Talk:2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Is the Southwest Airlines, bit necessary?

Latest comment: 3 months ago11 comments8 people in discussion

Firstly, Is it needed? Do we need to list the companies that weren't effected? Also the article linked is very speculatory. "Some are attributing that to Windows 3.1. Major portions of Southwest’s systems are reportedly built on Windows 95 and Windows 3.1" AidenT06 (talk) 21:42, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@AidenT06 Doesn't add to anything of value to the article, agreed. PipitSweet16 (talk) 22:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Windows 3.1 is thirty years old. This is nonsense. 24.40.254.80 (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

That's certainly a weirdly specific (and perhaps embarrassing) reason for not being a CrowdStrike customer. 3df (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@AidenT06 I also agree. While humorous, the Digital Trends article links to another article written by a Forbes.com contributor, which is generally unreliable. The Forbes article itself then links to The Dallas Morning News which quotes someone saying Southwest's systems look like they were designed on Windows 95, without really confirming anything. Limmidy (talk) 22:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

We need to see if this is notable enough (as per wp:n) to include see if major news publications anything about this if not it can be omitted,

Thanks

Daisytheduck ^{talk to me} 22:31, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

The fact remains that Southwest and FedEx remained operational, and for the same reason. kencf0618 (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

But it’s not relevant. I could list thousands of companies that had no issues AidenT06 (talk) 22:43, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

List thousands of global airlines.kencf0618 (talk) 11:07, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Alaska does not use it either. Trigenibinion (talk) 13:33, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Flybondi and LATAM were not affected. Trigenibinion (talk) 13:34, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

May we change the archive period to one day?

Latest comment: 3 months ago7 comments4 people in discussion

The talk page is 130 kB. May we change the archive period to one day? --Jax 0677 (talk) 23:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The current period (90 days) definitely seems too long... GhostOfNoMeme 00:00, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Even switching to three days might be enough as that would archive over 25% of the talk page discussions automatically. --Super Goku V (talk) 00:42, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with 3 days. That seems like a reasonable duration for a fast-paced article such as this, with significant discussion being generated. GhostOfNoMeme 00:53, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the duration to 3 days. It can be shortened if necessary, but considering the activity this seems about right and is consistent with similar articles' talk pages. GhostOfNoMeme 01:00, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd suggest manually archiving sections (See: User:Elli/OneClickArchiver) and keeping the archival period less aggressive. I've changed it to 5 days and archived some threads. - Fuzheado | Talk 14:20, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Reply - I am OK with 3 days. --Jax 0677 (talk) 00:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Size

Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

How large was this binary file? kencf0618 (talk) 10:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kencf0618 not sure what you're talking about but currently the file size of the article is 188,553 bytes. Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 11:23, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

CloudStrike's faulty file Trigenibinion (talk) 11:26, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I've come across one reference, but no others, and that one seemed sketchy. kencf0618 (talk) 19:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

paid citation

Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

the citation for elon musk removing crowdstrike requires paying or signing up for an account. is this allowed? 81.100.136.25 (talk) 07:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@81.100.136.25 Yes, see WP:PAYWALL. I marked that source as needing subscription just now also. Aveaoz (talk) 09:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

yes but it’s not a hard to access source, just linking the tweet would be better? 81.100.136.25 (talk) 12:42, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Linking both to a tweet and a reliable source discussing it is probably best. Tweets are not presumed notable by default. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Why take down paragraph on Amazon's issues?

Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion

@Valereee:, why did you delete the paragraph on the disruptions that were suffered by Amazon? The contents were clearly referenced including quotes and were from a published source i.e. CNBC, the American business news channel. You didn't even put a reason, just a straight delete. Microsoft–CrowdStrike issue causes ‘largest IT outage in history’

On WP:Blogs it says: "Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control" and following on "Note that otherwise reliable news sources--for example, the website of a major news organization--that happens to publish in a "blog" style format for some or all of its content may be considered to be equally reliable as if it were published in a more "traditional" 20th-century format of a classic news story."

