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RfC: Voluntary RfA after resignation

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.

There is clear consensus that participants in this discussion wish to retain the "Option 2" status quo. We're past 30 days of discussion and there's not much traffic on the discussion now. It's unlikely the consensus would suddenly shift with additional discussion. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:29, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

---

Should Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of admin tools be amended to:

• Option 1 – Require former administrators to request restoration of their tools at the bureaucrats' noticeboard (BN) if they are eligible to do so (i.e., they do not fit into any of the exceptions).
• Option 2 – Clarify Maintain the status quo that former administrators who would be eligible to request restoration via BN may instead request restoration of their tools via a voluntary request for adminship (RfA).
• Option 3 – Allow bureaucrats to SNOW-close RfAs as successful if (a) 48 hours have passed, (b) the editor has right of resysop, and (c) a SNOW close is warranted.

Background: This issue arose in one recent RfA and is currently being discussed in an ongoing RfA. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:14, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Note: There is an ongoing related discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Making voluntary "reconfirmation" RFA's less controversial.
Note: Option 2 was modified around 22:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC). Note: Added option 3. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard, Wikipedia talk:Administrators, Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship, T:CENT. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:19, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• 2 per Kline's comment at Hog Farm's RfA. If an admin wishes to be held accountable for their actions at a re-RfA, they should be allowed to do so. charlotte ^👸🎄 21:22, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  Also fine with 3 charlotte ^👸♥📱 22:23, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• There is ongoing discussion about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Making voluntary "reconfirmation" RFA's less controversial. CMD (talk) 21:24, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
  • 2, after thought. I don't think 3 provides much benefit, and creating separate class of RfAs that are speedy passed feels a misstep. If there are serious issues surrounding wasting time on RfAs set up under what might feel to someone like misleading pretenses, that is best solved by putting some indicator next to their RFA candidate name. Maybe "Hog Farm (RRfA)". CMD (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    best solved by putting some indicator next to their RFA candidate name. Maybe "Hog Farm (RRfA)" - I like this idea, if option 2 comes out as consensus I think this small change would be a step in the right direction, as the "this isn't the best use of time" crowd (myself included) would be able to quickly identify the type of RFAs they don't want to participate in. BugGhost 🦗👻 11:05, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    I think that's a great idea. I would support adding some text encouraging people who are considering seeking reconfirmation to add (RRfA) or (reconfirmation) after their username in the RfA page title. That way people who are averse to reading or participating in reconfirmations can easily avoid them, and no one is confused about what is going on. 28bytes (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    I think this would be a great idea if it differentiated against recall RfAs. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    If we are differentiating three types of RFA we need three terms. Post-recall RFAs are referred to as "reconfirmation RFAs", "Re-RFAS" or "RRFAs" in multiple places, so ones of the type being discussed here are the ones that should take the new term. "Voluntary reconfirmation RFA" (VRRFA or just VRFA) is the only thing that comes to mind but others will probably have better ideas. Thryduulf (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• 1 * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:25, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2 I don't see why people trying to do the right thing should be discouraged from doing so. If others feel it is a waste of time, they are free to simply not participate. El Beeblerino ^{if you're not into the whole brevity thing} 21:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2 Getting reconfirmation from the community should be allowed. Those who see it as a waste of time can ignore those RfAs. Schazjmd (talk) 21:32, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• Of course they may request at RfA. They shouldn't but they may. This RfA feels like it does nothing to address the criticism actually in play and per the link to the idea lab discussion it's premature to boot. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:38, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2 per my comments at the idea lab discussion and Queent of Hears, Beeblebrox and Scazjmd above. I strongly disagree with Barkeep's comment that "They shouldn't [request the tools back are RFA]". It shouldn't be made mandatory, but it should be encouraged where the time since desysop and/or the last RFA has been lengthy. Thryduulf (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  When to encourage it would be a worthwhile RfC and such a discussion could be had at the idea lab before launching an RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  I've started that discussion as a subsection to the linked VPI discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 22:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• 1 or 3. RFA is an "expensive" process in terms of community time. RFAs that qualify should be fast-tracked via the BN process. It is only recently that a trend has emerged that folks that don't need to RFA are RFAing again. 2 in the last 6 months. If this continues to scale up, it is going to take up a lot of community time, and create noise in the various RFA statistics and RFA notification systems (for example, watchlist notices and User:Enterprisey/rfa-count-toolbar.js). –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  Making statistics "noisy" is just a reason to improve the way the statistics are gathered. In this case collecting statistics for reconfirmation RFAs separately from other RFAs would seem to be both very simple and very effective. If (and it is a very big if) the number of reconfirmation RFAs means that notifications are getting overloaded, then we can discuss whether reconfirmation RFAs should be notified differently. As far as differentiating them, that is also trivially simple - just add a parameter to template:RFA (perhaps "reconfirmation=y") that outputs something that bots and scripts can check for. Thryduulf (talk) 22:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  Option 3 looks like a good compromise. I'd support that too. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  I'm weakly opposed to option 3, editors who want feedback and a renewed mandate from the community should be entitled to it. If they felt that that a quick endorsement was all that was required then could have had that at BN, they explicitly chose not to go that route. Nobody is required to participate in an RFA, so if it is going the way you think it should, or you don't have an opinion, then just don't participate and your time has not been wasted. Thryduulf (talk) 22:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• 2. We should not make it more difficult for administrators to be held accountable for their actions in the way they please. JJP_Master (she/they) 22:00, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• Added option 3 above. Maybe worth considering as a happy medium, where unsure admins can get a check on their conduct without taking up too much time. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2 – If a former admin wishes to subject themselves to RfA to be sure they have the requisite community confidence to regain the tools, why should we stop them? Any editor who feels the process is a waste of time is free to ignore any such RfAs. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 22:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  • I would also support option 3 if the time is extended to 72 hours instead of 48. That, however, is a detail that can be worked out after this RfC. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 02:05, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 per leek. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:16, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  A further note: option 3 gives 'crats the discretion to SNOW close a successful voluntary re-RfA; it doesn't require such a SNOW close, and I trust the 'crats to keep an RfA open if an admin has a good reason for doing so. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• 2 as per JJPMaster. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 22:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 (no change) – The sample size is far too small for us to analyze the impact of such a change, but I believe RfA should always be available. Now that WP:RECALL is policy, returning administrators may worry that they have become out of touch with community norms and may face a recall as soon as they get their tools back at BN. Having this familiar community touchpoint as an option makes a ton of sense, and would be far less disruptive / demoralizing than a potential recall. Taking this route away, even if it remains rarely used, would be detrimental to our desire for increased administrator accountability. – bradv 22:22, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) I'm surprised the response here hasn't been more hostile, given that these give the newly-unresigned administrator a get out of recall free card for a year. —Cryptic 22:25, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Cryptic hostile to what? Thryduulf (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• 2, distant second preference 3. I would probably support 3 as first pick if not for recall's rule regarding last RfA, but as it stands, SNOW-closing a discussion that makes someone immune to recall for a year is a non-starter. Between 1 and 2, though, the only argument for 1 seems to be that it avoids a waste of time, for which there is the much simpler solution of not participating and instead doing something else. Special:Random and Wikipedia:Backlog are always there. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 23:31, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• 1 would be my preference, but I don't think we need a specific rule for this. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:36, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. No second preference between 2 or 3. As long as a former administrator didn't resign under a cloud, picking up the tools again should be low friction and low effort for the entire community. If there are issues introduced by the recall process, they should be fixed in the recall policy itself. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 01:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  After considering this further, I prefer option 3 over option 2 if option 1 is not the consensus. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 07:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2, i.e. leave well enough alone. There is really not a problem here that needs fixing. If someone doesn’t want to “waste their time” participating in an RfA that’s not required by policy, they can always, well, not participate in the RfA. No one is required to participate in someone else’s RfA, and I struggle to see the point of participating but then complaining about “having to” participate. 28bytes (talk) 01:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 nobody is obligated to participate in a re-confirmation RfA. If you think they are a waste of time, avoid them. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• 1 or 3 per Novem Linguae. C F A 02:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3: Because it is incredibly silly to have situations like we do now of "this guy did something wrong by doing an RfA that policy explicitly allows, oh well, nothing to do but sit on our hands and dissect the process across three venues and counting." Your time is your own. No one is forcibly stealing it from you. At the same time it is equally silly to let the process drag on, for reasons explained in WP:SNOW. Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:42, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Update: Option 2 seems to be the consensus and I also would be fine with that. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:10, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 per Gnoming. I think 2 works, but it is a very long process and for someone to renew their tools, it feels like an unnecessarily long process compared to a normal RfA. Conyo14 (talk) 04:25, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• As someone who supported both WormTT and Hog Farm's RfAs, option 1 > option 3 >> option 2. At each individual RfA the question is whether or not a specific editor should be an admin, and in both cases I felt that the answer was clearly "yes". However, I agree that RfA is a very intensive process. It requires a lot of time from the community, as others have argued better than I can. I prefer option 1 to option 3 because the existence of the procedure in option 3 implies that it is a good thing to go through 48 hours of RfA to re-request the mop. But anything which saves community time is a good thing. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 04:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I've seen this assertion made multiple times now that [RFA] requires a lot of time from the community, yet nowhere has anybody articulated how why this is true. What time is required, given that nobody is required to participate and everybody who does choose to participate can spend as much or as little time assessing the candidate as they wish? How and why does a reconfirmation RFA require any more time from editors (individually or collectively) than a request at BN? Thryduulf (talk) 04:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I think there are a number of factors and people are summing it up as "time-wasting" or similar:

  1. BN Is designed for this exact scenario. It's also clearly a less contentious process.
  2. Snow closures a good example of how we try to avoid wasting community time on unnecessary process and the same reasoning applies here. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and there's no reason to have a 7-day process when the outcome is a given.
  3. If former administrators continue to choose re-RFAs over BN, it could set a problematic precedent where future re-adminship candidates feel pressured to go through an RFA and all that entails. I don't want to discourage people already vetted by the community from rejoining the ranks.
  4. The RFA process is designed to be a thoughtful review of prospective administrators and I'm concerned these kinds of perfunctory RFAs will lead to people taking the process less seriously in the future.

  Daniel Quinlan (talk) 07:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Because several thousand people have RFA on their watchlist, and thousands more will see the "there's an open RFA" notice on theirs whether they follow it or not. Unlike BN, RFA is a process that depends on community input from a large number of people. In order to even realise that the RFA is not worth their time, they have to:

  • Read the opening statement and first few question answers (I just counted, HF's opening and first 5 answers are about 1000 words)
  • Think, "oh, they're an an ex-admin, I wonder why they're going through RFA, what was their cloud"
  • Read through the comments and votes to see if any issues have been brought up (another ~1000 words)
  • None have
  • Realise your input is not necessary and this could have been done at BN

