presidents, chemical elements), but it doesn't hold true with schools. Some are notable, some not. Seraphimblade 01:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - not wanting to repeat what's already been said: briefly, I think the trade-off here between WP:SYSTEMICBIAS and GNG is acceptable. Eustachiusz (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - The GNG would be a much better tool for determining secondary school notability. I really never understood why secondary schools were given a free notability pass to begin with. If they can't meet the GNG, I don't understand how we could hope to write a balanced, encyclopedic article about the school. Misplaced Pages isn't a simple directory, after all. Kaldari (talk) 07:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support maintaining the status quo. We have had a compromise here for years: verified public and sizeable private and parochial high schools are routinely kept, while primary schools are routinely redirected to their school district or city unless solid evidence is provided to warrant keeping a standalone article. This has worked well for years, while saving us from many endless re-debates about the arcane subtleties of Wikipedian terms of art. "Notability" is not a goal in itself but a linguistic device for discussing whether something will improve the encyclopedia. I acknowledge that the boundaries have been tested and stressed by promotional, COI-driven articles about for-profit schools and a more focused discussion about best practices for handling those promotional articles may be in order. The rest are something we should keep and cultivate. The encyclopedia would certainly not be improved by delegitimizing the high school articles we have. This large category of existing articles is a positive not only for the readily-organized information the articles provide to readers and contributors, but also for its developmental benefits to the project: they are a strong component of the deep, worldwide, gazeteer-like coverage that is one of Misplaced Pages's best features and aspirations, and as PamD noted above they also provide a means of entry and connection to the project for many new editors. --Arxiloxos (talk) 01:06, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support the status quo. In its absence we will be flooded with malicious AfDs, and waste far, far more of editors time. We need more "automatic" notability decisions not less. Every silly fight that can be avoided makes the community look less .... silly. Jacona (talk) 01:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support keeping all secondary school articles for now. We might need to figure out a more nuanced solution for certain parts of the world where very limited verifiable information about schools is available. But I would certainly oppose a change to this rule, at least for developed Anglophone countries, where there is usually plenty of verifiable information about schools. I think further discussion about how to handle the different scenarios in different countries, culminating in an agreed subject-specific notability guideline, would be more productive than an all-or-nothing !vote. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support the status quo - While in theory WP:GNG should be applied to most subjects, User:TheCatalyst31 brings up a great point in how AFDs get difficult. Many people are not so educated, and they may not have time/money to comb through sources all the time. People get grudges if their content is deleted; nobody likes to work hard on something and see their work vanish. Even if the content is not well sourced or not notable, people feel that Misplaced Pages's not living up to the "Encyclopedia anyone can edit". Of course we shouldn't allow blatant promotionalism (especially from for-profit companies) and some subjects are just not encyclopedic. However as stated on the AFD of the British International School Lagos it often is possible to get info on schools, especially state-run ones. Maybe a better idea is to publish a guide on how to source info for schools in X country, how to find libraries, etc. Make a guide for high school students (the people who we need to recruit as editors, and in fact much of my editing is done for this purpose!) on how to write about their school: How to get sources, what style they should use, etc. I'm happy to start it myself, and for North American students, add how to use boundary maps to determine which communities serve their public schools. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Undecided – Of note is that per WP:FIVEPILLARS, Misplaced Pages functions in part as a gazetteer, and some gazetteers have historically included content about schools in them, such as in Chinese, Indian and Korean ones, among others (see the Misplaced Pages gazetteer article for more information and sources). For example, the Gazetteer of the Nellore District published by the Government of Madras in 1942 includes content about secondary schools and middle schools (see Google Books preview example, scroll down on page). The World-wide Encyclopedia and Gazetteer published by the Christian Herald in 1899 contains content about secondary schools (see example, pp. 1042–1043). Another example is the Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer Content Standard (link), which includes schools in its formulation. More examples in addition to these are available in online searches.

Per the five pillars and Misplaced Pages's partial functionality as a gazetteer, it would be aligned with Misplaced Pages's core purposes to consider developing a guideline for secondary schools that are verifiable but otherwise not correspondent with notability guidelines to be merged into articles about the school district authorities that manage the schools, or to the city/town/village articles where they are located. Another idea is to merge such articles into lists of schools per geographical region, such as by county. Such recommendation could be added to WP:NSCHOOL if a consensus to do so were to occur. This would serve to improve the encyclopedia, and is also functionally correspondent with WP:ATD-M. North America 09:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I am aware that primary and middle schools that don't meet WP:GNG already are supposed to redirect to their school district and/or a daughter article listing schools in that school district (for U.S. and Canada public schools), or to the locality (for schools outside of the U.S. and Canada and private schools) WhisperToMe (talk) 13:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

The problem with using the Gazetteer aspect is that this is only being applied to schools, and secondary schools at that. The argument if you want to got the gazeteer route is then we should be doing not only secondary schools, but also primary schools, government buildings (town halls, police + fire departments), parks and other similar areas, and potentially other features like churches. That line of logic gets very hairy very fast, for an encyclopedia. (If we were just indexing places and coordinates, as it what a gazetteer primarily does, this wouldn't be a problem, but we want more content than just name and coordinates). Practically, our implementation of being a gazetteer gets to the resolution of towns and villages and geographical landmarks recognized by an appropriate governing agency; anything more detailed than that falls outside of what we consider to be our gazetteer function. --MASEM (t) 17:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

My proposal above is only based upon secondary schools, not all those other topics. North America 18:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

And my counterpoint is that while the logic works for secondary schools, there are buildings/facilities that are as equally important if not moreso than schools that would also fall under the gazetteer logic that we should track, but we don't. --MASEM (t) 18:30, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose SCHOOLOUTCOMES must die! It may have been usefull way back in the infancy of WP, but the way it is commonly applied these days has several negative consequences:
  • It privileges first-world, and more specifically American, high schools. This is a consequence of the (practically) unique obsession with school sport in American society. The smallest "Anytown High" is practically guaranteed regular coverage in the "Anytown Gazette" reporting on the appointment of the new basketball coach or the progress of the school baseball team in the state championship (even if they are ranked 236 out of 242). Contrast that with the situation in many other countries where even the barest hint of proof of existence can be hard to find - and then often only in the local language in a list on an obscure government website or a mention in a report or policy document. Thus it actually exacerbates the systemic bias of en.WP.
  • It is used as a weapon to summarily shut down anyone daring to question the existence of any high school article, regardless of the quality of the article or the merits of the argument. This is often counter to WP:BITE and WP:RETENTION of editors, particularly the scarce ones from underrepresented countries and demographics.
  • An SNG creates a presumption of notability, not the fact of notability. Any presumption that is not suceptible to testing and consequent possibility of rebuttal is not really a presumption at all. SCHOOLOUTCOMES is often used to basically forbid any testing of the presumption. Countless speedy deletions are rejected and AFDs are summarily closed citing it - a rather bizarre argument from authority. SCHOOLOUTCOMES thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - "high schools are notable because high schools are notable". Educational institutions currently protected by SCHOOLOUTCOMES should actually be subject to the much fairer (and testable) WP:ORG standard. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:38, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

SCHOOLOUTCOMES isn't a policy or guideline. It's a representation of fact. It won't die until the facts change and more editors !vote to delete or merge. CalzGuy (talk) 13:56, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You're missing the point that it is used to actually prevent such !votes from happening, it has effectively shut down the debate. Like a dictator who was properly elected 20 years ago, who abuses his incumbency to prevent any subsequent elections that may unseat him. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

An essay has no power to prevent an AfD taking place. In fact, if you want an AfD to take place no one can stop you. What SCHOOLOUTCOMES does is to suggest beforehand that actually it's a pointless exercise. But if you want to plough that pointless furrow, no one here can stop you. But a lot of us may just step in and !vote to keep, and in doing so will sort of prove the point. So how would SCHOOLOUTCOMES "die" in any case? CalzGuy (talk) 15:40, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You are proving the point about the problem of SCHOOLOUTCOMES with regards to secondary schools. It cannot be used to say "an AFD on a secondary school will be useless" and thus prevent anyone from filing an AFD. It cannot be used in an AFD to say "well, SCHOOLOUTCOMES says we don't delete schools, so this can't be deleted" (which happens all too much). The problem of SCHOOLOUTCOMES is that it is a leftover of pre-notability periods on WP. If it was being used properly, then at AFD on a secondary school, people would !vote keep by showing there are some secondary sources about the school (even if not perfectly at GNG-type levels, enough to give presumption of notability), or otherwise delete/merge/etc. Then, if it was the case that the near majority of such AFDs that "keep" was the most common result, then SCHOOLOUTCOMES would make sense. But that's not how it is developed or used anymore - its the catch-22 self-fulfilling cycle that is getting worse. --MASEM (t) 16:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Continuing the above thread: It is trivial to find concrete examples of SCHOOLOUTCOMES being used to shut down discussion. See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Benicia High School, for example. SCHOOLOUTCOMES is specifically cited as the reason to keep the nominated article, completely shutting down discussion and effectively preventing secondary schools from being nominated for deletion. That is why this RFC is happening. More examples: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Carman-Ainsworth High School, where there are many links to guidelines and policies, and all discussion is preempted by SCHOOLOUTCOMES; another good discussion is at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tenby International School, Penang (2nd nomination). I suggest that regardless of the outcome of this discussion, we should create or change a guideline around notability of secondary schools. The current situation is not tenable. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

CalzGuy, your first point has it exactly backwards. If we repeal SCHOOLOUTCOMES and return to a pure GNG standard, the systemic bias here will become much worse. As you point out, schools in America and other English-speaking countries do tend to have easily-findable coverage and are thus much more likely to have articles. Schools in less-developed or non-English speaking countries are much less likely to have such coverage and will get deleted or never accepted in the first place. One of the main benefits of SCHOOLOUTCOMES is that it helps to mitigate our bias against material from less developed and non-English speaking countries. (It does not eliminate it entirely because we still need confirmation that the school exists and is a secondary school.) --MelanieN (talk) 19:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Except part of that systematic bias is that these secondary school articles often weigh heavily on the use of local sources to support notability, which isn't really in the spirit of notability on a global encyclopedia. Local papers covering local schools lack true independence we want for notability sourcing (these can be used to augment that, however!) If AFDs were done in absence of SCHOOLOUTCOMES and considered the type of coverage these Western schools were getting, most of these would still be deleted because of that local coverage, which is a different way to approach fixing that systematic bias while meeting the notability guidelines we expect for any other topic. We need to bite the bullet and accept this is the case though. --MASEM (t) 19:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I intentionally add "local" content to Misplaced Pages because people care about their hometowns and want to introduce them to the world. It's a motive for editing Misplaced Pages that can be used to recruit people. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

While is one very very fragile step away from COI editing. There's a level of resolution we want to keep to avoid extremely localized topic for this reason. Articles on towns are good collectors for such information because that also fits our gazetteer function well. --MASEM (t) 20:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Masem: I think the public understands the natural desire for one to write about their hometown/what they like. Where COI is worrisome IMO is if it's a for-profit company (especially if they're paying you), or a BLP case, or a case where someone's sole goal is to make a topic look good. We need to give into inclinations of "I like this, so I'll write about it" without allowing it to go too far, or allowing for profit/professional PR motives/BLP issues from becoming a problem. If it's a teenager writing on Misplaced Pages for the first time just adding info about a hometown he cares about deeply, just give him a heads up on how to write objectively about where he's from, but if it's somebody working for a company doing PR ask them to do edit requests and not touch the article directly. @Masem: WhisperToMe (talk) 20:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dodger67: I think that SCHOOLOUTCOMES actually makes it easier to write articles about schools in the developing world. In the U.S. it's easier to find secondary sources about U.S., Canadian, European, etc. high schools, and it's easier to find sources on them in English. If you're writing about a Japanese high school you may encounter a language barrier. If you're writing about an Ivorian high school, you may find evidence that it exists on a government website, or on the AEFE (if a French international school) or ZaF (if a German international school), but it may be harder finding secondary source info directly on the web. SCHOOLOUTCOMES treats all senior high schools equally.

I held a Wikimedia workshop at a Chinese university where I asked students to write about their high schools. I told them "why not check the newspapers for info on them" and they said they didn't think the newspapers had any info on their high schools. In my hometown the Houston Chronicle covers high school info regularly (and I'm not including routine coverage).