The deleted paragraph was taken from a CNBC blog, but the subject seems to justify its inclusion. Richard Nowell (talk) 11:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Looks like that was an edit conflict. Valereee (talk) 12:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I think I've added it back, please check my work! Valereee (talk) 12:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Looks good, thankyou for your help with this matter. Richard Nowell (talk) 20:25, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

yes amazon trucking operations were disrupted 173.72.3.91 (talk) 18:06, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Already resolved: From the article, Amazon suffered disruption to its warehouse operations [...] An app used in Amazon warehouses to manage schedules and time-off requests called 'A to Z' was taken down by the outage and an internal service called 'Anytime Pay' became unavailable to employees. Operations were briefly halted at some sites, while Amazon's trucking operations were disrupted, with drivers saying a platform they use called 'Relay' suffered issues meaning they were briefly unable to pick up loads at warehouses This was restored to the article on the 20th. There doesn't seem to be anything more to do here. --Super Goku V (talk) 09:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

What is this talking about?

Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion

The event consisted of two combined incidents but the title mentions only one. Now somebody removed one of the causes from the infobox. Trigenibinion (talk) 14:51, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

They also removed one of the effects from the infobox. Trigenibinion (talk) 14:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Now Azure has been removed from the lead. Trigenibinion (talk) 15:33, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Azure and CrowdStrike are two separate incidents. This article is about the CrowdStrike issue specifically. pcuser42 (talk) 21:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Thibaut (talk) 21:13, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The incidents combined in real life. They were indistinguishable for the victims (except for the screens where there were BSOD). Trigenibinion (talk) 21:52, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to add a fix?

Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Since a fix has been issued by the official Falcon youtube channel,I need somebody to add the fix if it’s necessary.

Official link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=VJL4joIBpG4LGxRN&v=Bn5eRUaMZXk&feature=youtu.be Minh Dark03 (talk) 01:43, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

CrowdStrike is used by corporate. The IT department will fix a broken machine if needed. There are scams going around. Trigenibinion (talk) 10:25, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 30 July 2024

Latest comment: 2 months ago55 comments20 people in discussion

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Rough consensus that the present title is not adequate, but we're not yet close to consensus on a replacement. Several distinct questions arising in these discussions (this being RM round 2 for this page) do have a clear consensus, and this should inform a round 3.

Expand for closure details and recommendations for round 3:

Given that the move from round 1 to round 2 ended up producing more rather than fewer possibilities, I must strongly advise less opinion and more fact.

What is most needed here is an in-depth review of major news sources' coverage, in the aggregate, to try to ascertain what the most common phrasing is, so that there is at least something we can loosely decide is a WP:COMMONNAME. If such a name emerges, then round 3 becomes a simple yes/no, one-option RM.
Failing that, then what we have here is purely a WP:NDESC situation, of Wikipedia coming up with its own neutral description (informed both by our policies and by whatever patterns seem to appear in the sources). A 3rd round should provide a numbered list of potential names (after triage based on the consensuses below), and see whether one emerges as the most supportable under WP:CRITERIA and any other pertinent policies like WP:NPOV. That is, there's been too much circular argument and not enough winnowing.

Some consensuses on particular questions can nevertheless be assessed pretty easily:

