Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Clarification on what soapboxing is or isn't

I'm coming here because ANI seems like an overreaction at this point, this isn't a content dispute that Wikipedia:Dispute resolution could easily deal with, administrative action review is pretty much only for admin actions, and it seems like everyone is talking past each other. The gist of the situation is that a new editor made this edit and was reverted here. This was then discussed at Talk:Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses#Source material and then also at my talk page. Three editors (including me) think that a newbie citing a reference can't possibly be soapboxing. Jeffro77 disagrees (and to their credit, has apologized for some of their behaviour). Is there any way there could maybe be more eyes on this to resolve the situation so there's not some back and forth going on at my talk page? The crux of the issue really does seem to be whether citing a source can meet the definition of soapboxing.

Courtesy pings to Jeffro77, JPxG, and Hey man im josh. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:02, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what the editor's intentions were but it may not have been soapboxing. It may simply have been to supply a source that they felt supports one of the preceding assertions better than the existing source did—but I agree with the sentiment that that source itself, by virtue of its title and subject matter, introduces an awfully volatile topic, without a foundation having been laid out for it, into an otherwise inocuous lead, and seems out of place. Also, I agreed with reverting the addition of "all male" to the first sentence. While the council is all male, that's a characteristic of it (even if a mandatory one under the by-laws), not its identity. Second sentence is fine. Largoplazo (talk) 02:52, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The editor added a source that is explicitly about a controversy to ‘support’ a fact that is not directly related to the controversy. The source does not discuss the cited fact. Giving undue attention to a controversy is soapboxing—Jeffro77 Talk 03:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you consider finding a different source for the claim? If someone wants to specify that the council is all male (not IMO an unreasonable thing to say in an article), and they cite a news article that is primarily about a child abuse scandal, then you could replace the source with a better one. If the editor's goal was to get the scandal-oriented source in the article, then you'll find out soon enough, and can tackle it head on. If the editor just spammed in the first source that mentioned the uncontested fact that they're all men, then you will have improved the article.

I don't think that it's worth worrying too much about sources. We need them to get the article content right, but readers don't seem to care. WP:RSBIAS (which explicitly permits citing biased sources) is one of our rules, and besides, almost nobody reads the refs. In an article with that level of traffic, we'd expect just one (1) reader per day to click on any one (1) source – and if there are a lot of sources on the page, then it's almost certainly not going to be that one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a biased source, though. I wouldn't say it's ideal for much because it's mostly interviews, but it's not like ABC News is some random blog out to call Jehovah's Witnesses a cult or something. The new editor made it clear on the talk page that they were trying to help address the primary source tag (because almost all the sources in that article are from the religious group's own publications). I don't think it's odd that a source that mentions Jehovah's Witnesses' handling of child sexual abuse would mention the Governing Body, as they create the protocols and doctrine for everything (this is somewhat explained at Jehovah's Witnesses#Organization). It's why one of the members was called to testify at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I think it's very harsh to say someone is soapboxing for citing a source and not doing anything to the content unless you have a very good reason. And again, that's usually covered by other policies that you can point towards without assuming bad faith, like "please cite a reliable source". Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bias can be in the eye of the beholder, and it is not unusual for editors to complain that citing a "negative" source for routine content is inappropriate (e.g., any source that is primarily about a scandal, to support any content that isn't specifically about the scandal). It can be a form of POV pushing, but it can also be an understandable impulse to not accidentally imply anything defamatory, especially if they're editing a BLP.

WP:BURDEN requires the source-supplying editor to provide exactly one (1) source. That's because a few editors kept reverting sources, and then demanding that you WP:Bring me a rock again. Once that first source has been added, if you dislike the source someone else added, IMO you should just replace it with a {{better source}} yourself (however you define "better"). If that means you need to spend a little while searching for a news article that mentions this group is all male but doesn't mention a scandal, then that's what you need to do. People are rarely upset when you replace their weak-but-maybe-okay-ish source with a better one (and when they are, that often reveals interesting things about their goals). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you (my advice was to cite a source that covers them in more detail and another editor already has), I just don't think that saying a newbie citing a negative source is "soapboxing" in any capacity. The crux of the issue is whether that's an assumption of good faith or bad faith. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This particular case doesn't look like soapboxing to me, but adding new text and sources to the lead can be soapboxing, especially under definition 2 (Opinion pieces). Soapboxing can be done in good faith, although perhaps raising it is not always the most effective way to carry out discussion. CMD (talk) 23:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Need access to journal "Women's History Review"