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Dodger67 - You have managed to get this 100% backwards. Schools in the English-speaking industrial world are virtually 100% guaranteed to pass GNG and articles on them will not be challenged. The effect on the stubby articles dealing with schools in the developing world will be immediate and massive — and guess what: nobody is gonna come to their aid. You have just made the opposite case, you need to either flip your opinion from oppose to support or to get real about what the impact is gonna be. Carrite (talk) 14:42, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Carrite I'm not at all convinced that most English-speaking industrial world high schools could genuinely pass WP:ORG or WP:GNG. The articles about the vast majority of such schools depend on a combination of firstly routine coverage of the "it exists" variety, such as government reports and database-like records such as proof of accreditation, and secondly mere local coverage in the form of local news media reporting on the school's basketball team, new principal, etc. If school articles did not have this "special protection" they have enjoyed over so many years we would have far fewer articles, even about American high schools. Now take the counter-example of Indian villages. Clusters of nearby villages tend to have a shared local authority for various purposes such as a clinic, post office, police station and other government services which may also include a small high school. The cluster of villages would also contain one or more temples. An article about the temple has very little chance of getting created, but if it does get written, it invariably gets deleted fairly quickly as not notable. However the article about the school, which arguably is just as significant to the community as the temple (or clinic), and based on essentially the same sources as the temple article, is permanently exempted from deletion by SCHOOLOUTCOMES. In my country, South Africa (which has a very well developed media sector, as large and active as many "first world" countries) I guesstimate that perhaps only about one hundred schools could genuinely pass WP:CORP or WP:GNG, and IMHO that's perfectly ok, because Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:30, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Pretty sure that WP:INDISCRIMINATE is about what kind of information - and more pointedly, the format thereof - we collect and not about which topics are or are not covered. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:08, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus If all one can properly source about a school is that it exists then the article about it is effectively a "listing", WP:NOTDIRECTORY is a better fit, you are correct. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support This is a tried-and-true rule of thumb that has worked effectively for the past decade, and works as well as the presumed notability for professional athletes and politicians. Rather than fight these battles one at a time, with the vultures trying to find a weak link to justify deletion of any all such articles, the presumption of notability allows these articles time to grow organically and have the available sources added. Alansohn (talk) 17:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This is not true. Athletes and politicians have subject-specific notability guidelines that say if certain aspects are met, there is a strong likelihood that secondary sources can be found and thus we can presume notability via the GNG can eventually be met. That's not what we have with schools. Secondary schools have yet to be proven that if the school is accredited that secondary sources will exist to discuss the school within the scope of the GNG. Some do, some don't, but not with the high frequency that happens with athletes and politicians meeting NSPORTS or BIO. Even those that have been shown to have some type of secondary sources is generally based only on local sources, which begs issues of true independent sourcing (another GNG requirements). --MASEM (t) 17:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
    • @Masem: according to Misplaced Pages:Notability_(sports)#Basic_criteria there is presumed notability if the athlete "participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level (such as the Olympics)." which is what User:Alansohn is referring to WhisperToMe (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
      • Right: the logic behind that is that if someone has played at something like the Olympics, that there will very highly likely be sourcing about that athlete - most likely in the country's regional media - highlighting their career just prior for them leaving to the event. In other words, there's a good chance of getting this secondary sources (required by the GNG) because of this bar. All other subject-specific notability guidelines work on the same principle - they offer means of presuming notability in lieu of having immediate access to the sources that would certainly follow the conditions noted in the subject-specific guideline. This is not the case for secondary schools. --MASEM (t) 20:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
        • I think part of the reason why SCHOOLOUTCOMES was decided was that, in editing North American, Australasian, and European senior high schools, it was quite common to find non-routine independent secondary sources about them while less so for primary and junior high schools. As an editor of Houston articles I'd say it's not difficult to find secondary sources about most Houston high schools. The holy trinity of the Houston Chronicle, Houston Business Journal, and the Houston Press have given me info on Houston schools and neighborhoods. It's to the point where I could start articles on Houston schools on the Spanish Misplaced Pages, which does not have SCHOOLOUTCOMES (and for awhile was quite resistant to school articles). Also note most high schools in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, etc.) are government schools too, so it's not so much of a change. Now that South Asian schools are coming in, Misplaced Pages's confronted with a different set of rules.
        • One other reason why I like WP:COMMOUTCOMES for schools is that I know newspapers are generally only digitized until the 80s or 90s, and that means lots of articles that could help notability just aren't online.
        • @Masem: WhisperToMe (talk) 21:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
          • This is where two key issues exist in this debate:
          • First, we in the west do have these plethra of sources like local papers to cover schools. That level of coverage doesn't exist in many places in Asia, Africa, and South America, which is the systematic bias that we talk about.
          • Second, where there is this type of coverage, a (otherwise reliable for anything else) Houston paper reporting on a Houston school is begging the question if that is truly an independent source required by the GNG. If it were a Dallas paper, or a New York paper, far outside the school's region, that's different and would be sufficiently independent. But at the city level, that's different. Add in that the bulk of such coverage is usually either sports-related (inter-school sports), or related to "news" items like school levies, teacher strikes, or other things that would fail NEVENT, and this type of coverage is not sufficient for an encyclopedia beyond proving the school exists. If we drew that line in the sand as to distinguish notable schools, then we also address the systematic bias issue at the same time (though we'd still likely have more Western secondary schools as notable ones than others, but we'd not be including every secondary school). --MASEM (t) 22:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
            • 1. Yes, that's right. The systemic bias issue does affect schools coming from those regions. I think the current COMMONOUTCOMES then is a sort of protection for those schools since it allows those which verifiably exist to be kept despite not having immediate access to reliable secondary sources about the said school in English. A newspaper in Lagos may not be counted on to digitize their stuff like the Houston Chronicle.
            • 2. Usually the newspapers can be counted on being "independent" as the district staff don't own the paper and can't control it. There was a case where Seguin ISD tried to buy a radio station and newspaper which criticized it (and this is in a town way smaller than Houston), and obviously it led to an outcry. Anyway I count "routine" sports events (such as typical games) as routine news, while anything about a "first" (like first head coach, first ever playoff) would not be. Some events such as scheduled elections, "so-and-so was caught with weapons" (with no lasting effect on the school's operations), etc. would be typical news, while a strike that causes people to question whether the district is performing well would not be. For example I would not treat the information on a shooting at North Forest High School as "routine" since when it happened, the school extended the hours of its metal detectors.
              • An example of a "typical" school article with "local" sources I used: Cypress Park High School or Bridgeland High School which talk about the schools' openings and establishments, while Lamar High School (Houston) has a variety of sources and source types and in-depth commentary on demographic changes. Lamar already has a Spanish version, while I hope to establish both Cypress Park and Bridgeland in Spanish soon.
            • 3. I know there are countries with smaller populations than, say, U.S. metro areas like Greater Houston (at 6 million), and one thing I dislike about the French Misplaced Pages's "only national sources can confer notability" is that it causes a loss of information about communities in larger countries (like the U.S. or China) while smaller countries (like Djibouti, Malta) would get a pass.
            • WhisperToMe (talk) 01:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
              • Independence is not always measured by financial motives, although that's the easiest way to identify a dependency problem. To apply this to another type of article, in large cities, restaurants get frequently reviewed by local publications, but we do not consider those as signs of notability for the restaurant, because this is the function of the local paper to cover a local restaurant, thus creating a dependency problem. Same thing with secondary schools. And also why the problem is less an issue with universities and colleges that rarely serve just a single city or town. The Cypress Park is a poor encyclopedic article because it does not establish any notability within the scope of a global encyclopedia that cannot be readily covered in the town's article (details about population or current athletics are absolutely unnecessary , for example), as all the sourcing is local. And unfortunately this is the typical state of most America secondary school articles. That's why this is all a problem. --MASEM (t) 02:25, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
                • While I am aware independence is not always measured by financial motives, being local doesn't necessarily mean that the article cannot be "independent" of the subject. Even though a newspaper is asked to review a restaurant, it doesn't mean it's going to be a good review. Seguin ISD demonstrates that local media can be adversarial and ruckmacking just like their "national"/"global" counterparts. Also, in this AFD: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia an editor made it clear that "independent of the subject" means that the people writing a review of an academic book need to be independent of the work/author(s) itself/themselves. I think a better reason why Misplaced Pages should not cover a "local restaurant" in most metro areas (exception may be a restaurant that gets a variety of reviews/coverage from a large number of sources, which only happens in major metro areas like New York, Tokyo, Paris, etc. - and because of, for example, the Houston area's size, there's momentum to write about "local" that wouldn't have momentum in smaller places) is "lack of non-trivial coverage" as usually the restaurants only get occasional reviews. Remember it's also the job of local newspapers to write what's going on in small incorporated places that automatically get kept as per gazeteer notability processes.
                • See Cypress Park as an example of an article that is just born... something that has the potential to grow as time passes and as things change. Lamar High has been open since the 1930s and the mass number of changes have been well documented. AFAIK it's the rule, not the exception, that inner city schools that have existed for a long time can have detailed, developed information written about them. Massive demographic changes happen to suburban schools as they age: I know Spring ISD (in particular Westfield High School and Spring High School in particular) has had massive changes, and as time passes it will become easier and easier to write well-sourced information on how those changes have affected the schools.
                • One thing I'd like to say is that being able to cover my hometown was one of the reasons why I became heavily involved on Misplaced Pages. Being able to write about the local cuisine, the culture (ethnic groups, religion, etc.), the neighborhoods (many sourced from the Houston Chronicle), and yes, the schools was something important to me. Once Houston topics became largely exhausted I turned to other metro areas: Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Paris, etc. and built up their local too: schools, ethnic groups, religion, culture, etc. I also created large numbers of international school articles to encourage participation from developing countries. The idea of writing about local is something that can still pull in editors; when I talk to Chinese college students about Misplaced Pages, I tell them that it's a place where they can write about their hometowns: the local food, the culture, the schools, etc. A new generation of teenagers from China, India, etc. can do what North American, European, and Australasian teens, like myself, did a decade ago.
                • While Misplaced Pages's goal is to be global, most people really care about their local. To remain vibrant and active, Misplaced Pages needs to encourage people, within reason, to write about the local, but teach them how to do it right. The local is like a puzzle piece, and all the locals add up to a unified global, the sum of the whole.
                • WhisperToMe (talk) 05:26, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
                • One other thing. Re: "details about population or current athletics are absolutely unnecessary , for example" - I strongly disagree on the first count, and disagree on the second to a degree.
                • 1. As we see from Lamar High School (Houston) and Woodrow Wilson High School (Dallas) demographic changes and information can be of great interest to statewide and national publications. In a day or so I'll add info about Muslim and Arab students to Fordson High School as that topic is covered heavily by RSes.
                • 2. In the United States athletics is a considered to be an important aspect of school, especially in the rural South. There are voices who believe it's too strongly emphasized, but it's a fact of life. However what needs to happen is this: kids should avoid routine coverage and focus on what's not-so-routine. Perhaps milestones in the schools' performances in statewide competitions? Maybe see if newspapers from outside the metro area talk about the sports team.
                • WhisperToMe (talk) 00:26, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
                  • What you are showing above is the issue of the systematic bias of the West, and perhaps more to the US. The US has multi-tier administration over schooling, and everything is being tracked at national and state levels (in part of trends like No Child Left Behind). Schools are important to local communities, and covered heavily in local papers. That situation does not exist anywhere else in the world - you'll get close in places like Europe, Japan, and other highly urbanized areas. Other countries lack any formal system, and where literacy is already poor, there's little coverage of the school. It's great we can document some of these US schools to this level of detail but a lot of it still comes down to local sources and databases (primary sources). If there was clear evidence we could that nearly equally for any secondary school around the world, that would be great, but that simply can't be done, in a manner that would meet WP:V. BIAS suggests not presuming all other schools are notable, but instead not given excessive coverage to those schools where lots of information could be found. Remember: we still have articles on every town and village in the world, and the argument that editors from their towns will be drawn to WP to edit about where they live still holds true with these articles, but its much easier to verify named places rather than specific schools at those places. --MASEM (t) 15:27, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
                    • @Masem: While it may be difficult/impossible for some regions/countries, I think the best way to get around "systemic bias" in this scenario is to ask editors of each language background/region how to find sources on a particular school in their language(s). I got assistance from FRwiki editors in writing Lycee Alfred Nobel (a school in the Paris area serving North African immigrant students), and Chinese sources in particular may have written info on particular high schools (though I don't know to what degree). I got help from editors of various countries to write Liceo Mexicano Japones (a private school in Mexico City serving Mexican students of Japanese heritage and Japanese nationals).
                    • Schools in urban areas of third world countries are more likely to get coverage than say in rural areas: getting info on a school in Nairobi is easier than doing so for one in the sticks. This is especially so if they are "international schools" affiliated with a foreign educational system. Some countries have formal networks/systems: AEFE of France, ZfA (I think) of Germany, and the Japanese Ministry of Education (for Japanese overseas schools). Last summer I wrote a series of "international school" templates and articles as a way of getting around systemic bias. That way every country has schools represented on Misplaced Pages.
                    • WhisperToMe (talk) 12:38, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
                      • France is not a problem country here; it is sufficiently urbanized to have well documented info on its schools. I'd except the same for North American or Western Europe nation where the degree of urbanization is high. It's places like China, Brazil, and India. And we've had editors from those areas try to find sources and they can't for secondary schools. That's always going to be the rub on schools in that you'll very much unlikely find significant details on schools from these regions, and thus would not be covered on WP. Since we can't make up sources to cover these, WP:BIAS suggests we should be much more discriminate on including other secondary schools. --MASEM (t) 14:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
                        • I would be interested in reading the discussions from those cases in China, Brazil, and India. Speaking of that, I found I was able to get sources for Lekki British School from Nigerian newspapers online, but I can imagine it's because the school's in Lagos. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
• Partial Support There are a small number of secondary schools that quite clearly meet notability requirements due to some unusual aspect of the school, whether that be historical/architectural significance, or just simple prestige. However, most of the secondary schools with articles on Misplaced Pages are more ordinary. I strongly believe that many of these "ordinary" schools nonetheless deserve an article due to their strong impact on their local communities and surrounding area, and the fact that many of them have enough coverage to write a quality article. This is demonstrated by the article on Amador Valley High School (which is a featured article about a rather run of the mill American high school) as well as by many of the 18 or so good articles on high schools listed at Misplaced Pages:Good articles/Social sciences and society. While I support the presumption of notability for many secondary schools, I believe that the requirements for assuming notability should be higher than simply proving that a secondary school exists. Preferably, I'd like to see a set of criteria that needs to be met before notability is assumed, sort of like what we do with athletes, songs, actors, films, ect. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:45, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support of course. All (okay, maybe 99.95%) of secondary schools in the US have plenty of coverage. I imagine the same is true in most developed nations. The main issue is when we can't find sources in less developed nations. And that provides bias issues and all sorts of other problems. Also, frankly, this is a reasonable thing for Misplaced Pages to cover. Finally, I really don't want to start hearing arguments that "this is just the kind of coverage any school would get" which I'm sure we'd start to see. Hobit (talk) 04:01, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose any category of articles being automatically notable. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:27, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Could you explain why? Hobit (talk) 15:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    • I'd oppose inherent notability too, which we don't have on Misplaced Pages. We do have the presumption of notability, which means that for certain classes of articles, we presume them notable once certain standards are met. This can be argued against. As I have said in the past, I would very much argue against what in the US is called a homeschool group or homeschool academy that prepares kids for a high school diploma being considered notable. I'd also argue against many for-profit schools or possibly against some US charter schools depending on the nature of the organization and its role in the community. The presumption of notability just means that those !voting delete would have a heavier burden, and since notability is not a policy, its a guideline, consensus would be able to determine the cases where exceptions to the general norm do exist and where an article should be deleted. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
      • @TonyBallioni: Some categories of articles do have "presumed notability" - for example if they are legally recognized, "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low." Misplaced Pages:Notability_(geographic_features) - Under current SCHOOLOUTCOMES you can still argue against, say, homeschooling groups (say "typical public high schools are protected by SCHOOLOUTCOMES but...) WhisperToMe (talk) 12:47, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
        • There is a critical difference between "inherited notability" and "presumed notability". The latter means that we are going to work on the presumption that the topic is notable enough for a standalone article but that can be challenged in the future if there is a reasonable case put forward that our presumption was wrong (in that no sourcing actually exists); this means someone would have to demonstrate their case along the lines of doing the legwork discussed in WP:BEFORE to show the presumption wrong. Inherited notability simply means that we would accept the notability of a topic due to its connection to a different topic, and that inherited notability thus can't be challenged. We don't do that at all, every topic has to stand up in its own. --MASEM (t) 14:48, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
          • I'm not sure I understand. We don't use inherited notability for secondary schools do we? I think Masem misread "inherent" as "inherited". EyeTripleE (talk) 21:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. One of the problems with "presumed notability" is that people here on Misplaced Pages attach different meanings to the term. To some, it means "automatic" or "inherent" notability, for which the general notability guidelines do not come into play. To others, it is simply shorthand for "it is reasonable to presume that the subject has received substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources, even if no one here on Misplaced Pages has uncovered them yet". As I look through the many opinions that precede mine in this discussion, I see that most of them reflect one or the other of these two very different notions. As for me, I'm inclined to view this question from a more practical perspective. Consider this listing from a reliable government source here. Does this single web page really provide the basis for 260 separate stand-alone articles, each of them consisting of the single sentence "{NAME OF SCHOOL] is a higher secondary school in the Malappuram district of Kerala, India" ? And that page is merely a subpage on the site shown here. Looking through the lists for each of the districts in Kerala (scroll down the page for the lists), you'll find that there are more than 2,000 such schools in Kerala, all of them source-able to this one site. Do all 2,000 get stand-alone articles? And considering that Kerala has about one-fortieth of India's population, are we prepared for 80,000 such articles? And considering that India has about one-sixth of the world's population, are we willing to have something on the order of half a million such articles? To me, that's just too large a number, hence my "Oppose" recommendation. NewYorkActuary (talk) 00:49, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Eh, that's probably less than the number of towns in the world () and those are all notable... Hobit (talk) 04:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment. I have just arrived here, and this is a lengthy discussion. Before I peruse it, I want to jot down a few initial thoughts. On the one hand, WP:ORG is exceedingly clear that No company or organization is considered inherently notable. No organization is exempt from this requirement, no matter what kind of organization it is, including schools. On the other hand, I have encountered AfDs where the participants almost blindly write "keep" comments about secondary schools, seemingly as if they were inherently notable. At some point, I remember making such !votes myself. I understand the argument that secondary schools are significant in their local communities and produce coverage that way, and I understand that this coverage can be especially difficult to find when the school is located in non-English-speaking countries (Misplaced Pages:Systemic bias). Nevertheless, I have tended to wish that there was more focus on evidence of coverage at these kinds of deletion discussions, rather than a blanket presumption that secondary schools are generally notable. Mz7 (talk) 05:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Per Masem and just about every other opposition above. Additionally, we are not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS--notably, that of systemic bias of coverage of topics not in English. (That is not to say that we should not work to decrease it, but that it is not our purpose, which is to write an encyclopedia in English of topics which are notable.) --Izno (talk) 13:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose- There is not any such thing as inherent notability. It's not enough to merely verify that something exists, there has to be enough coverage to actually fill an article. Otherwise, we end up with an endless profusion of contentless microstubs. Reyk _YO! 14:08, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support Schools in English-speaking countries such as the UK are subject to independent inspection and testing. This provides a good body of source material and so we may safely presume that there's an adequate basis for coverage here. Andrew D. (talk) 13:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't knoe what's situation like in the West, but here in India, I'd say 90% of all secondary schools are not notable. In fact, even Misplaced Pages:Points to note while debating in WikiProject India related AFDs notes that Most of Indian schools fail to satisfy the WP:ORG and WP:GNG criteria.. 103.6.159.75 (talk) 14:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Partly per Sandstein and partly per those who say some version of no inherent (or presumption of) notability.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose along with some history: In many countries, such as the United States, almost all schools that have the "highest grade" of secondary education would easily meet WP:Notability if only someone would bother to do the research. It's ridiculous to delete such articles simply because those who would have the time or interest to update the article happen to miss the AFD. However, that is not true for all schools. Some special-purpose schools, such as "special discipline" high schools or "alternative education/self-paced" high schools in the United States typically lack sports teams, bands, and other things that generate the coverage needed to meet WP:Notability. If I see an article about such a school and I can't find enough in a Google search to show that it meets WP:N, I may send it to AfD and recommend it be merged into the parent-school-district article. I would expect such an AfD to succeed. Likewise, in countries where typical "high schools" do NOT receive enough press coverage to meet WP:N, they should not have stand-alone articles. The bottom line: If a school is likely to meet WP:N due to the type of school it is (e.g. academy, comprehensive, etc.) and treatment of that type of school by the press (e.g. extensive coverage of sports teams, etc.), then it should be presumed notable until proven otherwise. If there is no special reason to think it is likely to meet WP:N (e.g. it is a type of school where schools get scant attention from the local press), then the absence of proof along with a small amount of research by an editor seeking its deletion should be grounds to not presume it is notable. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support - This is the consensus that has emerged and been observed for years. Overturning it will lead to an absolute onslaught of challenges by bored deletionists that will sink the AfD process beneath hundreds of lost hours fighting over sourcing to no good end. In a lot of ways I'm past giving a fuck about AfD already; it's a massive time sink. But, one more time, here is the rationale behind our wise WP:OUTCOMES on schools. High schools are centers of their local communities and should be viewed as inherently notable just like occupied places, rivers, highways, and professional athletes. The reason for this is because all of these have published histories of their construction, sports teams that are covered in the press are the site of extracurricular activities covered in the press, etc. The flip side of this is that elementary schools are presumed NON notable unless truly exceptional specimens, since there are many more of them, they are less central to their communities, and do not have the same impact in terms of published coverage of teams and events. The OUTCOMES consensus is a workable compromise between inclusionists and deletionists that has expedited AfD for YEARS. Carrite (talk) 14:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I want to stress on the "sink the AFD process" that the section below, we would absolutely need some type of grandfathering process and moratorium on AFDs of schools should SCHOOLOUTCOMES be nixed. In other words, the fears that AFD would be flooded by school AFDs is something that can be readily managed and thus should not be reason to keep SCHOOLOUTCOMES. --MASEM (t) 14:45, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me that such an assurance would need to be in the original RFC proposition for contributors to take account of it. They don't seem willing to accept post-haste assurances that it won't happen. With all due respect to the original proposer, I wonder if the proposition itself is somewhat flawed, in that it doesn't provide alternative actions in case of opposition. CalzGuy (talk) 15:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The lack of that consideration of process is why I started the section below. It really should go hand-in-hand. And even if it was the case that we didn't have process, the AFD issue would be something covered under WP:FAITACCOMPLI, that flooding AFD with school articles would absolutely not be appropriate. It would just be better to have an explicit process statement to know how we'd go forward if SCHOOLOUTCOMES is removed. --MASEM (t) 15:42, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Apologies for not including that in the question, CalzGuy, but that question was a result of discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Need for an RfC on schools' notability and nobody suggested it there. I also think there's merit in keeping the question simple, and dealing with the consequences separately once consensus has emerged. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:59, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Don't apologise. I don't think it would have been an obvious thing to do. However, I do think that once this discussion is closed as "No consensus", as it undoubtedly will, we will then need to have another discussion on where to go next, as I think there is a consensus for some change. It's just a matter of figuring out what. CalzGuy (talk) 09:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Echoing Cordless Larry here that from the discussion about having the RfC, the question of process was not an obvious one at the time. As I have expressed below, I am of the view that anything short of a close in the affirmative here will require more work on drafting a process and then probably another discussion on where to go. I think the advantage in separating the discussions and keeping it simple is that it allows people to comment on the question of notability itself, which has never really been answered by a guideline, just SCHOOLOUTCOMES. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - Sandstein says it well, and plenty of others have added other relevant points. Consensus is not carved in stone and this project as a whole needs to improve upon the practices of its early days. - Sitush (talk) 01:11, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - We keep high schools for very good reasons; not only do they influence the lives of thousands of people but they also play a significant part in their communities. To consider deleting articles on such significant institutions is, frankly, bizarre. Just Chilling (talk) 04:25, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Just Chilling We routinely delete churches, temples, town halls, post offices, hospitals, and many other institutions that also play a significant role in communities - high schools are the only "category" of such institutions that are specially protected. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Im just reminding you Dodger67 (and anyone else reading this, including the eventual closer) , that the RfC question is: Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable? OUTCOMES is not metioned and is therefore not the subject of this RfC. You can't ban its use. To do so would be to invite a list of several thousand AfD closures being posted on each new AfD as the documentary evidence that has produced the precedent. That said, 'churches, temples, town halls, post offices, hospitals, and many other institutions' are not, unlike schools' exempt from CSD-A7. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose, I can't see a pressing need to allow articles about schools in Misplaced Pages that do not pass WP:GNG. Private schools, for example, are businesses, and why should a business that happens to be a school be exempt from the usual requirements? Also, school articles are often a liability, attracting BLP issues like "teh sports teacher mr smith is a pedofile he likes little girls lol" in more or less eloquent forms. —Kusma (t·c) 09:53, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. I've been following discussion for several days now. I agree with the arguments put forth by many others. If there are insufficient sources to satisfy the already extremely low bar of GNG, what basis is there for an encyclopedic article. older ≠ wiser 12:02, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose We should leave this to the GNG. Some high school will be notable, some won't, but there is no justification for presuming that they will. The corollary is that we shouldn't presume that primary schools are non-notable. Ultimately what matter are the sources and whether they enable us to write a good quality article. Neljack (talk) 10:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

And how do we do that? One at a time at AfD. Hope to see you there, wasting 5 minutes per debate or more checking sources as we wade through the flood of new articles on elementary schools... Carrite (talk) 15:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. For me, WP:NPOV is the crucial policy. There are plenty of schools and degree awarding institutions - some of which are even accredited - that are of dubious quality. Without robust sourcing, we cannot maintain neutral articles. A school whose article is supported only by namechecks or reports in local media, may be completely out of line with the tone of the reports - and that could work in either direction. Multiple reliable independent sources is the only way to ensure we meet our core policies. Guy (Help!) 12:56, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - the GNG argument is that secondary schools are presumed to be notable if there is evidence of their existence, because that condition has held up time and time again in many deletion discussions. Pick a school that exists, and there are very nearly always reliable sources about it somewhere. In a disproportionately large number of cases with secondary schools (versus other topics) these reliable sources are local or regional newspapers which do not maintain an online archive or have an online presence at all, but they can nearly always be located if someone is around to look. So it is reasonable to assume that all accredited secondary-level schools will pass GNG. Furthermore there's little harm in allowing these articles to exist: there's little cause for concern about undue promotion as the vast majority of these schools will be public, which is typically why articles on commercial organizations are subject to additional scrutiny, and other concerns can be dealt with through routine patrols just like every other topic. Requiring that sources be located for these articles will cause the school articles that are left to be biased toward WP:RECENTISM. (Of course we should prefer that sources demonstrating notability be included, but it is reasonable to assume that they exist; that's what all the supplementary notability guidelines are about.) Ivanvector (/_Edits) 14:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Ivanvector, can you please provide links to AFD discussions that demonstrate your assertion above? (Pick a school that exists, and there are very nearly always reliable sources about it somewhere.) I have provided links above that show the opposite, that SCHOOLOUTCOMES is used as a self-fulfilling prophecy to shut down discussion despite strong arguments that point to real guidelines. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support - the understanding that secondary schools should be considered notable came about because experience shows that, with enough research, sources can be found for most such schools that meet WP:ORG. The alternative is to have a large series of AFDs to try to weed out the very few that don't; hardly a good use of anyone's time. One issue seems to be schools on the Indian sub-continent that tend to be poorly sourced. Google is a poor tool for finding sources on schools in non-English speaking countries. Very few schools on the Indian sub-continent, for example, have much of an Internet presence. We need to avoid systemic bias and allow time for local hard-copy and local language sources to be investigated in such cases. The Whispering Wind (talk) 17:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Rubbish. We're not primarily a social experiment and all this carping about systemic bias, using it as a way to avoid our encyclopaedic requirements, is just bleeding heart stuff. How much time should we allow? Do you have any idea how many false statements are made on articles concerning the Indian sub-continent? - Sitush (talk) 21:54, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support - as a veteran of the old days, let me tell you, we don't want to go back. As someone who participated in school AfD's back in 2004-05, pre WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, I can say unequivocally the status quo serves the project well. 1) I believe that it is an appropriate gazetteer use of wikipedia. Misplaced Pages is more useful for it. 2) It is a very useful training ground for young editors. 3) It is also a useful show-of-force deterrence for young vandals, who find their predictable nonsense knocked down surprisingly quickly, despite what their teachers tell them about wikipedia's unreliability. 4) It protects wikipedia from bias, both actual and apparent. It would be great if all WP:GNG decisions could be so objective. Going back to the old days will result in lots of American schools with lots of local WP:RS coverage staying in, with lots of Indian or other schools getting removed. This would be an accident of timing, plus a reflection of the different roles of these schools in different cultures. It would put well-meaning editors in the line of fire of accusations of prejudice. No one wants to spend their time here that way. 5) School deletion discussions never die. Again, this was the prior experience: when a school is deleted, its alums and students re-appear consistently to re-add it. Even if legitimately re-added, another AfD frequently re-starts. Again, we have better places to burn our calories. 6) The hope of deleting Western schools to limit bias is unrealistic. Secondary schools receive different coverage in different cultures. And our view/visibility of what is a WP:RS is skewed by internet access as well. This is just a bug in the practicality of WP:GNG. If we subjected counties and towns to WP:GNG, we would see the same bias between, say, U.S. and Indian towns; this is an ideal use of an objective, non-GNG inclusion criterion. Chris vLS (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not find SCHOOLOUTCOMES useful, in that it documents what has happened in the past, but seems to be picked up and used as an argument for the future or used in an AfD as an argument for keeping a school with no notability; because we generally keep schools is not an argument for keeping schools ~ that's circularity of argument, surely. In general, several people above ~ Sandstein, Reyk, Finnusertop, Wugapodes, Beeblebrox and others ~ have said it more clearly than i, but schools should have to prove notability to have an article, or we'll be making nothing more than a directory (OK, not "nothing more", but we'll be making WP more directory-like). Happy days, Lindsay 11:02, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as it seems to me to be addressing a secondary issue while not addressing a more important one, as the RfC here seems to be considering only the aspect of notability, which is not necessarily the only criterion involved. There is also the matter of whether there really is sufficient encyclopedic content for an article, which is being ignored in this question, and is probably the more important factor involved here. I have no doubt virtually every junior high school, middle school, and high school can have a good deal of somewhat crufty material added, and I myself know from current experience of looking through an old 1970's Who's Who of Religion that in that work there are a frightening number of bios listing (generally priests or nuns) as administrators or teachers at such schools. There is also the question not addressed here regarding how to structure articles on school districts. I've also seen a lot of bios indicating someone is the head of, for instance, a Catholic diocesan school committee. Coming up with a clear MOS regarding all organizations involved in secondary schools would probably be preferable. Such an MOS would also be able to deal with matters like school districts, diocesan school offices, etc., and I suppose regarding primary schools and their managing organizations (I've seen a lot of bios listing people as teaching in primary schools in the Who's Who too). John Carter (talk) 19:54, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support if for no other the reason than that the planning, building, and opening of a high school is such a significant undertaking and use of public or private funds, that there is bound to be coverage. Whether or not we can find that coverage is irrelevant. I also believe that WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES saves us all a lot of time and effort at AFD that would be far better spent elsewhere. The existence of these articles also furthers our purpose as topic valid for inclusion in an almanac. Jim Miller 20:59, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

• Your rationale does not necessarily apply outside the developed countries, nor does it satisfy even WP:V, which needs multiple independent sources and not, for example, town council minutes. - Sitush (talk) 15:53, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Support in keeping secondary schools notable - SCHOOLOUTCOMES eliminates having 30 high schools in the US with 1 in India. Schools cited by independent sources should be considered notable and my point of view is that even primary schools verified by 5+ sources should be kept and protected by SCHOOLOUTCOMES. SCHOOLOUTCOMES is a longstanding policy and as stated above around a decade old. The reasons outlined in the above 'Oppose' comments do not convince me. Voting 'support' on this Rfc is not about stating that all secondary schools should be considered notable but stating that all secondary schools that are verified by sources independent of the subject should be considered notable. Overall as per my statements above I support status quo with possible slight changes in favour of more schools to be considered as notable. J947 01:52, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support as long-term editor, I agree with others: let us keep the status quo, which has served us well. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:55, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per the arguments given above by other users. The simple fact that a school exists does not make it notable. The notability of some subject must be proved by multiple reliable sources, and most of schools will certainly fail this. The current situation when schools are considered by default notable is illogical, and some users are 'abusing' WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES by creating some kind of articles (e.g. about schools with some 100 students) which are inadmissible in an encyclopedia, IMO. Misplaced Pages is not a directory. XXN, 18:34, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• Informal Support for African Secondary schools, Oppose for other territories: Secondary schools are essentially not news-worthy in many climes. They also lack competitive drive due to thier non-profit nature, as least from my side of the world. Most of what makes other institutions get reguslar coverage in relaible sources doesn't really apply to secondary schools. I'm not saying all educational topics must have this special treatment on wiki but I am of the opinion that an exception should be created for universities and secondary schools, which are part of the standardized mechanism in formulating the educational being of any individual. We don't expect to find multiple significant coverage for Nigerian secondary schools before accomodating them here.