There is a clear consensus for including "CrowdStrike". Only one editor supported removing it (and for a policy-faulty reason).
There is a clear consensus against "incident[s]" and for "outage[s]"; no real argument in favor of the former has been presented, only opposition to change as not necessary, and one defense of "incident" as having a contextual usage that is not confusing (but that doesn't amount to actual opposition to "outage[s]"). Most respondents were firmly in favor of one or more "outage[s]" versions, appently for WP:PRECISE reasons.
There is a clear consensus against a "-caused" construction; multiple editors raised WP:NPOV policy concerns about this, and they have not been countered.
There is no consensus for or against a "-triggered" construction; editors have contradictorily raised neutrality concerns that it's either too blamey or too blame-avoidant; a WP:NOR concern about this one also applies qually to "-caused".
There is no consensus for a "-related" construction; some editors subjectively thought it weaselly, others more "encyclopedic" (presumably more neutral); it has more support than either of the above two.
However, there is no consensus for any "-[something]" construction at all; various editors have favored shorter versions, and this would be more consonant with WP:CONCISE policy.
There is no consensus for the plural or the singular form, and subjective arguments have been presented in both directions. WP:CONCISE would have us default to the singular form if there is no compelling reason for plural. Multiple editors have argued (on the same logic basis) for the plural.
There is no consensus on whether to include "IT", "system[s]", or both, but there is a loose consensus that just "outage[s]" (or "incident[s]") is too vague on its own.
Consensus leans against including "Windows". Even the original proponent of the idea noted that prior CrowdStrike issues that affected Linux do not pass WP:N; i.e., they are not of Wikipedia encyclopedic concern, at least not as subjects in their own right from which this article must be disambiguated. Some respondents liked the "Windows" idea, but their comments did not surmount this issue.
There is a consensus (regardless of any head-count involved) against including "Azure" or "Microsoft". The arguments for doing so are even weaker than for "Windows", plus there are unique arguments against, which have not been refuted.

So, if a source trawl does not produce a common name first, then I would suggest making a list of all the proposed names in both previous rounds, including variants (plural or not, with "IT" or not, with or without some particular "-[something]", etc., etc.), then remove those that are contra-indicated by the consensus assessment-so-far above, to produce a shortened final list of candidates for a round-3 discussion.

A summary of the round-2 arguments and weighting I assigned based on strength of their policy basis, whether it was a first/only choice, whether it was support/opposition for an entire name or just some element in it, etc.:

Details ...

        OPPOSE (stick with "2024 CrowdStrike incident")

1 Celjski Grad
1 PhotographyEdits
0.75 EoRdE6 (1st choice)
0.5 Skynxnex ("weak" oppose)
0.75 Dylnuge (1st choice)

        SUPPORT one change or another:

A. "2024 CrowdStrike-related IT system outages"

1 Jruderman (after revision)
0.75 BarrelProof (1st choice)
-0.5 Skynxnex (in comments not !vote); opposes "-related" and advocates "-caused"
-0.5 PhotographyEdits (in comments not !vote); opposes "-related" and advocates "-caused"
-0.5 The Nth User, opposes "-related" and advocates "-triggered"
0.75 WhenYouWiki (first choice)
0.25 Asukite (a 2nd choice among multiple)

B. "2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages"

0.25 BarrelProof (2nd choice)
1 Ahecht
1 pcuser42
-0.5 Skynxnex (in comments not !vote); opposes "-related" and advocates "-caused"
-0.5 PhotographyEdits (in comments not !vote); opposes "-related" and advocates "-caused"
-0.5 The Nth User, opposes "-related" and "-caused", advocates "-triggered"
0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)
0.25 Asukite (a 2nd choice among multiple)

C. "2024 CrowdStrike-related system outages"

1 Gluonz
0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)

D. "2024 Crowdstrike IT outages"

0.25 EoRdE6 (2nd choice)
0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)

E. "2024 Crowdstrike IT system outages"

0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)

F. "2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT outages"

1 Jothefiredragon
1 Trigenibinion
-0.5. Skynxnex (opposes including "Microsoft", did not address other elements other than not opposed to "incident" but also did not oppose "outage[s]")

G. "2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT system outages"

0.5 Jothefiredragon (2nd choice)
-0.5. Skynxnex (opposes including "Microsoft"; other note as above)

H. "2024 CrowdStrike-caused ..."

0.5 Skynxnex (in misc. comments not in !vote)
0.5 PhotographyEdits (in misc. comments not in !vote)
-1 The Nth User (raises WP:NPOV policy issue with this version)
-0.5 Jruderman (didn't cite policy in particular, but seems to have neutrality concern)
-0.5 Gluonz (ditto)
-0.25 Asukite (supports "-related"; WP:NOR argument against "-triggered" also applies to "-caused" but Asukite did not specifically mention this variant)