  This process will be repeated by hundreds of editors over the course of a week. BugGhost 🦗👻 08:07, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  That they were former admins has always been the first two sentences of their RfA’s statement, sentences which are immediately followed by that they resigned due to personal time commitment issues. You do not have to read the first 1000+ words to figure that out. If the reader wants to see if the candidate was lying in their statement, then they just have a quick skim through the oppose section. None of this should take more than 30 seconds in total. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Not everyone can skim things easily - it personally takes me a while to read sections. I don't know if they're going to bury the lede and say something like "Also I made 10,000 insane redirects and then decided to take a break just before arbcom launched a case" in paragraph 6. Hog Farm's self nom had two paragraphs about disputes and it takes more than 30 seconds to unpick that and determine if that is a "cloud" or not. Even for reconfirmations, it definitely takes more than 30 seconds to determine a conclusion. BugGhost 🦗👻 11:21, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  They said they resigned to personal time commitments. That is directly saying they wasn’t under a cloud, so I’ll believe them unless someone claims the contrary in the oppose section. If the disputes section contained a cloud, the oppose section would have said so. One chooses to examine such nominations like normal RfAs. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Just to double check, you're saying that whenever you go onto an RFA you expect any reason to oppose to already be listed by someone else, and no thought is required? I am begining to see how you are able to assess an RFA in under 30 seconds BugGhost 🦗👻 23:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Something in their statement would be an incredibly obvious reason. We are talking about the assessment whether to examine and whether the candidate could've used BN. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:52, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf let's not confuse "a lot of community time is spent" with "waste of time". Some people have characterized the re-RFAs as a waste of time but that's not the assertion I (and I think a majority of the skeptics) have been making. All RfAs use a lot of community time as hundreds of voters evaluate the candidate. They then choose to support, oppose, be neutral, or not vote at all. While editor time is not perfectly fixed - editors may choose to spend less time on non-Wikipedia activities at certain times - neither is it a resource we have in abundance anymore relative to our project. And so I think we, as a community, need to be thought about how we're using that time especially when the use of that time would have been spent on other wiki activities.Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Absolutely nothing compels anybody to spend any time evaluating an RFA. If you think your wiki time is better spent elsewhere than evaluating an RFA candidate, then spend it elsewhere. That way only those who do think it is a good use of their time will participate and everybody wins. You win by not spending your time on something that you don't think is worth it, those who do participate don't have their time wasted by having to read comments (that contradict explicit policy) about how the RFA is a waste of time. Personally I regard evaluating whether a long-time admin still has the approval of the community to be a very good use of community time, you are free to disagree, but please don't waste my time by forcing me to read comments about how you think I'm wasting my time. Thryduulf (talk) 23:39, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I am not saying you or anyone else is wasting time and am surprised you are so fervently insisting I am. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  I don't understand how your argument that it is not a good use of community time is any different from arguing that it is a waste of time? Thryduulf (talk) 09:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 I don't mind the re-RFAs, but I'd appreciate if we encouraged restoration via BN instead, I just object to making it mandatory. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 06:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. Banning voluntary re-RfAs would be a step in the wrong direction on admin accountability. Same with SNOW closing. There is no more "wasting of community time" if we let the RfA run for the full seven days, but allowing someone to dig up a scandal on the seventh day is an important part of the RfA process. The only valid criticism I've heard is that folks who do this are arrogant, but banning arrogance, while noble, seems highly impractical. Toadspike [Talk] 07:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3, 1, then 2, per HouseBlaster. Also agree with Daniel Quinlan. I think these sorts of RFA's should only be done in exceptional circumstances. Graham87 (talk) 08:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 as first preference, option 3 second. RFAs use up a lot of time - hundreds of editors will read the RFA and it takes time to come to a conclusion. When that conclusion is "well that was pointless, my input wasn't needed", it is not a good system. I think transparency and accountability is a very good thing, and we need more of it for resyssopings, but that should come from improving the normal process (BN) rather than using a different one (RFA). My ideas for improving the BN route to make it more transparent and better at getting community input is outlined over on the idea lab BugGhost 🦗👻 08:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2, though I'd be for option 3 too. I'm all for administrators who feel like they want/should go through an RfA to solicit feedback even if they've been given the tools back already. I see multiple people talk about going through BN, but if I had to hazard a guess, it's way less watched than RfA is. However I do feel like watchlist notifications should say something to the effect of "A request for re-adminship feedback is open for discussion" so that people that don't like these could ignore them. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 09:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 because WP:ADMINISTRATORS is well-established policy. Read WP:ADMINISTRATORS#Restoration of admin tools, which says quite clearly, Regardless of the process by which the admin tools are removed, any editor is free to re-request the tools through the requests for adminship process. I went back 500 edits to 2017 and the wording was substantially the same back then. So, I simply do not understand why various editors are berating former administrators to the point of accusing them of wasting time and being arrogant for choosing to go through a process which is specifically permitted by policy. It is bewildering to me. Cullen328 (talk) 09:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 & 3 I think that there still should be the choice between BN and re-RFA for resysops, but I think that the re-RFA should stay like it is in Option 3, unless it is controversial, at which point it could be extended to the full RFA period. I feel like this would be the best compromise between not "wasting" community time (which I believe is a very overstated, yet understandable, point) and ensuring that the process is based on broad consensus and that our "representatives" are still supported. If I were WTT or Hog, I might choose to make the same decision so as to be respectful of the possibility of changing consensus. JuxtaposedJacob (talk) | :) | he/him | 10:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2, for lack of a better choice. Banning re-RFAs is not a great idea, and we should not SNOW close a discussion that would give someone immunity from a certain degree of accountability. I've dropped an idea for an option 4 in the discussion section below. Giraffer (talk) 12:08, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 I agree with Graham87 that these sorts of RFAs should only be done in exceptional circumstances, and BN is the best place to ask for tools back. – DreamRimmer (talk) 12:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 I don't think prohibition makes sense. It also has weird side effects. eg: some admins' voluntary recall policies may now be completely void, because they would be unable to follow them even if they wanted to, because policy prohibits them from doing a RFA. (maybe if they're also 'under a cloud' it'd fit into exemptions, but if an admins' policy is "3 editors on this named list tell me I'm unfit, I resign" then this isn't really a cloud.)
  Personally, I think Hog Farm's RFA was unwise, as he's textbook uncontroversial. Worm's was a decent RFA; he's also textbook uncontroversial but it happened at a good time. But any editor participating in these discussions to give the "support" does so using their own time. Everyone who feels their time is wasted can choose to ignore the discussion, and instead it'll pass as 10-0-0 instead of 198-2-4. It just doesn't make sense to prohibit someone from seeking a community discussion, though. For almost anything, really. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 It takes like two seconds to support or ignore an RFA you think is "useless"... can't understand the hullabaloo around them. I stand by what I said on WTT's re-RFA regarding RFAs being about evaluating trustworthiness and accountability. Trustworthy people don't skip the process. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 15:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Option 2 is a waste of community time. - Ratnahastin (talk) 15:30, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Why? Thryduulf (talk) 15:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• 2 is fine. Strong oppose to 1 and 3. Opposing option 1 because there is nothing wrong with asking for extra community feedback. opposing option 3 because once an RfA has been started, it should follow the standard rules. Note that RfAs are extremely rare and non-contentious RfAs require very little community time (unlike this RfC which seems a waste of community time, but there we are). —Kusma (talk) 16:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2, with no opposition to 3. I see nothing wrong with a former administrator getting re-confirmed by the community, and community vetting seems like a good thing overall. If people think it's a waste of time, then just ignore the RfA. Natg 19 (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2 Sure, and clarify that should such an RFA be unsuccessful they may only regain through a future rfa. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:03, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 If contributing to such an RFA is a waste of your time, just don't participate. TheWikiToby (talk) 18:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  No individual is wasting their time participating. Instead the person asking for a re-rfa is using tons of editor time by asking hundreds of people to vet them. Even the choice not to participate requires at least some time to figure out that this is not a new RfA; though at least in the two we've had recently it would require only as long as it takes to get to the RfA - for many a click from the watchlist and then another click into the rfa page - and to read the first couple of sentences of the self-nomination which isn't terribly long all things considered. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with you (I think) that it's a matter of perspective. For me, clicking the RFA link in my watchlist and reading the first paragraph of Hog Farm's nomination (where they explained that they were already a respected admin) took me about 10 seconds. Ten seconds is nothing; in my opinion, this is just a nonissue. But then again, I'm not an admin, checkuser, or an oversighter. Maybe the time to read such a nomination is really wasting their time. I don't know. TheWikiToby (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I'm an admin and an oversighter (but not a checkuser). None of my time was wasted by either WTT or Hog Farm's nominations. Thryduulf (talk) 23:30, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• 2. Maintain the status quo. And stop worrying about a trivial non-problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2. This reminds me of banning plastic straws (bear with me). Sure, I suppose in theory, that this is a burden on the community's time (just as straws do end up in landfills/the ocean). However, the amount of community time that is drained is minuscule compared to the amount of community time drained in countless, countless other fora and processes (just like the volume of plastic waste contributed by plastic straws is less than 0.001% of the total plastic waste). When WP becomes an efficient, well oiled machine, then maybe we can talk about saving community time by banning re-RFA's. But this is much ado about nothing, and indeed this plan to save people from themselves, and not allow them to simply decide whether to participate or not, is arguably more damaging than some re-RFAs (just as banning straws convinced some people that "these save-the-planet people are so ridiculous that I'm not going to bother listening to them about anything."). And, in fact, on a separate note, I'd actually love it if more admins just ran a re-RFA whenever they wanted. They would certainly get better feedback than just posting "What do my talk page watchers think?" on their own talk page. Or waiting until they get yelled at on their talk page, AN/ANI, AARV, etc. We say we want admins to respect feedback; does it have to be in a recall petition? --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  What meaningful feedback has Hog Farm gotten? "A minority of people think you choose poorly in choosing this process to regain adminship". What are they supposed to do with that? I share your desire for editors to share meaningful feedback with administrators. My own attempt yielded some, though mainly offwiki where I was told I was both too cautious and too impetuous (and despite the seeming contradiction each was valuable in its own way). So yes let's find ways to get meaningful feedback to admins outside of recall or being dragged to ANI. Unfortunately re-RfA seems to be poorly suited to the task and so we can likely find a better way. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:38, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Let us all take some comfort in the fact that no one has yet criticized this RfC comment as being a straw man argument. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:58, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• No hard rule, but we should socially discourage confirmation RfAs There is a difference between a hard rule, and a soft social rule. A hard rule against confirmation RfA's, like option 1, would not do a good job of accounting for edge cases and would thus be ultimately detrimental here. But a soft social rule against them would be beneficial. Unfortunately, that is not one of the options of this RfC. In short, a person should have a good reason to do a confirmation RfA. If you're going to stand up before the community and ask "do you trust me," that should be for a good reason. It shouldn't just be because you want the approval of your peers. (Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that is why either Worm or Hogfarm re-upped, I'm just trying to create a general purpose rule here.) That takes some introspection and humility to ask yourself: is it worth me inviting two or three hundred people to spend part of their lives to comment on me as a person?
  A lot of people have thrown around editor time in their reasonings. Obviously, broad generalizations about it aren't convincing anyone. So let me just share my own experience. I saw the watchlist notice open that a new RfA was being run. I reacted with some excitement, because I always like seeing new admins. When I got to the page and saw Hogfarm's name, I immediately thought "isn't he already an admin?" I then assumed, ah, its just the classic RfA reaction at seeing a qualified candidate, so I'll probably support him since I already think he's an admin. But then as I started to do my due diligence and read, I saw that he really, truly, already had been an admin. At that point, my previous excitement turned to a certain unease. I had voted yes for Worm's confirmation RfA, but here was another...and I realized that my blind support for Worm might have been the start of an entirely new process. I then thought "bet there's an RfC going about this," and came here. I then spent a while polishing up my essay on editor time, before taking time to write this message. All in all, I probably spent a good hour doing this. Previously, I'd just been clicking the random article button and gnoming. So, the longwinded moral: yeah, this did eat up a lot of my editor time that could have and was being spent doing something else. And I'd do it again! It was important to do my research and to comment here. But in the future...maybe I won't react quite as excitedly to seeing that RfA notice. Maybe I'll feel a little pang of dread...wondering if its going to be a confirmation RfA. We can't pretend that confirmation RfA's are costless, and that we don't lose anything even if editors just ignore them. When run, it should be because they are necessary. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  And for what its worth, support Option 3 because I'm generally a fan of putting more tools in people's toolboxes. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:36, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  In short, a person should have a good reason to do a confirmation RfA. If you're going to stand up before the community and ask "do you trust me," that should be for a good reason. It shouldn't just be because you want the approval of your peers. Asking the community whether you still have their trust to be an administrator, which is what an reconfirmation RFA is, is a good reason. I expect getting a near-unanimous "yes" is good for one's ego, but that's just a (nice) side-effect of the far more important benefits to the entire community: a trusted administrator.

  The time you claim is being eaten up unnecessarily by reconfirmation RFAs was actually taken up by you choosing to spend your time writing an essay about using time for things you don't approve of and then hunting out an RFC in which you wrote another short essay about using time on things you don't approve of. Absolutely none of that is a necessary consequence of reconfirmation RFAs - indeed the response consistent with your stated goals would have been to read the first two sentences of Hog Farm's RFA and then closed the tab and returned to whatever else it was you were doing. Thryduulf (talk) 09:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  WTT's and Hog Farm's RFAs would have been completely uncontentious, something I hope for at RfA and certainly the opposite of what I "dread" at RfA, if it were not for the people who attack the very concept of standing for RfA again despite policy being crystal clear that it is absolutely fine. I don't see how any blame for this situation can be put on WTT or HF. We can't pretend that dismissing uncontentious reconfirmation RfAs is costless; discouraging them removes one of the few remaining potentially wholesome bits about the process. —Kusma (talk) 09:53, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek Would you find it better if Watchlist notices and similar said "(re?)confirmation RFA" instead of "RFA"? Say for all voluntary RFAs from an existing admin or someone who could have used BN?

  As a different point, I would be quite against any social discouraging if we're not making a hard rule as such. Social discouraging is what got us the opposes at WTT/Hog Farm's RFAs, which I found quite distasteful and badgering. If people disagree with a process, they should change it. But if the process remains the same, I think it's important to not enable RFA's toxicity by encouraging others to namecall or re-argue the process in each RRFA. It's a short road from social discouragement to toxicity, unfortunately. Soni (talk) 18:41, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

  Yes I think the watchlist notice should specify what kind of RfA, especially with the introduction of recall. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1. Will prevent the unnecessary drama trend we are seeing in the recent. – Ammarpad (talk) 07:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 if people think there's a waste of community time, don't spend your time voting or discussing. Or add "reconfirmation" or similar to the watchlist notice. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 (which I think is a subset of option 2, so I'm okay with the status quo, but I want to endorse giving 'crats the option to SNOW). While they do come under scrutiny from time to time for the extensive dicsussions in the "maybe" zone following RfAs, this should be taken as an indiciation that they are unlikely to do something like close it as SNOW in the event there is real and substantial concerns being rasied. This is an okay tool to give the 'crats. As far as I can tell, no one has ever accused the them of moving too quickly in this direction (not criticism; love you all, keep up the good work). Bobby Cohn (talk) 17:26, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 or Option 2. Further, if Option 2 passes, I expect it also ends all the bickering about lost community time. A consensus explicitly in favour of "This is allowed" should also be a consensus to discourage relitigation of this RFC. Soni (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2: Admins who do not exude entitlement are to be praised. Those who criticize this humility should have a look in the mirror before accusing those who ask for reanointment from the community of "arrogance". I agree that it wouldn't be a bad idea to mention in parentheses that the RFA is a reconfirmation (watchlist) and wouldn't see any problem with crats snow-closing after, say, 96 hours. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree that BN shouldn't be the normal route. RfA is already as hard and soul-crushing as it is. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Who are you disagreeing with? This RfC is about voluntary RRfA. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 20:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  I know. I see a sizable amount of commenters here starting to say that voluntary re-RfAs should be encouraged, and your first sentence can be easily read as implying that admins who use the BN route exude entitlement. I disagree with that (see my reply to Thryduulf below). Aaron Liu (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  One way to improve the reputation of RFA is for there to be more RFAs that are not terrible, such as reconfirmations of admins who are doing/have done a good job who sail through with many positive comments. There is no proposal to make RFA mandatory in circumstances it currently isn't, only to reaffirm that those who voluntarily choose RFA are entitled to do so. Thryduulf (talk) 21:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  I know it's not a proposal, but there's enough people talking about this so far that it could become a proposal.
  There's nearly nothing in between that could've lost the trust of the community. I'm sure there are many who do not want to be pressured into this without good reason. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  Absolutely nobody is proposing, suggesting or hinting here that reconfirmation RFAs should become mandatory - other than comments from a few people who oppose the idea of people voluntarily choosing to do something policy explicitly allows them to choose to do. The best way to avoid people being pressured into being accused of arrogance for seeking reconfirmation of their status from the community is to sanction those people who accuse people of arrogance in such circumstances as such comments are in flagrant breach of AGF and NPA. Thryduulf (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, I’m saying that they should not become preferred. There should be no social pressure to do RfA instead of BN, only pressure intrinsic to the candidate. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:37, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  Whether they should become preferred in any situation forms no part of this proposal in any way shape or form - this seeks only to reaffirm that they are permitted. A separate suggestion, completely independent of this one, is to encourage (explicitly not mandate) them in some (but explicitly not all) situations. All discussions on this topic would benefit if people stopped misrepresenting the policies and proposals - especially when the falsehoods have been explicitly called out. Thryduulf (talk) 15:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  I am talking and worrying over that separate proposal many here are suggesting. I don’t intend to oppose Option 2, and sorry if I came off that way. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. In fact, I'm inclined to encourage an RRfA over BN, because nothing requires editors to participate in an RRfA, but the resulting discussion is better for reaffirming community consensus for the former admin or otherwise providing helpful feedback. --Pinchme123 (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 WP:RFA has said "Former administrators may seek reinstatement of their privileges through RfA..." for over ten years and this is not a problem. I liked the opportunity to be consulted in the current RfA and don't consider this a waste of time. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. People who think it’s not a good use of their time always have the option to scroll past. Innisfree987 (talk) 01:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
• 2 - If an administrator gives up sysop access because they plan to be inactive for a while and want to minimize the attack surface of Wikipedia, they should be able to ask for permissions back the quickest way possible. If an administrator resigns because they do not intend to do the job anymore, and later changes their mind, they should request a community discussion. The right course of action depends on the situation. Jehochman ^Talk 14:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. I've watched a lot of RFAs and re-RFAs over the years. There's a darn good reason why the community developed the "go to BN" option: saves time, is straightforward, and if there are issues that point to a re-RFA, they're quickly surfaced. People who refuse to take the community-developed process of going to BN first are basically telling the community that they need the community's full attention on their quest to re-admin. Yes, there are those who may be directed to re-RFA by the bureaucrats, in which case, they have followed the community's carefully crafted process, and their re-RFA should be evaluated from that perspective. Risker (talk) 02:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. If people want to choose to go through an RFA, who are we to stop them? Stifle (talk) 10:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 (status quo/no changes) per meh. This is bureaucratic rulemongering at its finest. Every time RFA reform comes up some editors want admins to be required to periodically reconfirm, then when some admins decide to reconfirm voluntarily, suddenly that's seen as a bad thing. The correct thing to do here is nothing. If you don't like voluntary reconfirmation RFAs, you are not required to participate in them. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 I would probably counsel just going to BN most of the time, however there are exceptions and edge cases. To this point these RfAs have been few in number, so the costs incurred are relatively minor. If the number becomes large then it might be worth revisiting, but I don't see that as likely. Some people will probably impose social costs on those who start them by opposing these RfAs, with the usual result, but that doesn't really change the overall analysis. Perhaps it would be better if our idiosyncratic internal logic didn't produce such outcomes, but that's a separate issue and frankly not really worth fighting over either. There's probably some meta issues here I'm unaware off, it's long since I've had my finger on the community pulse so to speak, but they tend to matter far less than people think they do. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 02:28, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, per WP:POINT, WP:NOT#SOCIALNETWORK, WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, WP:NOTABOUTYOU, and related principles. We all have far better things to do that read through and argue in/about a totally unnecessary RfA invoked as a "Show me some love!" abuse of process and waste of community time and productivity. I could live with option 3, if option 1 doesn't fly (i.e. shut these silly things down as quickly as possible). But option 2 is just out of the question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

  Except none of the re-RFAs complained about have been RfA invoked as a "Show me some love!" abuse of process, you're arguing against a strawman. Thryduulf (talk) 11:41, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

  It's entirely a matter of opinion and perception, or A) this RfC wouldn't exist, and B) various of your fellow admins like TonyBallioni would not have come to the same conclusion I have. Whether the underlying intent (which no one can determine, lacking as we do any magical mind-reading powers) is solely egotistical is ultimately irrelevant. The actual effect (what matters) of doing this whether for attention, or because you've somehow confused yourself into think it needs to be done, is precisely the same: a showy waste of community volunteers' time with no result other than a bunch of attention being drawn to a particular editor and their deeds, without any actual need for the community to engage in a lengthy formal process to re-examine them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  or because you've somehow confused yourself into think it needs to be done

  I and many others here agree and stand behind the very reasoning that has "confused" such candidates, at least for WTT. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:37, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. I see no legitimate reason why we should be changing the status quo. Sure, some former admins might find it easier to go through BN, and it might save community time, and most former admins already choose the easier option. However, if a candidate last ran for adminship several years ago, or if issues were raised during their tenure as admin, then it may be helpful for them to ask for community feedback, anyway. There is no "wasted" community time in such a case. I really don't get the claims that this violates WP:POINT, because it really doesn't apply when a former admin last ran for adminship 10 or 20 years ago or wants to know if they still have community trust.
  On the other hand, if an editor thinks a re-RFA is a waste of community time, they can simply choose not to participate in that RFA. Opposing individual candidates' re-RFAs based solely on opposition to re-RFAs in general is a violation of WP:POINT. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

  But this isn't the status quo? We've never done a re-RfA before now. The question is whether this previously unconsidered process, which appeared as an emergent behavior, is a feature or a bug. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:01, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