One of my projects in my second coming on Misplaced Pages was to increase the number of notable and popular secondary schools on Wiki. I noticed that out of about 10,000 sec schools in Lagos/Ogun axis, where I'm based, there were only about ten with wiki articles. This isn't too surprising when you note that less than 100 of this 10k can boast of an existing website. The way these schools operate and are structured, there will always be limited coverage. Nonetheless, I started creating articles on the most popular and notable, especially the public ones. I have created Lagos State Model College Badore,Federal Government Girls College, Ipetumodu, Lagos State Model College Kankon, Lagos State Junior Model College Kankon, Lagos State Model College Igbonla, Lagos State Model College Badore, Landmark University Secondary School, Lagos State Junior Model College Badore, Covenant University Secondary School, etc. One of my secondary school schools even got speedied twice and a COI tag wrongly placed on it. It was funny to me because the school in question is one that all Nigerians are familiar with, because it was used to act a national series of immense popularity some decades ago. You can verify my statement yourself, if you know any Nigerian who's less than 40 years, just ask him/her if he has heard of Binta International School, I'm 98% sure that his response will be yes. Or better-still, ask any Nigerian editor on Misplaced Pages, the response will be the same. I really got angry by the COI tag that was placed on the article. I think we need to be soft on African secondary schools as long as the information is verifiable.

I went through many of the oppose votes and I think the fear is that they don't want Misplaced Pages to get clumped up with thousands of poorly written articles, which is an understandable position. This is why I will only support for African articles, because I know that will never be the case for them. The Nigerian secondary schools with minimal online coverage are essentially notable enough for inclusion on Misplaced Pages. I'm voting for this to be an informal policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darreg (talk • contribs) 14:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose – Nothing has inherent notability, as it says in the WP:N guideline, and there is no good reason why secondary schools should be excepted from the usual practice. RGloucester — ☎ 19:01, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support in the sense that the default should be to keep if the sourcing is thin but otherwise valid and that the proper response to a stub-like article on a high school should be to search for ways to improve the article before assuming that the subject is non-notable. My reasoning is that rival online encyclopedias, such as the Norwegian SNL has articles on the various high schools in Norway. Hence at least one competing encyclopedia considers this class of subject worthy of comprehensive coverage, and we should strive to be at least as comprehensive as that. Of course, if the sourcing is nonexistent and directory type-information is all that's verifiable, then an independent article would be too short to be useful. The school's existence would be better covered in the article on the town that the school is in. Sjakkalle (Check!) 20:59, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Conditional support I am generally a supporter of SCHOOLOUTCOMES. The problem with SCHOOLOUTCOMES in my opinion is that editors at an AFD simply quote it with a rational such as Keep per SCHOOLOUTCOMES. or Keep due to longstanding consensus that secondary schools are notable. This is actually incorrect because schooloutcomes says that an article about a school is generally kept if 1. It is an independently accredited degree-awarding institution and 2. at least one independent source has been found to show that the school actually exists. Both these are important and the burden of proof (that the school exists and is accredited) lies on the editors arguing keep. Yet somehow this is often ignored at AFDs, which ultimately creates resentment. I personally am fine with SCHOOLOUTCOMES as I think that unlike companies, schools do not send out press releases and get them published in some churnalistic media. It is also one of the first articles often edited by students (and often serves as the defacto sandbox) and I would rather have them editing these school articles, than going around messing with other articles. Many secondary schools also have alumni associations and it is helpful to keep a list of notable people who have graduated from the school. As schools can also be considered a building with cultural significance, they may be notable if we apply WP:GEOFEAT. As such, I am in favour of the criteria in SCHOOLOUTCOMES, provided it is strictly followed. (The burden of proof needs to be on the editors arguing keep). --Lemongirl942 (talk) 06:54, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, and tighten the restriction to exclude reporting on school athletics as indicators of notability. Why? Because it fails WP:INDY. Due to the popularity of schools sports (especially in the US but also some other places), local newspapers have a very strong fiduciary interest in a thick stream of coverage of school sports for local entertianment purposes, and this coverage tell us precisely nothing about why the school, as an institution, might be notable in some way. Also exclude local reportage on faculty changes as indicators of notability of the institution or the faculty member. Maybe even just exclude local coverage, period. Very, very few high schools are actually notable; when they are it is usually for something incidental (a particular tragedy or scandal that happened there), not because of anything intrinsic about the institution. The vast majority of the articles on these things should be pruned to the essentials and merged into the parent articles about their school districts, just like we do with junior high and middle schools, and elementary schools.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  07:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Support First, the collective wisdom of many years of WP editors, along with long-standing common practice, supports turning this into a policy or established practice. Second, in the real world, secondary schools in the U.S. are no more notable than those in Nigeria, Syria, India, or Egypt. Some flexibility is needed here in order to deal with the reality on the ground. First Light (talk) 08:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Support We don't need gray areas. There is a certain crowd here who gets a thrill our of exploiting any weakness (usually an inexperienced editor) and in the darkness of AfD, fecklessly remove content that affects a lot of ordinary readers. If there is a source reporting the existence of a secondary school; then the discussion should end. I will also put in a reminder of WP:BEFORE. If there are no sources and it doesn't google, then have at it. Trackinfo (talk) 08:38, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

• I Support that schools which are at least secondary and senior secondary should have at least one mention in some third party reliable website. If such school has no mention anywhere then, it must be recognised by the government of that country and must be 25 years old. Nowadays school articles which have no third party independent sources and established in less than 4 years ago are kept as WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. However dance schools, play schools, day schools, kindergarten schools, cooking schools, handicrafts schools, martial arts schools, should pass WP:GNG, if they are not established by the government. Marvellous Spider-Man 11:17, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per WP:EXISTENCE, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:NOTDIRECTORY and WP:GNG. This has been a sore subject with me for a while. There are far too many schools that would never pass notability that have stub articles we can't get rid of because of this idiocy. My experience has failed to provide any evidence that secondary schools all have enough RS coverage to justify an automatic presumption of WP:N. The one and only support I have read above that does carry some weight is DGG's which is essentially an IAR argument based on convenience. I concede that if we scrap the presumptive notability there will be an uptick at AfD which already suffers from chronic lack of participation. However, a lot of the articles I am thinking of could be dispatched via CSD A7, though we would have to remove the prohibition on educational institutions from the template. Further I strongly support prohibiting WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES from being cited in school related AfD's. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per Ad Orientem, who pretty much said everything I was thinking. JudgeRM (talk to me) 19:48, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Comment. I've already registered my opposition above; I'm now simply looking to share two observations. First, I was curious as to how our opinions on this issue have evolved over the years. The earliest extant survey of community opinion appears to be the old "What's in; what's out" page. Prior to early 2006, this page collected comments on secondary schools and, immediately before being removed in May 2006, it had collected comments from 36 editors (as seen here). 16 of those editors called for the inclusion of all secondary schools, most by simply stating "In", but with a few who gave rationales that we today would recognize as assertions of "inherent notability". As for the other 20 editors, a few simply said "Out", but the majority were more nuanced. Their responses took the form of either "In, but only if ... " or "Out, unless ... ". The conditions specified by these nuanced comments sometimes were objective, but more often were not. The general notability guidelines did not yet exist back then, so nobody was citing them. But most of the nuanced votes were setting conditions that were consistent with WP:GNG, with some making arguments that today would be recognized as falling under WP:ROUTINE or WP:STANDALONE. To me, the most striking aspect of this old survey is that, after more than ten years of debate, we remain divided -- roughly 50/50 -- on the question.

I also looked at the evolution of the Outcomes page itself. After some minor adjustments in wording, the initial statement regarding schools was the one found here. This was expanded a bit in late 2007, to give detail regarding different types of schools (i.e., primary vs. secondary), as shown here. The big change took place in May 2009, with its changing of "in most cases being kept" to "being kept". The edit that made this change is here. Its edit summary cited this sparsely-attended discussion as the basis for making the change. That discussion was not the subject of an RfC and I could find no evidence that it was publicized anywhere other than on that Talk page. In early 2011, there was a brief attempt to declare "per se notability" for high schools, but there was an immediate objection and, in that day's flurry of edits (see here), something looking quite like the current version came into being.

These two observations show that there has never been a consensus on the treatment of secondary schools. At the very least, the Outcomes essay should be amended to reflect this fact. NewYorkActuary (talk) 20:17, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. The standard should be the demonstrated existence of sources showing the subject meets WP:GNG. No sources = no notability = no article. Lankiveil 05:03, 6 February 2017 (UTC).

• Enough – this survey makes it very clear that support and oppose are not very different in number, and that there is no consensus. Close the survey and change modes to collecting ideas for how to move forward, if at all. Dicklyon (talk) 05:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

See WP:NOTAVOTE. Looking over this discussion it is abundantly clear that the Oppose arguments are heavily based on policy and guidelines while the Supports are largely silent on that subject. The reviewing Admin is going to have to weigh the respective arguments and determine if the various retentionist arguments outweigh our guidelines and policy. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support, because the alternatives are far worse. Secondary schools are the backbone of many smaller cities, and thus primarily generate interest in their local community. They are unique among local organizations in that they receive far more coverage locally than any neighborhood shop or municipal governmental department, yet they rarely receive regional or national coverage. If we repeal the existing guidelines for school notability, I predict that editors favoring deletion will use WP:AUD to bar all the local sources from consideration and use WP:ORGDEPTH to discredit any of the national coverage, since any national coverage is likely only in response to a transient event. Proving the notability of a secondary school will become absurdly difficult. Given that our readers have a clear interest in secondary school articles, I do not support the massive timesink that will be needed to defend these articles from deletion. Altamel (talk) 18:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose for many reasons all listed above in previous Opposes. I see no reason to override normal notability standards for schools. MB 19:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, pretty much entirely because of WP:EXIST. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:09, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Process to consider

Working on the presumption that this may close in opposition, there is clearly a concern about the status quo of school articles. As part of the consideration here, I would suggest that if this does close this way, that all existing secondary school articles should at least be kept and there should not be a rush of mass deletions per WP:FAITACCOMPLI to remove them. However, fair AFD challenges can be held, recognizing that OUTCOMES no longer is supported here. Where possible, editors should be encouraged to merge info about secondary schools into articles on the notable city/town/school system and redirects left behind, avoiding the AFD process and keeping past contributions. This avoids any aggressive, disruptive approach if this should as suggested and alleviate fears that thousands of articles will suddenly be sent to the void. It will take a case-by-case review of each to determine what should be done, in such cases, and that will take many man-months of evaluation. --MASEM (t) 17:51, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Given that the current 'vote' is 13:11 in favour of oppose, I would have to say I would hope that would be closed as "No consensus" rather than oppose, if it was closed just now. Having said that, I do agree that any change to consensus here, should not result in mass deletions. Rather, it should result in the development of a guideline, which may or may not result in deletions. CalzGuy (talk) 18:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not saying it will close "oppose", but I think we do need to broadly address the concerns of those !voting "support" that worry what would become of the articles that already exist. I think it is necessary to address what should or should not happen should "oppose" be the result as to alleviate some of those "support" concerns. By no means am I saying this RFC is done and over with. --MASEM (t) 18:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

@Masem: I'm wiling to start a guide on how to improve high school students to ensure that those that already exist can be developed as well as they can be. I've written many high school articles, mostly in North America but some also for international private and state-operated schools around the world. I actually encouraged Chinese university students in a workshop to start writing about their high schools, and this is a way to get Misplaced Pages to grow. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Echoing CalzGuy on it currently trending "no consensus". Regardless of how this RfC closes, even if it closes as support, I think SCHOOLOUTCOMES is no longer workable, and there will need to be further discussion on how exactly to implement the consensus here, or in the case of a no consensus close, to try to arrive at a guideline for schools that can achieve broad community support. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• I agree that there will probably have to be further discussion about where to go next, whichever way the RfC closes, but it's still early days - I can see this one running for a while. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• ? If this is voted down, it will just be another proposal not included in the guidelines. One does not make a consensus by people not voting for something, they make a consensus getting people to vote in favor of something. It will be as it always has been, the edge cases will sometimes get fought about, and the schooloutcomes out so that fights don't have to happen over and over again will be generally followed for the rest. The schooloutcomes thoughts and what gave rise to it are not going to magically disappear. The reasonable improvement from present would be to have a school sng: eg. 25 years, 500 students, acreditation, reference in such and such sources, etc., etc. but obviously that depends on someone really working on it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • The way this is being presented, if it passes with Support, then what is at SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be codified better at WP:NORG ("All verified-existing secondary schools are presumed notable"), removing the language at SCHOOLOUTCOMES as duplicative at least with respect to secondary schools. If this passes with Oppose, then the language at SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be changed to reflect that secondary schools are not presumed notable just by sheer existence. --MASEM (t) 19:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  I would go farther and say if this is no consensus SCHOOLOUTCOMES as something that can be referenced in AfD is in shambles, and there would probably need to be more work done on crafting a guideline that could get community consensus on schools. SCHOOLOUTCOMES has the somewhat weird place in AfD because the idea is that it represents a longstanding community consensus on schools. Anything short of a support close here would be a rejection of that idea. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:09, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  This RfC has already attracted far more comments than the average school AfD, so if consensus either way is reached here, then I would argue that it is more representative of the community's views than any assessment of AfD closes would be. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  No. Schooloutcomes is, as the name says, about outcomes, the only way to change that is actually have mass deletions at afd. (and really, no matter how many comment, you don't get a backdoor consensus by finding no consensus or opposition on specific wording of a new guideline, no one has ever proposed before, and never bothered to refine.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:17, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  Key is that SCHOOLOUTCOMES is an essay, and it has been used (or misused, depending on one's POV) at AFD to keep articles on schools as the sole argument. It's working on a catch-22 approach: "keep this article on a school because school articles are routinely kept", and allowing those AFDs to close without any attempt to show actual notability or additional sourcing. This RFC seems to be stating do we actually bite the bullet and say that secondary schools should be presumed notable and eliminate the catch-22 , or do we say they are not and eliminate the catch-22 the other way. And as Tony points out above, even a "no consensus" should lead to discussion about what to do about the catch-22 problem. --MASEM (t) 20:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  That's not a Catch-22, even if that word was not overly dramatic, it is another beloved bugbear of Misplaced Pages, 'consistency', and sure we generally really want to be consistent - to treat like, like - because that is a basis for being neutral and fair (until we are not). You do get a chance to discuss it every-time at Afd, but Afd like every process looks for both a consistent application, and the reduction of transaction costs (eg., don't have lengthy fights about the same thing, again and again). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  But that creates the problem emphasized by the two linked AFDs: resting the argument against the deletion on an essay that describes a practice as to maintain that practice is a self-fulfilling cycle. The closures of the AFDs and the subsequent discussion show it is time to either cement that practice in notability guidelines or get rid of it as to break the cycle. --MASEM (t) 21:17, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

  SCHOOLOUTCOMES has a bunch of other uses, including suppressing the addition/supporting the deletion-or-merge of numerous primary/elementary school articles. We need to ensure that this continues to be the case, whatever the outcome here. CalzGuy (talk) 20:16, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Good luck with that. The grand compromise between deletionism and inclusioniam would be flushed, the SCHOOLOUTCOMES essay reduced to nothing. Deletionists might think they're "upholding standards" and eliminating a bunch of really terrible articles about high schools from India, but what they are actually doing is opening up the floodgates for about 100,000 American and English elementary schools to have vapid fluff pieces with news about Mrs. Finley the principal and what is served for lunch on Fridays. You think I joke. Carrite (talk) 15:15, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

If SCHOOLOUTCOMES were to be eliminated, notability of schools would default to WP:NORG, and key in there is WP:AUD "On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, statewide, provincial, national, or international source is necessary." Now, we'd have to be careful ("This school is acredited by the state's board, so there's your one statewide source!"), the implication is that this should be a secondary source, not primary. But we have the language in place to prevent a flood of primary schools from being created because of that. --MASEM (t) 15:18, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: We can't get hung up on degree/diploma awarding as it is uncommon in many countries for secondary schools (attended by pupils aged 12-18 or some subset) to award documents like those. Stifle (talk) 14:38, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: Supporting SCHOOLOUTCOMES only because we're scared of the amount of work that would suddenly pop up if it is abolished doesn't make sense. Setting up a separate stream for such deletion discussions, so as not to block up the "normal" AFD stream is trivially easy. It will do no harm if we take months, or even a year or longer, to clear out school pages that might no longer qualify for inclusion. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:21, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Spoken like somebody that doesn't spend a lot of time at AfD. Carrite (talk) 15:18, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment About two years ago, the notability requirements for planets was readjusted, which resulted in hundreds if not thousands of planet articles being nominated for deletion. I was working at AfD at the time, and can attest that going through all of these deletions was a bloody nightmare. However, the majority of the planet articles were non-controversial redirects since they lacked any coverage in reliable sources (or at least beyond a few trivial mentions that confirmed the existence of the planets). This meant that non-admins such as myself were able to substantially help with the workload. With secondary schools, I highly doubt this will occur. At least in the United States, high schools get tons of coverage at the city, township and county level. However, most also receive at least some coverage (of debatable worth) from sources at the state and federal level. There are going to be very few non-controversial AfDs, and the burden of closing them will fall on the admins. WP: AfD will likely be completely and utterly clogged for the foreseeable future if this discussion does not reaffirm the current consensus regarding secondary schools. (I’m not exaggerating here- we have articles on over one-hundred public high schools in the state of Iowa alone, which is roughly the twentieth least populated state in the US). Given this, I believe that some concrete steps need to be taken to keep wp:AfD functional. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the AfD process would probably be flooded with AfDs should this not close as support initially, but I also think Masem has a point that WP:FAITACCOMPLI does exist. The issue is how to deal with editors who would likely make WP:POINTy nominations afterwards (I have no one in particular in mind here, just a gut feeling.) I'm not sure what the best practical way to prevent that is if the RfC closes NC or oppose, but I also feel that the sheer volume of work that it would take for people to nominate a ton of schools would keep people at bay for a while, especially since I doubt this will close as outright oppose at this time (but who knows, I could be wrong and we have plenty of time left in the RfC.) TonyBallioni (talk) 00:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