I. "2024 CrowdStrike-triggered ..."

1 The Nth User (opposes both "-related" and "-caused")
-0.5 Jruderman (opposed as weaselly)
-0.5 BarrelProof (ditto)
-0.5 Gluonz (neutrality concern)
-0.5 Asukite (opposed as implying intentionality, so basically a WP:NOR issue; supports "-related")

J. "2024 global IT outage"

0.75 Brandmeister (proposed this, but as a "perhaps"). The "recognizability" argument given is backward; even if CloudStrike were not a commonly recognizable name (probably no longer true anyway), a title without that name in it is not somehow "more recognizable", especially when it probablt fails WP:PRECISE.

K. "July 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered IT outage" (or "July 2024 ..." something else)

1 The Nth User - wants month included because of other outages (but none cross the WP:N threshold, so WP wouldn't actually care). Supports "-triggered", opposes "-related", does not address "-caused".
0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)

L. "2024 Crowdstrike outage"

0.5 Dylnuge (2nd choice)
0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)
-0.5 Asukite (specificalliy opposes just "outage[s]" without "IT", "system[s]", or both, as too vague, i.e. not WP:PRECISE)

M. "2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows system outages" or any of the above but concluding with "...Windows system outages" instead of "... IT [system] outages".

0.5 Jruderman (loose proposal, not part of any !vote)
0.25 BarrelProof (provided a wording suggestion, but not explicit support)
0.5 Jothefiredragon (apparent agreement with loose proposal, but not part of any !vote)
0.25 WhenYouWiki (a 2nd choice among many)
0.75 Asukite (1st choice)
The desire here is to disginguish from prior Linux-affecting CrowdStrike issues; but these do not pass the WP:N threshold, so are not Wikipedia-pertinent. (Even quasi-proponent Jruderman said as much, twice, while mulling over the "Windows" part.)

N. "a move" that does not include the word "incident"

1 Super Goku V
1 WhenYouWiki
-1 EoRdE6 specifically opposes removing "incident"
-0.25 Skynxnex disputes that "incident" is problematic, but has not explicitly opposed "outage[s]" versions
+0.25 × several: Any support for an "outage[s]" version is essentially opposition to "incident[s]", since that's in the present title.

        Plurality:

BarrelProof: "I consider both the questions of whether terms should be plural and whether "system(s)" should be included or not to be secondary matters". However, most of the plural/singular dispute has been about "outage[s]" not "system[s]".
WhenYouWiki: Same, but principally concerned with using "outage[s]" instead of "incident[s]".
2601:2C1:C282:76F0:59E5:5ECE:8B2A:7935: "Note the singular!" (on "outage")
pcuser42: "I'd still prefer outages over outage"
Asukite: 'Plural "outages" is preferable, but I won't oppose "outage"'
The gist is that some people (e.g. 2601:...) see this as "one outage" in the sense "massive outage incident", while others (e.g. pcuser42) see it as "many outages", i.e. "a massive incident that caused distinct outages in particular corporate IT systems". This is not going to be resolvable by "who is right" fighting, only by preponderance of usage in reliable sources, and no one's presented any such analysis of this question (or any other question pertaining to this RM).

Misc.:

PhotographyEdits has an important point: "there was also an Azure outage but this should not be an article about all outages happening on 19 July 2024" and "the Microsoft [Azure] cloud side of the outage was caused by CrowdStrike. ... Microsoft is just one of the victims here." No one's offered a refutation of this. From a WP policy analysis viewpoint: That some sources interrelate these overlapping outages (i.e. want to shift some blame onto Microsoft as another service provider on which other "victims" depended), combining to form something of a "total end-user experience" broader than just a CrowdStrike PR problem (as pointed out by Trigenibinion) does not mean that Wikipedia should conflate or equate CrowdStrike's alleged actions/failures with those of Microsoft, especially when most sources do not do so. (I.e., there is an WP:NOR policy issue at stake here, of subjective cherrypicking from among sources that don't agree.)