  There have been lots of re-RFAs, historically. There were more common in the 2000s. Evercat in 2003 is the earliest I can find, back before the re-sysopping system had been worked out fully. Croat Canuck back in 2007 was snow-closed after one day, because the nominator and applicant didn't know that they could have gone to the bureaucrats' noticeboard. For more modern examples, HJ Mitchell (2011) is relatively similar to the recent re-RFAs in the sense that the admin resigned uncontroversially but chose to re-RFA before getting the tools back. Immediately following and inspired by HJ Mitchell's, there was the slightly more controversial SarekOfVulcan. That ended successful re-RFAS until 2019's Floquenbeam, which crat-chatted. Since then, there have been none that I remember. There have been several re-RFAs from admins who were de-sysopped or at serious risk of de-sysopping, and a few interesting edge cases such as the potentially optional yet no-consensus SarekVulcan 3 in 2014 and the Rich Farmbrough case in 2015, but those are very different than what we're talking about today. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 00:01, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  To add on to that, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Harrias 2 was technically a reconfirmation RFA, which in a sense can be treated as a re-RFA. My point is, there is some precedent for re-RFAs, but the current guidelines are ambiguous as to when re-RFAs are or aren't allowed. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  Well thank you both, I've learned something new today. It turns out I was working on a false assumption. It has just been so long since a re-RfA that I assumed it was a truly new phenomenon, especially since there were two in short succession. I still can't say I'm thrilled by the process and think it should be used sparingly, but perhaps I was a bit over concerned. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:47, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3 per Gnoming and CaptainEek. Such RfAs only require at most 30 seconds for one to decide whether or not to spend their time on examination. Unlike other prohibited timesinks, it's not like something undesirable will happen if one does not sink their time. Voluntary reconfirmation RfAs are socially discouraged, so there is usually a very good reason for someone to go back there, such as accountability for past statements in the case of WTT or large disputes during adminship in the case of Hog Farm. I don't think we should outright deny these, and there is no disruption incurred if we don't. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 but for largely the reasons presented by CaptainEek. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:58, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 (fine with better labeling) These don't seem harmful to me and, if I don't have time, I'll skip one and trust the judgment of my fellow editors. No objection to better labeling them though, as discussed above. RevelationDirect (talk) 22:36, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 because it's just a waste of time to go through and !vote on candidates who just want the mop restored when he or she or they could get it restored BN with no problems. But I can also see option 2 being good for a former mod not in good standing. Therapyisgood (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  If you think it is a waste of time to !vote on a candidate, just don't vote on that candidate and none of your time has been wasted. Thryduulf (talk) 23:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 per QoH (or me? who knows...) Kline • talk • contribs 04:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Just because someone may be entitled to get the bit back doesn't mean they necessarily should. Look at my RFA3. I did not resign under a cloud, so I could have gotten the bit back by request. However, the RFA established that I did not have the community support at that point, so it was a good thing that I chose that path. I don't particularly support option 3, but I could deal with it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 Asking hundreds of people to vet a candidate who has already passed a RfA and is eligible to get the tools back at BN is a waste of the community's time. -- Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:21, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Abolishing RFA in favour of BN may need to be considered, but I am unconvinced by arguments about RFA being a waste of time. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:21, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 I really don't think there's a problem that needs to be fixed here. I am grateful at least a couple administrators have asked for the support of the community recently. SportingFlyer T·C 00:12, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. Keep the status quo of any editor is free to re-request the tools through the requests for adminship process. Voluntary RfA are rare enough not to be a problem, it's not as though we are overburdened with RfAs. And it’s my time to waste. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 17:58, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 or Option 3. These are unlikely to happen anyway, it's not like they're going to become a trend. I'm already wasting my time here instead of other more important activities anyway, so what's a little more time spent giving an easy support?
  fanfanboy (block_talk) 16:39, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 Agree with Daniel Quinlan that for the problematic editors eligible for re-sysop at BN despite unpopularity, we should rely on our new process of admin recall, rather than pre-emptive RRFAs. I'll add the novel argument that when goliaths like Hog Farm unnecessarily showcase their achievements at RFA, it scares off nonetheless qualified candidates. ViridianPenguin 🐧 ( 💬 ) 17:39, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Option 2 per Gnoming /CaptainEeek Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 or Option 3 - if you regard a re-RfA as a waste of your time, just don't waste it by participating; it's not mandatory. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:13, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

• @Voorts: If option 2 gets consensus how would this RfC change the wording Regardless of the process by which the admin tools are removed, any editor is free to re-request the tools through the requests for adminship process. Or is this an attempt to see if that option no longer has consensus? If so why wasn't alternative wording proposed? As I noted above this feels premature in multiple ways. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  That is not actually true. ArbCom can (and has) forbidden some editors from re-requesting the tools through RFA. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:21, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

• I've re-opened this per a request on my talk page. If other editors think this is premature, they can !vote accordingly and an uninvolved closer can determine if there's consensus for an early close in deference to the VPI discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:53, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  The discussion at VPI, which I have replied on, seems to me to be different enough from this discussion that both can run concurrently. That is, however, my opinion as a mere editor. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 22:01, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Voorts, can you please reword the RfC to make it clear that Option 2 is the current consensus version? It does not need to be clarified – it already says precisely what you propose. – bradv 22:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

   Done voorts (talk/contributions) 22:07, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

• Question: May someone clarify why many view such confirmation RfAs as a waste of community time? No editor is obligated to take up their time and participate. If there's nothing to discuss, then there's no friction or dis-cussing, and the RfA smooth-sails; if a problem is identified, then there was a good reason to go to RfA. I'm sure I'm missing something here. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:35, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  The intent of RfA is to provide a comprehensive review of a candidate for adminship, to make sure that they meet the community's standards. Is that happening with vanity re-RfAs? Absolutely not, because these people don't need that level of vetting. I wouldn't consider a week long, publicly advertized back patting to be a productive use of volunteer time. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:33, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  But no volunteer is obligated to pat such candidates on the back. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Sure, but that logic could be used to justify any time sink. We're all volunteers and nobody is forced to do anything here, but that doesn't mean that we should promote (or stay silent with our criticism of, I suppose) things that we feel don't serve a useful purpose. I don't think this is a huge deal myself, but we've got two in a short period of time and I'd prefer to do a bit of push back now before they get more common. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 01:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Unlike other prohibited timesinks, it's not like something undesirable will happen if one does not sink their time. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Except someone who has no need for advanced tools and is not going to use them in any useful fashion, would then skate through with nary a word said about their unsuitability, regardless of the foregone conclusion. The point of RFA is not to rubber-stamp. Unless their is some actual issue or genuine concern they might not get their tools back, they should just re-request them at BN and stop wasting people's time with pointless non-process wonkery. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:05, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I’m confused. Adminship requires continued use of the tools. If you think they’s suitable for BN, I don’t see how doing an RfA suddenly makes them unsuitable. If you have concerns, raise them. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think the suggested problem (which I acknowledge not everyone thinks is a problem) is resolved by these options. Admins can still run a re-confirmation RfA after regaining adminsitrative privileges, or even initiate a recall petition. I think as discussed on Barkeep49's talk page, we want to encourage former admins who are unsure if they continue to be trusted by the community at a sufficient level to explore lower cost ways of determining this. isaacl (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding option 3, establishing a consensus view takes patience. The intent of having a reconfirmation request for administrative privileges is counteracted by closing it swiftly. It provides incentive for rapid voting that may not provide the desired considered feedback. isaacl (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• In re the idea that RfAs use up a lot of community time: I first started editing Wikipedia in 2014. There were 62 RfAs that year, which was a historic low. Even counting all of the AElect candidates as separate RfAs, including those withdrawn before voting began, we're still up to only 53 in 2024 – counting only traditional RfAs it's only 18, which is the second lowest number ever. By my count we've has 8 resysop requests at BN in 2024; even if all of those went to RfA, I don't see how that would overwhelm the community. That would still leave us on 26 traditional RfAs per year, or (assuming all of them run the full week) one every other week. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:26, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• What about an option 4 encouraging eligible candidates to go through BN? At the end of the Procedure section, add something like "Eligible users are encouraged to use this method rather than running a new request for adminship." The current wording makes re-RfAing sound like a plausible alternative to a BN request, when in actual fact the former rarely happens and always generates criticism. Giraffer (talk) 12:08, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Discouraging RFAs is the second last thing we should be doing (after prohibiting them), rather per my comments here and in the VPI discussion we should be encouraging former administrators to demonstrate that they still have the approval of the community. Thryduulf (talk) 12:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I think this is a good idea if people do decide to go with option 2, if only to stave off any further mixed messages that people are doing something wrong or rude or time-wasting or whatever by doing a second RfA, when it's explicitly mentioned as a valid thing for them to do. Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  If RFA is explicitly a valid thing for people to do (which it is, and is being reaffirmed by the growing consensus for option 2) then we don't need to (and shouldn't) discourage people from using that option. The mixed messages can be staved off by people simply not making comments that explicitly contradict policy. Thryduulf (talk) 15:30, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Also a solid option, the question is whether people will actually do it. Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  The simplest way would be to just quickly hat/remove all such comments. Pretty soon people will stop making them. Thryduulf (talk) 23:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• This is not new. We've had sporadic "vanity" RfAs since the early days of the process. I don't believe they're particularly harmful, and think that it unlikely that we will begin to see so many of them that they pose a problem. As such I don't think this policy proposal solves any problem we actually have. UninvitedCompany 21:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• This apparent negative feeling evoked at an RFA for a former sysop everyone agrees is fully qualified and trusted certainly will put a bad taste in the mouths of other former admins who might consider a reconfirmation RFA without first visiting BN. This comes in the wake of Worm That Turned's similar rerun. BusterD (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Nobody should ever be discouraged from seeking community consensus for significant changes. Adminship is a significant change. Thryduulf (talk) 23:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  No argument from me. I was a big Hog Farm backer way back when he was merely one of Wikipedia's best content contributors. BusterD (talk) 12:10, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• All these mentions of editor time make me have to mention The Grand Unified Theory of Editor Time (TLDR: our understanding of how editor time works is dreadfully incomplete). CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  I went looking for @Tamzin's comment because I know they had hung up the tools and came back, and I was interested in their perspective. But they've given me a different epiphany. I suddenly realize why people are doing confirmation RfAs: it's because of RECALL, and the one year immunity a successful RfA gives you. Maybe everyone else already figured that one out and is thinking "well duh Eek," but I guess I hadn't :) I'm not exactly sure what to do with that epiphany, besides note the emergent behavior that policy change can create. We managed to generate an entirely new process without writing a single word about it, and that's honestly impressive :P CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Worm That Turned followed through on a pledge he made in January 2024, before the 2024 review of the request for adminship process began. I don't think a pattern can be extrapolated from a sample size of one (or even two). That being said, it's probably a good thing if admins occasionally take stock of whether or not they continue to hold the trust of the community. As I previously commented, it would be great if these admins would use a lower cost way of sampling the community's opinion. isaacl (talk) 18:31, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek: You are correct that a year's "immunity" results from a successful RRFA, but I see no evidence that this has been the reason for the RRFAs. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

  If people decide to go through a community vote to get a one year immunity from a process that only might lead to a community vote which would then have a lower threshold then the one they decide to go through, and also give a year's immunity, then good for them. CMD (talk) 01:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek I'm mildly bothered by this comment, mildly because I assume it's lighthearted and non-serious. But just in case anyone does feel this way - I was very clear about my reasons for RRFA, I've written a lot about it, anyone is welcome to use my personal recall process without prejudice, and just to be super clear - I waive my "1 year immunity" - if someone wants to start a petition in the next year, do not use my RRfA as a reason not to. I'll update my userpage accordingly. I can't speak for Hog Farm, but his reasoning seems similar to mine, and immunity isn't it. Worm^TT(talk) 10:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Worm That Turned my quickly written comment was perhaps not as clear as it could have been :) I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that y'all had run for dubious reasons. As I said in my !vote, Let me be clear: I am not suggesting that is why either Worm or Hogfarm re-upped, I'm just trying to create a general purpose rule here. I guess what I really meant was that the reason that we're having this somewhat spirited conversation seems to be the sense that re-RfA could provide a protection from recall. If not for recall and the one year immunity period, I doubt we'd have cared so much as to suddenly run two discussions about this. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:59, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

  I don't agree. No one else has raised a concern about someone seeking a one-year respite from a recall petition. Personally, I think essentially self-initiating the recall process doesn't really fit the profile of someone who wants to avoid the recall process. (I could invent some nefarious hypothetical situation, but since opening an arbitration case is still a possibility, I don't think it would work out as planned.) isaacl (talk) 05:19, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

  I really don't think this is the reason behind WTT's and HF's reconfirmation RFA's. I don't think their RFA's had much utility and could have been avoided, but I don't doubt for a second that their motivations were anything other than trying to provide transparency and accountability for the community. BugGhost 🦗👻 12:04, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• I don't really care enough about reconf RFAs to think they should be restricted, but what about a lighter ORCP-like process (maybe even in the same place) where fewer editors can indicate, "yeah OK, there aren't really any concerns here, it would probably save a bit of time if you just asked at BN". Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:40, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
• Can someone accurately describe for me what the status quo is? I reread this RfC twice now and am having a hard time figuring out what the current state of affairs is, and how the proposed alternatives will change them. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  Option 2 is the status quo. The goal of the RFC is to see if the community wants to prohibit reconfirmation RFAs (option 1). The idea is that reconfirmation RFAs take up a lot more community time than a BN request so are unnecessary. There were 2 reconfirmation RFAs recently after a long dry spell. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

  The status quo, documented at Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration of admin tools, is that admins who resigned without being under controversy can seek readminship through either BN (where it's usually given at the discreetion of an arbitrary bureaucrat according to the section I linked) or RfA (where all normal RfA procedures apply, and you see a bunch of people saying "the candidate's wasting the community's time and could've uncontroversially gotten adminship back at BN instead). Aaron Liu (talk) 12:27, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

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

Should WP:Demonstrate good faith include mention of AI-generated comments?

Using AI to write your comments in a discussion makes it difficult for others to assume that you are discussing in good faith, rather than trying to use AI to argue someone into exhaustion (see example of someone using AI in their replies "Because I don't have time to argue with, in my humble opinion, stupid PHOQUING people"). More fundamentally, WP:AGF can't apply to the AI itself as AI lacks intentionality, and it is difficult for editors to assess how much of an AI-generated comment reflects the training of the AI vs. the actual thoughts of the editor.

Should WP:DGF be addended to include that using AI to generate your replies in a discussion runs counter to demonstrating good faith? Photos of Japan (talk) 00:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

• Yes, I think this is a good idea. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

No. As with all the other concurrent discussions (how many times do we actually need to discuss the exact same FUD and scaremongering?) the problem is not AI, but rather inappropriate use of AI. What we need to do is to (better) explain what we actually want to see in discussions, not vaguely defined bans of swathes of technology that, used properly, can aid communication. Thryduulf (talk) 01:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Note that this topic is discussing using AI to generate replies, as opposed to using it as an aid (e.g. asking it to edit for grammar, or conciseness). As the above concurrent discussion demonstrates, users are already using AI to generate their replies in AfD, so it isn't scaremongering but an actual issue.

WP:DGF also does not ban anything ("Showing good faith is not required"), but offers general advice on demonstrating good faith. So it seems like the most relevant place to include mention of the community's concerns regarding AI-generated comments, without outright banning anything. Photos of Japan (talk) 01:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

And as pointed out, multiple times in those discussions, different people understand different things from the phrase "AI-generated". The community's concern is not AI-generated comments, but comments that do not clearly and constructively contribute to a discussion - some such comments are AI-generated, some are not. This proposal would, just as all the other related ones, cause actual harm when editors falsely accuse others of using AI (and this will happen). Thryduulf (talk) 02:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Nobody signed up to argue with bots here. If you're pasting someone else's comment into a prompt and asking the chatbot to argue against that comment and just posting it in here, that's a real problema and absolutely should not be acceptable. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the assumption of bad faith and demonstrating one of my points about the harm caused. Nobody is forcing you to engage with bad-faith comments, but whether something is or is not bad faith needs to be determined by its content not by its method of generation. Simply using an AI demonstrates neither good faith nor bad faith. Thryduulf (talk) 04:36, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see why we have any particular to reason to suspect a respected and trustworthy editor of using AI. Cremastra (u — c) 14:31, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm one of those people who clarified the difference between AI-generated vs. edited, and such a difference could be made explicit with a note. Editors are already accusing others of using AI. Could you clarify how you think addressing AI in WP:DGF would cause actual harm? Photos of Japan (talk) 04:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

By encouraging editors to accuse others of using AI, by encouraging editors to dismiss or ignore comments because they suspect that they are AI-generated rather than engaging with them. @Bloodofox has already encouraged others to ignore my arguments in this discussion because they suspect I might be using an LLM and/or be a bot (for the record I'm neither). Thryduulf (talk) 04:33, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I think bloodofox's comment was about "you" in the rhetorical sense, not "you" as in Thryduulf. jlwoodwa (talk) 11:06, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Given your relentlessly pro-AI comments here, it seems that you'd be A-OK with just chatting with a group of chatbots here — or leaving the discussion to them. However, most of us clearly are not. In fact, I would immediately tell someone to get lost were it confirmed that indeed that is what is happening. I'm a human being and find the notion of wasting my time with chatbots on Wikipedia to be incredibly insulting and offensive. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

My comments are neither pro-AI nor anti-AI, indeed it seems that you have not understood pretty much anything I'm saying. Thryduulf (talk) 04:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Funny, you've done nothing here but argue for more generative AI on the site and now you seem to be arguing to let chatbots run rampant on it while mocking anyone who doesn't want to interface with chatbots on Wikipedia. Hey, why not just sell the site to Meta, am I right? :bloodofox: (talk) 04:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I haven't been arguing for more generative AI on the site. I've been arguing against banning it on the grounds that such a ban would be unclear, unenforceable, wouldn't solve any problems (largely because whether something is AI or not is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand) but would instead cause harm. Some of the issues identified are actual problems, but AI is not the cause of them and banning AI won't fix them.