As I said above, to my eyes, the primary issue regarding a lot of primary and secondary schools is probably not so much their notability as such, but whether there is really enough encyclopedic content to merit a separate article. In cases like this one, I think that there actually are probably quite a few relevant reference works relating to the topic, and they would, I think, probably be the best indicators of how we should proceed here. The primary question there being what content to have in articles on specific institutions, and what content to have in school districts, or similar bodies, and how much really encyclopedic content that leaves over for separate articles on specific schools in those bodies. Now, I myself wouldn't necessarily have any real objections to, for instance, articles on schools of any level, primary or higher, which seem to be one of the few or only schools (either at that level or higher) operated by a specific entity, like a church. But how to deal with content on specific schools as opposed to their governing bodies, where such include several similar schools, is another matter entirely. John Carter (talk) 21:11, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I would like to see some alternative policy to schooloutcomes created. I know for a fact that there are many secondary schools that there is a lot of encyclopedic things to say about, but that would probably end up at AfD is no replacement policy existed. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 07:03, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment about closing - We're still a ways from the 30-day mark, but when the time comes what do people think about requesting a team of three uninvolved editors/admins to work together on the close, as is done from time to time on highly contentious matters. This is something that's come up so many times, and so often, and with so much history that it may be useful. Numerically, at time of writing, it's just about even between support and oppose, which may mean no consensus, but there are nuances, qualifications, interpretations, etc. that suggest something may come out of it. — Rhododendrites \\ 15:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Seconding. The notability of secondary schools has been a highly debated topic on Misplaced Pages, and there is a lot of nuance within the discussion that needs to be accounted for. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 21:05, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd also support that. SCHOOLOUTCOMES is aprox. a decade old, and anything that would change it in one way or the other would have a huge impact. Having a team of uninvolved closers seems ideal. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:13, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd support that approach too. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:34, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Done. — Rhododendrites \\ 20:42, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• Comment As I suggested earlier, I don't think there should be any outcome from this RFC other than a Nc close, as I think that, with all due respect to the OP, it asked the wrong question. We need an RFC that asks the right question, actually a positive change from observational essay to an agreed policy or guideline. The oppose camp see SCHOOLOUTCOMES as a pseudo-guideline being used to prop up non-notable additions to the project, while supporters see it as a description of the actualité of AFD. It would be much better to define what SHOULD happen at AFD rather than describe what HAS happened previously CalzGuy (talk) 07:14, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

That's what this RFC was intended to do, by posing the question if secondary schools were notable, which was what the various no consensus AfDs seemed to be disagreeing on. The argument from the keeps traditionally being that SCHOOLOUTCOMES has long established that schools were notable and the deletes being that proof of meeting GNG or WP:ORG was required in the moment. This RfC was intended to resolve that by asking the most basic neutral question possible. If it closes NC or oppose, I agree that more work will need to be done on a new guideline, but I think the reasoning behind this RfC was sound and that it was the right question to ask. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

The RFC is a single question to do with notability of secondary schools. There is much more required to be covered, and agreed, if a guideline (policy is probably OTT) is to come into play. For instance, there be nuances of geography, or of age of pupils, or of age of schools. Is a school notable if the building in which it is housed is notable? What about elementary/primary schools? What about all-through schools. This RFC is only about a single aspect of the whole. The discussion needs to be widened. CalzGuy (talk) 16:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

If the RfC does close anyway other than the affirmative, then yes, you are right. The point is that it wasn't entirely clear before this started that something more than a "yes or no" was needed here. All the advice provided was for a narrowly construed RfC which is why it was framed this way. If this is closed in a way other than "support" the closing statement and this RfC will be able to serve as a starting point for a future discussion and will allow those of us who want to take part in drafting it to consider points that I don't think would have been considered if this RfC did exist. Personally, I think a wider RfC would have been even more likely to lead to a NC close than this one if there was not a more narrowly construed comment period first. tl;dr: You're right moving forward if this doesn't close support, but I still think this was the right starting point. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

A 'No consensus' close will leave the status quo as is. It will be no different from a Support close because that's where we are just now. CalzGuy (talk) 06:33, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

We normally determine no consensus based on whether or not there is consensus,regardless of where it may happen to lead. Ay way, I think there is very clear consensus, far outreaching the result here--essentially no high school afd where the school clearly had real existence and was clearly a high school has closed as delete for lack of notability in the last 5 or 6 years. The argument that we must have sourcing for verifiability is of course valid as far as the verification of the facts in the article is concerned, but that's irrelevant, for meeting WP:V is a good deal less than the specific types of sourcing that shows notability. DGG ( talk ) 00:28, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Multi-part RFC on Misplaced Pages:Recent years

Background: Recent Years is a set of editing guidelines for articles on events of global significance for an entire year, for example 2014. It is not binding on any other subset of articles pertaining to years that are not recent, such as 1865, or articles about certain subjects in a given year such as 2011 in Australian television, or 2011 in film and so forth. Recent years guidelines are not used as inclusion criteria for content anywhere else on Misplaced Pages, including the main page.

The issue this RFC aims to address is the fact that these guidelines were put into place and are maintained by a very small group of users, and indeed many if not most Wikipedians may not be aware of them at all, unless they try to insert material into an article on a given year (usually the current one) and suddenly find themselves faced with a number of new rules they never knew existed, being enforced by a small group of users who specialize in this area. Policy decisions in this area are sometimes made by as little as two or three users. It appears that the decision to make it an official editing guideline was made by a single user.

This is not intended to suggest that these users have been acting in bad faith, they have worked tirelessly to uphold what rules they have in an area of Misplaced Pages that seems to suffer from a lack of broad particpation. Constantly dealing with the same isssues day after day, year after year with little to no support or interest from the broader community can be understably frustrating.

For an idea of what these conversations are like and how many of them there are, see the talk page of any article on a year between 2002 and 2017.

Therefore, this RFC will attempt to mitigate some of these issues by calling for broader input on the rules used in recent years articles in order to make it apparent if the community at large supports them or not. Discussion will include the scope of the guideline, tools for improving awareness of it, and a review of some of the specifc points included in it, as well as the question of whether it should be a guideline at all.

21:45, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Please only edit in the discussion sections and leave the proposal/question sections undisturbed. Bolded !votes should be accompanied by an explanation of the reasoning behind them, and threaded discussion is welcome in all discussion sections.

Scope of recent years guidelines

This has been discussed several times on the talk page of the guideline, but due to low participation a consensus is not clear and there is no set definition of what qualifies as a recent year. Should the scope be limited to:

• 2002 (the year after Misplaced Pages was founded) and onward (status quo at the moment)
• The most recent ten years
• The most recent 20 years, beginning with 2002 for now but moving each year after 2022
• Some other standard

Discussion of scope of recent year guidelines

• I personally think that the ten most recent years is a reasonable and manageable scope for these guidelines. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• twenty years max ten years min I tend to consider anything older than 20 years history rather than recent events. I think having it apply to anything older than that is too broad. Likewise, anything in the last 10 years is pretty solidly "recent". Reasonable people will disagree about exactly where the cutoff should be, but I'd be in favor of any proposal within that range. Wugapodes 01:04, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• 2002, but guideline should no longer be called "recent" years. It was "recent" when first proposed in 2009. Some guideline is appropriate for all years, and I believe the start year should be constant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:22, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Scope:future years

Misplaced Pages already has articles for every year in this cenury, all the way up to 2099. Given that these will all one day come under the recent years guidelines as time marches on, should articles on future years be subject to the recent years guidelines? If so, how far into the future should the guidelines be applicable?

Discussion of scope:future years

• I'm not sure I really have a strong opinion on this, but I do believe it may be wise to have a seperate discussion on the issue of the usefullnes of articles about events that may or may not be relevant 73 years from now. Seems like a case of WP:TOOSOON to have articles at all on years more than 5-10 years into the future. That being the case I suppose that whatever we decide the scope is for the past could project forward into the futre as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
• I tend to agree that we shouldn't have articles for years more than 10 years into the future; until a few weeks ago, there weren't articles for years more than 50 years in the future; until a few days ago, 70 years. But I think the guideline should extend as far as we have year articles.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

When this is concluded I plan to open another discussion specifically on these articles, it seems a little nuts to have "predicted events" of little to no consequence that may or may not occur 75 years from now. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this needs its own discussion/RfC - many of these future year articles have no references whatsoever, and per WP:TOOSOON and WP:V they might need to be deleted at this point in time. And anyway, I agree it seems absolutely bizarre to have them. Triptothecottage (talk) 03:45, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree: a discussion needs to happen. There simply isn't enough reliable information about events beyond 10 years into the future to justify creating an article, & creating one beyond then is just too tempting for someone looking for an easy way to up their editcount. -- llywrch (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Recent years category/edit notice

Currently, the only tool in use for identifying articles within the scope of the recent years guidelines and advising users of the existence of said guideline is {{Recent years}}, a talk page template advising users of the existence of these guidelines and advising them to read them before adding anything. There does not appear to be a category or a standard edit notice to better organize these articles and better inform users of these specialized guidelines.

Shoud a category for identifying and organizing these articles be created? Should there be a standard edit notice attached to all articles bound by the recent years guidelines so that users who do not check the talk page first will still receive notification of these specialized guidelines? If technically possible, should all three be linked so that adding the notice to the talk page automatically adds the article to the category and generates the edit notice?

Discussion of Recent years category/edit notice

• A category seems rather obvious. It would only need to be updated once a year so it would be exceptionally easy to maintain. If the mechanism that would automatically link all three things is technically possible that would be helpful as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• I think it should be a maintenance category, since readers wouldn't find our organization by applicable policies too useful. I think an edit notice would be useful, but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. If there is consensus, I'd support automation. Wugapodes 01:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The "three continent rule" for events

Current wording:

New events added must receive independent news reporting from three continents on the event. This is a minimum requirement for inclusion. Events which are not cited at all, or are not Wikilinked to an article devoted to the event, may be removed.

Should this rule be continued to be used as the minimum threshold for inclusion of an event in a recent year article? Is there a better metric that might be used?

Discussion of the "three continent rule" for events

• I think continents are a poor indicator for evaluating global relevance: something covered in the US, UK, and Australia alone would qualify. Number of countries might be a better indicator, though I'm not sure if it's the best. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
• I think it can be improved, but I'm in favor of keeping it until a solid improvement is proposed. I don't see the US, UK, and Aus example as a problem: coverage in all three shows that it's internationally notable for the anglophone world (which is what enwiki primarily serves). Going off number of countries would really privilege regional coverage over truly global coverage since countries close to each other will probably report on each other, and those should go in regional articles like 2004 in Europe. Wugapodes 01:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Needs to be some proxy for international significance; possibly, an item which belongs in a regional article shouldn't be here. I'm afraid that would be subjective, and probably subject to as the current regime as argument. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:51, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

"Ten languages rule" for births and deaths

The current rule for inclusion for births and deaths of notable persons are as follows:

Births:

Births are only to be included if there are Misplaced Pages articles in English and at least nine non-English languages about the individual in question.

Deaths:

The same criteria apply to deaths as to births, with the addition that the number of non-English Misplaced Pages articles is taken at the time of the person's death. Persons whose notability is due to circumstance rather than actual achievement (e.g. oldest person in the world or last surviving person of ) do not meet the basic requirement for inclusion.

Should these continue to be the minimum standards for the inclusion of births and deaths in recent years articles? Is there a better metric that might be used?

Discussion of the "ten languages rule" for births and deaths

• I think the inclusion criteria for Births and Deaths might be a little too high; I understand that it is intended to counter systemic bias (in past years, Births and Deaths sections were overwhelmingly filled with people from the Anglosphere or Europe; some of whom had no interwiki links at all), but I fear that in the process it might actually enhance systemic bias, since I presume in many cases people from the Anglosphere or Europe would have more articles about them in other Wikipedias than those from non-Anglophone or non-European countries. How about lowering the requirement: instead of at least nine interwiki links, how about lowering the required number to five or six? I would agree with the current guideline provided that it should apply to people from the Anglosphere, but more leniency should probably be given (maybe on a case-by-case basis) to people from non-Anglosphere countries (i.e. China, Japan, Brazil, Kenya, etc.) Narutolovehinata5 16:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
• What if we used similar standards as events? Rather than interwiki links, it's based on how international the coverage is. Or combine the two? The death is reported on in at least three countries/continents and has at least X interwiki links. Perhaps 3 so that significant figures in developing countries whose wiki may not be very robust can still be included if they're notable enough for inclusion in, for example, English, German, and French wikipedias. Wugapodes 01:38, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• I think the criteria may be too lenient.... The "three continent rule" has been subject to debate before. The existing rule is objective. Still, a feel for what difference there would be for different options would be helpful in weighing alternatives. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
• Lacking a better (more objective and/or easier-to-use) rule, I believe it is good enough, eventhough it's self-referencing in a way. Looking at the number of people included in the past few years, it could even be moved up a notch or two (i. e. 10 or 11 interwikis). — Yerpo 08:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
• Silly criteria - many well known people only have articles written after they die in a language other than that native to the person. And does the mere existence of some stub in some other language elevate the otherwise locally known to worldwide known. Most other language WP's have similar notability criteria to the English language one. So putting "Joe Blow was an Olympic participant" or "Joe Blow was a professional <sport> player" or "Joe Blow was a member of the legislative assembly of state/province" translated into French, Spanish, German, Scots, Simple, and whatever Google translate would spit out, with a citation to something to show notability, on 9 other sites achieves instant qualification. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Recent years as an editing guideline

The Recent years page was created on January 5, 2009. After some discussion between about five users on the talk page, it was moved into project space and marked as an editing guideline one week later. This does not appear to conform to the usual process for elevating advice or essays to the status of editing guidelines. However, it has been used and basically accepted as the standard for articles on recent years since that time.

Should Recent years continue to be marked as an official guideline, relegated to essay status, or promoted to a policy?

Discusion of Misplaced Pages:Recent years as an editing guideline

• While I think more initial input would have been desirable, this has been used as an editing guideline for nearly eight years, so it should probably remain one regardless of how it got there int he first place, with tweaks as needed. Hopefully this discussion will attract more users to this area and consensus will be easier to determine in the future. vBeeblebrox (talk) 00:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
• There seems to be debate as to whether it should be considered more than a WikiProject essay. I think it should be a guideline, but I believe there would be pushback if it were made a guideline unless considered now to be an essay and promoted to guideline. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

General discussion of recent years guideline

Please leave any comments that do not fit in any of the above sections here.

• I have a general question about this because I'm not at all familiar with the area - why do we have guidelines for recent years, but not year articles generally? It seems that these guidelines should cover all years, but perhaps there's a good reason for limiting them to "recent" years. Sam Walton (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

  This is because events, deaths etc are often added as soon as they have happened. As such the guidelines for Recent Years need to be more strict than Years in general. In fact, the guidelines for WP:YEARS are often either vague or non-existent making them virtually useless for Recent Years. DerbyCountyinNZ 23:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

  Given that WP:YEARS is a WikiProject, not a guideline, it strikes me that it might be useful to turn WP:RECENTYEARS into a guideline on year articles generally, with a stricter section on recent years if appropriate. Looking through the existing guideline it seems sensible enough to to apply at least most of it to all year articles. Sam Walton (talk) 23:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that extending WP:RY to cover WP:YEARS is within the scope of this discussion but the main difference which would make this problematic is that the older the event or death the less likely the probability that it will be covered in readily available online resources. Coverage of Deaths in particular is skewed by recentism which would mean that a sliding scale would be needed to make the criteria work for earlier years. DerbyCountyinNZ 04:31, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  @DerbyCountyinNZ: Well I'd support more relaxed restrictions for less recent years, or years before a certain date (2000? 1900?), but I'm still not convinced that most of the points, or at least the structure of most of the points (with more relaxed criteria), couldn't apply to all year articles. Sam Walton (talk) 01:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  Agreed, they could. But this possibility needs to be advised to as many associated projects as possible because the cynic in me expects considerable pushback. DerbyCountyinNZ 01:53, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  I expect pushback on even recent years. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  Following up on Sam's point, I think it would be more helpful to have a general years guideline, and make the recent years guideline apply to the current year only (with perhaps some buffer room a la WP:BDP, so 2017 is covered by the policy starting December 2016 and 2016 is covered until the end of January 2017). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:33, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  I think a general years guideline would be a good thing to develop, but I think the recent years guideline fills a niche. Most things included at 1180 would not satisfy any of the criteria we're discussing here, while if we used the same inclusion criteria for 1180 at 2006 we'd have a terabyte long page. Wugapodes 01:44, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

• Also, I discussed this in a WikiProject talk page years ago but the discussion went nowhere, so I'm raising this up again: what about persons with no publicly-known years of birth? A person keeping their age a secret from the public is fairly common in Japan, as well as among lesser-known celebrities in the United States. If the person is notable and meets the inclusion criteria for Births and/or Deaths, should they still be listed in date articles? For reference, this is currently being done in the Chinese, Italian, and Japanese Wikipedias. Narutolovehinata5 16:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  My initial reaction is no, this would fail WP:V. Or perhaps you could show me an example of it being done, as I could be convinced if I saw it in practice? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

  @King of Hearts: For example, take a look at ja:2月13日#誕生日. Narutolovehinata5 00:26, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

  I'm guessing you're talking about the 生年不明 - 川田まみ、I've歌手 entry at the bottom of that section? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

  @Nihonjoe: Sorry about the late reply, but yes. Narutolovehinata5 07:01, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

  Oh, that's fine - but I thought we were discussing year articles only, not dates? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, I raised it here to see if the topic will get more discussion, as I had previously raised it in the WikiProject talk page but the discussion went nowhere. Narutolovehinata5 00:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

• I don't know quite what to do here, the idea was to get more users to comment on these things so we can say we have a consnesus one way or the other, but hardly anyone is participating. I put here instead of at RY itself and listed it at WP:CENT. That's about all I can think of, it's possible people don't want to bother getting up to speed on on what RY even is and are therefore just not bothering. Hopefully if this is here for a while it will get some more interest. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:19, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• Either I wasn't aware that this guideline existed, or I might have but forgotten it for a long time. Either a navigational template or a sidebox template is needed to help people surf to the guideline. What about Template:Guideline list and/or Template:Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines? At least I can use category pages to browse guidelines. --George Ho (talk) 08:04, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Give anonymous IPs equal treatment

As above, just because I choose not to create an account, I shouldn't be restricted from editing some pages. Who's with me on this?!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.198.247 (talk • contribs)

Nobody. Too many unwelcome, disruptive edits are made by unregistered editors, unfortunately. There is a lot you can do, though. See this essay for an explanation of the very few ways in which IP editors are limited in their editing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:24, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Implying that unwelcome and disruptive edits cannot be made by registered editors. Wow. Just wow. 128.227.125.70 (talk) 18:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Not really, we block registered users all day, every day. The problem is that when disruption is coming from an IP user, in many cases blocking is not an effective detterent because they can simply reset their device and do it again from a different IP. That's why protection is used, and in many cases it also prevents newly registered user from editing as well. I suggest you read up on the protection policy and observe the recent trends, which show the community is in favor of more forms of protection, not less, and come back when you have a serious, concrete proposal as this obviously isn't going to accomplish anything. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

128.227.125.70: There is no such implication in my post above. The words say what they say and no more. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:38, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Statistics show that while close to 80% of anonymous edits are non-vandalism; they also show that nearly 80% of all vandalism is done by anonymous users. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

@Od Mishehu:, without indication of the fraction of edits made by IPs, or the fraction of vandalism made by logged in editors, these numbers are irrelevant. If eventually, (only) 70% of logged edits ware non-vandalism, or 90% (anything above 80%) of all edits were made by anonymous users, then anonymous users would be more reliable. I presume that is not the case, I have not searched for the stats, and I would be not surprised at all if logged in user are much more reliable (I mean, non-vandal) than anonymous. But I am pointing that your stats are incomplete and as they stand they do not prove anything. long time ago I had to solve the following problem (more or less). In a given planet there two races: blue and green; and each person is either poor or rich. 70% of the rich are blue and 70% of the blue are rich. Does this prove that the blue race is favoured over the green race? (the answer is: no :-) - Nabla (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I am with you! It is not fair. My IP address has been blocked before, and I think its unfair. 71.6.6.210 (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

1. Blocking is hardly limited to unregistered users. 2. 99.9999% of blocked users feel their blocks were unfair (including me), so you're hardly unusual in that respect. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:59, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Why create an account?. The choice is yours. Countless editors have registered, and I know of very few who have later regretted doing so. Many, many of us strongly feel that unregistered editing is a net negative for the project, so count yourself lucky to have the choice. For example, only one of many, I've spent a good part of the last three days trying to communicate with an unregistered user who keeps making good-faith but incorrect edits to a wide range of articles. The problem is that their IP address changes several times a day, and this is beyond their control. By the time I can get a note posted on their talk page, it's no longer their talk page. Constantly spending valuable time dealing with things like this is highly frustrating, considering that it could be so easily avoided. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:05, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

By the way, you're not as "anonymous" as you believe. I'm fairly sure you are somewhere in the southern half of the island of Great Britain. 128.227.125.70 is in the Gainesville, Florida area, 71.6.6.210 in the San Jose, California area. Do you know anything about where I am? And it would be fairly easy to launch denial-of-service attacks or other types of mayhem against any of you, but far more difficult against me. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:25, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Yep. The argument that editing from an IP is somehow more anonymous is nonsense. It is unfortunate that good faith users get blocked when their IP is blocked because of somebody else, but they can permanently avoid that by registering an account. It's a choice, you made it, live with it. Misplaced Pages is pretty much the only user-generated website that does not require you to register an account to contribute. Try using Facebook as an IP, see how that works out for you. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:14, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

• A more concrete proposal might be "give this IP or subnet confirmed access because ...." Unless the "because" contained a very good reason why the person could not register the account AND a very good reason to believe the IP address or subnet was controlled by a single individual, expect it to go nowhere. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:33, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
• Equal does not necessarily mean the same. An account should only be used by one person, once we are sure that person is a vandal we block the account indefinitely. IP addresses are not unique to a person, they may involve different people at the same time or over a period of time; so when we learn that an IP address is currently in use by a vandal we usually only block temporarily. An established account can be used to edit some high risk pages that Ips and newbies can't edit, but the more established and experienced your account the less tolerance there is for newbie mistakes. ϢereSpielChequers 14:48, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
• Tell ya what, IPs — if you can figure out a way to have the same IP number pop up every single time you edit and never edit WP using another IP number as a de facto alternate account, I'll be on board for full rights for IP editors. Failing that, you're merely unleashing a multitude of socks on the project with the misplaced blessing of a few deep thinkers at WMF and in the WP hierarchy... Carrite (talk) 02:45, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, IPs should not be allowed to edit Misplaced Pages at all, if someone is serious editor she will create an account. Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση 2001 (talk) 21:37, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Two new proposals

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Creation of material at offensive titles is a big problem. After studying Special:ProtectedTitles, I've created two policy proposals about creation protection of those titles: Misplaced Pages:1SHOT and Misplaced Pages:Preemptive salting.