(closed by non-admin page mover) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:11, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

2024 CrowdStrike incident → 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered IT system outages – While this exact phrasing turned up only in the last moments of the previous move discussion, I think it's the synthesis position of everything that was argued in the previous week of intense discussion. Jruderman (talk) 10:33, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

We are making approximately three choices here:

Context and blame:
- 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT ... outage(s) or
- 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered IT ... outage(s) or
- 2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT ... outage(s)
What went out: IT outage(s) vs IT system outage(s) vs Windows system outage(s)
Plurality: outage (singular) vs outages (plural)

How we might organize the discussion:

If you have new options or questions to add, please them here, or ping any shepherd in the comment where you introduce the idea.
Please indicate your partial takeaway !votes using {{xt}} (green = yes) or {{!xt}} (red = no).
Please indicate your full takeaway !vote by bolding and/or linking your entire preferred title.
- The template {{-r}} lets you link to a currently-redirecting title.

Oppose. Article title is fine as is. Celjski Grad (talk) 11:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Support 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT system outages. Second choice 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages (the one Soni identified as the top candidate in the previous RM discussion). My impression is that those were the most popular candidates previously, and the only difference between them is the word "system". To me the inclusion of "Microsoft" would be for expressing blame rather than for identifying the subject of the article. I would not mind the separate section idea. Overall, I think the current title is not terrible, but after all this effort, I think we can do better. I don't like the new "triggered" idea – again it seems to include some vague editorializing about how much blame to assign to CrowdStrike. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 11:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
(Comment slightly reformatted according to a suggestion. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 12:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC))
2024 ~~CrowdStrike-triggered~~ CrowdStrike-related (?) IT ~~systems~~ system outages. It is clear and uses common-name terms throughout. "triggered" is extra clear without committing to a specific level of blame on CrowdStrike. (Barrel, let's have a side discussion about how blame-y "triggered" is, since we seem to feel differently.) Including "systems" is both more accurate (the IT team didn't have a fall) and helpful for understanding for those who don't know the term "IT". Jruderman (talk) 12:15, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
I'm roughly neutral on "system" versus "systems". I think "triggered" implies that CrowdStrike really wasn't much to blame and was only a trigger rather than the cause. That might be somewhat true, but it's not something we should imply with a title, and they failed to properly test their update file before pushing it out, and their software should probably be designed to handle a bad config file more gracefully. I don't mind if this discussion is restructured in some way; I'm not worried about my comments being lost, since I'll probably continue to be engaged in this discussion. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 12:26, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Yeah you're starting to convince me that CrowdStrike-triggered is too NON-blamey and that CrowdStrike-related is more common. Have we already discussed whether CrowdStrike-caused is a possibility? Jruderman (talk) 23:19, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
@Jruderman: I originally thought of CrowdStrike-caused before CrowdStrike-triggered, but I worried that CrowdStrike-caused might not sound neutral. Feel free to add CrowdStrike-caused as an option if you think that it's appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Nth User (talk • contribs) 19:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Support 2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT outages or 2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT system outages, I think it's better to include Microsoft in the title. (Although my goal is not to point blame on Microsoft.) Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 14:15, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages. I support "CrowdStrike-related", I'm neutral on "CrowdStrike-triggered" (I'm just not seeing that usage in the media), and I oppose "CrowdStrike-Micrososft" (without a modifier, it sounds like either Crowdstrike or Microsoft themselves had an outage). I support "IT outages" over "IT system outages" per WP:CONCISE. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:15, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Support a move - Not caring too much about what it is called as long as it gets rid of using the word "incident" in the title. --Super Goku V (talk) 21:17, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Support 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages, per Ahecht. I don't think it's necessary to include Microsoft in the title, as they're not the cause of the outage. pcuser42 (talk) 22:12, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps "CrowdStrike" or the like in the name is redundant, partially because it's not a widely known company. How about more recognizable 2024 global IT outage? Brandmeister^talk 18:52, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT outages . This will do for now. The event consisted of the combination of the CrowdStrike incident with an Azure incident. It also states IT outages, not CrowdStrike outage. Trigenibinion (talk) 00:28, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Oppose The current title is simple and concise. There is no obvious common name nor does it seem likely that one will develop. "IT System Outages" is a meaningless phrase. If we're insistent on a move then the best option I see proposed here is the simple: "2024 Crowdstrike IT outages". At the end of the day though "incident" reflects the most concise way of stating what happened in this situation. EoRdE6^(Talk) 04:00, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Oppose The current title fits all aspects of the title policy: it is recognizable, natural, precise, concise and consistent. PhotographyEdits (talk) 08:40, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
Weak oppose for now per PhotographyEdits (also with how recent the last RM was and waiting to see if some common name appears in discussions about the consequences of this). I don't see "incident" as a particularly problematic word to use, it's very common in the tech space to use incident to refer to events like this and, to the best of my knowledge, the common understanding of the term isn't inconsistent with that. I think if a rename must happen, it should not have "Microsoft" or "Windows" in the title and don't really like "related" it wasn't related it was caused by CrowdStrike ("caused" would be better). Skynxnex (talk) 17:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Strong agree that it should include 'caused' and not 'related' if the page were to be moved. I don't see why Windows should be included here. Apparently there was also an Azure outage but this should not be an article about all outages happening on 19 July 2024. PhotographyEdits (talk) 07:37, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
The two outages combined. That's what the people experienced. Trigenibinion (talk) 10:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
From my understanding, the Microsoft cloud side of the outage was caused by CrowdStrike. We are also not listing all airports that were down in the title, Microsoft is just one of the victims here. PhotographyEdits (talk) 23:40, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Support July 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered IT outage. (Note the month and singular!) "July" seems necessary because CrowdStrike#Severe outage incidents lists four distinct outages occurring in 2024 so far, CrowdStrike-triggered is better than CrowdStrike-related at clarifying that CrowdStrike's update caused the outage while still remaining neutral, and I don't think that the word systems would clarify things significantly. I'm also not sure why instead making "outages" singular was not explicitly listed as an option (or why having it plural was listed as an option, for that matter) because the article only discusses one outage. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 03:23, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Oppose the titles proposed here, effectively per PhotographyEdits. The word "outage" seems to be standard among sources, and calling it the "CrowdStrike outage" seems to be most common, though some sources use language like "global tech outage" or "global IT outage" ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]). I would support a move to "2024 CrowdStrike outage" based on that, but the titles proposed here strike me as far too complex; titles should be concise and be in line with names commonly used in sources. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 13:22, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Note to anyone closing the discussion and moving the page: The question of whether to use the singular "outage" or the plural "outages" was only added at this point in the discussion, so the lack of votes (besides mine) asking for the singular "outage" before this point should not be interpreted as consensus against using the singular "outage" if the majority of votes after this point support the singular "outage" over the plural "outages". (I'm also pinging the users who have arleady supported options with "outages" in plural, specifically @BarrelProof, Jruderman, Jothefiredragon, Ahecht, Pcuser42, and Trigenibinion:), because the closing note for the original discussion mentioned the lack of notifications to people who had participated in an earlier phase of the discussion as one reason for an inability to declare consensus. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 19:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I consider both the questions of whether terms should be plural and whether "system(s)" should be included or not to be secondary matters. Other aspects, like "incident" versus "outage", seem more important. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I'd still prefer outages over outage, as multiple systems went down. pcuser42 (talk) 04:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

New idea: How about Windows system outages instead of IT system outages?