I'm not mocking anybody, nor am I advocating to let chatbots run rampant. I'm utterly confused why you think I might advocate for selling Wikipedia to Meta (or anyone else for that matter)? Are you actually reading anything I'm writing? You clearly are not understanding it. Thryduulf (talk) 05:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

So we're now in 'everyone else is the problem, not me!' territory now? Perhaps try communicating in a different way because your responses here are looking very much like the typical AI apologetics one can encounter on just about any contemporary LinkedIn thread from your typical FAANG employee. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:13, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

No, this is not a everyone else is the problem, not me issue because most other people appear to be able to understand my arguments and respond to them appropriately. Not everybody agrees with them, but that's not an issue.

I'm not familiar with Linkedin threads (I don't use that platform) nor what a "FAANG employee" is (I've literally never heard the term before now) so I have no idea whether your characterisation is a compliment or a personal attack, but given your comments towards me and others you disagree with elsewhere I suspect it's closer to the latter.

AI is a tool. Just like any other tool it can be used in good faith or in bad faith, it can be used well and it can be used badly, it can be used in appropriate situations and it can be used in inappropriate situations, the results of using the tool can be good and the results of using the tool can be bad. Banning the tool inevitably bans the good results as well as the bad results but doesn't address the reasons why the results were good or bad and so does not resolve the actual issue that led to the bad outcomes. Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

In the context of generating comments to other users though, AI is much easier to use for bad faith than for good faith. LLMs don't understand Wikipedia's policies and norms, and so are hard to utilize to generate posts that productively address them. By contrast, bad actors can easily use LLMs to make low quality posts to waste people's time or wear them down.

In the context of generating images, or text for articles, it's easy to see how the vast majority of users using AI for those purposes is acting in good faith as these are generally constructive tasks, and most people making bad faith changes to articles are either obvious vandals who won't bother to use AI because they'll be reverted soon anyways, or trying to be subtle (povpushers) in which case they tend to want to carefully write their own text into the article.

It's true that AI "is just a tool", but when that tool is much easier to use for bad faith purposes (in the context of discussions) then it raises suspicions about why people are using it. Photos of Japan (talk) 22:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

LLMs don't understand Wikipedia's policies and norms They're not designed to "understand" them since the policies and norms were designed for human cognition. The fact that AI is used rampantly by people acting in bad faith on Wikipedia does not inherently condemn the AI. To me, it shows that it's too easy for vandals to access and do damage on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the type of vetting required to prevent that at the source would also potentially require eliminating IP-editing, which won't happen. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

You mentioned "FUD". That acronym, "fear, uncertainty and doubt," is used in precisely two contexts: pro-AI propagadizing and persuading people who hold memecoin crypto to continue holding it. Since this discussion is not about memecoin crypto that would suggest you are using it in a pro-AI context. I will note, fear, uncertainty and doubt is not my problem with AI. Rather it's anger, aesthetic disgust and feeling disrespected when somebody makes me talk to their chatbot. Simonm223 (talk) 14:15, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

That acronym, "fear, uncertainty and doubt," is used in precisely two contexts is simply

FUD both predates AI by many decades (my father introduced me to the term in the context of the phrase "nobody got fired for buying IBM", and the context of that was mainframe computer systems in the 1980s if not earlier. FUD is also used in many, many more contexts that just those two you list, including examples by those opposing the use of AI on Wikipedia in these very discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

That acronym, "fear, uncertainty and doubt," is used in precisely two contexts is factually incorrect.

FUD both predates AI by many decades (indeed if you'd bothered to read the fear, uncertainty and doubt article you'd learn that the concept was first recorded in 1693, the exact formulation dates from at least the 1920s and the use of it in technology concepts originated in 1975 in the context of mainframe computer systems. That its use, eve in just AI contexts, is limited to pro-AI advocacy is ludicrous (even ignoring things like Roko's basilisk), examples can be found in these sprawling discussions from those opposing AI use on Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 14:52, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Not really – I agree with Thryduulf's arguments on this one. Using AI to help tweak or summarize or "enhance" replies is of course not bad faith – the person is trying hard. Maybe English is their second language. Even for replies 100% AI-generated the user may be an ESL speaker struggling to remember the right words (I always forget 90% of my French vocabulary when writing anything in French, for example). In this case, I don't think we should make a blanket assumption that using AI to generate comments is not showing good faith. Cremastra (u — c) 02:35, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

• Yes because generating walls of text is not good faith. People "touching up" their comments is also bad (for starters, if you lack the English competency to write your statements in the first place, you probably lack the competency to tell if your meaning has been preserved or not). Exactly what AGF should say needs work, but something needs to be said, and AGFDGF is a good place to do it. XOR'easter (talk) 02:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  Not all walls of text are generated by AI, not all AI generated comments are walls of text. Not everybody who uses AI to touch up their comments lacks the competencies you describe, not everybody who does lack those competencies uses AI. It is not always possible to tell which comments have been generated by AI and which have not. This proposal is not particularly relevant to the problems you describe. Thryduulf (talk) 03:01, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Someone has to ask: Are you generating all of these pro-AI arguments using ChatGPT? It'd explain a lot. If so, I'll happily ignore any and all of your contributions, and I'd advise anyone else to do the same. We're not here to be flooded with LLM-derived responses. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

That you can't tell whether my comments are AI-generated or not is one of the fundamental problems with these proposals. For the record they aren't, nor are they pro-AI - they're simply anti throwing out babies with bathwater. Thryduulf (talk) 04:25, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd say it also illustrates the serious danger: We can no longer be sure that we're even talking to other people here, which is probably the most notable shift in the history of Wikipedia. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

How is that a "serious danger"? If a comment makes a good point, why does it matter whether ti was AI generated or not? If it doesn't make a good point, why does it matter if it was AI generated or not? How will these proposals resolve that "danger"? How will they be enforceable? Thryduulf (talk) 04:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is made for people, by people, and I like most people will be incredibly offended to find that we're just playing some kind of LLM pong with a chatbot of your choice. You can't be serious. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

You are entitled to that philosophy, but that doesn't actually answer any of my questions. Thryduulf (talk) 04:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

"why does it matter if it was AI generated or not?"

Because it takes little effort to post a lengthy, low quality AI-generated post, and a lot of effort for human editors to write up replies debunking them.

"How will they be enforceable? "

WP:DGF isn't meant to be enforced. It's meant to explain to people how they can demonstrate good faith. Posting replies to people (who took the time to write them) that are obviously AI-generated harms the ability of those people to assume good faith. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:16, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

The linked "example of someone using AI in their replies" appears – to me – to be a non-AI-generated comment. I think I preferred the allegedly AI-generated comments from that user (example). The AI was at least superficially polite. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Obviously the person screaming in all caps that they use AI because they don't want to waste their time arguing is not using AI for that comment. Their first post calls for the article to be deleted for not "offering new insights or advancing scholarly understanding" and "merely" reiterating what other sources have written.

Yes, after a human had wasted their time explaining all the things wrong with its first post, then the bot was able to write a second post which looks ok. Except it only superficially looks ok, it doesn't actually accurately describe the articles. Photos of Japan (talk) 04:59, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Multiple humans have demonstrated in these discussions that humans are equally capable of writing posts which superficially look OK but don't actually accurately relate to anything they are responding to. Thryduulf (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

But I can assume that everyone here is acting in good faith. I can't assume good faith in the globally-locked sock puppet spamming AfD discussions with low effort posts, whose bot is just saying whatever it can to argue for the deletion of political pages the editor doesn't like. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

True, but I think that has more to do with the "globally-locked sock puppet spamming AfD discussions" part than with the "some of it might be [AI-generated]" part. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

All of which was discovered because of my suspicions from their inhuman, and meaningless replies. "Reiteration isn't the problem; redundancy is," maybe sounds pithy in a vacuum, but this was written in reply to me stating that we aren't supposed to be doing OR but reiterating what the sources say.

"Your criticism feels overly prescriptive, as though you're evaluating this as an academic essay" also sounds good, until you realize that the bot is actually criticizing its own original post.

The fact that my suspicions about their good faith were ultimately validated only makes it even harder for me to assume good faith in users who sound like ChatGPT. Photos of Japan (talk) 08:33, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if we need some other language here. I can understand feeling like this is a bad interaction. There's no sense that the person cares; there's no feeling like this is a true interaction. A contract lawyer would say that there's no meeting of the minds, and there can't be, because there's no mind in the AI, and the human copying from the AI doesn't seem to be interested in engaging their brain.

But... do you actually think they're doing this for the purpose of intentionally harming Wikipedia? Or could this be explained by other motivations? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity – or to anxiety, insecurity (will they hate me if I get my grammar wrong?), incompetence, negligence, or any number of other "understandable" (but still something WP:SHUN- and even block-worthy) reasons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

The user's talk page has a header at the top asking people not to template them because it is "impersonal and disrespectful", instead requesting "please take a moment to write a comment below in your own words"

Does this look like acting in good faith to you? Requesting other people write personalized responses to them while they respond with an LLM? Because it looks to me like they are trying to waste other people's time. Photos of Japan (talk) 09:35, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assume good faith means that you assume people aren't deliberately screwing up on purpose. Humans are self-contradictory creatures. I generally do assume that someone who is being hypocritical hasn't noticed their contradictions yet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

"Being hypocritical" in the abstract isn't the problem, it's the fact that asking people to put effort into their comments, while putting in minimal effort into your own comments appears bad faith, especially when said person says they don't want to waste time writing comments to stupid people. The fact you are arguing AGF for this person is both astounding and disappointing. Photos of Japan (talk) 16:08, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

It feels like there is a lack of reciprocity in the interaction, even leaving aside the concern that the account is a block-evading sock.

But I wonder if you have read AGF recently. The first sentence is "Assuming good faith (AGF) means assuming that people are not deliberately trying to hurt Wikipedia, even when their actions are harmful."

So we've got some of this (e.g., harmful actions). But do you really believe this person woke up in the morning and decided "My main goal for today is to deliberately hurt Wikipedia. I might not be successful, but I sure am going to try hard to reach my goal"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Trying to hurt Wikipedia doesn't mean they have to literally think "I am trying to hurt Wikipedia", it can mean a range of things, such as "I am trying to troll Wikipedians". A person who thinks a cabal of editors is guarding an article page, and that they need to harass them off the site, may think they are improving Wikipedia, but at the least I wouldn't say that they are acting in good faith. Photos of Japan (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure, I'd count that as a case of "trying to hurt Wikipedia-the-community". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

• The issues with AI in discussions is not related to good faith, which is narrowly defined to intent. CMD (talk) 04:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  In my mind, they are related inasmuch as it is much more difficult for me to ascertain good faith if the words are eminently not written by the person I am speaking to in large part, but instead generated based on an unknown prompt in what is likely a small fraction of the expected time. To be frank, in many situations it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the disparity in effort is being leveraged in something less than good faith. Remsense ‥ 论 05:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  Assume good faith, don't ascertain! Llm use can be deeply unhelpful for discussions and the potential for mis-use is large, but the most recent discussion I've been involved with where I observed an llm post was responded to by an llm post, I believe both the users were doing this in good faith. CMD (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  All I mean to say is it should be licit that unhelpful LLM use should be something that can be mentioned like any other unhelpful rhetorical pattern. Remsense ‥ 论 05:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  Sure, but WP:DGF doesn't mention any unhelpful rhetorical patterns. CMD (talk) 05:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  The fact that everyone (myself included) defending "LLM use" says "use" rather than "generated", is a pretty clear sign that no one really wants to communicate with someone using "LLM generated" comments. We can argue about bans (not being proposed here), how to know if someone is using LLM, the nuances of "LLM use", etc., but at the very least we should be able to agree that there are concerns with LLM generated replies, and if we can agree that there are concerns then we should be able to agree that somewhere in policy we should be able to find a place to express those concerns. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  ...or they could be saying "use" because "using LLMs" is shorter and more colloquial than "generating text with LLMs"? Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:19, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  Seems unlikely when people justify their use for editing (which I also support), and not for generating replies on their behalf. Photos of Japan (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  This is just semantics.

  For instance, I am OK with someone using a LLM to post a productive comment on a talk page. I am also OK with someone generating a reply with a LLM that is a productive comment to post to a talk page. I am not OK with someone generating text with an LLM to include in an article, and also not OK with someone using a LLM to contribute to an article.

  The only difference between these four sentences is that two of them are more annoying to type than the other two. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  Most people already assume good faith in those making productive contributions. In situations where good faith is more difficult to assume, would you trust someone who uses an LLM to generate all of their comments as much as someone who doesn't? Photos of Japan (talk) 09:11, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  Given that LLM-use is completely irrelevant to the faith in which a user contributes, yes. Of course what amount that actually is may be anywhere between completely and none. Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  LLM-use is relevant as it allows bad faith users to disrupt the encyclopedia with minimal effort. Such a user posted in this thread earlier, as well as started a disruptive thread here and posted here, all using AI. I had previously been involved in a debate with another sock puppet of theirs, but at that time they didn't use AI. Now it seems they are switching to using an LLM just to troll with minimal effort. Photos of Japan (talk) 21:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  LLMs are a tool that can be used by good and bad faith users alike. Using an LLM tells you nothing about whether a user is contributing in good or bad faith. If somebody is trolling they can be, and should be, blocked for trolling regardless of the specifics of how they are trolling. Thryduulf (talk) 21:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  A can of spray paint, a kitchen knife, etc., are tools that can be used for good or bad, but if you bring them some place where they have few good uses and many bad uses then people will be suspicious about why you brought them. You can't just assume that a tool in any context is equally harmless. Using AI to generate replies to other editors is more suspicious than using it to generate a picture exemplifying a fashion style, or a description of a physics concept. Photos of Japan (talk) 23:09, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

• I wouldn't trust anything factual the person would have to say, but I wouldn't assume they were malicious, which is the entire point of WP:AGF. Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:47, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  WP:AGF is not a death pact though. At times you should be suspicious. Do you think that if a user, who you already have suspicions of, is also using an LLM to generate their comments, that that doesn't have any effect on those suspicions? Photos of Japan (talk) 21:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  So… If you suspect that someone is not arguing in good faith… just stop engaging them. If they are creating walls of text but not making policy based arguments, they can be ignored. Resist the urge to respond to every comment… it isn’t necessary to “have the last word”. Blueboar (talk) 21:57, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  As the person just banned at ANI for persistently using LLMs to communicate demonstrates, you can't "just stop engaging them". When they propose changes to an article and say they will implement them if no one replies then somebody has to engage them in some way. It's not about trying to "have the last word", this is a collaborative project, it generally requires engaging with others to some degree. When someone like the person I linked to above (now banned sock), spams low quality comments across dozens of AfDs, then they are going to waste people's time, and telling others to just not engage with them is dismissive of that. Photos of Japan (talk) 22:57, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  That they've been banned for disruption indicates we can do everything we need to do to deal with bad faith users of LLMs without assuming that everyone using an LLM is doing so in bad faith. Thryduulf (talk) 00:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

  I don't believe we should assume everyone using an LLM is doing so in bad faith, so I'm glad you think my comment indicates what I believe. Photos of Japan (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

No -- whatever you think of LLMs, the reason they are so popular is that the people who use them earnestly believe they are useful. Claiming otherwise is divorced from reality. Even people who add hallucinated bullshit to articles are usually well-intentioned (if wrong). Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:17, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment I have no opinion on this matter, however, note that we are currently dealing with a real-world application of this at ANI and there's a generalized state of confusion in how to address it. Chetsford (talk) 08:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
• Yes I find it incredibly rude for someone to procedurally generate text and then expect others to engage with it as if they were actually saying something themselves. Simonm223 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
• Yes, mention that use of an LLM should be disclosed and that failure to do so is like not telling someone you are taping the call. Selfstudier (talk) 14:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  I could support general advice that if you're using machine translation or an LLM to help you write your comments, it can be helpful to mention this in the message. The tone to take, though, should be "so people won't be mad at you if it screwed up the comment" instead of "because you're an immoral and possibly criminal person if you do this". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:57, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