The first proposal covers creation protection of pages with offensive titles if one of two criteria apply.

The second proposal covers creation protection of project namespace pages. More precisely, it covers creation protection of sockpuppet investigations or long-term abuse logs of administrators, deletion discussions of policies critical to Misplaced Pages being an encyclopedia, or deletion discussions of featured or good articles.

If my proposals were accepted, Misplaced Pages will have less vandalism and attack pages. Luis150902 (talk | contribs) 21:37, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

• I'm unclear fromt he way you have done this where you want to discuss these, so I guess here?

The 1SHOT proposal is not needed, such matters are already within the realm of administrative discretion.

The preemptive salting proposal is a hot mess and is DOA, I can assure you of that. It's poorly thought out and flies in the face of numerous long-established policies. Breaking them down point by point:

Points 1&2:Admins are not and should not be a protected class with special rules. Admins have totally been caught socking before. If someone is creating spurious pages attacking specific admins we delete the pages and block the user.

Point 3 solves a problem that doesn't exist, or at least is so vanishingly small that we don't need a specific rule for it

Point 4 is far too subjective and rules out the possibility that the anyone can try and convince the community to change its mind as well as solving a problem that doesn't exist or is insignificant enough not to merit a specifc rule.

Beeblebrox (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

• I don't see any benefit to this. Some high quality pages were originally attack pages, got deleted, and someone else made them legitimately. And I agree with Beeblebrox on the issue of Admins getting special treatment. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 22:54, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
• What's the motivation for this? You'll need to provide some evidence that this is a "big problem" before these proposals will receive any support. Sam Walton (talk) 22:55, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. Protection can already be applied as needed based on admin discretion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:44, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I will advise you to withdraw, as almost all pre-emptive protection cases end in snow close, and, from my recollection, the one that got anywhere near positive s-o ratio got shut down by WMF. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose - I disagree that offensive titles are a huge problem. We have occasional vandals that make ridiculous titles but largely offensive article titles are not an issue and those that are tend to be handled swiftly, as is the case with most salted articles. Chrissymad ❯❯❯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 03:18, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - One thing we don't want to do is create a list of offensive titles; SALTing them does just that. What we should do when such pages are created is add appropriate entries to MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. As to the second: Unless youcan show a significant' amount of disruption of this type, I see no reason to preemptively SALT them. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:05, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
• Nope nope nopity nope. We already regularly deal with attack pages and admins have sufficient clue to know under what circumstances to salt them. The preemptive salting/blacklisting is not appropriate for several reasons, first it is a solution in search of a problem - see my prior point. Second admins sometimes sock, we had one desysopped and blocked for just that a couple of months ago. Third, who is going to define offensive? - ex. Pussy Riot who would have thought that would be a legitimate article until is was? - Even if it could be defined we would eat up all of our disk space (or CPU using regex) W!tH A// 0v de PoSsiBle titles. Jbh 15:05, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

  Well... Pussy Riot is supposed to be (mildly) offensive. That is the point :-) Nabla (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

• wrong place (so, no). This kind of issues are already covered on wp:Protection policy » Creation protection. We may always improve the existing policy, but these may already be done when the need arises. Anyway, you're welcome in trying to improve. Nabla (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikiproject's and admins

Is it appropriate for a wikiproject member to post on a wikiproject's TP asking for admin involvement on a related article's TP? Considering the most likely admin to see the request will also be a member of that project, it doesn't seem completely above-board. Primergrey (talk) 03:14, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

While there is a risk that an WP:INVOLVED admin might see the note and take admin action, it's not a large one: Just because you are INVOLVED in a WikiProject doesn't mean you are INVOLVED in every article that is under the auspices of that project. I think we can trust admins to know when they are INVOLVED and abstain. For example, if I were an admin and I was INVOLVED in WP:WikiProject Biography, by your logic, I should never take any administrative action on any biographical article. That is simply incorrect. We don't need to add more rules for admins, the existing rules and procedures for handling violations is adequate. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:49, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Pretty much that, INVOLVED is the relevant policy, but without context this question can't really be answered. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:50, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

By my logic? I am familiar with INVOLVED, as you obviously are with involved (the word). I never asked the question that you appear to be answering. I'm simply concerned about a request for admin intervention on a project page instead of at AN. If for no other reason than the optics of it. Nothing to do with where admins can or cannot act. Thanks for the condescending reply, though. Primergrey (talk) 05:51, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Admins in the WikiProject are more likely to undeerstand the issues in volvedwith th at WikiProject. That may be a areason to ask on a WikiProject talk page, in sttead of AN. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:09, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

It is unlikely to be problematic if the request is neutrally worded... "Edit warring is occurring at Article X. Some admin intervention would be appreciated" is fine, "User XXX is ruining our projects articles, we need editors to revert the additions and kill the suggestions on the talk page, and an admin should block him" is (at best) not an appropriate posting. EdChem (talk) 09:16, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

It's definitely not appropriate to canvass involved admins from a wikiproject to act as enforcers of the wikiproject's preferences at articles they claim "scope" over. Without getting into details and scraping scabs off of mostly-healed wounds, I have to note that as recently as 2014, one wikiproject was using "pet" admins to run what amounted to its own private anti-WP:RM process, speedily mass-moving articles to comply with the wikiproject's preferences and against site-wide guidelines about such titles, and bypassing all "outsider" opportunity to have any input. This activity was eventually stopped, but only after a drawn-out RfC (which focused on the underlying title formatting question, not the admin behavior, so to this date the admin behavior actually remains unaddressed).

We don't need any more "we're just going to get our own private admin mercenary force to deal with you" behavior out of insular, WP:OWN-ish wikiprojects.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  07:05, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Alternative facts

I may as well ask, because it's going to come up at some point, but how should Misplaced Pages deal with deliberate misinformation from the Trump administration? WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE seem to be good first defences but if some sections of the media pick up on certain "facts" and they become a significant or even dominant version of the truth then it seems that WP:DUE and WP:VERIFIABILITY could make editors complicit in spreading misinformation. With some things such as the inauguration numbers it is easy to debunk the misinformation but at some point we're going to get misinformation that is not easy to debunk. For instance, the administration could pull grants from legitimate climate change research and start funding climate change sceptics disproportionately, and then what you get down the line is a FRINGE position producing more publications simply because it is funded. Maybe I am just paranoid, but I am concerned that Misplaced Pages's policies could be manipulated to spread misinformation. Betty Logan (talk) 10:36, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, arguably, we have the same problem from reliable sources too, in that they they will sensationalize a topic, use emotive/opinionated journalism which gets taken as fact, rather than claims, and causes the same type of problems. Any source can be tainted this way. The larger issue encompassing all factors is what is our ability as editors to explore the topic beyond what the walled garden of RSes say as to make a determination with regards to NOR/NPOV as to how to present material. It is rather easy, for example, if the Trump administration says "Unemployment is at 2%", and a non-government recognized expert comes out the next day to disprove that in reports published in many sources, we have an easy route. But it becomes difficult that if the same claim is made and no one challenges it, but a WP editor can observe that no state alone reports unemployment less than 10% at the end of 2016. There are some that would use RS policy to say that there's no way to challenge that number and should be stated as fact because nothing within the walled garden of acceptable RSes report differently, but I would argue that we have every ability under NPOV/NOR to evaluate the situation and the claim using any reasonable resource, and while we can't say the claim is wrong nor include material from non-RS sources, we can certainly frame it as a claim rather than a fact. Now with this administration, any claim that is possibly suspect is likely going to be intensely reviewed by the media, so this is not likely to happen, but we still have this situation of how far past the walled garden's walls we should be able to look. --MASEM (t) 15:38, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Given that the press is currently very interested in "fact checking" I don't think we need to depart from our usual practice of relying on Reliable Sources. The chance that this administration would make a significant false claim and nobody in the press would mention it is close to zero IMO. A joke I saw at one political satire site was a fake "announcement" that since taking office Trump has created 4 million new jobs - for fact checkers! 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 19:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

As MelanieN said, it most likely won't be that big of an issue. There's plenty of reliable sources that fact-check Trump. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 19:35, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Climate change is a high-profile issue internationally, so if there's action taken in the US to delegitimize existing research or stop funding new research, it's likely the world scientific community will push back, and private investors will fund continuing research. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:58, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that deliberate misinformation should not be mentioned nor should undisputed facts as per WP:PRIMARY. Concerning the numbers at the inauguration there was no misinformation, merely an "alternative fact". The reliable sources who are mostly the mainstream media presumed that Trump was merely talking about the people who were physically present for the inauguration. However Trump is a businessman with a big ego who likes to put the most sell-able spin on things, and bigger numbers sound better. As he failed to to get an adequate people at his inauguration his press sec/comms director deceptively chose to include those physically at the inauguration via the proxies of the womens marches as well as viewers through media such as TV and online. CNN understood this and joking made fun of the Trump administration for being so sneaky and deceitful as per . If the reliable sources pick up on something inaccurate, dodgely worded, or a blatant lie we must not include it. Emir of Misplaced Pages (talk) 20:09, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Speaking as a fringe theory noticeboard denizen, my feeling is that we do not want to be the venue for dealing with this sort of thing. Mangoe (talk) 22:16, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oh good, let's have all the wingnuts coming to FTN to defend their idol's bullshit. On second thoughts: maybe not. DS are active, and WP:NPOV per WP:RS is still a thing. Follow those, and if there's an intractable problem then let's have an RfC. Guy (Help!) 00:34, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I think it is very unlikely for any Trump facts to attain a reasonably high status compared to studies that do proper checks. If they did then yes we would have a real problem. But until then we can just attribute anything like that as 'Trump has said' and then detail and list the reliable sources showing otherwise. Dmcq (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• If reliable sources report that the Earth is flat, we report that the Earth is flat. (Of course, we may want to re-evaluate if those sources are really "reliable", but at some point the definition of "reliable" becomes fairly circular.) But the current situation is that reliable sources report that NASA funding has been affected to proving the Earth is flat, which can be reported without any problem. Tigraan 12:08, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I would agree that there's not much risk in the long run of us endorsing one of these "facts", but the sheer quantity of Trump's misstatements is a problem. First, there's the various partisans passing though who have to be reined in, but second, they threaten to bury everything in people having to record every stupid thing he says. Mangoe (talk) 14:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

If reliable sources report that the Earth is flat, we report that the Earth is flat. This attitude is what I think is a current problem with WP, not just related to Trump but anything dealing with the current social issues that have left-right sociopolitical aspects. The wording of this implies we should never question what "reliable sources" print, which is all fine and good if reliable sources were perfectly objective. A decade or so ago, this would have been a reasonable description of them, but in the years since, it is very difficult to find objective sources; most RSes today engage in some type of subjectivity, even the NYTimes and BBC too. As such, RSes may publish statements as facts but based on skewed data or absent of other views. Now, this itself would be something that we have covered under NPOV, but now we have to consider that many many right-leaning sources, due to poor journalistic activities in the mid-late Aughts and since, have made them very much unreliable for facts, generally for good reason (eg Breitbert). This leaves RSes that average out more left-leaning. Thus, when it comes to Trump and potential mis-information, there is almost no question that all statements he makes will be intensely reviewed by the subset of media that we treat as RSes because of their political stance, so the concern raised at this point is unlikely to be an issue.

But if you flip the situation around, where the predominately left-leaning sources state some claim as fact, it is very difficult to show any usable RSes to counter that point, even if unreliable right-leaning media sources try to counter it. For example, I have seen many cases go by on BLP/N of right-leaning people being labeled as "white supremacists" because several left-leaning media factually identified them as that, despite self-claims and others from the right contradicting that fact. Taking the stance that we can only report what RSes report without question is harmful in these type of cases, and we need to have the ability to peek past the walled garden of these sources to evaluate such claims. We cannot directly counter such mis-claims in WP's voice, but we can at least avoid stating these claims as facts, and we can use normally non-RS sources to provide counteropinions as needed. Unfortunately, this becomes a battle over how strongly we should enforce UNDUE, because I have seen argued that if the opinions are not coming from RSes, then they are not opinions to be considered under UNDUE. This is very harmful to us to stay neutral in today's social climate.

We still need to make sure this type of approach is not used for extreme fringe theories to gain traction, but we have to be aware of reasonably larger issues of dissent compared to "facts" reported otherwise by normally reliable sources and use that understanding to avoid restating these contested "facts" as facts in WP's voice. It will be easy to do that with any potential mis-information from Trump, as noted, but there are many many other situations that we need to consider this. --MASEM (t) 17:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

What Masem said in the first sentence is very important. When we falsely make claims like "we should report what reliable sources say even if such sources are wrong", we miss the point entirely. Being wrong on something makes a source unreliable as a source for that information and being consistently wrong makes a source generally unreliable. "Verifiability" means "able to be proven true" not "written down somewhere", and we need to recognize that when we say "Verifiability not truth" we don't mean that we don't care whether something is right or not, we mean that assertion of truth is insufficient, it must be able to be proved to be true with source material which is reliable. "Veri" from latin "veritas" meaning "truth"; -ify- meaning "to make" -able- meaning "can be done". Can be shown to be true. If the source material itself is wrong, it shouldn't be used, period. --Jayron32 00:28, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

How do we know what's true? Do any of us have firsthand knowledge? Did we see the thing with our own eyes or hear it with our own ears? If not, what we "know" to be true depends on which sources we choose to believe. And, according to what you just said, the sources we choose to believe depend on what we "know" to be true. That's more than a little circular, wouldn't you say? ―Mandruss ☎ 00:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

In some cases, we as editors may be able to verify that something reported by reliable sources is false or wrong by looking outside the walled garden of reliable sources. Again, I use the examples of many right-leaning people being called "white supremacists" by and large by the walled garden of left-averaging RS sources, but if you turn to the self-statements made by the person in question, or to other sources, that claim is clearly false or challenged. This is what we need more of, not circling the wagons to only use RS and what RSes say is true, that's otherwise creating an echo chamber. There is a whole lot of careful use of sources that has to be put into play in such a situation, it's not simple to do and I can easily see very long consensus-driven discussions to determine how to evaluate that type of situation, but its necessary we have that tool available to use. Unfortunately, the idea that we must report what the RSes say and only what the RSes say is far too prevalent nowadays, moreso worsened by this last election cycle. --MASEM (t) 01:57, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, if we don't know we have other options 1) We can say nothing. If a particular contentious statement is only covered in one or two independent sources, and there is doubt as to the source's validity, then maybe the fact itself isn't relevant enough to mention. Things which are not widely covered anywhere have low relevance anyways; and reliability is also a function of how many truly independent sources mention it. It isn't merely good enough to say that "I found this written down". Where, and how often, and by whom are all important. 2) We can represent differences in sources explicitly. When it isn't clear which of two competing perspectives represents reality from multiple, reliable sources, we don't speak in Misplaced Pages's voice, we can quote and name the source directly in the text, to let readers know that there is not agreement on this. All of this requires work beyond doing a google search and cherry picking sources based on whether they support what we want to say rather than whether the sources themselves have a reputation for reliability and whether the preponderance of such sources is in agreement or not and whether the fact we're trying to include is relevant and important to the narrative in the article. That requires people to spend time and energy and use discernment and be detached in their assessment. --Jayron32 16:10, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Please see WP:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Facts are the reason science is losing during the current war on reason, thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Betty Logan - I think it's simple. Just convey what's said and say who/where they come from, make no effort to distinguish whether the fact is alternative or not. The concern and potential for censoring is inappropriate and counterproductive. Articles need to show what everyone says to have any credibility and to adhere to WP principles. Correct WP:VNT is to just follow the cites and tell what everyone says on a topic in WP:NPOV style by due WP:WEIGHT, and to show attribution. It's a issue for WP:NPOV or WP:OR to try and filter out some or to anoint one source as 'Truth', and counterproductive when the goal is to encyclopedically show what everyone says on a topic and who says what as best one can. The WP:INTEGRITY is to convey closely to what all WP:RS say, where 'reliable source' mostly means just it can reliably be said where it is found rather than what it says is something correct. You just have to be sure to attribute it as to who said it in case it is at all WP:BIASED. Markbassett (talk) 05:53, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

"reliable source' mostly means just it can reliably be said where it is found rather than what it says is something correct" Did I understand you correctly? That "Reliable Source" means what we quote is a reliable reflection of what the source says? I must have misunderstood, because that's not what Reliable Source means. A Reliable Source is a source with a reputation for editorial control, fact checking, and accuracy. We do not give equivalent treatment between sources that have such a reputation and sources that do not, and we need to maintain that standard. --MelanieN (talk) 15:22, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Please see WP:FTN for my opinion on why "alternative facts" should not be treated as fringe theories. In short, fringe is pseudoscience and conspiracy theories developed and believed in by a small minority of people. WP:FRINGE does not, in my opinion, mean that minimal coverage should be given to "alternative facts". Instead WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT should be used to provide an appropriate amount of discussion of the alternative facts when they are mentioned in the article. Roches (talk) 15:34, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

• Umm.... Why is this even a discussion? With the current administration, statements from the White House about just about anything can be generally considered unreliable (according to the most reliable sources we have), with the obvious exception of the White House's official position, or the opinion of the person making the statement, or even Trump's opinon. So really, this thread seems to be asking "Do we treat unreliable source X different than any other unreliable source because X is the White House?" To which the answer is clearly "No." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:56, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

MelanieN - Yes you understood -- I'm saying it is a common misunderstanding of guidelines to interpret 'reliable' in WP:RS to be 'correct' or a matter of trusting a source. It's important to note that a lot of the guideline is functional, that to be capable of being cited and useful for WP:V it must be published meaning "available to the public" (versus something unpublished, behind a paywall, or transient) that would not reliably be available to demonstrate the article has (WP:INTEGRITY) of accurately conveying what a WP:SOURCE (type of work, author, and publisher) provided. Verification is showing that article content exists somewhere, not that what is published is necessarily 'correct' or 'truth' or 'Truth'. The identifying reliable sources starts guiding that it is to have multiple POVs and not a 'correct' one: "Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view). If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it." and in the next section "The policy on sourcing is Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations." They're all just POVs of large and small groups, and while we prefer ones that have given scrutiny to production qualities we desire. Further, note where WP:SOURCE say "The appropriateness of any source depends on the context." and para 3 of WP:RS starts "In the event of a contradiction between this guideline and our policies regarding sourcing and attribution, the policies take priority and editors should seek to resolve the discrepancy. ". This is making clear that sourcing is the higher interest here, and that we're directed that sometimes the usual preference for textbook over book over newspaper etcetera is not the way to go. In conveying alternative facts or anything political ... I think showing any POVs is not going to be in textbook, but to convey what the alternate POVs are is going to have to go to to odd places and may be unable to find someone 'third-party'. Focus more on simply conveying all significant views should outweigh a lot of 'quality' because that's the only way to convey the whole picture. Markbassett (talk) 16:34, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's certainly a novel understanding of the Reliable Source guideline. Maybe you should propose a change in RS policy to eliminate the requirement for editorial control and "a reputation for fact checking and accuracy". --MelanieN (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

No, that's not novel. RS policy does not state that we are required to assume that all statements made by an RS are 100% truth, only that we have selected RSes that generally have shown the necessary editorial control and fact-checking that they are principally reporting the truth. The problem of late as I've identified is two-fold: that our stable body of RSes have lost some of their objectivity and engage more in subjective/emotive reporting that word statements of opinion as factual without being clear it is an opinion; and that editors have used the stance that if an RS states something it must be fact and anything outside RSes would be UNDUE or inappropriate to include. This situation allows no judgment of a larger picture that is not covered by RSes in how we should use questionable RS claims or put doubt into an RS statement of opinion that appears written as fact (eg the "white supremacist" issue.) Both BLP and NPOV has aspects that we are not held to only accept what RSes say, only that material from RSes can be included for verifyability, but we can adjust our wording to assure what really are opinions and claims are presented as attributed opinions and claims, rather than assuming they must be fact because an RS printed it. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I defy you to distill this into a set of concise guidance that can be managed by the average editors who comprise a large majority of the editing force. Without that, local consensus will usually be wrong. If the rare editor like you happens to be present, they will be overridden by the rest.
This is far from the only example of en-wiki making things so complicated that they can only be comprehended by an elite 5% with upwards of 5 years and 50,000 edits. We can't RfC every issue, or take every issue to this page or a noticeboard for attention from that elite. Simplification should be very high on our priority list, but it is getting almost no attention at all; to the contrary, we keep making things more nuanced and complex. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

From any policy standpoint, the simply fix is to make sure it is clear in policy that the text printed in an RS does not be taken at face value, particularly if it seems contentious, which is then tied to WP:YESPOV in how to actually include the potentially not-accurate RS information that otherwise meets WP:V/NOR/NPOV. Everything else required to take this approach is spelled out in policy and guideline. Now, more practically, one would need an essay to explain the broader situation, to be clear how to judge contentious information (eg: just because flat-earthers exist that question the shape of the Earth doesn't mean we should mitigiate our writing to accept that; eg that is where understanding the difference between what is a true fringe theory verse what is a minority view is on a controversial topic). --MASEM (t) 18:13, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

My point is that the applicable policy is far from that simple, and that you will get very little community commitment to making it so. Such decisions are dominated by the elite, whose reasoning is: "If I can understand it, there is no need to simplify." Without that commitment, it won't happen, and high-level discussion like this is fairly pointless in the end. En-wiki p&g continues to be crafted by the experienced, for the experienced, blind to the fact that most editing has to be done by the less experienced. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:43, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Point regarding the elitism in how P/G are crafted taken as is, what I have seen are the same elite "circling the wagons" around a strict enforcement of RS/UNDUE to eliminate any attempt to bring in reasonable discussion of what is outside that circle of RS. Which feeds back to crafting "stronger" by those same editors, and becomes a tighter and tighter circle. This is why the community has a whole has to agree that this type of "what's only in the RS" approach is harmful. I still argue there's very little actual policy that needs to change as the ideas already resonate within existing policy, but there does need to be both essays, guidance, and a commitment to assure that that adjustment of policy is clear in intent and practice to prevent the "circling of wagons" idea. --MASEM (t) 19:24, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

MelanieN No, I simply point that the whole policy has directions that say when to overrule that even for sourcing, and that all of this is in service to showing all POVs on a topic. Pre-press copyreading is a secondary item. See, before the snippet you quote WP:BIASED first shows "Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." I'd also point to guide of WP:NEWSORG may occur often for this kind of thread, and it clarifies Fact checking to pre-publication checking of the content (for typos and factual errors) and reputation as demonstrated by retractions. (Do not confuse self-check fact-check with the later creation of similar named FactCheck.org review of what someone else said.) We're in the realm of WP:BIASED and WP:OPINION and WP:Politics here, most of the politicians are going to be posturing manipulative lines and all the reporting is going to be oversimplified sensationalizing so it's simply report all the significant POVs as best one can and give attribution and cites because it's all suspect, and move along. Whether the POV sourced is going to be best done by a Breitbart or WashingtonPost may simply be a feature of the cases.

