Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Discussion report

Reporter's note: Last issue, a call for more writers was put out by the managing editors. In response, I decided to try to revive the Discussion report section. However, I'm going to need your help to do it. I watch most of the major discussion boards, and have done so long before taking on this responsibility, but I can't possibly be watching everything at once. At the beginning of the week, I am going to start the discussion report and throw in several items I will try to include for the finished product. You will be able to see the report in progress from the Signpost's Newsroom. If there is an important discussion that you're aware of, hasn't been covered in a previous report, and is not on my list, feel free to add a link to the discussion at the Signpost's suggestion board. I will not be able to cover sister projects or meta at all without tips, so I really, really need people who are active at other projects to keep me in the loop, so I can in turn keep you all in the loop. If I decide to write up a discussion I received from a tip (which I will, if it's a good tip), I'll give you credit for bringing it in. You can keep sending me tips until 48 hours before publication (I need the weekend to do the write ups).

I am currently planning for the report to be bi-monthly, but that may change in future. I'm also open to co-writing the report with anyone interested. For those who remember the pre-hiatus discussion report, I've also slightly reorganized the layout, adding a few sections including the sidebar.

And now, with all that explanation out of the way, please welcome back the Discussion report.

– Sven Manguard

Steering RfC for the 2011 Arbitration Committee Elections
A 45-day-long request for comment was initiated by to solicit community opinions on a number of questions related to the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections. Dozens of proposals and hundreds of comments on important structural issues were made, and the RfC is set to close on November 1. A special edition of the discussion report will appear in next week's Signpost, devoted entirely to the results of this important discussion.

New page patrol improvement survey
Wikimedia Foundation contractor (also known as  outside his official WMF capacity) recently distributed more than 4,000 invitations asking editors with experience in new page patrolling to participate in a survey designed to aid the Foundation's efforts to develop a new Special:NewPages interface. The Signpost asked Mr. Keyes about the survey:

If you have experience in the area but have not received an invitation, you can still take the survey by clicking this link. The discussion report will publicize the results of the survey as they become available.

Proposed change to Notability (music)'s guidelines on albums
A proposal was launched on the last day of September by to remove from the Notability (music) guideline the line "In general, if the musician or ensemble is notable, and if the album in question has been mentioned in multiple reliable sources, then their officially released albums may have sufficient notability to have individual articles on Wikipedia", on the grounds that it is so easy to find sources for just about any album that the criteria in question are not effective for judging notability. Instead, Noleander advocated the principle of "significant coverage". After five days, restarted the discussion as a formal Request for Comment in a new thread immediately below Noleander's discussion. Discussion on the issue has slowed, with a significant majority supporting Noleander's proposal.

Change to the blocking policy proposed
In response to concerns raised during the discussion of the possible unblock of TreasuryTag (coverage below), removed the line "as punishment against users" from the section of the blocking policy that listed what blocks were not to be used for. The change was reverted, and a Request for Comment was initiated by to determine whether there was consensus for reinstating Eraserhead1's change. After 10 days and more than 100 comments, closed the discussion with the conclusion that there was not a consensus for making the alteration.

Δ seeking consensus to perform maintenance tasks
, on behalf of (formerly ), has filed requests to undertake 20 separate automated tasks. Δ is required by community sanctions to seek consensus before undertaking a "pattern of edits", and is restricted to an average of four edits a minute during any ten-minute interval. At the time of writing, a majority of the proposals have more opposition than support, or have almost the same levels of opposition as support; seven, however, have achieved varying pluralities of support. They are:

3. undertake edits to remove external links where such links were used as a failed attempt to include an image in an infobox 7. add dead link as appropriate to references where the link is dead. 9. replace "Image:" with "File:". 13. add titles to bare URLs and convert inline links to refs where needed. 14. add non-breaking spaces to units, in accordance with WP:NBSP. 18. date maintenance templates. 20. combine templates as needed into multiple issues.

An effort to rewrite the editing restrictions placed on Δ is also underway at the same page; however, none of the proposed versions have achieved significant support, and the level of participation in the discussion is low.

Issues raised about the content of the article Astrology
A five-part RfC was initiated at the end of September by, in which the editor raised concern that several sections of the article Astrology give undue weight to a minority view of astrology, and over the use of unreliable sources in those claims. Duing the past month, more than 200 separate comments have been left on the talk page on these matters. Several editors have engaged in heated exchanges, and in mid-October the Arbitration Committee imposed a six-month topic ban from the topic of astrology on, due to his comments at the RfC (the Astrology article is under general sanctions as a result of the case Pseudoscience). While a broad consensus has formed on most of the issues, the discussion appears likely to remain open for some time.

Lead section of Mass killings under Communist regimes put to a vote
An RfC filed jointly by and  seeks to end a dispute over the content of the lead section of Mass killings under Communist regimes, by crafting two potential lead sections and asking the community to choose which one should be placed in the article. The discussion has slowed to a halt, and at present neither of the two originally proposed leads, nor a third lead suggested during the discussion, has managed to achieve more support than opposition.

Restructuring proposed for the Verifiability policy's handling of "verifiability, not truth"
A modification to the verifiability policy was proposed earlier this month that would make two changes to the handling of "verifiability, not truth". The change would remove mention of the concept "verifiability, not truth" from the lead, in favor of mention that Wikipedia policies other than verifiability also affect the inclusion of content. "Verifiability, not truth" would instead be addressed in a new section, "Assertions of truth and untruth", placed right after the lead. Support for the change was just above a 2:1 margin, with almost 100 opinions already in, before a sudden spike in participation after a thread was opened on October 28 at the administrators' noticeboard alleging that the RfC was closed too early and was not closed by an uninvolved admin. The margin of support has decreased to around 3:2, with just under 250 comments in. , the administrator whose close of the discussion led to the AN/I thread, voluntarily resigned his administrator tools on October 29.

Proposal that e-sports be explicitly excluded from the Notability (sports) guideline
An RfC was started earlier this week by that sought to gain consensus for inserting the line, "At this time there is no consensus that Esports [sic] participants are covered by the criteria of this guideline" into the page Notability (sports). A dozen editors have commented, and the discussion is ongoing. Another e-sports-related discussion is under way at the Reliable sources noticeboard, regarding whether or not several websites can be considered independent sources.

Consensus sought for a conditional unblock of TreasuryTag
, an editor since 2006, was blocked at the beginning of the month for "generally combative behaviour not conducive to collaborative environment". Having been blocked in August and September for unacceptable behavior, and each time being unblocked after promising to reform, TreasuryTag's October block was indefinite. A proposal by was put forth at the Administrators' noticeboard that would have allowed the editor to be unblocked and given a final chance, on the condition that they be mentored and monitored by Worm That Turned and, both admins. Almost 50 people left comments on the matter. closed the discussion and stated, in part, that consensus was against unblocking TreasuryTag, but that there was "general agreement in the discussion that both Worm That Turned and Fastily should be commended for their generous offer and attempts to find a satisfactory outcome".