No. When someone publishes something under their own name, they are incorporating it as their own statement. Plagiarism from an AI or elsewhere is irrelevant to whether they are engaging in good faith. lethargilistic (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment LLMs know a few tricks about logical fallacies and some general ways of arguing (rhetoric), but they are incredibly dumb at understanding the rules of Wikipedia. You can usually tell this because it looks like incredibly slick and professional prose, but somehow it cannot get even the simplest points about the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. I would indef such users for lacking WP:CIR. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:39, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  That guideline states "Sanctions such as blocks and bans are always considered a last resort where all other avenues of correcting problems have been tried and have failed." Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  WP:CIR isn't a guideline, but an essay. Relevantly though it is being cited at this very moment in an ANI thread concerning a user who can't/won't communicate without an LLM. Photos of Japan (talk) 20:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  I blocked that user as NOTHERE a few minutes ago after seeing them (using ChatGPT) make suggestions for text to live pagespace while their previous bad behaviors were under discussion. AGF is not a suicide pact. BusterD (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  ... but somehow it cannot get even the simplest points about the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia: That problem existed with some humans even prior to LLMs. —Bagumba (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• No - Not a good or bad faith issue. PackMecEng (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
• Yes Using a 3rd party service to contribute to the Wikipedia on your behalf is clearly bad-faith, analogous to paying someone to write your article. Zaathras (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

  Its a stretch to say that a newbie writing a comment using AI is automatically acting in bad faith and not here to build an encyclopedia. PackMecEng (talk) 16:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

  That's true, but this and other comments here show that not a few editors perceive it as bad-faith, rude, etc. I take that as an indication that we should tell people to avoid doing this when they have enough CLUE to read WP:AGF and are making an effort to show they're acting in good faith. Daß Wölf 23:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment Large language model AI like Chat GPT are in their infancy. The culture hasn't finished its initial reaction to them yet. I suggest that any proposal made here have an automatic expiration/required rediscussion date two years after closing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
• No – It is a matter of how you use AI. I use Google translate to add trans-title parameters to citations, but I am careful to check for Google's output making for good English as well as reflecting the foreign title when it is a language I somewhat understand. I like to think that I am careful, and I do not pretend to be fluent in a language I am not familiar with, although I usually don't announce the source of such a translation. If an editor uses AI profligately and without understanding the material generated, then that is the sin; not AI itself. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:04, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

  There's a legal phrase, "when the exception swallows the rule", and I think we might be headed there with the recent LLM/AI discussions.

  We start off by saying "Let's completely ban it!" Then in discussion we add "Oh, except for this very reasonable thing... and that reasonable thing... and nobody actually meant this other reasonable thing..."

  The end result is that it's "completely banned" ...except for an apparent majority of uses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

  Do you want us to reply to you, because you are a human? Or are you just posting the output of an LLM without bothering to read anything yourself? DS (talk) 06:08, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

  Most likely you would reply because someone posted a valid comment and you are assuming they are acting in good faith and taking responsibility for what they post. To assume otherwise is kind of weird and not inline with general Wikipedia values. PackMecEng (talk) 15:19, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

• No The OP seems to misunderstand WP:DGF which is not aimed at weak editors but instead exhorts stronger editors to lead by example. That section already seems to overload the primary point of WP:AGF and adding mention of AI would be quite inappropriate per WP:CREEP. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:11, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
• No. Reading the current text of the section, adding text about AI would feel out-of-place for what the section is about. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 05:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
• No, this is not about good faith. Adumbrativus (talk) 11:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
• Yes. AI use is not a demonstration of bad faith (in any case not every new good-faith editor is familiar with our AI policies), but it is equally not a "demonstration of good faith", which is what the WP:DGF section is about.

It seems some editors are missing the point and !voting as if every edit is either a demonstration of good faith or bad faith. Most interactions are neutral and so is most AI use, but I find it hard to imagine a situation where AI use would point away from unfamiliarity and incompetence (in the CIR sense), and it often (unintentionally) leads to a presumption of laziness and open disinterest. It makes perfect sense to recommend against it. Daß Wölf 22:56, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Indeed most kinds of actions don't inherently demonstrate good or bad. The circumspect and neutral observation that AI use is not a demonstration of bad faith... but it is equally not a "demonstration of good faith", does not justify a proposal to one-sidedly say just half. And among all the actions that don't necessarily demonstrate good faith (and don't necessarily demonstrate bad faith either), it is not the purpose of "demonstrate good faith" and the broader guideline, to single out one kind of action to especially mention negatively. Adumbrativus (talk) 04:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

• Yes. Per Dass Wolf, though I would say passing off a completely AI-generated comment as your own anywhere is inherently bad-faith and one doesn't need to know Wiki policies to understand that. JoelleJay (talk) 23:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
• Yes. Sure, LLMs may have utility somewhere, and it might be a crutch for people unfamiliar with English, but as I've said above in the other AI RfC, that's a competence issue. This is about comments eating up editor time, energy, about LLMs easily being used to ram through changes and poke at editors in good standing. I don't see a case wherein a prospective editor's command of policy and language is good enough to discuss with other editors while being bad enough to require LLM use. Iseult ^Δx talk to me 01:26, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

  Good faith is separate from competence. Trying to do good is separate from having skills and knowledge to achieve good results. Adumbrativus (talk) 04:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

• No - anyone using a washing machine to wash their clothes must be evil and inherently lazy. They cannot be trusted. ... Oh, sorry, wrong century. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
• No - As long as a person understands (and knows) what they are talking about, we shouldn't discriminate against folks using generative AI tech for grammar fixes or minor flow improvements. Yes, AI can create walls of text, and make arguments not grounded in policy, but we could do that even without resorting to generative AI. Sohom (talk) 11:24, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

To expand on my point above. Completely AI generated comments (or articles) are obviously bad, but using AI should be thrown into the same cross-hairs as completely AI generated comments. Sohom (talk) 11:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

@Sohom Datta You mean shouldn't be thrown? I think that would make more sense given the context of your original !vote. _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• No. Don't make any changes. It's not a good faith/bad faith issue. The 'yes' arguments are most unconvincing with very bizarre analogies to make their point. Here, I can make one too: "Don't edit with AI; you wouldn't shoot your neighbor's dog with a BB-gun, would you?" _{Duly signed,} ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Extended content

I appreciate your concern about the use of AI in discussions. It is important to be mindful of how AI is used, and to ensure that it is used in a way that is respectful of others. I don't think that WP:DGF should be amended to specifically mention AI. However, I do think that it is important to be aware of the potential for AI to be used in a way that is not in good faith. When using AI, it is important to be transparent about it. Let others know that you are using AI, and explain how you are using it. This will help to build trust and ensure that others understand that you are not trying to deceive them. It is also important to be mindful of the limitations of AI. AI is not a perfect tool, and it can sometimes generate biased or inaccurate results. Be sure to review and edit any AI-generated content before you post it. Finally, it is important to remember that AI is just a tool. It is up to you to use it in a way that is respectful and ethical. |} It's easy to detect for most, can be pointed out as needed. No need to add an extra policy JayCubby

Allowing non-admin "delete" closures at RfD

At Wikipedia:Deletion review#Clock/calendar, a few editors (Enos733 and Jay, while Robert McClenon and OwenX hinted at it) expressed support for allowing non-administrators to close RfD discussions as "delete". While I don't personally hold strong opinions in this regard, I would like for this idea to be discussed here. JJP_Master (she/they) 13:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• That would not be helpful. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:10, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
• While I have no issue with the direction the linked discussion has taken, I agree with almost every contributor there: As a practice I have zero interest in generally allowing random editors closing outside their permissions. It might make DRV a more chatty board, granted. BusterD (talk) 15:02, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

  Tamzin makes a reasonable case in their comment below. When we have already chosen to trust certain editors with advanced permissions, we might allow those folks to utilize them as fully as accepted practice allows. Those humans already have skin in the game. They are unlikely to act rashly. BusterD (talk) 19:32, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• To me, non-admin delete closes at any XfD have always seemed inconsistent with what we say about how adminship and discussion closing work. I would be in violation of admin policy if I deleted based on someone else's close without conducting a full review myself, in which case, what was the point of their close? It's entirely redundant to my own work. That said, I can't really articulate a reason that this should be allowed at some XfDs but not others, and it seems to have gone fine at CfD and TfD. I guess call me neutral.
  What I'd be more open to is allowing page movers to do this. Page movers do have the tools to turn a bluelink red, so it doesn't create the same admin accountability issue if I'm just cleaning up the stray page left over from a page mover's use of a tool that they were duly granted and subject to their own accountability rules for. We could let them move a redirect to some other plausible title (this would violate WP:MOVEREDIRECT as currently written but I think I'd be okay with making this a canonical exception), and/or allow moving to some draftspace or userspace page and tagging for G6, as we do with {{db-moved}}. I'll note that when I was a non-admin pagemover, I did close a few things as delete where some edge case applied that let me effect the deletion using only suppressredirect, and no one ever objected. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:07, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

  I see that I was sort of vague, which is consistent with the statement that I hinted at allowing non-admin delete closures. My main concern is that I would like to see our guidelines and our practice made consistent, either by changing the guidelines or changing the practice. It appears that there is a rough consensus emerging that non-admin delete closures should continue to be disallowed in RFD, but that CFD may be a special case. So what I am saying is that if, in practice, we allow non-admin Delete closures at CFD, the guideline should say something vague to that effect.

  I also see that there is a consensus that DRV can endorse irregular non-admin closures, including irregular non-admin Delete closures. Specifically, it isn't necessary for DRV to vacate the closure for an uninvolved admin to close. A consensus at DRV, some of whose editors will be uninvolved admins, is at least as good a close as a normal close by an uninvolved admin.

  Also, maybe we need clearer guidance about non-admin Keep closures of AFDs. I think that if an editor is not sure whether they have sufficient experience to be closing AFDs as Keep, they don't have enough experience. I think that the guidance is clear enough in saying that administrator accountability applies to non-admin closes, but maybe it needs to be further strengthened, because at DRV we sometimes deal with non-admin closes where the closer doesn't respond to inquiries, or is rude in response to them.

  Also, maybe we need clearer guidance about non-admin No Consensus closures of AFDs. In particular, a close of No Consensus is a contentious closure, and should either be left to an admin, or should be Relisted.

Robert McClenon (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

As for I can't really articulate a reason that this should be allowed at some XfDs, the argument is that more work is needed to enact closures at TfD and CfD (namely orphaning templates and emptying/moving/merging categories). Those extra steps aren't present at RfD. At most, there are times when it's appropriate to unlink the redirect or add WP:RCATs but those are automated steps that WP:XFDC handles. From my limited experience at TfD and CfD though, it does seem that the extra work needed at closure does not compensate for the extra work from needing two people reviewing the closure (especially at CfD because a bot that handles the clean-up). Consistency has come up and I would much rather consistently disallow non-admin delete closures at all XfD venues. I know it's tempting for non-admins to think they're helping by enacting these closures but it's not fair for them to be spinning their wheels. As for moving redirects, that's even messier than deleting them. There's a reason that WP:MOVEREDIRECT advises not to move redirects except for limited cases when preserving history is important. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Tamzin: I do have one objection to this point of redundancy, which you are quite familiar with. Here, an AfD was closed as "transwiki and delete", however, the admin who did the closure does not have the technical ability to transwiki pages to the English Wikibooks, meaning that I, who does, had to determine that the outcome was actually to transwiki rather than blindly accepting a request at b:WB:RFI. Then, I had to mark the pages for G6 deletion, that way an admin, in this case you, could determine that the page was ready to be deleted. Does this mean that that admin who closed the discussion shouldn't have closed it, since they only have the technical ability to delete, not transwiki? Could I have closed it, having the technical ability to transwiki, but not delete? Either way, someone else would have had to review it. Or, should only people who have importing rights on the target wiki and admin rights on the English Wikipedia be allowed to close discussions as "transwiki and delete"? JJP_Master (she/they) 12:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

• I do support being explicit when a non-administrator can close a discussion as "delete" and I think that explicitly extending to RfD and CfD is appropriate. First, there can be a backlog in both of these areas and there are often few comments in each discussion (and there is usually not the same passion as in an AfD). Second, the delete close of a non-administrator is reviewed by an administrator before action is taken to delete the link, or category (a delete close is a two-step process, the writeup and the delete action, so in theory the administrators workload is reduced). Third, non-admins do face administrator accountability for their actions, and can be subject to sanction. Fourth, the community has a role in reviewing closing decisions at DRV, so there is already a process in place to check a unexperienced editor or poor close. Finally, with many, if not most discussions for deletion the outcome is largely straight forward. --Enos733 (talk) 20:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• There is currently no rule against non-admin delete closures as far as I know; the issue is the practical one that you don't have the ability to delete. However, I have made non-admin delete closures at AfD. This occurred when an admin deleted the article under consideration (usually for COPYVIO) without closing the related AfD. The closures were not controversial and there was no DRV. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:31, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

The situation you're referring to is an exception allowed per WP:NACD: If an administrator has deleted a page (including by speedy deletion) but neglected to close the discussion, anyone with a registered account may close the discussion provided that the administrator's name and deletion summary are included in the closing rationale. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:37, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• Bad idea to allow, this sort of closure is just busy work, that imposes more work on the admin that then has to review the arguments, close and then delete. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
• Is this the same as #Non-Admin XFD Close as Delete above? Anomie⚔ 23:04, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Yes, User:Anomie. Same issue coming from the same DRV. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:52, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
• (1) As I've also noted in the other discussion, the deletion process guidelines at WP:NACD do say non-admins shouldn't do "delete" closures and do recognize exceptions for CfD and TfD. There isn't a current inconsistency there between guidelines and practice.
  (2) In circumstances where we do allow for non-admin "delete" closures, I would hope that the implementing admin isn't fully reviewing the discussion de novo before implementing, but rather giving deference to any reasonable closure. That's how it goes with requested move closers asking for technical help implementing a "moved" closure at WP:RM/TR (as noted at WP:RMNAC, the closure will "generally be respected by the administrator (or page mover)" but can be reverted by an admin if "clearly improper"). SilverLocust 💬 08:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - A couple things to note about the CFD process: It very much requires work by admins. The non-admin notes info about the close at WT:CFD/Working, and then an admin enters the info on the CFD/Working page (which is protected) so that the bot can perform the various actions. Remember that altering a category is potentially more labour intensive than merely editing or deleting a single page - every page in that category must be edited, and then the category deleted. (There are other technical things involved, like the mess that template transclusion can cause, but let's keep it simple.) So I wouldn't suggest that that process is very useful as a precedent for anything here. It was done at a time when there was a bit of a backlog at CfD, and this was a solution some found to address that. Also - since then, I think at least one of the regular non-admin closers there is now an admin. So there is that as well. - jc37 09:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
• If the expectation is that an admin needs to review the deletion discussion to ensure they agree with that outcome before deleting via G6, as multiple people here are suggesting, then I'm not sure this is worthwhile. However, I have had many admins delete pages I've tagged with G6, and I have been assuming that they only check that the discussion was indeed closed as delete, and trust the closer to be responsible for the correctness of it. This approach makes sense to me, because if a non-admin is competent to close and be responsible for any other outcome of a discussion, I don't see any compelling reason they can't be responsible for a delete outcome and close accordingly. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:51, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

  Some closers, and you're among them, have closing accuracy similar to many sysops. But the sysop can't/shouldn't "trust" that your close is accurate. Trustworthy though you are, the sysop must, at very minimum, check firstly that the close with your signature on it was actually made by you (signatures are easily copied), secondly that the close wasn't manifestly unreasonable, and thirdly that the CSD is correct. WP:DRV holds the deleting sysop responsible for checking that the CSD were correctly applied. G6 is for uncontroversial deletions, and if there's been an XFD, then it's only "uncontroversial" if the XFD was unanimous or nearly so. We do have sysops who'll G6 without checking carefully, but they shouldn't. Basically, non-admin closing XFDs doesn't save very much sysop time. I think that if your motive as a non-admin is to relieve sysops of labour, the place you're of most use is at RfC.—S Marshall T/C 11:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  if your motive as a non-admin is to relieve sysops of labour, the place you're of most use is at RfC alternatively you should consider becoming an administrator yourself. Thryduulf (talk) 13:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  If you're willing to tolerate the RFA process.—S Marshall T/C 15:24, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  In all the cases I have dealt with, the admin's reason for deletion (usually copyvio) was completely different to the issues being debated in the AfD (usually notability). The closing statement was therefore something like "Discussion is now moot due to article being deleted for <reason> by <admin>". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• I think most all the time, experienced closers will do a great job and that will save admin time because they will not have to construct and explain the close from scratch, but there will be some that are bad and that will be costly in time not just for the admin but for the project's goal of completing these issues and avoiding disruption. I think that lost time is still too costly, so I would oppose non-admin delete closes. (Now if there were a proposal for a process to make a "delete-only admin permission" that would be good -- such motivated specialists would likely be more efficient.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
• As I said at the "Non-Admin XFD Close as Delete" section, I support non-admins closing RfDs as Delete. If TfDs have been made an exception, RfDs can be too, especially considering RfD backlogs. Closing a heavily discussed nomination at RfD is more about the reading, analysis and thought process at arriving at the outcome, and less about the technicality of the subsequent page actions. I don't see a significant difference between non-admins closing discussions as Delete vs non-Delete. It will help making non-admins mentally prepared to advance to admin roles. Jay 💬 14:53, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
• The backlog at RFD is mostly lack of participation, not lack of admins not making closures. This would only be exacerbated if non-admins are given a reason not to !vote on discussions trending toward deletion so they can get the opportunity to close. RFD isn't as technical as CFD and TFD. In any case, any admin doing the deletion would still have to review the RFD. Except in the most obviously trivial cases, this will lead to duplicate work, and even where it doesn't (e.g. multiple !votes all in one direction), the value-add is minimal.

-- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:34, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

A discrimination policy

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.

i quit this will go no where im extremely embarassed and feel horrible i dont think ill try again

---

Ani cases:

• this one from January 2025 which resulted in an indefinite block
• this one from January 2025 which resulted a indefinite block
• This one from January 2025 which is an edge case as it was both article and personal attack

I would like to start this proposal by saying that this concept was a proposal in 2009 which failed for obvious reasons. But in this year, 2025, we need it as its happened a bunch. its already under personal attacks but this I feel and a couple other Wikipedians that it should be codified as their is precedent for blocking users who discriminate. Here’s a list of the things I want to include in this policy. edit: This policy is intended to target blatant and admitted instances of discrimination. If the intent behind an action is ambiguous, users should continue to assume good until the intent is.
Just as being a member of a group does not give one special requirements to edit, it also does not endow any special privileges.[a] One is not absolved of discrimination against a group just because one claims to be a member of that group.

What counts as discrimination

• Race
• Disability-will define this further
• Disease
• Gender-different from sex neurological
• Sex-different then gender biological
• Sexuality
• Religion
• Hobbies (e.g furry ( most often harassed hobby))
• Relationship status
• Martial status
• (Idk how to word this but) lack of parental presence
• Political position (will be a hot topic)
• Discrimination anything i missed would be in there

A disability is an umbrella term in my sight

you have mental and physical

examples for mental would be:

• schizophrenia
• autism
• ADHD
• PTSD
• mood disorders (depression, borderline personality disorder)
• dyslexia (or any learning disability)

examples of physical:

• paralyzation
• Pretty much any physical injury
• Im aware that this never really happens but its good to go over

A user may not claim without evidence that a user is affected by/are any of the above (idk how to term this).

A user may not claim that users with these disabilities/beliefs/races/genders shouldn’t edit Wikipedia.

A user may not imply a user is below them based on the person.

calling people woke simply cause they are queer is discrimination.

Also I would like to propose a condition.

Over reaction to what you think is discrimination (accidental misgendering and wrong pronouns) and the user apologizes for it is not grounds for an entry at ani.

This should be used as a guideline.

discrimination is defined as acts, practices, or policies that wrongfully impose a relative disadvantage or deprivation on persons based on their membership in a salient social group. This is a comparative definition. An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. He or she just needs to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason. If someone decides to donate to help orphan children, but decides to donate less, say, to children of a particular race out of a racist attitude, he or she will be acting in a discriminatory way even if he or she actually benefits the people he discriminates against by donating some money to them.

Wikipedia article on discrimination

I would also like to say this would give us negative press coverage by right wing media and I’ll receive shit. But I don’t care i can deal with it •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• This largely seems like behavior that already is sanctionable per WP:NPA and WP:UCOC (and the adoption of the latter drew complaints at the time that it in itself was already unnecessarily redundant with existing civility policy on en.wiki). What shortcomings do you see with those existing bodies of policy en force? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  The fact that punishments should be a little more severe for users who go after a whole group of editors. As its not an npa its an attack on a group •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  NPA violations are already routinely met with blocks and sitebans, often on sight without prior warning for the level of disparagement you're describing. Do you have any recent examples on hand of cases where the community's response was insufficiently severe? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Ill grab some my issue is admins can unblock without community input it should be unblock from admin then= they have to appeal to the community •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Noting that I've now taken the time to read through the three cases listed at the top--two of them ended in NOTHERE blocks pretty quickly--I could see someone taking issue with the community's handling of RowanElder and Jwa05002, although it does seem that the discussion ultimately resulted in an indef block for one and an apparently sincere apology from the other. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think the real problem is that in order to block for any reason you have to take them to a place where random editors discuss whether they are a "net positive" or "net negative" to the wiki, which in principle would be a fair way to decide, but in reality is like the work of opening an RFC just in order to get someone to stop saying random racist stuff, and it's not worth it. Besides, remember the RSP discussion where the Daily Mail couldn't be agreed to be declared unreliable on transgender topics because "being 'gender critical' is a valid opinion" according to about half the people there? I've seen comments that were blatant bigoted insults beneath a thin veneer, that people did not take to ANI because it's just not worth the huge amount of effort. There really needs to be an easy way for administrators to warn (on first violation) and then block people who harass people in discriminatory ways without a huge and exhausting-for-the-complainer "discussion" about it -- and a very clear policy that says discrimination is not OK and is always "net negative" for the encyclopedia would reduce the complexity of that discussion, and I think is an important statement to make.

  By allowing it to be exhaustively debated whether thinly-veiled homophobic insults towards gay people warrant banning is Wikipedia deliberately choosing not to take a stance on the topic. A stance needs to be taken, and it needs to be clear enough to allow rapid and decisive action that makes people actually afraid to discriminate against other editors, because they know that it isn't tolerated, rather than being reasonably confident their targets won't undergo another exhausting ANI discussion. Mrfoogles (talk) 17:04, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Said better then i could say i agree wholeheartedly it happens way too much •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• I agree that a blind eye shouldn't be turned against discrimination against groups of Wikipedia editors in general, but I don't see why we need a list that doesn't include social class but includes hobbies. The determining factor for deciding whether something is discrimination should be how much choice the individual has in the matter, which seems, in practice, to be the way WP:NPA is used. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:02, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  I agree hobbies doesn't need to be included. Haven't seen a lot of discrimination based on social class? I think this needs to be taken to the Idea Lab. Mrfoogles (talk) 17:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Sorry this was just me spit balling i personally have been harassed over my hobbies •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• @cyberwolf Strong support in general (see above) but I strongly suggest you take this to the idea lab, because it's not written as a clear and exact proposal and it would probably benefit a lot from being developed into an RFC before taking it here. In the current format it probably can't pass because it doesn't make specific changes to policy. Mrfoogles (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yeah sorry I’m new to this i was told to go here to get the ball rolling •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• Wait...does this mean I won't be able to discriminate against people whose hobby is editing Wikipedia? Where's the fun in that? Anonymous 17:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  I guess not :3 •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

In general, I fail to see the problem this is solving. The UCoC and other policies/guidelines/essays (such as WP:NPA, WP:FOC, and others) already prohibit discriminatory behavior. And normal conduct processes already have the ability to lay down the strictest punishment theoretically possible - an indefinite ban - for anyone who engages in such behavior.

I do not like the idea of what amounts to bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake. That is the best way I can put it. At worst, this is virtue signaling - it’s waving a flag saying “hey, public and editors, Wikipedia cares about discrimination so much we made a specific policy about it” - without even saying the next part “but our existing policies already get people who discriminate against other editors banned, so this was not necessary and a waste of time”. I’ll happily admit I’m proven wrong if someone can show evidence of a case where actual discrimination was not acted upon because people were “concerned” it wasn’t violating one of those other policies. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 20:56, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

To clarify, all the comments about "why is this included" or "why is this not included" are part of the reason I'm against a specific policy like this. Any disruption can be handled by normal processes, and a specific policy will lead to wikilawyering over what is or is not discrimination. There is no need to try to define/specifically treat discrimination when all discriminatory behaviors are adequately covered by other policies already. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 22:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• We should be relating to other editors in a kind way. But this proposal appears to make the editing environment more hostile with more blocking on the opinion of one person. We do discrimonate against those that use Wikipedia for wrong purposes, such as vandalism, or advertising. Pushing a particular point of view is more grey area. The proposal by cyberwolf is partly point of view that many others would disagree with. So we should concentrate policies on how a user relates to other editors, rather than their motivations or opinions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:50, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
• I think this is valuable by setting a redline for a certain sort of personal attack and saying, "this is a line nobody is permitted to cross while participating in this project." Simonm223 (talk) 20:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
• It is not possible for the content of a discussion to be "discriminatory". Discrimination is action, not speech. This proposal looks like an attempt to limit discourse to a certain point of view. That's not a good idea. --Trovatore (talk) 21:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Discrimination can very much be speech. Akechi The Agent Of Chaos (talk) 00:36, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  Nope. --Trovatore (talk) 00:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  Cambridge says that discrimination is : "treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc".

  So yes, that includes speech because you can treat people differently in speech. Speech is an act. TarnishedPath^talk 01:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  OK, look, I'll concede part of the point here. Yes, if I'm a dick to (name of group) but not to (name of other group), I suppose that is discrimination, but I don't think a discrimination policy is a particularly useful tool for this, because what I should do is not be a dick to anybody.

  What I'm concerned about is that the policy would be used to assert that certain content is discriminatory. Say someone says, here's a reliable source that says biological sex is real and has important social consequences, and someone else says, you can't bring that up, it's discriminatory. Well, no, that's a category error. That sort of thing can't be discriminatory. --Trovatore (talk) 01:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  just drop it •Cyberwolf•talk? 01:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• I would remove anything to do with polical position. Those on the far-right should be discriminated against. TarnishedPath^talk 21:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• The examples you use show that we've been dealing effectively without this additional set of guidelines; it would be more convincing that something was needed if you had examples where the lack of this policy caused bad outcomes. And I can see it being used as a hammer; while we're probably picturing "as a White man, I'm sure that I understand chemistry better than any of you lesser types" as what we're going after, I can see some folks trying to wield it against "as a Comanche raised on the Comanche nation, I think I have some insights on the Comanche language that others here are overlooking." As such, I'm cautious. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment. I am sorry that caste discrimination is being ignored here. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC).
• Not needed. Everything the proposal is talking about would constitute disruptive behavior, and we can block or ban someone for being disruptive already. No need to break disruption down into its component parts, and write rules for each. Blueboar (talk) 22:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

References

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

Repeated false retirement

There is a user (who shall remain unnamed) who has "retired" twice and had the template removed from their page by other users because they were clearly still editing. They are now on their third "retirement", yet they last edited a few days ago. I don't see any policy formally prohibiting such behavior, but it seems extremely unhelpful for obvious reasons. Anonymous 17:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Unless the material is harmful to Wikipedia or other users, users have considerable leeway in what they may post on their user page. Personally, I always take "retirement" notices with a grain of salt. If a user wants to claim they are retired even though they are still actively editing, I don't see the harm to anything but their credibility. If I want to know if an editor is currently active, I look at their contributions, not at notices on their user or talk page. Donald Albury 22:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I can't imagine that this calls for a policy. You're allowed to be annoyed if you want. No one can take that away from you. But I'm missing an explanation of why the rest of us should care. --Trovatore (talk) 22:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

This seems a little prickly, my friend. Clearly, the other two users who removed older retirement notices cared. At the end of the day, it's definitely not the most major thing, but it is helpful to have a reliable and simple indication as to whether or not a user can be expected to respond to any kind of communication or feedback. I'm not going to die on this hill. Cheers. Anonymous 22:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

A "retirement notice" from a Wikipedia editor is approximately as credible as a "retirement notice" from a famous rock and roll band. Ignore it. Cullen328 (talk) 03:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, those two other editors were in the wrong to edit another person's user page for this kind of thing. And the retired banner does indicate: don't expect a quick response, even if I made an edit a few days or even minutes ago, as I may not be around much. Valereee (talk) 12:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

There's a lot of active editors on the project, with retirement templates on their user pages. GoodDay (talk) 03:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it's kind of rude to edit someone else's user page unless there is an extreme reason, like reversing vandalism or something. On Wikipedia:User pages I don't see anything about retirement templates, but i do see it say "In general, one should avoid substantially editing another's user and user talk pages, except when it is likely edits are expected and/or will be helpful. If unsure, ask." If someone wants to identify as retired but sometimes drop by and edit, that doesn't seem to hurt anything. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, so even a "non-retired" editor might never edit again. And if someone is "retired" but still constructively edits, just consider that a bonus. What's more problematic is a petulant editor who "retires", but returns and edits disruptively; in such case, it's their disruptive behavior that would be the issue, not a trivial retirement notice. —Bagumba (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• As far as Wikipedia is concerned it's just another userbox you can put on your userpage. We only remove userboxes and userspace material if they're claiming to have a right that they don't (ie. a user with an Administrator toolbox who isn't an admin). Retirement is not an official term defined in policy anywhere, and being retired confers no special status. Pinguinn 🐧 11:13, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

If you see a retirement template that seems to be false you could post a message on the user talk page to ask if they are really retired. I suppose it could be just a tiny bit disruptive if we cannot believe such templates, but nowhere near enough to warrant sanctions or a change in policy. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

What is the purpose of banning?

In thinking about a recent banned user's request to be unblocked, I've been reading WP:Blocking policy and WP:Banning policy trying to better understand the differences. In particular, I'm trying to better understand what criteria should be applied when deciding whether to end a sanction.

One thing that stuck me is that for blocks, we explicitly say Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users. The implication being that a user should be unblocked if we're convinced they no longer present a threat of damage or disruption. No such statement exists for bans, which implies that bans are be a form of punishment. If that's the case, then the criteria should not just be "we think they'll behave themselves now", but "we think they've endured sufficiently onerous punishment to atone for their misbehavior", which is a fundamentally different thing.

I'm curious how other people feel about this. RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

My understanding (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) is that blocks are made by individual admins, and may be lifted by an admin (noting that CU blocks should only be lifted after clearance by a CU), while bans are imposed by ARBCOM or the community and require ARBCOM or community discussion to lift. Whether block or ban, a restriction on editing should only be imposed when it is the opinion of the admin, or ARBCOM, or the community, that such restriction is necessary to protect the encyclopedia from further harm or disruption. I thinks bans carry the implication that there is less chance that the banned editor will be able to successfully return to editing than is the case for blocked editors, but that is not a punishment, it is a determination of what is needed to protect WP in the future. Donald Albury 16:44, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Good question. I'm interested in what ban evasion sources think about current policies, people who have created multiple accounts, been processed at SPI multiple times, made substantial numbers of edits, the majority of which are usually preserved by the community in practice for complicated reasons (a form of reward in my view - the community sends ban evading actors very mixed messages). What's their perspective on blocks and bans and how to reduce evasion? It is not easy to get this kind of information unfortunately as people who evade bans and blocks are not very chatty it seems. But I have a little bit of data from one source for interest, Irtapil. Here are a couple of views from the other side.

• On socking - "automatic second chance after first offense with a 2 week ban / block, needs to be easier than making a third one so people don't get stuck in the loop"
• On encouraging better conduct - "they need to gently restrict people, not shun and obliterate"

No comment on the merits of these views, or whether punishment is what is actually happening, or is required, or effective, but it seems clear that it is likely to be perceived as punishment and counterproductive (perhaps unsurprisingly) by some affected parties. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Blocks are a sanction authorized by the community to be placed by administrators on their own initiative, for specific violations as described by a policy, guideline, or arbitration remedy (in which case the community authorization is via the delegated authority to the arbitration committee). Blocks can also be placed to enforce an editing restriction. A ban is an editing restriction. As described on the banning policy page, it is a formal prohibition from editing some or all pages on the English Wikipedia, or a formal prohibition from making certain types of edits on Wikipedia pages. Bans can be imposed for a specified or an indefinite duration. Aside from cases where the community has delegated authority to admins to enact bans on their own initiative, either through community authorization of discretionary sanctions, or arbitration committee designated contentious topics, editing restrictions are authorized through community discussion. They cover cases where there isn't a single specific violation for which blocking is authorized by guidance/arbitration remedy, and so a pattern of behaviour and the specific circumstances of the situation have to be discussed and a community consensus established.

