Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/Discussion report

The Discussion Report is back, and here to stay! The editors of The Signpost regret that the past four months were not covered. We have attempted to summarize in-depth some previous discussions and briefly report on others. Please review the archives of Wikipedia:Centralized discussion or various other logs to see further discussions.

For extensive coverage of this discussion's origins, see the January deletion report.

A discussion was initiated on 27 January 2022 with many proposals regarding changes to the subject notability guideline WP:NSPORT. 13 subproposals were created.

• Proposal 1 suggested making athlete biographies required to demonstrate GNG when notability is challenged at WP:AFD. There was no consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 2 suggested making the guideline explicitly state articles can not use database, personal, or team pages as basis of creation. There was consensus against this proposal.
• Proposal 3 suggested removing all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events. There was consensus for the proposal.
• Proposal 4 proposed modifying all provisions of NSPORTS that provide that participation in "one" game/match such that the minimum participation level is increased to "three" games/matches. There was no consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 5 suggested implementing a requirement that all sports biographies and sports season/team articles must, from inception, include at least one example of significant coverage from a reliable, independent source. Mere database entries would be insufficient for creation of a new biography article. There was consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 6 proposed creating a PROD variant for articles that do not meet the standards set by proposal 5. There was consensus against this proposal.
• Proposal 7 suggested removing all NSPORTS-related guideline, except for a reminder to follow WP:GNG, and a requirement that articles can not use database, personal, or team pages as part of an assertion of notability. There was consensus against this proposal.
• Proposal 8 proposed rewriting the introduction to clearly state that GNG is the applicable guideline, and articles may not be created or kept unless they meet GNG. There was partial consensus for this proposal.
• Proposals 9 and 11 suggested rewriting the lede of NSPORTS. There was no consensus for these two proposals.
• Proposal 10 would require editors to do research and provide summary statistics based on a random sample of articles within 30 days in order to justify particular sections of the guideline or else those section will be removed. There was no consensus for this proposal.
• Proposal 12 was moved to the talk page of Wikipedia:Notability as a more appropiate venue.
• Proposal 13 proposed that no more subproposals be created, and was passed.

Wugapodes, RandomCanadian, and Cbl62 collectively closed all of the subproposals of the discussion. – E

A major request for comment (RfC) on administrator activity requirements was opened on 17 March by Arbitration Committee member Worm That Turned. The current standard, adopted in 2011, requires that an admin be completely inactive for a year before their bit may be removed. Many admins are only marginally active—less than half have made more than 30 edits in the past two months—and multiple ArbCom proceedings in recent months have centered on questionable behavior from marginally active legacy admins. The proposal suggests increasing the minimum to an average of 20 edits per year over five years. The (active) community appears highly enthusiastic about the idea, with the 10 oppose !votes as of press time barely noticeable in a blizzard of 170 supports. The only real question is whether there will be consensus for a further heightened standard of an average of 100 edits per year over three years first raised by ArbCom member Barkeep49. ^[1] – Sd

A Request for Comment regarding whether source deprecation RfCs should require certain user access levels (e.g. autoconfirmed, extendedconfirmed) was opened on 11 January 2022. Editors discussed a variety of viewpoints. Many editors supporting Option 1 (the status quo no protection) pointed to previous deprecation RfCs where users that were sockpuppeting were all extendedconfirmed. An example provided was The Jewish Chronicle RfC. They expressed concerns that this change would not benefit discussions for the majority of deprecation RfCs. Other contributors expressed protecting these discussion pages goes against User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles and WP:RULECREEP. Meanwhile, editors supporting Option 2/3 (protection) cited that if only more experienced editors were allowed to participate, quality of discussions will improve, and that deprecation RfCs are already in a very complicated field inside Wikipedia that newcomers might not understand or even have strong opinions for. The RfC was closed on 2 February 2022 with general consensus to keep the status quo of no protection. This close did not override consensus regarding ARBPIA-related RfC protections. – E

This section covers discussions that were not covered in-depth above, in chronological order.

• Talk header: SilkTork proposed that the {{Talk header}} template be allowed to be added to any talk page, including new ones, on 31 October 2021. Consensus was determined by Scottywong on 10 March 2022 that the current guidelines around the template were too restrictive, but there was no concrete consensus on specific changes to the documentation. However, there was consensus that the template should not be mass-added to pages using automated or semi-automated tools.
• Reliability of GNS: Contributor FOARP posted to the reliable sources noticeboard on 8 November 2021 seeking clarification on whether GNS (the GEOnet Names Server) was a reliable source. ProcrastinatingReader closed the discussion on 27 December 2021, finding consensus that the source was generally reliable for locations & coordinates, generally unreliable for feature classes, and that it does not satisfy the "Legal recognition" requirement of WP:GEOLAND.
• Deletion discussion for ARV: Spartaz opened a Miscellany for deletion discussion on 6 January 2022 to delete Wikipedia:Administrative action review, a forum opened after community consensus was established in a Request for Comment. RL0919 concluded the discussion on the same day with a result of "speedy keep", citing that MfD was not the proper venue for the discussion, and suggesting that a Request for Comment would be the most appropriate next step.
• Main page volunteer note: Jayen466 suggested that a note regarding how Wikimedia Foundation projects are edited by volunteers be added to the Main Page on 30 December 2021. Strong support for the change was ascertained by MSGJ on 18 January 2022. ^[1]
• Community Wishlist Survey: The Community Wishlist Survey 2022 opened for proposals on January 10, 2022 and opened for voting on January 28, 2022. Please see the Technology Report for previous coverage of the Wishlist. ^[1]
• First pillar: SportingFlyer suggested removing the mention of "almanacs and gazeteers" in the first pillar on 17 December 2021. GRuban closed the discussion on 9 February 2022, finding consensus for the status quo. ^[1]
• DS topic areas: As initially covered in the January and February arbitration reports, the Arbitration Committee requested the feedback of community members regarding removing certain discretionary sanctions topic areas which were among the oldest and did not reflect the current state of consensus among the community.
• TFA running period: Sdkb proposed to adjust the TFA (Today's featured article) running period from the status quo of not allowing articles to run twice in 5 years, to a specific proposal involving tiered rules regulated with vital article classification. This was posted on 4 January 2022. Isabelle Belato closed the discussion on 23 February 2022, finding no consensus and suggesting further workshopping and discussion. ^[1]
• 2022 steward elections: The 2022 Stewards Elections opened on 7 February 2022 and closed on 26 February 2022. For further coverage, please see News and Notes. ^[1]
• UCoC enforcement ratification: The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines finished the drafting stage on January 24, 2022. The Wikimedia Foundation submitted the guidelines for community ratification on March 7, 2022, and the voting period closed on March 21, 2022. The result of the vote was not available before the publication deadline. For further coverage, please see News and Notes. ^[1]
• Draftification of older articles: Chess proposed on 9 February 2022 banning the draftification (moving to draftspace) of any article over 90 days old without consensus being determined at Articles for Deletion. Joe Roe found rough consensus for the proposal on 24 March 2022, but weaker consensus for many other aspects of implementing it. The closer suggested more discussion on the topic.
• Ukraine-related DYKs: SL93 questioned whether DYKs (Did you Know hooks) relating to Russia and Ukraine should be allowed to appear on the main page. Compassionate727 closed the discussion, summarizing a consensus that Russia and Ukraine-related hooks should be scrutinized more carefully for compliance with community policy, and that it is generally fine for these types of hooks to be approved.