I need to read an article in "Women's History Review" 21 (5): 733–752. (year 2012). Access online is via the Taylor & Francis company; cost is $65 to access the article. There used to be ways in WP to get free subscriptions to do research; or sometimes WP already had subscriptions that could be used by editors. Anyone know how I can legally access that article for purposes of WP research? Noleander (talk) 23:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You should try WP:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request for specific articles, or if you meet the requirements there's WP:The Wikipedia Library that I believe gives access to some of Taylor & Francis' publications. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One of the nice things about Google Scholar is that it often provides multiple sources for a single article. This is the Google Scholar cluster for that article, and there's a link to a free academia.edu copy there. It's also sometimes worth investigating whether JSTOR has a copy, as JSTOR gives people a fairly large number of free-to-view articles per month. Last but not least, article authors are often happy to email a copy of the article to someone if they ask. Looks like this has the author's current email address. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FactOrOpinion - Thanks, that is perfect. I qualify for the WP Library and was able to get access to the article I needed. Noleander (talk) 01:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

why does dark yellow look ugly

it only just occurred to me that dark yellow is ugly, why is that Northpark997 (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This question belongs at the reference desk, if anywhere, not here. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whether something is ugly is a matter of personal perception. Nobody else can tell you why you find something ugly. Largoplazo (talk) 19:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Need copy of magazine "American Weekly" 27 Mar 1934.

Does anyone know where I can get a copy (digital/online is okay) of the 27 Mar 1934 issue of magazine "American Weekly"? I've searched high and low on the web, and cannot find it anywhere. I did find a mention of it in Library of Congress, but that appears to be just a typed draft of an article that may or may not have made it into the magazine. Also, I found several not-reliable websites that purport to have the text of the article, but I need a trustworthy source. Noleander (talk) 02:21, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you try asking at WP:RX or looking in WP:TWL? –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestions, I posted an inquiry in WP:RX. Noleander (talk) 02:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome. I hope it helps. Good luck in your search :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See The American Weekly. These is a citation in there to an archived copy of a 24-year old blog website (since usurped) of someone who had a lot of issues (1918 to 1943) of the publication.[1] The email link doesn't work, but there may be enough there for you to track them down. A long shot, at best, but if all else fails ... Donald Albury 14:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BAG nomination

Hi! I have nominated myself for BAG membership. Your comments would be appreciated on the nomination page. Thanks! – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

UK to require age verification for adult content

"The UK announces that, as of July, any site that allows adult content — including social media sites — will have to age/identity verify all users, or face enforcement action by the British government." - [2]

Pass the popcorn... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:29, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, face enforcement. That's where you get Siri to check your older brother's face. And it checks he's still alive by poking his tongue out and saying spin, bro. 2A00:23C7:518:7B00:216C:A32E:70C7:3F80 (talk) 11:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Texas is trying to do this, too. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/15/texas-porn-site-ban-us-supreme-court/ 331dot (talk) 14:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing new here. Virginia's had this for a couple of years. I'm unaware of any jurisdiction that's pursued Wikipedia over this, if it's concern over that that motivated this thread. Largoplazo (talk) 14:45, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ofcom's guidance is online here. Please point out the part that exempts Wikipedia. Or Wikimedia Commons. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:21, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please point out where anyone claimed that such an exemption exists. Largoplazo (talk) 15:37, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Florida's law applies to websites on which more than one-third of the material is "harmful to minors",[3] so WP will not be affected for now. Donald Albury 18:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Texas's is at least a bit more limited. It seems the UK wants age verification for any site where a child might possibly see something "harmful to children", including any site where users can post content (even if no "harmful" content is ever posted), while Texas's law (which is already in force, BTW, but is being challenged) is only for sites where over 1/3 of the content is pornographic. Anomie ⚔ 14:57, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing the WMF is aware of this? 331dot (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a reasonable guess. You could ask them? 🤷 Anomie ⚔ 21:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's the UK's definition of "adult content"? The article makes it clear that the main concern is about kids watching pornography, and it's not clear how they're planning on implementing anything. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 16:58, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosguill: The guidance is online here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:11, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that page seems to be even more explicitly focused on "pornography", so this may not end up impacting us based on what I can see. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 17:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

from one of the PDFs linked there, "Pornographic content is defined in the Act as “content of such a nature that it is reasonable to assume that it was produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.”". Which WP immediately would not be in violation since we specifically do not allow for such images and moderate those off. — Masem (t) 17:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't the Commons be affected? There are some pornographic content and categories on that site (e.g. c:Category:Erotic photography). Some1 (talk) 18:13, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is certainly some instances of erotic photography that would meet an encyclopedic need, but I do think that category appears to be used for ppl just dropping their personal erotic photos in there, and probably should be dealt with. Masem (t) 18:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that the inclusion criteria for Commons isn't that the media meets an encyclopedic need, but an educational need. An image could be inappropriate for Wikipedia's needs, but could still be useful, for instance, in a class on erotic photography as part of an MfA photography program. Photos of Japan (talk) 23:28, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but I'd hope it would be identified that way. Masem (t) 00:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Usually people upload first and only discuss the educational merit of media if its nominated for deletion. Out of scope explicitly excludes low quality pornographic content, but I'm not sure how the community evaluates what constitutes that. My comment though was mostly concerning how it's a wiki faux pas to imply being unsuitable for Wikipedia makes something OOS for Commons. Photos of Japan (talk) Photos of Japan (talk) 03:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Debbie Does Dallas#Legacy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We live in the real world, not some sort of libertarian utopia (or dystopia). Part of being one of the top sites on the Internet is that we have to take our reponsibilities seriously within the law. The WMF has done that in India and other places (in my view sometimes in the wrong way), and will do so in the UK. Just please nobody propose [redacted per WP:BEANS]. I hope that the WMF will take legal advice, but make the final decision themselves on whether to follow it. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:49, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How to request user talk page access revocation