Historically, removing blocks and bans require a consensus from the authorizing party that removing it will be beneficial to the project. Generally, the community doesn't like to impose editing restrictions when there is promise for improved behaviour, so they're enacted for more severe cases of poor behaviour. Thus it's not unusual that the community is somewhat skeptical about lifting recently enacted restrictions (where "recent" can vary based on the degree of poor behaviour and the views of each community member). Personally I don't think this means an atonement period should be mandated. isaacl (talk) 18:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• I think that a block is a preventive measure, whereas a ban is where the community's reached a consensus to uninvite a particular person from the site. Wikipedia is the site that anyone can edit, except for a few people we've decided we can't or won't work with. A ban is imposed by a sysop on behalf of the community whereas a block is imposed on their own authority.—S Marshall T/C 19:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  A ban does not always stop you from editing Wikipedia. It may prohibit you from editing in a certain topic area (BLP for example or policies) but you can still edit other areas. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• Seems to be addressed in WP:BMB, which explains that the criteria is not dependent upon an editor merely behaving with what appears to be "good or good-faith edits". A ban is based on a persistent or long-term pattern of editing behavior that demonstrates a significant risk of "disruption, issues, or harm" to the area in which they are banned from, despite any number of positive contributions said editor has made or is willing to make moving forward. As such, it naturally requires a higher degree of review (i.e. a form of community consensus) to be imposed or removed (though many simply expire upon a pre-determined expiration date without review). While some may interpret bans as a form of punishment, they are still a preventative measure at their core. At least that's my understanding. --GoneIn60 (talk) 12:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Contacting/discussing organizations that fund Wikipedia editing

I have seen it asserted that contacting another editor's employer is always harassment and therefore grounds for an indefinite block without warning. I absolutely get why we take it seriously and 99% of the time this norm makes sense. (I'm using the term "norm" because I haven't seen it explicitly written in policy.)

In some cases there is a conflict between this norm and the ways in which we handle disruptive editing that is funded by organizations. There are many types of organizations that fund disruptive editing - paid editing consultants, corporations promoting themselves, and state propaganda departments, to name a few. Sometimes the disruption is borderline or unintentional. There have been, for instance, WMF-affiliated outreach projects that resulted in copyright violations or other crap being added to articles.

We regularly talk on-wiki and off-wiki about organizations that fund Wikipedia editing. Sometimes there is consensus that the organization should either stop funding Wikipedia editing or should significantly change the way they're going about it. Sometimes the WMF legal team sends cease-and-desist letters.

Now here's the rub: Some of these organizations employ Wikipedia editors. If a view is expressed that the organizations should stop the disruptive editing, it is foreseeable that an editor will lose a source of income. Is it harassment for an editor to say "Organization X should stop/modify what it's doing to Wikipedia?" at AN/I? Of course not. Is it harassment for an editor to express the same view in a social media post? I doubt we would see it that way unless it names a specific editor.

Yet we've got this norm that we absolutely must not contact any organization that pays a Wikipedia editor, because this is a violation of the harassment policy. Where this leads is a bizarre situation in which we are allowed to discuss our beef with a particular organization on AN/I but nobody is allowed to email the organization even to say, "Hey, we're having a public discussion about you."

I propose that if an organization is reasonably suspected to be funding Wikipedia editing, contacting the organization should not in and of itself be considered harassment. I ask that in this discussion, we not refer to real cases of alleged harassment, both to avoid bias-inducing emotional baggage and to prevent distress to those involved. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• If it's needful to contact an organisation about one of their employees' edits, Trust and Safety should do that. Not volunteers.—S Marshall T/C 09:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  Let's say Acme Corporation has been spamming Wikipedia. If you post on Twitter "Acme has been spamming Wikipedia" is that harassment? How about if you write "@Acme has been spamming Wikipedia?" Should only Trust and Safety be allowed to add the @ sign? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:43, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  What you post on Twitter isn't something Wikipedia can control. But contacting another editor's employer about that editor's edits has a dark history on Wikipedia.—S Marshall T/C 15:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  The history is dark indeed. What I'm pointing out is that writing "@Acme has been spamming Wikipedia" on Twitter is contacting another editor's employer. Should you be indef blocked without warning for doing that? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:56, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  You want an "in principle" discussion without talking about specific cases, so the only way I can answer that is to say: Not always, but depending on the surrounding circumstances, possibly.—S Marshall T/C 16:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  I agree. You said it better than I did. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:56, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Another issue is that it sometimes doing that can place another link or two in a wp:outing chain, and IMO avoiding that is of immense importance. The way that you posed the question with the very high bar of "always" is probably not the most useful for the discussion. Also, a case like this is almost always involves a concern about a particular editor or center around edits made by a particular editor, which I think is a non-typical omission from your hypothetical example. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by placing a link in an outing chain. Can you explain this further? I used the very high bar of "always" because I have seen admins refer to it as an "always" or a "bright line" and this shuts down the conversation. Changing the norm from "is always harassment" to "is usually harassment" is exactly what I'm trying to do.

Organizations that fund disruptive editing often hire just one person to do it but I've also seen plenty of initiatives that involve money being distributed widely, sometimes in the form of giving perks to volunteers. If the organization is represented by only one editor then there is obviously a stronger argument that contacting the organization constitutes harassment. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

General reliability discussions have failed at reducing discussion, have become locus of conflict with external parties, and should be curtailed

The original WP:DAILYMAIL discussion, which set off these general reliability discussions in 2017, was supposed to reduce discussion about it, something which it obviously failed to do since we have had more than 20 different discussions about its reliability since then. Generally speaking, a review of WP:RSNP does not support the idea that general reliability discussions have reduced discussion about the reliability of sources either. Instead, we see that we have repeated discussions about the reliability of sources, even where their reliability was never seriously questioned. We have had a grand total of 22 separate discussions about the reliability of the BBC, for example, 10 of which have been held since 2018. We have repeated discussions about sources that are cited in relatively few articles (e.g., Jacobin).

Moreover these discussions spark unnecessary conflict with parties off wiki that harm the reputation of the project. Most recently we have had an unnecessary conflict with the Anti-Defamation League sparked by a general reliability discussion with them, but the original Daily Mail discussion did this also. In neither case was usage of the source a problem generally on Wikipedia in any way that has been lessened by their deprecation - they were neither widely-used, nor permitted to be used in a way that was problematic by existing policy on using reliable sources.

There is also some evidence, particularly from WP:PIA5, that some editors have sought to "claim scalps" by getting sources they are opposed to on ideological grounds 'banned' from Wikipedia. Comments in such discussions are often heavily influenced by people's impression of the bias of the source.

I think a the very least we need a WP:BEFORE-like requirement for these discussions, where the editors bringing the discussion have to show that the source is one for which the reliability of which has serious consequences for content on Wikipedia, and that they have tried to resolve the matter in other ways. The recent discussion about Jacobin, triggered simply by a comment by a Jacobin writer on Reddit, would be an example of a discussion that would be stopped by such a requirement. FOARP (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• The purpose of this proposal is to reduce discussion of sources. I feel that evaluating the reliability of sources is the single most important thing that we as a community can do, and I don't want to reduce the amount of discussion about sources. So I would object to this.—S Marshall T/C 16:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I don't thinks meant to reduce but instead start more discussions at a more appropriate level than at VPP or RSP. Starting the discussion at the VPP/RSP level means you are trying to get all editors involved, which for most cases isn't really appropriate ( eg one editor has a beef about a source and brings it to wide discussion before getting other input first). Foarp us right that when these discussion are first opened at VPP or RSP without prior attempts to resolve elsewhere is a wear on the process. — Masem (t) 16:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
    • Oh, well that makes more sense. We could expand WP:RFCBEFORE to cover WP:RSP?—S Marshall T/C 17:06, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

      Basically this. I favour something for RSP along the lines of WP:BEFORE/WP:RFCBEFORE, an WP:RSPBEFORE if you will. FOARP (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• Yeah I would support anything to reduce the constant attempts to kill sources at RSN. It has become one of the busiest pages on all of Wikipedia, maybe even surpassing ANI. -- GreenC 19:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Oddly enough, I am wondering why this discussion is here? And not Talk RSN:Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, as it now seems to be a process discussion (more BEFORE) for RSN? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Some confusion about pages here, with some mentions of RSP actually referring to RSN. RSN is a type of "before" for RSP, and RSP is intended as a summary of repeated RSN discussions. One purpose of RSP is to put a lid on discussion of sources that have appeared at RSN too many times. This isn't always successful, but I don't see a proposal here to alleviate that. Few discussions are started at RSP; they are started at RSN and may or may not result in a listing or a change at RSP. Also, many of the sources listed at RSP got there due to a formal RfC at RSN, so they were already subject to RFCBEFORE (not always obeyed). I'm wondering how many listings at RSN are created due to an unresolved discussion on an article talk page—I predict it is quite a lot. Zero^talk 04:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

  “Not always obeyed” is putting it mildly. FOARP (talk) 06:47, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• I fully agree that we need a strict interpretation of RFCBEFORE for the big "deprecate this source" RfCs. It must be shown that 1. The source is widely used on Wikipedia. 2. Removal/replacement of the source (on individual articles) has been contested. 3. Talk page discussions on use of the source have been held and have not produced a clear consensus.

We really shouldn't be using RSP for cases where a source is used problematically a single-digit number of times and no-one actually disagrees that the source is unreliable – in that case it can just be removed/replaced, with prior consensus on article talk if needed. Toadspike [Talk] 11:42, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

The vast majority of discussions at RSN are editors asking for advice, many of which get overlooked due to other more contentious discussions. The header and edit notice already contain wording telling editors not to open RFCs unless there has been prior discussion (as with any new requirement there's no way to make editors obey it).
RSP is a different problem, for example look at the entry for Metro. Ten different discussions are linked and the source rated as unreliable, except if you read those discussions most mention The Metro only in passing. There is also the misconception that RSP is (or should be) a list of all sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Primary sources vs Secondary sources

Main page: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television § Episode Counts

The discussion above has spiralled out of control, and needs clarification. The discussion revolves around how to count episodes for TV series when a traditionally shorter episode (e.g., 30 minutes) is broadcast as a longer special (e.g., 60 minutes). The main point of contention is whether such episodes should count as one episode (since they aired as a single entity) or two episodes (reflecting production codes and industry norms).

The simple question is: when primary sources and secondary sources conflict, which we do use on Wikipedia?

• The contentious article behind this discussion is at List of Good Luck Charlie episodes, in which Deadline, TVLine and The Futon Critic all state that the series has 100 episodes; this article from TFC, which is a direct copy of the press release from Disney Channel, also states that the series has "100 half-hour episodes".
• The article has 97 episodes listed; the discrepancy is from three particular episodes that are all an hour long (in a traditionally half-hour long slot). These episode receive two production codes, indicating two episodes, but each aired as one singular, continuous release. An editor argues that the definition of an episode means that these count as a singular episode, and stand by these episode being the important primary sources.
• The discussion above discusses what an episode is. Should these be considered one episode (per the primary source of the episode), or two episodes (per the secondary sources provided)? This is where the primary conflict is.
• Multiple editors have stated that the secondary sources refer to the production of the episodes, despite the secondary sources not using this word in any format, and that the primary sources therefore override the "incorrect" information of the secondary sources. Some editors have argued that there are 97 episodes, because that's what's listed in the article.
• WP:CALC has been cited; Routine calculations do not count as original research, provided there is consensus among editors that the results of the calculations are correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources. An editor argues that there is not the required consensus. WP:VPT was also cited.

Another example was provided at Abbott Elementary season 3#ep36.

• The same editor arguing for the importance of the primary source stated that he would have listed this as one episode, despite a reliable source[1] stating that there is 14 episodes in the season.
• WP:PSTS has been quoted multiple times:
  • Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.
  • While a primary source is generally the best source for its own contents, even over a summary of the primary source elsewhere, do not put undue weight on its contents.
  • Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
• Other quotes from the editors arguing for the importance of primary over secondary includes:
  • When a secondary source conflicts with a primary source we have an issue to be explained but when the primary source is something like the episodes themselves and what is in them and there is a conflict, we should go with the primary source.
  • We shouldn't be doing "is considered to be"s, we should be documenting what actually happened as shown by sources, the primary authoritative sources overriding conflicting secondary sources.
  • Yep, secondary sources are not perfect and when they conflict with authoritative primary sources such as released films and TV episodes we should go with what is in that primary source.

Having summarized this discussion, the question remains: when primary sources and secondary sources conflict, which we do use on Wikipedia?

1. Primary, as the episodes are authoritative for factual information, such as runtime and presentation?
2. Or secondary, which guide Wikipedia's content over primary interpretations?

-- Alex_21 _TALK 22:22, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• As someone who has never watched Abbott Elementary, the example given at Abbott Elementary season 3#ep36 would be confusing to me. If we are going to say that something with one title, released as a single unit, is actually two episodes we should provide some sort of explanation for that. I would also not consider this source reliable for the claim that there were 14 episodes in the season. It was published three months before the season began to air; even if the unnamed sources were correct when it was written that the season was planned to have 14 episodes, plans can change. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:13, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Here is an alternate source, after the premiere's release, that specifically states the finale episode as Episode 14. (Another) And what of your thoughts for the initial argument and contested article, where the sources were also posted after the multiple multi-part episode releases? -- Alex_21 _TALK 10:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Vulture does say there were 14 episodes in that season, but it also repeatedly describes "Career Day" (episode 1/2 of season 3) in the singular as "the episode" in its review and never as "the episodes". Similarly IndieWire and Variety refer to "the supersized premiere episode, 'Career Day'" and "the mega-sized opener titled 'Career Day Part 1 & 2'" respectively, and treat it largely as a single episode in their reviews, though both acknowledge that it is divided into two parts.

  If reliable sources do all agree that the one-hour episodes are actually two episodes run back-to-back, then we should conform to what the sources say, but that is sufficiently unexpected (and even the sources are clearly not consistent in treating these all as two consecutive episodes) that we do need to at least explain that to our readers.

  In the case of Good Luck Charlie, while there clearly are sources saying that there were 100 episodes, none of them seem to say which episodes are considered to be two, and I would consider "despite airing under a single title in a single timeslot, this is two episodes" to be a claim which is likely to be challenged and thus require an inline citation per WP:V. I have searched and I am unable to find a source which supports the claim that e.g episode 3x07 "Special Delivery" is actually two episodes. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto-public: That's another excellent way of putting it. Plans change. Sources like Deadline Hollywood are definitely WP:RS, but they report on future information and don't really update to reflect what actually happened. How are sources like Deadline Hollywood supposed to know when two or more episodes are going to be merged for presentation? To use a couple of other examples, the first seasons for both School of Rock and Andi Mack were reported to have 13 episodes each by Deadline Hollywood and other sources. However, the pilot for School of Rock (101) never aired and thus the first season actually only had 12 episodes, while the last episode of Andi Mack's first season (113) was held over to air in the second season and turned into a special and thus the first season only had 12 episodes. Using School of Rock, for example, would we still insist on listing 13 episodes for the season and just make up an episode to fit with the narrative that the source said there are 13 episodes? No, of course not. It's certainly worth mentioning as prose in the Production section, such as: The first season was originally reported to have 13 episodes; however, only 12 episodes aired due to there being an unaired pilot. But in terms of the number of episodes for the first season, it would be 12, not 13. Amaury • 22:04, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

And what of the sources published later, after the finale, as provided, in which the producer of the series still says that there are 14 episodes? Guidelines and policies (for example, secondary sources vs primary sources) can easily be confused; for example, claiming MOS:SEASON never applies because we have to quote a source verbatim even if it says "summer 2016", against Wikipedia guidelines. So, if we need to quote a source verbatim, then it is fully support that there are 14 episodes in the AE season, or there are 100 episodes in the GLC series. All of the sources provided (100 episodes, 14 episodes) are not future information. What would you do with this past information? -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:56, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the question remains: does one editor's unsourced definition of an episode outrule the basis sourcing policies of Wikipedia? -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:58, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Usually we don't need to source the meaning of common English language words and concepts. The article at episode reflects common usage and conforms to this dictionary definition - "any installment of a serialized story or drama". Geraldo Perez (talk) 00:27, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

If a series had 94 half-hour episodes and three of one hour why not just say that? Phil Bridger (talk) 11:04, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

What would you propose be listed in the first column of the tables at List of Good Luck Charlie episodes, and in the infobox at Good Luck Charlie?