In any case, you should not interpret that snippet as overrulling the WP:Core content policies -- and I think this means it *is* simple here : convey what's said and say who/where they come from. Focus is to say what each POV is and not trying to pick 'right', then accept that sometimes that the best source for a POV in context is unusual. It's going to be a problem if folks instead editorialize when they should make no effort to do so, to say in the article that the fact is "alternative" if that's not the wording sources used, or mis-conveying the 'other' definition of 'alternative' to mean 'wrong'.

1. Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) – All Misplaced Pages articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias.
2. Verifiability (WP:V) – Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source. In Misplaced Pages, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source.
3. No original research (WP:NOR) – Misplaced Pages does not publish original thought: all material in Misplaced Pages must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources.

Cheers, over & out Markbassett (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Just to say, I asked this again below as I hadn't equated "fake news" with "alternate facts". Thanks — Iadmc♫ 18:45, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• Perhaps add to NPOV, which is basically our policy that says look at many reliable sources to give the full picture ("neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias."): Given issues like fake news and predatory journals, it is especially important that editors research and write with focus on quality, depth and wide review of sourcing.
  • Calling that out in NPOV makes sense, but I think the line "neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias." needs to be reviewed to. Per WP:V we need to use vetted sources, and for facts, those have to come our reliable sources, but when it comes to NPOV which relate to opinions and claims, we technically should not be not limited to the same set of works as long as we are using attribution, and the works that don't fall into our definition of an RS are still considered authorative or expert enough that their opinion is appropriate to the topic. Prime example is a work like Brietbart. Never ever going to be used for anything factual, as confirmed by RS/N several times over, but they are recognized as a leading voice for the right, and so opinions of staff there should be considered in evaluating an NPOV issue (also a point agreed to in RS/N discussions). But as quoted, NPOV suggests that because it is not an RS, we should ignore its view and others like it, which makes coverage lopside when the net average of our RSes are left-leaning. This is type of language that leads to the walled garden of RS/UNDUE that does not allow us to sometimes properly evaluate controversial claims in a broader light. --MASEM (t) 15:23, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
    • No. It's a terrible idea and there is no need to change the very foundation of NPOV policy - it is also further spelled out in NPOV policy at WP:BESTSOURCES, WP:PROPORTION and WP:VALID, etc. WP:BESTSOURCES is probably where we should put my proposal: Given issues like fake news and predatory journals, it is especially important that editors research and write with focus on quality, depth and wide review of sourcing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:49, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• This thread is dedicated to the victims of the Bowling Green massacre. Let us never remember. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Citizenship, Immigration status, & BLP policies

I propose that, as an emergency temporary measure, that BLP policy discourage edits that remove references to the subject's US citizenship or legal immigration status, as such edits might, under current political circumstances, cause the subjects of these entries difficulties with international travel. --Pleasantville (talk) 14:33, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Immigration authorities are not going to be using WP as their confirmation of citizenship/immigration status. WP is not considered a reliable source. --MASEM (t) 14:39, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Since Immigration is apparently already using social media information as part of screening, I think there is no reason to believe that they would, for example, ignore a discrepancy between a WP entry and a passport. --Pleasantville (talk) 14:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Citation needed for that, but if they were really using WP for citizenship status, that would be something our existing disclaims would clearly state they shouldn't be trusting that information to any degree. Contrast to social media where I presume they are looking at the accounts of these people which is something they (theoretically) have control of; they don't have control of WP information. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Immigration status would not be allowed under existing policy unless it was cited in a reliable source. I think you could argue citizenship status there too (in fact, I'm pretty positive that I have seen BLP's removed of all nationality references due to a dispute/lack of sourcing.) If there are reliable sources for it, its already public information so authorities would have access to it. No need for an emergency measure. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:18, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

If we have unsourced or poorly sourced info on someone's citizenship or legal immigration status now would be a good time to prioritise editing that removes such information or replaces it with well sourced info. That doesn't require a change in policy, maybe just a call on signpost or a noticeboard. As for Masem's belief that immigration authorities don't use Misplaced Pages, I admire the belief but don't 100% share the confidence. ϢereSpielChequers 15:18, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

While immigration status isn't mentioned directly Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy sets the tone for this, especially WP:BLPPRIVACY, considering that given current events, someone's visa status they would likely consider private. If it is not mentioned in existing reliable sources, BLP policy clearly favours privacy and it should be removed. I would not be opposed to adding a line about nationality to BLPPRIVACY if people think it is warranted, but I also think any editor would be justified under existing policy to remove unsourced private information about a living person. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, a relevant bit of the policy is "contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion." Information on certain citizenships and nationalities is clearly contentious at the moment. ϢereSpielChequers 19:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Time for a fake news policy?

How does the becoming-endemic phenomenon of fake news affect Verifiability? There is the worrying trend to manipulate video to change what people say as evidenced by tonight's BBC Newsnight report. Further, mainstream media outlets—otherwise considered here as reliable sources—are starting to fall for it and report it as fact (if they didn't actually invent it...). Even the British government are concerned. Won't fake news cause problems when adding apparently verifiable information to BLPs in particular? But then perhaps Mrs. Cambridge's fictitious dog has just become a humorous aside in the annals of the press compared with the alleged fake news surrounding the US elections and the aftermath? Shouldn't we have something in the Policies warning about fake news and how to attempt to handle it? Just a thought — Iadmc♫ 00:09, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

This is related to the discussion in the above "Alternative facts" section, but to me a lot of this boils down to two points:

1. We are not a newspaper and there is no rush for us to include information in WP, particularly if it is "hot off the press". Many news stories are easier to write about several days after the fact when everyone's got their stories straight.
2. Reliable sources are not infallable nor should be presumed perfectly objective or unbiased. As editors we need to have the ability to judge based on the larger world picture (which may include observing the situation from non-reliable sources) to know where the actual "truth" might stand, so that we can incorporate what reliable sources say with any claims/attribution statements. If a fact sounds fishy from a RS and they do not explain how they back up that fact, we should probably treat it as contentious. --MASEM (t) 00:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@Masem: Ah! Thanks for the pointer upwards. That seems to be dealing with my question, more or less. Just to say, your comments chime with my own thoughts. That's how I would deal with all new "news" stories, actually: body swerve for a week or so then source, source, source... OTOH, I tend to avoid stuff like that and leave it to others to deal with. I'm more into classical music which might be affected by this only if, say John Adams were reported to having said/done something as his article is a WP:BLP — Iadmc♫ 18:41, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I raised an issue about the quality of "George W. Bush" bio page at Talk:George W. Bush#Quality of the article. Most of the references are news articles, yet the page is tagged as a Good Article. How would the whole "fake news" issue affect the bio page and other pages that primarily use news articles? George Ho (talk) 22:04, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho:Your point about the lack of anything other than news articles (mostly) is a good one. This could indeed be a problem, IMO. also see my reply to SMcCandlish, below re changing WP:RS — Iadmc♫ 08:24, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, I have primarily used news articles for TV-related pages, like Cheers-related pages. I occasionally used books, which lack good references about BLPs, like Ted Danson, Shelley Long, and Kirstie Alley. --George Ho (talk) 08:29, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree this is a legit concern, but it probably only requires a clarification to WP:RS guideline. As I see it, there are two fake-news issues:

1. Sites that masquerade as news sites but are simply fake news in intent. This does not mean every word they publish is fake news, and some of the most successful/damaging of these sites have made a point of mostly publishing legit but unimportant material then making all their big stories be fake, as a way to lull suspicions.
2. Fake news stories spreading into mainstream media outlets.

The first issue is already dealt with by RS requiring that a source be from a reputable publisher as one of the criteria for it being considered reliable; any known fake-news site, or an unknown site that seems to have some real and some questionable news, is already excluded. Where people try to include them anyway, we have WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:FRINGE to fall back on, and usual processes of weeding out PoV-pushing attempts to warp our articles.

The second problem is more serious. We have an a long-standing operating presumption that major newspapers and TV news programs in Western democracies, other than those with an established reputation for sensationalism and nonsense, are reliable sources. This assumption now seems increasingly questionable, both because of regurgitation of fake news, and because of increasing and well-sourced indications that quite a number of them are "playing ball" with political powers. So, some kind of adjustment to WP:RS is probably in order, to remove the assumption that news outlets are reliable for any topic that is controversial, and to treat them as only middling-quality sources by default, with every publisher/publication evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and that evaluation subject to change over time.

This re-examination and shift of approach has probably been a long time coming, and has been needed even before the recent US election cycle. Fox News, for example, has long been known to have an extreme right-wing bias and to air falsehoods, while similar-level claims can also be made of various far-left publications. It's not just about news. Our default blind trust of "other encyclopedias" goes too far. For example, World Book Encyclopedia (at least in the late 1970s through mid-1980s – I have not examined every edition) suppressed a large amount of information about the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, and other communist countries, and what information it did have on them read as if it had been written by the CIA's propaganda specialists. The more we get into an age of "truthiness", "post-truth", and "alternative facts" (never mind the "Net of a Million Lies" effect predicted by Vernor Vinge), the more WP has to tighten the constraints of what it considers reliable. Especially as the editorial pool shrinks, public use of WP increases, and consequently both the ability to get away with skewing its coverage and the propaganda value of doing so rise simultaneously.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  06:54, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish:Should we change WP:RS then? No activity there since 2013, so it's probably about time, IMO. Since my present account is pretty new (I had to create a new one because I lost my log in for the old one), I'm wary of doing anything... — Iadmc♫ 08:20, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe the whole "fake news" panic started out with... Well, if Donald Trump didn't start the panic about "fake news", who else did? George Ho (talk) 08:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I have a horrible feeling ME on en:Misplaced Pages... — Iadmc♫ 08:40, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, I would think the community should discuss the nature of the problem here in VPPOL for a while, then WT:RS could host a more focused discussion on what RS needs to say about the matter; I certainly wouldn't go rush to make major changes to our most central content guideline. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  10:40, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Fair point... thanks! — Iadmc♫ 10:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Speaking of otherwise reliable sources incorporating fake info, sometimes WP is actually the source of that fake info. See for example the problem I've been fighting for nearly a decade at Talk:Cardboard box#Sir Malcolm Thornhill, where the fake info from a drive-by editor ended up in two books already. Dicklyon (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

If there is to be a fake news policy or guidance I think it should mainly concentrate on how to get rid of such stuff. I remember the problem I had some years ago where a textbook said something just plain wrong and this person was insistent it should be in an article. Unfortunately there was no reliable source saying it was false - why should they mention it? It was eventually removed with an RfC. I can see some more minor bits of fake news having the same problem where they are manifestly wrong but the only sites that say so are some blogs rather than another reliable source. Dmcq (talk) 12:29, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I'd rather see a fake-news policy than a fake news policy. Dicklyon (talk) 20:51, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Support adding the hyphen per WP:PRECISION. A fake policy concerning news is not what we're after... ;) — Iadmc♫ 22:21, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I totally understand what people are saying here, but I hope if there is a revision of WP policy, this will still allow articles such as Spaghetti-tree hoax which was incredibly funny. DrChrissy 21:02, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I think this is already covered in the policies such as WP:Reliable sources: "Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process." Unfortunately a lot of the Knights Templar who cite these policies don't actually read them. Editors often argue it's in the New York Times, and that's all that matters. That's not the policy.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

And that was an April Fool joke revealed the next day and is attested as such in multiple reliable sources. Our problem is deliberate obfuscation of the facts and then the innocent/not-so-innocent regurgitation of those falsehoods which then apparently have to be reported as facts in Misplaced Pages since they are reported as such in our usual RSs — Iadmc♫ 22:21, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

That's my first point above: WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:DEADLINE are being ignored to try to make WP up-to-the-second with the news, which is becoming more and more a problem. This has been slowly building up as an issue with en.wiki before (we had to create NEVENT to help stem the tide of current event articles) and this whole situation between fake news and sensationalist reporting feeds that cycle in a very bad way. We need to have something in place to tell editors that if a story of questionable merit appears in the news, particularly with BLP, give it a few days before including. --MASEM (t) 23:28, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is WP:NOTTRUTH. This leads to editors claiming that the truth doesn't matter, only the sources. There should be room to have an argument based on fact-checking, rather than just the consensus of sources.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Hyphen in titles of articles on railways of a narrow gauge

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Misplaced Pages style and naming When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Should articles with "Narrow gauge railways" and such in their titles include a hyphen as "Narrow-gauge railways"? And is there any tweak needed to the guidelines at WP:HYPHEN to be more helpful in deciding such things? Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Neutral background

Many articles were moved in late December and early January to include a hyphen, and then after about four weeks were disputed and moved back. Discussions at various places left the matter unresolved, and an RFC was recommended.

Affected articles include but are not limited to the ones in this template, which works the same with and without the hyphen due to the redirects:

Other pages moved in early January to include a hyphen, but not explicitly disputed or moved back, include Narrow-gauge railroads in the United States, Narrow-gauge railways in India, Narrow-gauge railways in China, Narrow-gauge railways in Canada, Narrow-gauge railways in former Spanish Morocco, Narrow-gauge railways in former French Morocco, Narrow-gauge railways in Oceania, Narrow-gauge railways in South America, Narrow-gauge railways in North America, Narrow-gauge railways in Asia, Narrow-gauge railways in Africa, and possibly others. Presumably if this RFC has a robust outcome it will apply to these as well.

@Bahnfrend, No such user, Bermicourt, SMcCandlish, Cinderella157, Tony1, Necrothesp, Mjroots, Corinne, Checkingfax, Scribolt, Mandruss, and Andy Dingley: Pinging participants of prior big discussion at Talk:Narrow_gauge_railways_in_Saxony in case any of them didn't see the notices. Dicklyon (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The case for hyphenation in these titles

It is standard practice in English to help readers parse phrases involving compound modifiers before nouns by using hyphens to hold the compounds together. As WP:HYPHEN states, hyphens are used:
3. To link related terms in compound modifiers: – Hyphens can help with ease of reading (face-to-face discussion, hard-boiled egg); where non-experts are part of the readership, a hyphen is particularly useful in long noun phrases, such as those in Misplaced Pages's scientific articles: gas-phase reaction dynamics. However, hyphens are never inserted into proper names in compounds (Middle Eastern cuisine, not Middle-Eastern cuisine).

The application to the compound "narrow gauge" when used before a noun is clear: the hyphen helps the reader, especially the general or naive reader unfamiliar with the phrase, to quickly parse "narrow-gauge railway", and not have to consider whether the intended meaning of "narrow gauge railway" might have been a "gauge railway" that is narrow. This is common courtesy to help the reader, and has no downside or negative impact on any reader. There is nothing special about titles that would suggest a different style from what is appropriate in the text.

Sources are mixed on hyphen usage, since it is common practice for writers to drop such hyphens when writing for an audience that they feel is so familiar with the term-of-art phrases that they don't need help to easily read them. But in the case of "narrow gauge", which is well known to rail fans but less so to the general public, usage in books is actually a strong majority in favor of hyphen usage. See n-gram stats from books: . Even if it were only 50% used in sources, it would be wise to follow the advice of our style guidelines and most external style guides and dictionaries to make it easier for the general readership rather than the specialists.

There is no ENGVAR issue here. Using the n-grams link above, but modifying the language domain from English to British English and American English, it can be seen that while the relative frequency of railway versus railroad changes enormously, as expected, the relative frequency of hyphen stays in a strong majority in both variants.

Dictionaries specifically list the adjective form of "narrow gauge" as hyphenated: dictionaries, , , , , .

Within specialist literature, the hyphen is still sometimes used, and in literature for the general public it is sometimes omitted, but it is better to follow standard practice and guidance than to be that random, and it is much better to help the general reader than to try to mimic the specialist.

Note also that in company names, signs, headings, titles, and such that are Title Case or all caps, it is more common to omit hyphens. So the appearance of these terms unhyphenated but capitalized should not be taken as evidence of any preference one way or the other.

Note that WP:MOS, including WP:HYPHEN exists to set a style and prevent style disputes so we can all get back to work on non-trivia. It did not prevent a battle in this case, but I think it is clear enough and probably does not need any particular amendment in this area.

