Jump to content

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 June 28

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 12:33, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Two-page template which is essentially content. Recommend substing, probably into the more specific page on the specific meridian which is the prime meridian today. Izno (talk) 21:45, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was relisted on 2022 July 8. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 12:34, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was speedy delete. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:25, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

looks like a test edit, there is no need for a template, just put the citation in the article directly Frietjes (talk) 13:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was keep. plicit 14:49, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This cleanup template marks articles that have insufficient references to demonstrate notability, but per WP:NEXIST, notability is based only on the availability of sources on a topic – it's not something that needs to be "demonstrated" in article text. References are there to help readers verify information in articles, not help editors decide whether or not to delete something. Adding extra citations purely to convey notability to other editors is not necessary and often detrimental to the article. As such, the problem this template claims to highlight is not actually a problem, and any useful purpose it could serve is already covered by {{more citations needed}}. – Joe (talk) 12:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment From my experience, I use this template during NPP as a message to other reviewers. Heck, that's how I noticed this TfD so quick. I think it's useful, but could definitely use a rewrite for clarity. Curbon7 (talk) 13:04, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, rewriting to remove the contradiction with WP:NEXIST was my first thought too, but then I realised it would just end up a copy of {{refimprove}}. I get that it can be useful for NPPers to see that someone has done a WP:BEFORE, but that kind of communication is better suited to a talk page. Cleanup templates should only be used to flag temporary, surmountable problems, and this isn't one. – Joe (talk) 13:13, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Not having sufficient references to demonstrate notability is different from saying that something is not notable. The tag does not and was never intended to indicate a lack of notability. Quite the opposite. It is intended to be added to articles where the WP:BEFORE search came up with some good results and to discourage other NPPs from taking it to AfD. This template is part of the NPP Toolbar tool package and should NOT be deleted. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)(or here)(or here) 13:08, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understand that. However, we have no policy that requires an article to contain "sufficient references to demonstrate notability" and it is not appropriate to use a cleanup tag for communication between reviewers. That's what talk pages and edit summaries are for. – Joe (talk) 13:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The lack of sources in an article is a valid reason for a cleanup banner (surely we are not about to delete similar cleanup banners like {{unreferenced}}, {{more citations needed}}, and their BLP variants), and this banner provides helpful information that may be used, not only as part of NPP, but among other editors as a way of targeting reference improvements to articles where that effort is most likely to be successful. Copyediting to fix the conflation of verification and notability may be helpful, but WP:DINC. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @David Eppstein: What I don't understand is, after that copyediting is done, how will this be any different to {{more citations needed}}? – Joe (talk) 10:29, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It is different before the copyediting is done, when the banner is present in the article, in that the editor doing the copyedits has been told that it should be easy to find sources, not always true for articles lacking sources. Therefore, the copyedits should be easier. It encourages the copyeditor to do them. Why do you think there should be a visible difference after the copyedits are done and neither banner is present any more? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:14, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @David Eppstein: I think we're talking at cross-purposes. By "copyediting" I meant (and thought you did too) copyedits to the template text, not to the articles tagged with it. – Joe (talk) 18:04, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok. So anyway, the difference is that this banner marks the easy-to-fix problems and guides editors looking for low-hanging fruit to these articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:10, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per above. Not having sources is something that should be improved upon and is an important cleanup banner. MB 18:21, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Articles lacking sources are tagged with {{unreferenced}} or {{more citations needed}}. Why do we need this extra template? – Joe (talk) 10:31, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I see "Notability" being used to tag articles that are probably not notable, "Unreferenced" being used to tag articles where notability is unclear, and this being used to tag articles that are definitely notable. Each of those has a clear use case. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ () 04:14, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep it is a good tag to place on articles where an AfD has identified multiple reliable sources coverage but they haven't been added to the article yet. In those circumstances I add an edit summary of "sources found at afd" to make the situation clear. If it stops articles being renominated unnecessarily and snow-closed as keep then it's doing a job, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:10, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep this tag is perfect for new articles that are notable but no one has had the time or energy yet to add them. As another user noted, I use this tag during NPP. -War wizard90 (talk) 22:53, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Tag is helpful for distinguishing from "more citations needed", which conveys that information already present on an article is not sourced (and may be too plentiful to tag with overuse of individual citation needed tags). Ss112 04:29, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ss112: Distinguishing between from more citations needed and... what? – Joe (talk) 10:27, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/redirect per Joe. This is essentially a duplicate template, and I don't find the supposed semantic difference suggested by the 'keep's wanting. --Izno (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Semantically different from other templates in the same genre like {{unreferenced}} or {{more citations needed}}, in that it states there's good reason to believe that the requested sources do exist (and implies that somebody may already have listed them). The fruit labeled by this template is lower-hanging than that marked by the others. XOR'easter (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Useful/popular template, over 1000 transclusions. A helpful marker that indicates that a borderline article is confirmed to meet GNG, and that it would be easy to beef the article up. Marking "low hanging fruit" for folks that like to work on this sort of thing is useful. All articles should ideally contain GNG passing sources... the entire idea behind GNG is that it's impossible to write a policy compliant article without using GNG passing sources (top quality sources) as the base. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    All articles should ideally contain GNG passing sources – not only is this not written anywhere in the notability guideline, it explicitly says the opposite, as I explained in the nomination. – Joe (talk) 14:15, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It most certainly is true that all Wikipedia articles are supposed to be based on GNG-passing sources, and that fact is not in conflict with NEXIST at all. NEXIST is not a waiver that absolves articles of the need to be properly sourced; it exists precisely as a guide to what to do about an improperly sourced article when you come across it: if GNG-worthy sources exist to repair the article with, then keep it and either flag it for improvement or fix it yourself if you're so inclined, and if GNG-worthy sources do not exist to repair the article with, then list it for deletion. The entire point of NEXIST, in other words, is precisely because there is a dichotomy between the principle that all of our articles should be based on reliable GNG-worthy sources and the reality that not all of our articles actually are based on reliable GNG-worthy sources in their current states. We do have standards of sourcing that all articles are supposed to be meeting, but not all of them actually do — and of those that don't, some can be improved to meet the necessary standards because better sourcing does exist to fix them with, while others cannot be improved to meet the necessary standards because better sourcing does not exist to fix them with. And that's precisely the distinction this template is meant to reflect. Bearcat (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Bearcat: Sources must exist to satisfy notability. Sources must exist and be cited to satisfy verifiability. Those two bodies of sources needn't be, and often aren't, the same. For example, consider this hypothetical article:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a 1997 children's book by J. K. Rowling.[1]
This is a perfectly valid stub requiring no cleanup tags. The cited source is reliable and fully verifies the information in the article. But it's from the book's publisher, therefore not independent, therefore not counted towards notability. Of course, we all know that there are hundreds of sources out there that do count towards notability – they just don't verify the key facts as succinctly as the non-independent one. So would the article be improved by making it look like this?
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a 1997 children's book by J. K. Rowling.[2][3][4][5]
Obviously not – the extra citations only help patrolling editors. They don't do anything for readers except make the article harder to read. Yet according to the template's description, we should tag the first version with {{sources exist}} because it doesn't look like the second.
– Joe (talk) 17:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A Harry Potter book is a misleading example of what is actually under discussion, since Harry Potter books don't even require any sort of investigation to determine whether they're notable or not — we know they are, and a person would have to have just woken up from a 25-year coma to not know that Harry Potter was a thing.
Let's instead try a more accurate example of what I'm talking about: "The Rabbits Are Eating My Toenails is a book by John Q. Paddywhack. (Reference: self-published website of a print-on-demand self-publishing company.) The end."
That is not automatically a notable book just because its existence metaverifies itself on a directly affiliated website — and it's a book that does require some investigation into whether it passes our inclusion criteria for books or not. Does reliable source coverage exist to improve the article with, or does it not? If yes, then NEXIST pertains and this template becomes appropriate — if no, then the article has to be listed for deletion because it does not have any reliable source coverage, and is not presumed notable just because of a primary source.
And if one does find better sources, then one does not just jengastack them on top of a single statement that the book exists, either: one uses them to add content to the article about the things those sources say about the book: a plot description, quotes from critical reviews, and on and so forth. So the article would not look like your second sample either; it would have substance and content going well beyond just a single sentence stating that the book exists, the end.