Contentious article aside, my question remains as to whether primary or secondary sources are what we based Wikipedia upon. -- Alex_21 _TALK 11:11, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

• If only we could divert all this thought and effort to contentious topics.
  Infoboxes cause a high proportion of Wikipedia disputes because they demand very short entries and therefore can't handle nuance. The solution is not to use the disputed parameter of the infobox.
  None of these sources are scholarly analysis or high quality journalism and they're merely repeating the publisher's information uncritically, so none of them are truly secondary in the intended meaning of the word.—S Marshall T/C 13:11, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, secondary sources "contain analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources", that is correct. -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:57, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Request for research input to inform policy proposals about banners & logos

I am leading an initiative to review and make recommendations on updates to policies and procedures governing decisions to run project banners or make temporary logo changes. The initiative is focused on ensuring that project decisions to run a banner or temporarily change their logo in response to an “external” event (such as a development in the news or proposed legislation) are made based on criteria and values that are shared by the global Wikimedia community. The first phase of the initiative is research into past examples of relevant community discussions and decisions. If you have examples to contribute, please do so on the Meta-Wiki page. Thanks! --CRoslof (WMF) (talk) 00:04, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@CRoslof (WMF): Was this initiative in the works before ar-wiki's action regarding Palestine, or was it prompted by that? voorts (talk/contributions) 02:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@voorts: Planning for this initiative began several months ago. The banners and logo changes on Arabic Wikipedia were one factor in making this work a higher priority, but by no means the only factor. One of the key existing policies that relates to this topic is the Wikimedia Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline. The current version of that policy is pretty old at this point, and we've found that it hasn't clearly answered all the questions about banners that have come up since it was last updated. We can also see how external trends, including those identified in the Foundation's annual plan, might result in an increase in community proposals to take action. Updating policies is one way to support decision-making on those possible proposals. CRoslof (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

RfC: Amending ATD-R

Should WP:ATD-R be amended as follows:

−

A page can be [[Wikipedia:BLANKANDREDIRECT|blanked and redirected]] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not [[Wikipedia:R#DELETE|inappropriate]]. If the change is disputed via a [[Wikipedia:REVERT|reversion]], an attempt should be made to reach a [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] before blank-and-redirecting again. Suitable venues for doing so include the article's talk page and [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]].

+

A page can be [[Wikipedia:BLANKANDREDIRECT|blanked and redirected]] if there is a suitable page to redirect to, and if the resulting redirect is not [[Wikipedia:R#DELETE|inappropriate]]. If the change is disputed, such as by [[Wikipedia:REVERT|reversion]], an attempt should be made to reach a [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] before blank-and-redirecting again. The preferred venue for doing so is the appropriate [[WP:XFD|deletion discussion venue]] for the pre-redirect content, although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the page's talk page.

• Prior discussion: Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Amending ATD-R voorts (talk/contributions) 01:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• Note: Clarified proposed amendment. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:50, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• Note: Broadened per discussion below. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:37, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion, Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy, Wikipedia talk:Deletion process, Wikipedia talk:Redirect, Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:24, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Support (Amending ATD-R)

• As proposer. This reflects existing consensus and current practice. Blanking of article content should be discussed at AfD, not another venue. If someone contests a BLAR, they're contesting the fact that article content was removed, not that a redirect exists. The venue matters because different sets of editors patrol AfD and RfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• Summoned by bot. I broadly support this clarification. However, I think it could be made even clearer that, in lieu of an AfD, if a consensus on the talkpage emerges that it should be merged to another article, that suffices and reverting a BLAR doesn't change that consensus without good reason. As written, I worry that the interpretation will be "if it's contested, it must go to AfD". I'd recommend the following: This may be done through either a merge discussion on the talkpage that results in a clear consensus to merge. Alternatively, or if a clear consensus on the talkpage does not form, the article should be submitted through Articles for Deletion for a broader consensus to emerge. That said, I'm not so miffed with the proposed wording to oppose it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:35, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  I don't see this proposal as precluding a merge discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:46, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  I don't either, but I see the wording of although sometimes the dispute may be resolved on the article's talk page closer to "if the person who contested/reverted agrees on the talk page, you don't need an AfD" rather than "if a consensus on the talk page is that the revert was wrong, an AfD is not needed". The second is what I see general consensus as, not the first. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:53, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

• I broadly support the idea, an AFD is going to get more eyes than an obscure talkpage, so I suspect it is the better venue in most cases. I'm also unsure how to work this nuance in to the prose, and not suspect the rare cases where another forum would be better, such a forum might emerge anyway. CMD (talk) 03:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support per my extensive comments in the prior discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support, although I don't see much difference between the status quo and the proposed wording. Basically, the two options, AfD or the talk page, are just switched around. It doesn't address the concerns that in some cases RfD is or is not a valid option. Perhaps it needs a solid "yes" or "no" on that issue? If RfD is an option, then that should be expressed in the wording. And since according to editors some of these do wind up at RfD when they shouldn't, then maybe that should be made clear here in this policy's wording, as well. Specifically addressing the RfD issue in the wording of this policy might actually lead to positive change. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 17:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support the change in wording to state the preference for AFD in the event of a conflict, because AFD is more likely to result in binding consensus than simply more talk. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support Per Thryduulf's reasoning in the antecedent discussion. Jclemens (talk) 04:45, 25 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support. AfD can handle redirects, merges, DABifies...the gamut. This kind of discussion should be happening out in the open, where editors versed in notability guidelines are looking for discussions, rather than between two opposed editors on an article talk page (where I doubt resolution will be easily found anyways). Toadspike [Talk] 11:48, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support firstly, because by "blank and redirect" you're fundamentally saying that an article shouldn't exist at that title (presumably either because it's not notable, or it is notable but it's best covered at another location). WP:AFD is the best location to discuss this. Secondly, because this has been abused in the past. COVID-19 lab leak theory is one example; and when it finally reached AFD, there was a pretty strong consensus for an article to exist at that title, which settled a dispute that spanned months. There are several other examples; AFD has repeatedly proven to be the best settler of "blank and redirect" situations, and the best at avoiding the "low traffic talk page" issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose (Amending ATD-R)

• Oppose. The status quo reflects the nuances that Chipmunkdavis has vocalized. There are also other venues to consider: if the page is a template, WP:TFD would be better. If this is long-stable as a redirect, RfD is a better venue (as I've argued here, for example). -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:13, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  The intent here is to address articles. Obviously TfD is the place to deal with templates and nobody is suggesting otherwise. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  The section in question is about pages, not articles. If the proposed wording is adapted, it would be suggesting that WP:BLAR'd templates go to AfD. As I explained in the previous discussion, that's part of the reason why the proposed wording is problematic and that it was premature for an RfC on the matter. -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:35, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  As a bit of workshopping, how about changing doing so to articles? -- Tavix ^(talk) 17:46, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Done. Pinging @Consarn, @Berchanhimez, @Chipmunkdavis, @Thryduulf, @Paine Ellsworth, @Tavix. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:51, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Gentle reminder to editor Voorts: as I'm subscribed to this RfC, there is no need to ping me. That's just an extra unnecessary step. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 22:58, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Not everyone subscribes to every discussion. I regularly unsubscribe to RfCs after I !vote. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:59, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  I don't. Just saving you some time and extra work. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 23:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  considering the above discussion, my vote hasn't really changed. this does feel incomplete, what with files and templates existing and all that, so that still feels undercooked (and now actively article-centric), hence my suggestion of either naming multiple venues or not naming any consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 23:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Agree. I'm beginning to understand those editors who said it was too soon for an RfC on these issues. While I've given this minuscule change my support (and still do), this very short paragraph could definitely be improved with a broader guidance for up and coming generations. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 23:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  If you re-read the RFCBEFORE discussions, the dispute was over what to do with articles that have been BLARed. That's why this was written that way. I think it's obvious that when there's a dispute over a BLARed article, it should go to AfD, not RfD. I proposed this change because apparently some people don't think that's so obvious. Nobody has or is disputing that BLARed templates should go to TfD, files to FfD, or miscellany to MfD. And none of that needs to be spelled out here per WP:CREEP. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:17, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  If you want to be fully inclusive, it could say something like "the appropriate deletion venue for the pre-redirect content" or "...the blanked content" or some such. I personally don't think that's necessary, but don't object if others disagree on that score. (To be explicit neither the change that was made, nor a change to along the lines of my first sentence, change my support). Thryduulf (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Exactly. And my support hasn't changed as well. Goodness, I'm not saying this needs pages and pages of instruction, nor even sentence after sentence. I think us old(er) farts sometimes need to remember that less experienced editors don't necessarily know what we know. I think you've nailed the solution, Thryduulf! The only thing I would add is something short and specific about how RfD is seldom an appropriate venue and why. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 00:35, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Done. Sorry if I came in a bit hot there. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:39, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Also, I think something about RfDs generally not being appropriate could replace the current footnote at the end of this paragraph. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:52, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  @Voorts: That latest change moves me to the "strong oppose" category. Again, RfD is the proper venue when the status quo is a redirect. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  I'm going to back down a bit with an emphasis on the word "preferred". I agree that AfD is the preferred venue, but my main concern is if a redirect gets nominated for deletion at RfD and editors make purely jurisdictional arguments that it should go to AfD because there's article content in its history even though it's blatantly obvious the article content should be deleted. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  this is a big part of why incident 91724 could become a case study. "has history, needs afd" took priority over the fact that the history had nothing worth keeping, the redirect had been stable as a blar for years, and the ages of the folks at rfd (specifically the admins closing or relisting discussions on blars) having zero issue with blars being nominated and discussed there (with a lot of similar blars nominated around the same time as that one being closed with relatively litte fuss, and blars nominated later being closed with no fuss), and at least three other details i'm missing

  as i said before, if a page was blanked relatively recently and someone can argue for there being something worth keeping in it, its own xfd is fine and dandy, but otherwise, it's better to just take it to rfd and leave the headache for them. despite what this may imply, they're no less capable of evaluating article content, be it stashed away in the edit history or proudly displayed in any given redirect's target consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 10:30, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  As I've explained time and time again it's primarily not about the capabilities of editors at RfD it's about discoverability. When article content is discussed at AfD there are multiple systems in place that mean everybody interested or potentially interested knows that article content is being discussed, the same is not true when article content is discussed at RfD. Time since the BLAR is completely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 10:39, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  if you want to argue that watchlists, talk page notifs, and people's xfd logs aren't enough, that's fine by me, but i at best support also having delsort categories for rfd (though there might be some issues when bundling multiple redirects together, though that's nothing twinkle or massxfd can't fix), and at worst disagree because, respectfully, i don't have much evidence or hope of quake 2's biggest fans knowing what a strogg is. maybe quake 4, but its list of strogg was deleted with no issue (not even a relisting). see also quackifier, just under that discussion consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 11:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  I would think NOTBURO/IAR would apply in those cases. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:41, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  I would think that as well, but unfortunately that's not reality far too often. I can see this new wording being more ammo for process wonkery. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:49, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Would a footnote clarifying that ameliorate your concerns? voorts (talk/contributions) 02:53, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Unless a note about RfD being appropriate in any cases makes it clear that it strictly limited to (a) when the content would be speedily deleted if restored, or (b) there has been explicit consensus the content should not be an article (or template or whatever), then it would move me into a strong oppose. This is not "process wonkery" but the fundamental spirit of the entire deletion process. Thryduulf (talk) 03:35, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  ^Voorts, see what I mean? -- Tavix ^(talk) 03:43, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  See what I mean this attitude is exactly why we are here. I've spent literal years explaining why I hold the position I do, and how it aligns with the letter and spirit of pretty much every relevant policy and guideline. It shouldn't even be controversial for blatantly obvious the article content should be deleted to mean "would be speedily deleteable if restored", yet on this again a single digit number of editors have spent years arguing that they know better. Thryduulf (talk) 03:56, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  both sides are on single digits at the time of writing this, we just need 3 more supports to make it 10 lol

  ultimately, this has its own caveat(s). namely, with the csd not covering every possible scenario. regardless of whether or not it's intentional, it's not hard to look at something and go "this ain't it, chief". following this "process" to the letter would just add more steps to that, by restoring anything that doesn't explicitly fit a csd and dictating that it has to go to afd so it can get the boot there for the exact same reason consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 10:51, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks. That alleviates my concerns. -- Tavix ^(talk) 23:45, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

• oppose, though with the note that i support a different flavor of change. on top of the status quo issue pointed out by tavix (which i think we might need to set a period of time for, like a month or something), there's also the issue of the article content in question. if it's just unsourced, promotional, in-universe, and/or any other kind of fluff or cruft or whatever else, i see no need to worry about the content, as it's not worth keeping anyway (really, it might be better to just create a new article from scratch). if a blar, which has been stable as a redirect, did have sources, and those sources were considered reliable, then i believe restoring and sending to afd would be a viable option (see purple francis for an example). outside of that, i think if the blar is reverted early enough, afd would be the better option, but if not, then it'd be rfd
  for this reason, i'd rather have multiple venues named ("Suitable venues include Articles for Deletion, Redirects for Discussion, and Templates for Discussion"), no specific venue at all ("The dispute should be resolved in a fitting discussion venue"), or conditions for each venue (for which i won't suggest a wording because of the aforementioned status quo time issue) consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 17:50, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (Amending ATD-R)

• not entirely sure i should vote, but i should probably mention this discussion in wt:redirect that preceded the one about atd-r, and i do think this rfc should affect that as well, but wouldn't be surprised if it required another one consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 12:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
• I know it's not really in the scope of this discussion but to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why BLAR is a still a thing. It's a cliche, but it's a hidden mechanism for backdoor deletion that often causes arguments and edit wars. I think AfDs and talk-page merge proposals where consensus-building exists produce much better results. It makes sense for duplicate articles, but that is covered by A10's redirection clause. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:23, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  BLARs are perfectly fine when uncontroversial, duplicate articles are one example but bold merges are another (which A10 doesn't cover). Thryduulf (talk) 03:29, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  It is my impression that BLARs often occur without intention of an accompanying merge. J947 ‡ ^edits 03:35, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yes because sometimes there's nothing to merge. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:01, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  I didn't say, or intend to imply, that every BLAR is related to a merge. The best ones are generally where the target article covers the topic explicitly, either because content is merged, written or already exists. The worst ones are where the target is of little to no (obvious) relevance, contains no (obviously) relevant content and none is added. Obviously there are also ones that lie between the extremes. Any can be controversial, any can be uncontroversial. Thryduulf (talk) 18:20, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  BLARs are preferable to deletion for content that is simply non-notable and does not run afoul of other G10/11/12-type issues. Jclemens (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Question About No Quorum Redirect

I am confident that I can get a knowledgeable answer here quickly. There is a Deletion Review in progress, where the AFD was held in December 2023, and no one participated except the nominator, even after two Relists. After two relists, the closer closed it as a Redirect, which was consistent with what the nominator had written. In Deletion Review, the appellant is saying that the article should be restored. I understand that in the case of a soft delete, the article should be restored to user or draft space on request, but in this case, the article is already present in the history. So: Does the appellant have a right to have the article restored, or should they submit it to AFC for review, or what? I don't care, but the appellant does care (of course). Robert McClenon (talk) 20:44, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Without a second participant, an uncontested AfD is not a discussion and so there is no mandated outcome and the redirect in question can be undone by any editor in good standing, and can be then taken to AfD again by any editor objecting to it. Draft isn't typically mandated in policies, because it's a relatively new invention compared to our deletion policies and isn't referenced everywhere it might be relevant or helpful to specify. Jclemens (talk) 07:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Jclemens. Is there an uninvolved opinion also? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:16, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Uninvolved opinion: While I agree with Jclemens that the DR appellant can simply revert the redirect within policy, I have not looked at this specific article and it likely makes more sense to restore to draftspace. I believe the appellant can do this themselves and does not need to go through a DR to copy the contents of the article from its history to draftspace. Alternatively, they can revert the BLAR and move to draftspace. The only difference is that if/when the article is moved back from draft to mainspace, a histmerge might be needed. Toadspike [Talk] 11:56, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

WP:NOQUORUM indicates that such a close should be treated as an expired WP:PROD, which states that restoration of prodded pages can be done via admin or via Requests for undeletion - there's no identified expectation/suggestion that prods should go to DRV. WP:SOFTDELETE states that such a deleted article "can be restored for any reason on request", ie: restoration to mainspace is an expected possibility. It also states that redirection is an option since BLAR can be used by any editor if there are no objections. Putting those together, it's reasonable for a restoration from redirect to be treated as a belated objection, and this can be done by any editor without seeking permission (though it would be nice if valid issues identified in the original AFD were fixed as part of the restoration to avoid a second AFD). ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 12:08, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Psychological research

In recent years, psychological research on social media users and its undesirable side effects have been discussed and criticized. Is there a specific policy on Wikipedia to protect users from covert psychological research? Arbabi second (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

For starters, try Wikipedia is not a laboratory and WP:Ethically researching Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon

That was helpful, thank you. Arbabi second (talk) 03:34, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

• No there is not. Wikipedia provides easy ways for anyone including the general public to examine your contributions, and offers researcher-friendly licence terms to enable them to do so.—S Marshall T/C 09:13, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

RfC: Should the explanation of “self-published” in WP:SPS be revised?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/SPS_RfC. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2025 (UTC)