Examples of titles with hyphenated compounds used as adjectives

Most Misplaced Pages titles involving compounds such as narrow body, broad spectrum, standard definition, short range, high speed, low pressure, small cell, large scale, wide angle, and such do use the hyphen in a way exactly analogous to what is proposed for narrow gauge. Examples:

• Narrow-body aircraft
• Narrow-bandwidth television
• Narrow-body righteye flounder
• Broad-spectrum antibiotic
• Standard-definition television
• Standard-type battleship
• Short-term memory
• Short-circuit evaluation
• Short-range ballistic missile
• Short-time Fourier transform
• Short-title catalogue
• Short-chain acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase deficiency
• High-speed rail
• High-definition video
• High-pressure area
• High-level programming language
• High-altitude nuclear explosion
• High-frequency trading
• Low-floor bus
• Low-carbohydrate diet
• Low-cost carrier
• Low-pressure area
• Low-budget film
• Low-level waste
• Low-energy house
• Low-carbon power
• Low-frequency oscillation
• Low-power broadcasting
• Low-angle shot
• Small-cell carcinoma
• Small-signal model
• Small-angle neutron scattering
• Chevrolet small-block engine
• Small-scale agriculture
• Large-signal model
• Large-format slide projector
• Large-scale structure
• Large-group awareness training
• Large-cell acanthoma
• Wide-angle lens
• Wide-body aircraft
• Wide-bandgap semiconductor
• Wide-gamut RGB color space
• Wide-leg jeans
• Wide-spectrum language

Please respond to this opening case in the discussion section below, not here. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The case for no hyphenation in these titles

The phrase “gauge railway” by itself is meaningless. In fact, the only other modifiers that I can think of other than narrow are broad/wide, standard, miniature, and “out-of-” (however, no argument about using hyphens for the last one). Therefore, the argument requiring hyphenation is pointless, and this attempt to enforce one particular POV should be dropped in favour of common usage, which seems to vary slightly from one side of the Atlantic to the other. (This point was made in an earlier discussion, but Dicklyon now seems to be walking it back.) The suggestion made by the nominator that the average reader needs the hyphen in “narrow-gauge” for comprehension is pure and simple condescension. So in a word:
Oppose. Useddenim (talk) 17:33, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@Bermicourt, Bahnfrend, and Mjroots: This RFC is ready for an opening statement by someone opposing the hyphens. Dicklyon (talk) 06:46, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The case for not really caring one way or the other / The case for editorial freedom

because I don't. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:58, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support Optimist on the run (talk) 09:28, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support Andy Dingley (talk) 11:49, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support Bermicourt. Both variants are widely used in the sources; however, there is a much stronger regional tendency in US sources to hyphenate. So we should allow editorial freedom to choose, using the same approach that is used for ENGVAR, and not force editors to adopt one or the other. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support - this is pedantry at the extreme. People need to focus on more important things - it isn't as if we have a shortage of those. - Sitush (talk) 00:29, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Note that these should not be counted as opposing the proposition of this RFC, as these editors (or most of them) have put the oppose !votes already in the survey below. Dicklyon (talk) 23:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Note: that is disingenuous and highly misleading; we do oppose the proposal because it would force us to adopt one of the two common variants used by the sources. But thanks for alerting me to vote below as I hadn't, despite your comment --Bermicourt (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying your position, and you're welcome for my alert. I don't know why Optimist thought it a good idea to add this side survey, and I was certainly not being disingenuous in trying to call attention to the confusion. Please AGF. Dicklyon (talk) 21:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is the one wrong result. The reader is helped by consistency. These will alll be used in lists and categories, wherre consistency is particularly important. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support Although someone really needs to table an amendment to *policy* that states where MOS guidelines are disputed by local consensus, uninvested editors should back away. I would also support any MOS-update that states Railway article terminology has to comply with Thomas the Tank Engine. While I agree in theory with DGG above consistency in lists and categories can be important - lists and categories are not the primary function of an encyclopedia. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

"Uninvested"? If you think anyone who has no especial fondness for a particular topic is uninvested, you're mistaken. Everyone working on the encyclopedia is invested, even those who participate in discussions by announcing that they don't care about the outcome. Primergrey (talk) 14:34, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I think someone whose presence at a railway article is only there to enforce a general usage MOS rule which may not be appropriate given the specific circumstances is uninvested in railway articles yes. They might be invested in the MOS... But ultimately no one outside of railway article editors and their readers care about the hyphen usage on railway articles. The world is not going to end if narrow-gauge is hyphenated. It really does not matter. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

"and their readers" is the important part. Dicklyon (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Being invested in the encyclopedia means being invested in all articles therein. To dismiss an editor trying to uphold site-wide style guidelines as "uninvested" runs counter to WP's stated purpose as a generalist encyclopedia. Also, "the world is not going to end if narrow-gauge is hyphenated", if true, is an excellent reason to support hyphenation. Primergrey (talk) 17:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support allowing both variants. Disputes can be settled by local consensus, after an examination of sources related to the specific railway or station in question. Yes, we will have a few difficult cases where the sources are not clear. Despite this, I think we should avoid adopting a "one size fits all" rule on this... because, whichever "rule" we adopt, we will simply end up with endless arguments about how our "rule" is wrong. In other words, we will end up with more disputes if we adopt a "one size fits all" rule than we will by allowing both variants. Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Both variants should be allowed. There is no extra "clarity" here - both clearly and unambiguously refer to something to do with a railway where the gauge is narrow(er) than some standard - that is undoubtedly why usage without hyphen exists in substantial numbers across the English speaking world, and it is well within standard written English grammar to drop unneeded hyphens. The claim of "consistency" is without merit as shown by the fact that we do not demand everyone write like everyone else (especially on something so wide-spread, and on an issue where insisting is so obviously narrow-minded and bizarrely inflexible.) We allow such minor leeway (and, indeed much larger leeway) for very good reasons too numerous and too embedded in our system of writing (although an article should be internally consistent). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose inconsistency and ambiguity – no editor is being compelled or even asked to help, just to not interfere when things are moved toward compliance with the MOS, in favor the interests of readers. Bermicourt started this mess by interfering after all articles had been made consistent, pretty much without objection except for his on Narrow-gauge railways in Saxony which he reverted back to hyphenless form (as he has a right to revert bold moves); so we went to discuss on the talk page there, and while that was not going in his favor he went and moved the rest of the articles about European countries, none of which had been objected to for a month. This is pure disruption, bad the reader, bad for consistency. So now we're here, on advice of the closer there, to decide. So let's decide. Dicklyon (talk) 21:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Bulldozing opponents might be fun in real life but it is extremely destructive at Misplaced Pages which relies on volunteers who maintain and build article content. Dashes are not as important as collaboration. Johnuniq (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Survey: Narrow gauge

Please Support or Oppose including the hyphen in the titles.

• Support. The list above clearly shows how it's easier for non-experts to pick up the word group if there's a hyphen ... not to mention our own style guidance and that of the style authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Tony (talk) 09:10, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose There is a view espoused by a handful of hyper-active editors here that styleguides mandate all uses of a particular phrase and that any single deviation from this is some sort of thoughtcrime. That is nonsense: language is simply not that consistent. Nor does WP policy follow such a line, instead we have WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NEOLOGISM which state that WP should follow the practice in use, not mandate its own claims and force them on top of reality.

There is a case for consistency with names that are created on WP. So I have no problem with "Narrow-gauge railroads in the US", nor even "Narrow gauge railroads in the US" (I really don't care what our "default styleguide in the absence of any external influence" says. But when the name is based on an external source, those sources should be followed, not the styleguide.

Why do external names matter for the hyphenation of narrow-/ gauge? After all, there are very few of them (although the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways didn't hyphenate). Because this isn't just a question of hyphenating narrow-gauge, it's also the question of capitalising "Line" in "Heart of Wales Line". The two naming issues should have been raised in the same RfC. But whilst the narrow-gauge one is broadly linguistic and hardly appears in sourced proper names, the capitalisation issue certainly does. Yet if the easier narrow-gauge issue can be won, that then establishes a "precedent" for WP naming, including the case issue - when in fact, WP does not follow WP:PRECEDENT in such cases. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:04, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Every single time there is a hyphen/en-dash/em-dash argument is comes down to a small group trying to impose a Victorian image of linguistic correctness on everyone else. There is literally no difference in reading comprehension between the characters. It annoys the picayune and the obsessive but is ignored by the rest, if such differences are even perceived at all. The MOS and external style guides are not weapons to hammer other editors with, especially when worrying about near-imperceptible differences such as this. Even if the three versions of a dash or no dash at all are randomly mixed between articles, it absolutely won't matter except to a handful of Emersonian hobgoblins and certainly won't damage the encyclopedia. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support narrow hyphen. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 15:15, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support with obvious cavaets If the name is not proper, eg "Narrow-gauge railroads in the US", the hyphenated form seems correct and easier to read particularly if more modifiers are added "the longest narrow guage railroad..." is awkward but "the longest narrow-guage railroad" is clear). But if it is a proper name like "North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways" above, we should not force that style onto the name, and leave it as is, and editors need to take care in page moves to not force this onto the proper name. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support – The hyphen is necessary according to the existing MOS:HYPHEN, and is the standard usage. Dicklyon's survey of reliable sources makes this very clear. RGloucester — ☎ 15:52, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as completely unnecessary. (See above for more.) Useddenim (talk) 17:36, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support - Grammatical clarity is a Good Thing in an encyclopedia, full stop. Most of the rest is generalized anti-MoS ideology and personal vendettas, which we could do with a lot less of. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:03, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support Miniapolis 19:21, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support - Hyphen is more grammatically and phonetically correct, it is necessary to convey the meaning of the title correctly. Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση 2001 (talk) 21:25, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support as normal English usage across national varieties, and an obvious boon to clarity. Nothing is gained for anyone by dropping the hyphenation. This is not TrainspotterPedia, and WP is not written in a quirky shorthand style for specialists and fans to use with other specialists and fans (who have no trouble understanding the conventional style with the hyphen, just a subjective preference against it in their own materials). This same basic issue comes up across many topics, and it all comes down to the same answer: we have our own style guide for a reason, just like every other professionally published, multi-writer publication. People will unproductively fight about style trivia indefinitely if not given a house style to follow. WP follows the WP style, which is derived from the most influential off-WP style guides. We depart from our own manual when reliable sources (including general-audience ones, not just specialized ones) are with remarkable consistency doing something different from what our style guide does, for a particular case or type of case. (You'll find this exceptions rule in various wording at WP:MOS, MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, WP:COMMONNAME, etc.) The sources show no consistency in writing about railways, so that's the end of it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  22:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose See my arguments at Talk:Narrow_gauge_railways_in_Saxony. Bahnfrend (talk) 11:35, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose being forced to adopt a variant with a strong regional US following, when the rest of the world is neutral. Give editors the freedom to decide and let's not force an "either/or" that is not reflected in the sources. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:58, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The proposal seems very reasonable, is already consistent with established conventions, and I am unimpressed by the case against using the hyphen. Obviously in cases where "Narrow Gauge" is part of a proper name, we should use the WP:COMMONNAME. But the affected articles seem limited in scope to those where the title of the article is a descriptive title. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:46, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support - I agree with Sławomir Biały. I also find Dicklyon's statement above, which is not only written clearly and in a neutral tone but also is backed up with specific information, to be persuasive. To me, the most persuasive piece of information is that many Misplaced Pages articles use the hyphen in compound adjective modifiers. While I personally don't see the need for a hyphen in "narrow gauge", I do see some value to the encyclopedia in consistency of style, especially in article titles.  – Corinne (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support hyphenation for the benefit of readers. Standard English practice "on both sides of the Atlantic" as Tony notes and sources confirm, in spite of claims by Bermicourt that this is "a variant with a strong regional US following". (as nom) By the way, I just finished writing a book published by Cambridge University Press; their style guide differs from WP's in places related to things like heading case, quotation style, and other things, but on hyphens it's pretty typical of those we follow, including "Compound adjectives will generally be hyphenated if they precede the noun: short-term effects ...". Dicklyon (talk) 00:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support hyphenation. There is clearly no evidence that the un-hyphenated form is more prevalent. The hyphenated form is slightly less ambiguous and for a non-English speaking reader, it may possibly prevent a small degree of confusion in the future. Where possible, article names should be consistent in construction. The oppose arguments don't really identify any real benefits to the un-hyphenated form. Therefore, we should choose a standard construction and that construction should be with hyphenation (with the caveat that exceptions relating to proper names can exist as per Masem but the default position should be hyphenation). Scribolt (talk) 07:29, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support hyphenation. It is standard English to hyphenate in this way when the term is used as an adjective, which it clearly is. This is not an ENGVAR issue (I'm British, incidentally). -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support hyphenation per consistency and standard English practice. On the meta-issue: I don't really understand the substance of opposing arguments if there is one, apart from "we don't like it". If there are editors that exhibit "pedantry at the extreme" (call them "gnomes" or "MoS warriors" at will), why don't just let them if you really don't care one way or another? I will readily grant that enforcing MOS-conformance and consistency is not a high-priority task, but everyone freely chooses what to edit on a wiki. No such user (talk) 11:49, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support as concerned as I may be about being labelled a "hobgoblin", an "obsessive", or a Quixotic opponent of "thoughtcrime", I must cast my lot with hyphenation and its added clarity, particularly for some non-native readers of English. Primergrey (talk) 15:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose the proposal to remove editorial freedom and force editors to adopt only one two common variants; the one which is only predominant in US sources. It's not a grammatical issue, it's a sources issue. Please note, I'm happy for editors to use the hyphenated version if they choose, please give other editors the same freedom to use the very common unhyphenated version. Note also that the glossary published by the International Union of Railways to which most of the world subscribes, uses the unhyphenated version. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose One-size-fits-all does not work for socks or collaborative projects. Misplaced Pages needs volunteers who do good work more than it needs MOS enthusiasts who care about dashes but not the articles concerned. Johnuniq (talk) 23:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• I don't really understand Andy Dingley's long opposing rant after he stated that he doesn't really care. In particular, I tried to be clear that hyphens are usually not used in proper names, so there should be no worry on North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways if it's the proper name of the subject of the article, and if it's not then it would be correct to fix the case, too. Dicklyon (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  And that's the problem. You don't understand anything more than a simplistic one-rule-fits-all styleguide. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:09, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  User:Andy Dingley, your posts are moving from low- to high-level irritability. It would be more productive if you were less personal. Tony (talk) 04:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

• Yes Tony, threatening people with Arbcom for disagreeing with them does tend to have that effect. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:26, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

• Andy, ignore it. You do good work on WP. You deserve to react calmly if the waters are ruffled. Tony (talk) 11:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• I have no trouble at all parsing what Dicklyon is saying, which clearly indicates understanding of proper names and that a style-guide rule about hyphenation would not apply to one. It appears to me that the failure to understand or to be flexible is coming from the opposite direction, from individuals so used to and so personally invested in insider writing about the topic than they are unable to understand (or, much more likely, unwilling to concede) that they cannot force everyone else to write about trains the way a trainspotter would when writing for other trainspotters.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  22:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  Well, it would make life a lot easier if you, Dicklyon and similar were simply banished from any discussions regarding MOS. Perhaps there are already restrictions - I don't know because every time I see such names at the Pump, ANI etc, I've tended to switch off after a few minutes of reading. - Sitush (talk) 00:35, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

  Thank you for lending credence to my comment about generalized anti-MoS ideology and personal vendettas. Your comment is not constructive. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

• I'd just like to chime in here, as I do every time I see an argument about small horizontal lines, to point out that this is a ridiculous, pointless dispute that matters only to the people involved. I would suggest you host any further discussion in the walled garden where the illusion that any of this matters is maintained and don't let the rest of us know what you decide. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:53, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  matters only to the people involved - I would suggest that people generally don't get involved in things that don't matter to them, so you could say that about any issue, making it unremarkable.
  I'll also note that this is not about hyphen-vs-endash, nor about spaced-endash-vs-unspaced-endash, which could be somewhat more easily dismissed as trivial pedantry. It's about clearly identifying an adjectival phrase as such for readers who are not familiar with the term "narrow gauge". Thus, argument about small horizontal lines appears to miss the point in a knee-jerk negative reaction to a legitimate MoS issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:29, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  Agreed. However, Beeblebrox raises a valid point, in that these disputes are about trivia yet become disruptive when pursued, and seem to come up again and again. The typical pattern is that an editor doing "gnome" cleanup work applying our naming conventions, style guidelines, and title policy will occasionally run into a faction who have a WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:TRUTH / WP:SOAPBOX position on one of these points of trivia, grounded in nothing but subjective preferences based on what deeply steeped insiders in the topic do when writing to other insiders in insider publications, and without regard for the needs or expectations of people unfamiliar with the topic. This camp will then tendentiously fight against guideline and policy compliance at WP:RM, one article at a time, for weeks, months, even years in hope of "winning" through attrition.

  That behavior pattern is obviously forum shopping, but RM has historically being easily system-gamed this way because of its lack of searchable archives and the difficulty of digging up previous related discussions as precedent. Last month, I raised this issue at WT:RM, and there is now a new search feature at the top of that page that should help to curtail this pattern of process abuse. However, until the administrative wiki-culture at RM shifts more firmly to shut down re-shopping the same trivial anti-guideline, anti-policy position over and over, the effective way to deal with it remains the WP:RFC process.

  The more RfCs that close in favor of following the guidelines and policies, and against special pleading and anti-consensus campaigning on a topical basis, the fewer such incidents will arise. These disputes consistently go in the direction of "just follow WP's own instructions on the matter unless the sources in the aggregate overwhelmingly prefer a variance" (since this is an actual rule found throughout MoS and at WP:COMMONNAME), and they go that way whether dragged out over 30 RMs or settled in an RfC. It costs a lot less editorial time to RfC it, and sets consensus-determination precedent that is easier to find and more persuasive.

  It's also proven more effective to RfC these matters at VPPOL rather than at WT:MOS, because on multiple occasions the result of RfCs at MoS have been ignored by those who didn't get their way and the issue has been re-shopped in an "anti-RfC" to try to overturn it here at VPPOL (ironically, the "walled garden" reasoning Beeblebox suggests should keep MoS disputes at MoS tends to have the opposite effect). So, just cut out all the middle-man processes and do the one that matters most, for any titles/style dispute that gets entrenched and affects more than a trivial number of articles, if a multi-page RM fails to resolve the issue (or it is not limited to title disputes).
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  22:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• The opposition on this is grounded in two obvious fallacies: 1) that there is no comprehensibility difference, and 2) that the sources don't agree with the hyphenation. Both of these have been shown to be faulty. First, only someone already deeply familiar with the topic knows that a railway term of art is "narrow-gauge" (or "narrow gauge" as a noun phrase rather than a compound adjective: "this is a narrow-gauge railway" versus "this railway has a narrow gauge", a distinction most people learn in elementary schools or in their early ESL classes), but that "gauge railway" is not a railway term of art. The topic has many "foo railway", "foo railroad", and "foo rail" terms of art ("slate railway", "commuter railroad", "double-headed rail" etc., etc., etc.), so there is nothing obvious or intuitive about how "narrow", "gauge" and "railway" relate to each other in such a construction, except to experts. The very purpose of hyphenation of compound adjectives is to clearly link two words that form a single modifier, as distinct from independent modifiers (an "ugly brown dog" and an "ugly-brown dog" are not the same thing; I might have a magnificent, title-winning dog that someone feels is of an ugly-brown color, while if the dog itself were ugly, it wouldn't win conformance championships). Second, it's already been amply demonstrated that a) the sources in the aggregate do not prefer to drop the hyphenation, only specialist materials do so, and b) even those do not do it consistently.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  23:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  The fact that the ambiguity and confusion are real is easy to see with a web search for "a gauge railway". Even our article on Rapla exhibits this problem (I just now tagged it for clarification). You see it at Getty Images, this illiterate blog, this funny page, and some that just fail to copy the gauge template contents when they mine wikipedia. Even some conference publications and articles. Same for "the gauge railway", like in "The width of the gauge railway is 760 mm" and "Additionally, the gauge railway line will feature". These are probably all mistakes, but they indicate that this kind of unfamiliar construct is not the easiest thing for editors and writers to understand and get right. The hyphen can only help. Dicklyon (talk) 00:56, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

There is no ambiguity and no confusion here. All of the links you have posted are very obviously nothing more than careless proofreading or editing errors, pure and simple. To say, as you do, that such obvious careless errors demonstrate confusion is like saying that the spelling of the word "Michael" is unclear and ambiguous because a lot of people misspell it as "Micheal". In other words, it is a grasping at straws, nonsense argument, which wrongly and disrespectfully treats Misplaced Pages readers as a mob of fools. Bahnfrend (talk) 11:33, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

If any editor took my remarks as treating them as fools, or otherwise disrespectfully, I sincerely apologize. My remarks were about the ambiguity in parsing unfamiliar terms, and pointing out errors that might have been caused by that ambiguity as seen by unfamiliar writers or editors, and conjecturing that that evidence supports the interpretation that there is real ambiguity there for those unfamiliar with the concept, while acknowledging that many of those are simple errors of transcription or something. It's OK with me if you disagree; it won't make me think less of you. But the ad hominem might. Dicklyon (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

• @SMcCandlish The only fallacy is that "arguments against enforced hyphenation are 'obvious fallacies'". First, the idea that you have to be "deeply familiar" railways to understand the term is an insult to the commonsense of the majority who don't need a grammar lesson to work it out. Second, the sources favour neither variant (we agree to that extent) except in North America, thus there is an element of WP:ENGVAR to this which simply reinforces the Wiki principle of leaving editors to decide for themselves as they had been doing happily for years, until this over-zealous, pro-hyphen crusade came along. Bermicourt (talk) 18:12, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Can't say I care that much either way, but as regards having to be deeply familiar and a specialist etc, I think it would have been sensible to ease off on the rhetoric and not post such thoughts until checked against a well-known not-that-specialist series of publications aimed at those who have not yet had the benefit of much schooling. If you Google "Thomas the Tank Engine narrow(-)gauge" it will be found that Thomas has "Narrow Gauge" Friends, except in WP where his friends are "narrow-gauge". Just saying....Rjccumbria (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Many of the Thomas books and other books by Awdry use "narrow-gauge engine", "narrow-gauge friends", "narrow-gauge railways" and "narrow-gauge rails" with the hyphen, but omit it when capitalizing as "Narrow Gauge". Pretty standard, and reported with links in the previous big RM discussion. Except this one gets mixed up and even uses the hyphen in capped "Narrow-Gauge Engine". Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

The Thomas books were first published between 1945 and 1972, and therefore cannot be described as a useful guide to present usage of hyphenation. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:09, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. It's hard to tell which are the ones written since 1983 by his son Christopher, which modern editions might have been re-edited, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

In any case (apologies for having taken a break from this, and for obviously failing to be adequately clear first time round what the point I thought I was making was), the point I thought I was making was not that "TtTE avoids hyphenation, so should we" (give me some credit, chaps!) , but that some of the rhetoric was OTT counter-productive shooting from the hip. Far from the un-hyphenated form being some arcane perversion known only to specialists, it is one potentially known to any child whose reading age stretches to Thomas the Tank Engine (mind you, they could probably also tell the difference between a diplodocus and an apatosaurus better than most grown-ups). I suppose we should be grateful that (as far as I am aware) we have yet to be told that hyphens are a mandatory requirement under health and safety legislation.

Do I see from the above that people who learned punctuation in the third quarter of the twentieth century will not have valid opinions on best practice? That could be just the excuse I need to slip away from this...Rjccumbria (talk) 10:12, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Bermicourt, your ENGVAR theory is completely refuted by stats from British English books. If there's a small difference in the proportions, it's likely attributable to the higher proportion of rail-specialized publications in the UK compared to the US. But it's still a good super-majority hyphenated there. Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

But you are uninterested in external sources and consider only the hyphenation styleguide to have any effect. You've just moved (undiscussed, naturally) dual mass flywheel to the hyphenated form, despite the unhyphenated form being universal in the drivetrain industry.

