Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-02/Discussion report

Discussion report

Discussion report for this week

Add that deduction?

At the talk page of Wikipedia:No original research, a debate is taking place over the extent to which editors can make and record deductions whilst maintaining a neutral point of view. A "simple syllogism exception" was proposed, although a number of editors feared that the average Wikipedian would not be aware of the definition of the word syllogism, or be able to infer the meaning from the context in which it was used. A change using a simple example, namely that if A is in district B, and district B is in province C, then we could state that A is in province C was reverted for fear that the use of the word "simple" would cause disputes.

Policy report

Several contributors shared their thoughts with the Signpost about the many changes to our Sock puppetry policy page in October. FT2 describes it as a heavily used page whose wording had become "diffuse and patchy"; he sees this month's efforts as mainly tightening and improving clarity, more directness about the possible serious consequences of being caught operating sock-puppets, and improved guidance in areas such as sock handling. Amorymeltzer notes the new clearer wording on legitimate uses of multiple accounts, stricter standards for admins, and focus on WP:Assume Good Faith as a governing principle. SmokeyJoe believes the tough language, including the "threat to block and publicly link abusive sock accounts", is helpful, and thinks that the past month's changes have made the page more stable.

Bwilkins points to the "chill" caused by the discovery earlier this month that an administrator was a sock of an admin blocked in 2008 (previous stories) as an impetus for increased activity on this page; he now routinely asks a question related to other accounts in individual requests for adminship. WereSpielChequers observes high levels of community disapproval over the kind of sock-puppetry that recently took place and over contentious uses of "clean start", but believes that the community has not yet reached agreement about who to disclose alternate accounts to, whether tougher rules should apply to admins, whether changes are needed to WP:CLEANSTART, and whether the page should be renamed to reflect the change in our jargon from sockpuppet meaning alternate account, to sockpuppet meaning alternate account used abusively.

New master sockpuppet template

Avi has consolidated the sockpuppet and sockpuppeteer templates. The new version of {{Sockpuppeteer}} is backwards compatible while {{sockpuppet}} requires re-mapping of existing parameters. The mapping, which will cover almost all instances can be found at WT:SPI#Single sockpuppet template. More input is requested at to whether to initiate a bot-driven replacement and re-mapping of the templates, since this would break most instances while the process is in progress. An alternative mapping is also under discussion at WT:SPI, concerning {{Sockpuppetry}}.

New proposals

Wikipedia:A navbox on every page - a proposal to put a navbox in every article
Wikipedia:Existence ≠ Notability - proposes that truth alone is not a valid criteria for inclusion
Wikipedia:Google searches and numbers - proposes that we not use Google search result numbers as evidence of notability
Wikipedia:Wikipedia clones - proposes that web sites that contain information that is directly copied from Wikipedia cannot be used to establish notability or verify the accuracy of any information on Wikipedia

Polls

see also main story

An election to appoint the three non-arbitrator members of the Audit Subcommittee, using SecurePoll, has now started. You may:

Visit the election "home page" for an overview;
Review the candidate's statements: Dominic • Frank • Jredmond • KillerChihuahua • MBisanz • Tznkai;
Or go straight to your personal voting page: here to cast your votes.

The election closes at 23:59 (UTC) on 8 November 2009.

Deletion round-up

The outcome of the deletion review of Category:Wikipedians who say CfD is broken was a relisting to clarify consensus
Does List of professional sportspeople convicted of crimes violate the neutral point of view policy?
Is List of band theme songs original research?
Is Peter Hedge notable for one event?
Is the Signing of the Treaty of Lisbon an encyclopedic topic?
Third nomination for Angry white male
What's the best way to organise our content on Bose stereo speakers?
Notability debates: Wapsi Square and Urbanate
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human disguise is a relisting after a deletion review of 20 October closure of this debate
TLDR of the week: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Howard Press (3rd nomination) (from tedder)
Have you heard of the Battle of Dore?

Administrative notices

Mario1987 (talk · contribs) has been indefinitely blocked per discussion at WP:ANI#Mario1987: implied threat of real life stalking etc.
Dejwono (talk · contribs) has been blocked indefinitely as a sock of AramaeanSyriac (talk · contribs)
JohnHistory (talk · contribs) has been blocked indefinitely for incivility

Briefly

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) have been merged to Wikipedia:Naming conventions
After discussion, Wikipedia:Notability (people) has been updated to better clarify the guidance regarding the inclusion of people in lists. ThaddeusB first proposed a change be made on 10 October, with RDBury making a bold change on 27 October. Related discussion at the village pump concerns the Notability of lists
Discussion at the talk page of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest as to how best to exempt subject professionals from the guidance
Discussion on defaulting no consensus to delete for biographies of living persons
Discussion on how to treat reviews in context of External links policy
Proposal to make closing rationales required at WP:AfD if the debate has significant and substantial disagreement