All of that said, even a Harry Potter book does still have to have its article be based on independent third party media sources rather than primary ones regardless. Even for a Harry Potter book, your single-sourced example would not be a keepable article in any sense, and would still require improvement with better, more reliable and more independent sourcing than just the self-published website of its own publisher. The only difference is that we already know that better sourcing exists to improve a Harry Potter article with — but for John Q. Paddywhack and his rabbits, that's not a given, so his notability's in more question unless and until somebody actually shows the evidence. Bearcat (talk) 17:16, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Has a clear and obvious use in cases where notability has been established but is not yet reflected in the article itself, preventing people from deleting or merging the page by accident. "Unreferenced" tags are often used in articles later found to be non-notable. The problem that this template highlights is a definite problem. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ () 09:02, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. As a NPP, I use {{notability}} when I have been unable to find sufficient sources but suspect they exist and {{sources exist}} when I have found them. The distinction is extremely useful. Compassionate727 (T·C) 15:32, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, an extremely useful tool for NPP tagging and general cleanup in order to mark the page for other editors that might otherwise send it to AfD, it's an entirely different thing from a notability tag, they serve functionally opposite purposes. Devonian Wombat (talk) 01:51, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. "Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources" and "the article itself has to have a GNG-worthy volume of sources in it to be safe from being considered for deletion" can both be true at the same time — and the reason they can both be true at the same time is that there is a very, very real distinction between poorly sourced articles that do have a reasonable volume of useful sources out there with which they could be improved (and thus need to be kept), and poorly sourced articles that do not have a reasonable volume of useful sources out there to improve them with (and thus need to be deleted). So this template is an entirely appropriate way of tagging an article for the fact that an editor has assessed the topic to be in the former boat, and thus is a thing we do need. Bearcat (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This has been a very useful template during NPP and sometimes at AfC. When notability has been demonstrated but reliable references are not added to support notability, this template has very effective use. Hitro talk 09:36, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. plicit 12:26, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Propose deletion of this empty sidebar, which only links to Category:Indo-European. —⁠andrybak (talk) 07:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the link so it now goes to the Indo-European languages page. The point of the template is to be able to include a link to Indo-European topics without taking up a lot of space with the full template. Ario1234 (talk) 17:14, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Izno (talk) 17:19, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pending changes reviewers are generally editors who have enough experience editing Wikipedia that they are no longer considered novices; accordingly, this template will often run afoul of WP:DTTR. Moreover, this template is very vague and will almost never convey enough information to tell recipients what they did wrong. Mz7 (talk) 05:14, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep since is helpful to have a template when a reviewer slips up. Those who wish to not template the regulars (notwithstanding that DTTR is merely an essay) can easily leave a personalised message. Lastly, the template clearly says that a review was unacceptable, why so ("violate our guidelines"), and provides a link for the reviewer to read the guidelines. NotReallySoroka (talk) 03:13, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While DTTR is indeed "merely an essay", do you disagree with anything about what it says? Giving a templated message to an experienced editor is often seen as patronizing, and I am willing to bet that editors who routinely use this template will eventually find themselves in a situation where another editor is quite annoyed at them. That's a net negative because it'll sour the mood of both the user of this template and its recipient.
More fundamentally, while the template does say that a review was unacceptable, it's not clear why exactly the review was unacceptable. The bar for accepting pending changes is deliberately set extremely low: Per WP:RPC#General criteria, an editor merely needs to check whether an edit (1) has BLP violations, (2) is vandalism, (3) contains obvious copyright violations, or (4) contains legal threats, personal attacks, or libel. The guidelines expressly state that It is not necessary for you to ensure compliance with the content policies on neutral point of view, verifiability and original research before accepting. Because of this, just because a reviewer accepts an edit that was later reverted does not mean that the reviewer was wrong to accept that edit. Accordingly, reviewer slip-ups are quite rare, and when they do occur, this template does not go into enough detail about what exactly the reviewer did wrong (e.g. misidentifying edits as vandalism or missing an obvious BLP violation) for the reviewer to identify what happened and make an appropriate adjustment. Mz7 (talk) 04:39, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, plicit 07:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - way too vague to give any useful information to the recipient. Pending changes reviewers are supposed to be trusted members of the community with a reasonable understanding of policies, I do not think this situation should be arising frequently enough to require a standardised warning template. Since having a HTML comment added in April 2020 this template has been used once [1]. It would be better in these situations to leave a personalised message that actually explains the issue with the review, rather than keeping a vague warning template around that gets used once every 2 years. 163.1.15.238 (talk) 12:13, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Izno (talk) 06:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No transclusions, documentation, or incoming links. Created in 2018 and not edited since then. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:26, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the author. NoahTalk 16:54, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Izno (talk) 06:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A navbox with only 1 main link. None of the two potential links has an article. Gonnym (talk) 06:07, 28 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).