You come here, presenting yourself as supporting the use of sources for one case (narrow gauge railways) when there is very little difference of opinion over that particular naming question, yet when there are other issues (such as capitalising "Line") that are contested, your behaviour is to ignore all sources, provided that you can find even one, no matter how non-RS or poorly copyedited that coincides with your prejudical view to enforce the styleguide regardless. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

How many times do we have to go over this, Andy? I think I've covered this with you at least half a dozen times already, on three or four different pages now. "n the drivetrain industry" = in specialized sources written by specialists to other specialists. WP is written for a general audience, not a specialized one. What do general-audience, mainstream publications prefer, and what to the style guides they follow (and on which MoS is based) advise, for such constructions? Hyphenation of the compound adjective. Only someone steeped in drivetrain lore has any idea whether the unhyphenated "dual mass flywheel" means a "mass flywheel" of a dual-construction nature (a "dual, mass flywheel"), or flywheel of a "dual-mass" sort (a "dual-mass flywheel"). Specialized publications sometimes drop hyphenation, commas, and other clarifiers because they are certain that their narrow, focused readership all already know the answer and have internalized this terminology in great detail. Do you really think we haven't already been through this same argument many times with regard to medical terms, legal terms, computer science terms, etc., etc., with the same result? Do you really think railroads are somehow raising a new issue here? They most definitely are not. This is time-sucking rehash of perennial "my topic is somehow a special snowflake" tedium.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  10:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Unless you three are now so close that you're claiming to speak for each other, I have little interest in what you've said there and am still waiting for Dicklyon's explanation of his moves.

Yes, there is an awful lot of ICANTHEARYOU: Dicklyon is dragged to discussions where he puts forward a reasonable case that relevant eternal sources should be taken into consideration; but then the way he acts, by continuing to make undiscussed page moves against such sources, is at odds with this. I make no excuse for seeing that the naming of an obscure drivetrain component should be taken from the drivetrain industry, the one place it's discussed authoritatively. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I do support the use of sources (that's where all info in WP comes from, and informs us about style, too), but I'm not an advocate of "follow the sources", a discreditted anti-MOS campaign from Pmanderson of years past. Where sources are mixed, as S has pointed out, we follow the MOS. In the case of the dual-mass flywheel, I'm seeing 6 of the first 10 book hits with hyphens, but that's not the reason I moved it. I moved it because it was unclear without the hyphen (except to the those in drivetrain business, granted). Dicklyon (talk) 15:51, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

By the way, I held off on tuned mass damper, because I could not clearly determine which of the two meanings was intended, or whether both work fine. Books sometimes use hyphen, but not often enough to convince me that the small minority with hyphens are correct. So I left it, even though sources are a little bit mixed and I think the hyphen would probably signal the intended meaning better in this case. Dicklyon (talk) 16:05, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Bermicourt, please do not engage in circular reassertion of points that have already been refuted; it's just a frustrating waste of everyone's time. Dicklyon provided ample evidence already of real-world confusion that "a gauge railway" is a real term. This is incontrovertible proof from multiple publishers that people are confused on the matter (even professional editors and writers). Second, "the sources favour neither variant" is precisely the situation in which "just do what MoS says and move on" always applies automatically. This kind of scenario (and the habit of people to argue incessantly that their option is the One True Way) is why MoS exists at all. Only in the opposite situation, when the RS are consistently in favor of one particular option and it differs from MoS's default, do we not do the MoS default. This is also the WP:COMMONNAME policy, BTW, so you can stow any "just a guideline" handwaving: "prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources". Third, a slight alleged regional preference for one variant over another has nothing to do with WP:ENGVAR. Please actually go read ENGVAR. It's about norms of standardized English usage that have "strong national ties"; a slight leaning in one direction or another in dialects that each demonstrate both approaches, in practice and in style guides, is neither a dialectal norm nor a strong national tie, but exactly the opposite of both. But as Dicklyon notes, your nationalist assumption is false anyway, and the hyphenation is found aplenty in British materials, too. It's just not preferred in the trainspotter publications you are cherry picking to try to "win". I also have to point out that you can't denigrate the MoS and those who seek compliance with its MOS:HYPHEN provisions, out of one side of your mouth, while crying for the overextension of the MOS:ENGVAR part of it to suit you whims, out of the other. That's like being an atheism activist most of the time, but insisting on your devout Catholicism on Sunday when you hope a desperate prayer will be answered.

This is very simple: If everyone understands the form with the hyphen (even if some, due to familiarity with the term find the hyphen unnecessary for their own, personal, individual comprehension), but some people may not understand without the hyphen (even if you believe that number is small or you think they're ignorant), then the obvious answer is to use the hyphen, since it costs nothing and helps some readers, and helping ignorant readers become better-educated readers is WP's primary raison d'etre. That's all there is to it, and it's how encyclopedic writers approach every such question, from whether to break up a long sentence, to which word order to use, to whether an illustration of something may be needed.
PS: I'm going to laugh very hard if you make some kind of "inefficiency and bother" pseudo-argument about hyphens, after the amount of editorial time you have wasted fighting in vain over this trivia, and since a hyphen and a space take up the same room and require the same number of keystrokes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  10:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: use International English (-ise) for all non-American-related articles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Speedily closing as WP:PERENNIAL. The proposal is also misleading, as well rehash, in that -ise is not "International English", but one variant of British/Commonwealth spelling, while -ize is the other (known as Oxford spelling); meanwhile -ize is not just American even aside from this, but is also the more common variant in Canada, which in some other ways (e.g. -our and -re) leans toward UK English. If WP were to permit only one spelling, it would probably be -ize, since it is a variation found across all dialects. But WP has no reason to permit only one spelling, per MOS:ENGVAR. About the only thing can be said here is that -ise does not belong in American English (other than for words not encountered with -ize, such as advertise).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  06:16, 5 February 2017 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

I propose to use International English (-ise) for all non-American-related articles, and use American English (-ize) only in America-related articles. What is your opinion? Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση 2001 (talk) 21:23, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a perennial proposal and there is very strong consensus against it. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:57, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Exactly, and I would add that when proposing massive, sweeping change that would involve thousand of hours of work and literally millions of edits, it's a good idea to explain what problem you would be solving by doing what you have proposed. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:36, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

FTN discussion - cont.

I'm continuing this here because you're the editor I wanted to respond to. Feel free to move this to the village pump or elsewhere, if you think it best.

Wow, imagine someone saying that a year ago today when Trump was just a candidate? Obama's White House was definitely a reliable source, wasn't it?

Honestly, I would have to say "No, for many uses." Think about how many times Obama's White House addressed some issue of partisan politics publicly. While we may personally agree with Obama's conclusions (or not, as the case may be) about how obstructionist and petty the Republicans are, would we ever take that to be a definitive as -for example- a well-structured PoliSci-Psychologist-Sociologist conducted study that examined thousands of factors and concluded that individual politicians more likely to engage in obstructive tactics, and to put party loyalties above their duties to the nation were also more likely to become Republicans than Democrats? I would say "No". Even in the face of such a study, I would report the conclusions in the most objective way, and attribute them to the author instead of writing something like "Republicans are measurably more obstructionist than Democrats".

That being said, there's still a yuge difference between the two administrations. But that's to be expected. Bush Sr.'s, Reagan's and Obama's administrations were about as reliable as they get, whereas the Clinton administration was not so trustworthy, and I'm honestly not sure if the Nixon administration was any better than the Trump administration. Bush Jr's administration would have been generally reliable, except about WMDs and Iraq. Getting back to the Obama administration, I would have trusted them on statements about climate change, diplomacy, economics and even the size of the crowd at the inauguration, even as I dismissed claims about politics (and some about diplomacy) as unreliable.

All that being said, I appreciate your response. It brings a lot of perspective to the issue to point out what a difference there is (at least in public attitudes towards them) the two administrations. And I agree, it's a bit mind boggling to realize that we're sitting in front of our computers having a serious discussion about whether we can trust our own chief executive to tell us to truth about even simple things, and the answer seems to be a pretty obvious "No". MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:32, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Added to village pump per suggestion. Roches (talk) 04:26, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Bringing it here out of context is worse than nothing. Is there a policy issue or proposal you're raising? Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewing - Election for coordinators

New Page Reviewing - Election for 2 coordinators. Nomination period is now open and will run for two weeks followed by a two-week voting period.

• Nomination period: Sunday 5 February to 23:59 UTC Sunday 19 February
• Voting period: Monday 20 February to 23:59 UTC Monday 06 March

See: NPR Coordinators for full details. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Removal of POV tags

The current policy (Template:POV) is that a tag can be removed when a dispute is "dormant". This is problematic in at least two cases: (1) when the issue has been noted by several people episodically over a long time, but no one has fixed the article, (2) when editors who support the POV of the article refuse to engage in discussion and simply wait it out, rendering the dispute "dormant" after some lapse of time. On the other hand, case 2 creates a perverse incentive for challengers to keep arguing the point indefinitely to stop the discussion becoming "dormant".--Jack Upland (talk) 20:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

You have mis-identified the problem. The problem is editors who care but don't take effective steps to deal with it. In the first case, if none of the alleged supporters of the POV claim lift a finger to fix it, then the claim is dubious. The tag can be removed and any editor who just fights to restore it is better served by editing the article instead of fighting to preserve the tag. In the second case, if there really are editors who are pusing a POV by refusing to engage in discussion, then the editors who care need to use effective WP:DR to put more pressure on the silent holdouts to participate, and that failing the editors who care need to make an effective appeal to ANI or AE. If the holdtouts still won't reply to reasonable efforts at RS based discussion but edit war over the tag or status quo, they'll be blocked. So I don't see the problem. What article are we talking about anyway? Is it already under discretionary sanctions from the arbs? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

It wasn't a specific article. I've just noticed it in a number of articles. Ideally, editors should fix the problems they identify, but this is a voluntary project, and some of the problems are intractable. My question is: if there is a problem, why would dormancy fix it? No one would say that a lack of references is going to be fixed by a lack of discussion.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:24, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Many people who are - I mean, of course - 100% neutral freak out when articles are biased, and I mean obviously seriously any moron can tell biased. So they tag these articles POV for purposes of "warning the reader". Every single one of these editors are absolutely correct, obviously. ........... OK, you get the point hopefully. No one questions lack of sources because you look at the article are there aren't any sources. Regrettably to determine the existence of POV you have to read and think and can still reasonably disagree. I hear what you're saying, but it all stems from "if there's a problem".... IF there's a problem. Says who? Some drive by tagger wanting to "warn the reader"? And how do you tell the honest drive bys from the partisan? So in my view, we should nuke dormant tags and expect anyone who cares to invest energy in BRD to fix the problems. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

To give you a counterexample, History of North Korea was tagged since 2011 (not by me). Several editors had made criticism of its lack of neutrality over the years, but the tag remained until I removed it last year after putting hours of work into the article. No "drive-by nuker" removed the tag in the interim. But according to the policy one could have done because there were long periods of "dormancy". In fact, there was no dispute at all, because no one defended the state of the article. But why would any sensible person remove the tag in that situation? Who knows. But that is what the policy suggests should happen.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

A sensible person reads and thinks critically, and would recognize that there were problems, so even though the rules would allow tag removal, the sensible person you describe would leave it alone if they didn't have time or ability to fix the problems. A POV pusher who likes the status quo might remove it to push their POV. Such is life at Misplaced Pages. I have a lot of climate related pages on my watchlist. In that subject area we deal with this all the time. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

So why have a policy that encourages editors to do something that is not sensible? The policy should say: "In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant, and no outstanding issue can be identified".--Jack Upland (talk) 23:01, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

New policy that templates should be in English with English parameters

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In recent months I have come across two separate templates that were written in German to facilitate the copying and pasting of Infoboxes from the German Wiki to the English Wiki: Template:Infobox Fluss (German Rivers) and Template:Infobox Schienenfahrzeug (German Railway Vehicles). I am really having a hard time understanding the logic behind having a template on the ENGLISH wiki where the parameters are in German. The argument in favor of this, that multiple editors have made, is so that one can easily copy and paste data from the German wiki. That is an absurd reason IMHO. You can't copy and paste the whole page anyway because it has to be translated. The same should be true for the Infobox. This whole infobox should be in English. I feel that this opens up a dangerous precedent as you could make that same argument with any page, in any topic and any language... For example, I would like to be able to copy and paste soccer teams from the Spanish Wiki... So do we now create a Template:Infobox football club that is in spanish so that I can copy and paste this data?

Additionally, why are you copying and pasting data from another Wiki?? Other Wikis are certainly not WP:RS... Now I want to be super clear here, before anyone WP:ABF, this has nothing to do with being anti-german or anything like that! What this actually grew out of was me converting Infoboxes to use {{Infobox}} as a base. I had a hard time with these two templates because the parameters were completely foreign to me (not speaking any German myself).

My goal here with this policy request is to establish a firm policy around whether or not foreign languages can be used in Infoboxes. There are obvious exceptions and this is not a debate about whether we are using "color" or "colour"... but I feel strongly that having entire Infoboxes written with all parameters in a foreign language is not good practice for an English Wiki.

If the decision is made to implement a policy that all Infoboxes should be written in English, then I will commit to converting not only all templates that are in a foreign language, but also to converting all transclusions. I don't think the fact that these transclusions already exist should be part of the discussion as to whether or not they should continue to be used. I should also say that if there are certain individuals who feel the need to continue to copy and paste templates from foreign language wikis, I don't see any reason that custom templates cannot be written that once substituted are converted to their English equivalent.

I also want to be clear that this discussion is NOT about merging templates. There are separate conversations about whether Template:Infobox German railway vehicle and Template:Infobox locomotive should be merged (for example). That is NOT the topic here! This is simply about whether or not to use foreign language in the Infobox.

I look forward to hearing discussion on both sides. --Zackmann08 (/_{What I been doing}) 19:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

To clarify (no opinion in here).

1. On dewiki there exists template de:Vorlage:Infobox Schienenfahrzeug, with parameters like |Steuerungsart=. It is used in de:DR-Baureihe 01. All fine so far.

2. Now an editor starts sister article en:DRG Class 01, and copy/pastes the full infobox wikicode from that article. That is, de:copy/en:paste. The new article here is not broken, because enwiki has {{Infobox Schienenfahrzeug}} (a redirect to {{Infobox German railway vehicle}}), with parameter name, exactly: |Steuerungsart=. Then the editor goes offline for a while.

3. So {{Infobox Schienenfahrzeug}} has all these German language parameter names, this RfC is about. Of course, for |Steuerungsart= it shows label 'Valve gear'. But not all parameters in dewiki have clear English meanings. That is: apart from the correct language translation, there is also the meaning/definition to 'translate'.

4. Two editors want to improve. One goes to the article, and does not read German (parameter names), so cannot edit. The other one wants to improve the template, but can not research the actual meaning or definition of an obscure German-language parameter. The improvement fails.

5. This RfC purports to have these German language parameters translated, resulting in a set of English language parameters in that same template. With this, the simple de:copy/en:paste will not work: and editor (or a bot?) will have to change parameter names.

-DePiep (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Opinion by User:Bermicourt

Regrettably Zackmann08, albeit I'm sure in good faith, has misunderstood the point of these templates and the huge benefit they are to translators and to Misplaced Pages as a whole. The issue is not that we should have a proliferation of foreign language templates in article mainspace on English Misplaced Pages; of course, we should not. However, it is very important that we allow the existence of infobox substitution templates that can handle foreign parameters in order to help editors build the encyclopedia. Let's take a German example. There are thousands of mountain articles that exist only on German Misplaced Pages e.g. for the Alps. The process is this: the body of the article is translated and created on English Wiki; the infobox is imported from German Wiki 'as is' but, thanks to the substitution template, Template:Infobox Berg, it displays immediately and automatically in English; finally, within 24 hours a bot comes along and substitutes the template with its English equivalent. Thus we have an English infobox in the English article. The German infobox only exists in the article for a few hours. Check the links to Template:Infobox Berg - there are none in article mainspace; they've all been substituted.

Of course, translators could sit for hours tediously translating the same old German parameters and data manually into English to achieve the same result as the above. But why, when a clever substitution template and a bot can save all that time? If you're not a translator, you may not care that you're wasting masses of other editors' time. But I've translated over 4,000 articles and this process is an absolute lifesaver. Without it, I'm outa here. I'm not going to waste time on repetitive stuff that I know can be done automatically. That's crazy. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:40, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

You'd be right, Bermicourt, if that bot existed for {{Infobox Schienenfahrzeug}}. It does not sound fair that you AGF-blame Zackmann08 for that omission. In fact, you are supporting this RfC proposal by admitting that these parameters should be translated (by a bot and within 24h). Rephrasing this RfC: do you agree that when no bot is available, this de:copy/en:paste should not be done? (Note that you rely on a bot as an argument; however we cannot enforce someone to build such a bot). BTW, let me note that in the long run Wikidata is supposed to make this issue moot. -DePiep (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: you're right actually... I don't think I DID understand the use case here... I also think DePiep hit the nail on the head. First, I was not aware that such a bot existed and that the flow worked the way you described. You will note that I did not mention Template:Infobox Berg which, as your pointed out, has 0 transclusions in the mainspace. I did however mention Template:Infobox Schienenfahrzeug with 313 tranclusions and Template:Infobox Fluss with 288 transclusions (obviously safe to assume some of those are testcase/sandbox but the majority are in the mainspace). I would like to clarify that I have ZERO ISSUE with a template in the flow that you described, where it is short lived and replaced by an English equivalent via a bot. If the same were try for Schienenfahrzeug and Fluss I would have no objections. I do appreciate you explaining the use case. I did not fully understand that and having you shed some light on it helped tremendously. Given those comments, what are your thoughts on the following.

1. Foreign language templates (that is to say templates that have all params in a foreign language) should not be transcluded in the main space UNLESS there is a bot that comes behind and translates them to an English equivalent.
2. For these templates that DO get cleaned up, such as Template:Infobox Berg, lets create a new {{Ombox}} that is placed on these templates that says something along the lines of "This template exists to facilitate translating from <insert language here> to English. While the template may existing in an article for a short period of time, it will later be converted by <botname> to use <other template name>." This will serve a few purposes. First, helps group these templates together but secondly it will help prevent a rekindle of this debate down the road by saying very clearly that while the template has no transclusions, it is still very much in use. (I know that the {{substitute}} template covers this a bit, but this will go more into depth.
3. For those templates that do NOT have a bot (Template:Infobox Schienenfahrzeug and Template:Infobox Fluss for example), lets get a good policy in place for making these bots happen. I have a bit of bot experience and am happy to help!

Thanks again for chiming in. You really helped me understand this issue. --Zackmann08 (/_{What I been doing}) 20:58, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Opinion by User:Jonesey95

This can be read as a reply to #Opinion by User:Bermicour

There is already a bot that does this template substitution. See User:AnomieBOT/docs/TemplateSubster and Category:Misplaced Pages templates to be automatically substituted for details. You can find many foreign-language substitution templates in that category. The hard work is programming the template in question to replace foreign-language parameters with English-language parameters when it is substituted. This has already been done for many templates. I would support a policy stating that foreign-language templates should not exist in mainspace pages for longer than it takes for a bot to do the necessary substitution. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:04, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95, could you specify how this works out with the two example templates (500+ transclusions today)? By now, we all see the bottleneck with the availability of a bot/automate/subst in this, of course. -DePiep (talk) 21:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Opinion by User:NSH001

Let's start with the important bit: Document the template properly. The documentation should make clear that the template is meant to be substituted. It should be substituted immediately by the translator/creator of the article, and the bot is only there as a backup in case the editor in question fails to do this. Once substituted, we have a normal infobox, in English, perfectly translated from German (or whatever language it's allowing for). No problem whatsoever. But until these templates are documented properly, we're bound to get a steady stream of red herrings like this one being posted by well-intentioned editors. --NSH001 (talk) 22:22, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@NSH001: I think you make a great point about documentation. I'm not sure these are redherrings though. It is not clear to me that everyone IS in agreement that Template:Infobox Fluss (for example) SHOULD be substituted. I certainly think it should and agree with you 100%, but I think part of this discussion is to ensure that is the consensus and then to document it. --Zackmann08 (/_{What I been doing}) 22:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

No, this is definitely a red herring. The authors of these templates, from the outset, fully intended them to be substituted. They make no sense otherwise. They're there purely to save time and effort for article translators. It's just a particularly egregious example of the endemic failure of template editors to document their wonderful templates properly. Wouldn't be very difficult to code up a little template to produce the appropriate warning message, and transclude it in all the documentation pages for these templates. --NSH001 (talk) 22:44, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Fluss substitution, but are you saying NSH001 that Schienenfahrzeug just should be subst:-ed an everything is fine? Well, that subst does not exist. You are pushing a non-existent solution. -DePiep (talk) 23:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@NSH001: I'm trying to have a constructive discussion... Doesn't seem like you are interested in such... --Zackmann08 (/_{What I been doing}) 23:19, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Opinion by User:Someguy1221

The whole complaint seems like unnecessary policy creep to me. It does not appear that anyone on Misplaced Pages is arguing the foreign-language template should be kept in favor of actual or hypothetical English-language templates, and the foreign ones are apparently getting replaced where an English version is available. The end result of banning this shortcut would simply be to make good content disappear, just because it's not perfect. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

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