What's the approved way to request the removal of a blocked user's access to their talk page when you see them using it only to rant, carrying on the behavior that got them blocked in the first place? Largoplazo (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ANI. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Largoplazo (talk) 01:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AI-generated comments?

I'm not sure where is best to ask about this, but as someone who works on film articles and participates on their talk pages, I am seeing a lot of comments that seem AI-generated, being lowercase and half-nonsensical. I detail this more here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film § AI-generated comments? Any thoughts from anyone, or recommendation of another page to post about this? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those don't seem AI-generated to me. If you see stuff like that, just revert it. If it continuously comes from one IP, then you can raise that at WP:AIV or WP:AN/I. It looks like this is all from the same IP range. CMD (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. AIs usually have perfect grammar. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:47, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They're probably not "AI" in the LLM sense. But they do fall into a category of unconstructive drive-by talk page edits that started in 2022. Some are AI prompts, some appear to be text-to-speech or Siri/Alexa/etc prompts, some seem to be bot-generated (which these seem to be.)

When you see them nuke them on sight (which the Wikipedia policy WP:NOTFORUM allows) and nuke them ASAP because if they go into the archive (which is out of people's control, everything is bot-archived nowadays) then people will yell at you for following policy. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:34, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This matter seems well-explained by User:Photos of Japan here (permalink), if others want to know. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 17:12, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Succession boxes

Which WikiProject deals with succession boxes? GoodDay (talk) 22:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Succession to what? A political office? A peerage? Something else? Blueboar (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Political offices. GoodDay (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, though said to be semi-active. PamD 06:26, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quite a bit of tumble weeds in that WikiProject. A politics-based WikiProject might be best. GoodDay (talk) 06:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New essay on recentism

After seeing years worth of (what I believe to be) misuse of WP:RECENTISM as an essay, I've created an essay for responding to it, WP:CRYRECENTISM. Hopefully it speaks for itself, but my core problem is that RECENTISM is sometimes used in a way that allows people to completely dismiss all sourcing on something recent, which doesn't reflect what RECENTISM says (it doesn't even describe recentism as a bad thing!) and contradicts WP:NPOV. Obviously we have to be cautious about giving undue weight to recent events, and sometimes it's true that something recent is so undue relative to the topic as a whole that it should be included entirely - but these arguments ultimately have to be made using sources (or the limitations and lack thereof), not just by bludgeoning people with all-caps links to essays. It feels like WP:RECENTISM has become a go-to argument for anyone who wants anything recent excluded for any reason, which isn't really constructive because it doesn't reflect policy, provides no real room for discussion or compromise, and implicitly allows people to just ignore any degree of coverage in a way that contradicts WP:NPOV's requirement to use sourcing as the basis for weight. --Aquillion (talk) 18:30, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not a bad essay… but it leaves me with a question: would you say that RECENTISM could be a valid argument for temporary omission rather than exclusion? ie, arguing that it is too soon to add some bit of material, and that we simply need to wait a bit - so that we can properly determine how much (if any) weight to give it. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes? But it has to engage with the sources on some level. I've sometimes said "there's not enough sourcing yet, let's swing back later", which is certainly a fair argument. My problem with WP:RECENTISM is that it's frequently used as an argument that ignores current sourcing entirely, which I don't think is appropriate (or policy-compliant.) The main point of the essay, I think, is that WP:NPOV means you have to engage with the sourcing somehow, even if it's just to say "sorry, this requires a very high threshold and these sources aren't enough"; there has to be a level and type of sourcing that would allow for immediate inclusion, otherwise we're deciding article content based on our guts. Arguing for temporary omission without regard for the sources would still have the same problem. --Aquillion (talk) 19:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give some examples of where this has caused a problem? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If this is the conclusion reached by WP:RECENTISM, then I'd say it's reason to improve the recentism essay rather than using it differently. I wrote an essay in the past that's something of a counterpoint: User:Thebiguglyalien/Avoid contemporary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Insisting that a recent event should be excluded simply for being recent, without further explanation or analysis, is not helpful to building an encyclopedia."

The problem with this essay is that strawmans WP:RECENTISM. Recentism addresses a real issue: certain subjects are perennially in the news and every news spike of them leads to content added to their article until they are inundated with material that is of no lasting interest to the reader. Recentism doesn't reject content just because it is recent, it asks people to provide justification for including content beyond just the fact that it was covered by a flurry of news sources. Photos of Japan (talk) 02:27, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]