Concision: slight win for Windows (simpler concept) even though the abbreviated form IT (short for Information Technology) has fewer letters. Read out loud, Windows is maybe slightly faster.
Precision: Differentiates from the lesser-known Linux outages caused by an earlier 2024 CrowdStrike oopsie. These are so little-known that maybe it doesn't matter. I'd want to know how many non-Windows systems fell in July as a result of the Windows systems falling. If CrowdStrike pull a trifecta and bring down some Macs on my birthday later this year, we won't have to rename the article again.
Recognizability: I'm not sure.
Relevance: Does it matter that the directly affected systems ran Windows? May come down to opinion (I expect User:Jothefiredragon to be on board)

Jruderman (talk) 23:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Like 2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows system outages? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. — Jruderman (talk) 01:50, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jruderman

“How about Windows system outages instead of IT system outages?” That sounds like a great idea. Thank you for bringing it up. Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 03:35, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Support 2024 CrowdStrike-related system outages: The inclusion of “Windows” in the title could resolve some ambiguity, but this would probably be a primary topic, so a hatnote for other 2024 CrowdStrike-related outages would likely suffice. “CrowdStrike-related” seems more neutral than “CrowdStrike-triggered” or “CrowdStrike-caused”. The usage of the phrase “system outages” also avoids any tech-versus-IT issues. –Gluonz^{talk contribs} 04:26, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
I don't think we need to do the primary-topic thing – the Linux outages weren't notable enough for an article, and we can only hope I didn't just jinx their Mac offerings. Jruderman (talk) 18:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
Support the titles 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT system outages, 2024 CrowdStrike IT system outages, and all variations. They are less ambiguous as to what went on than the term "incident" used in the current title. I don't really mind whether "Windows" or "IT" outages are used to describe the situation, whether "July" is included, or whether "outage" or "outages" is used. WhenYouWiki (Talk) 01:39, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Support 2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows system outages - weak support the use of IT, but "Windows" is preferable for the same reasons laid out in bullets above. ~~Alternatively, we can just go with 2024 CrowdStrike-related system outages, which is more concise~~ edit: nevermind that, it's ambiguous as to what system and could be read as "Crowdstrike system", I think we need to be specific here.16:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC) (and I suddenly feel sorry for the closer here... good luck :)) Plural "outages" is preferable, but I won't oppose "outage", although I feel that the plural is needed here, as there were in fact many. No support for "triggered", I feel that "related" is more encyclopedic and steers away from any unintended interpretation that the outages were intentional, while still maintaining that Crowdstrike was responsible for the incident. ASUKITE 16:08, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

About RM structure

Should we do two separate sections for "CrowdStrike-related" vs "CrowdStrike–Microsoft", and for "IT outages" vs "IT system outages"? I'm leaning toward separate sections. Jruderman (talk) 11:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Could I recommend something stronger here? If you want to have more than one possible option for this RM, perhaps just list all the options at the top so anyone can edit it? Something like "Option 1 - 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered IT system outages / Option 2 - Status quo (2024 CrowdStrike incident) / Option 3 - (add new options here)". The clearer the RM itself is, the easier it is for everyone to gauge consensus and follow. Soni (talk) 11:01, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed. How's the tmbox I made just above? Jruderman (talk) 11:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
  Please do not. That's a good way to derail the discussion from the start; see WP:RFCNEUTRAL. Infoboxes are supposed to be for the "main info", neutrally worded things that everyone should be aware of. They are usually not supposed to be for "general instructions" (like bolding your !vote), you can do it in your main comment itself. And definitely not supposed to be for what your preferred title is. For that, just say Support 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered IT system outages. Second choice 2024 CrowdStrike–Microsoft IT system outages as a simple bolded comment instead of whatever this infobox is supposed to accomplish. Soni (talk) 11:10, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
  I really like the tmbox style for scoping the discussion and drawing attention to instructions. I used this format throughout the previous discussion and it seemed like it was successful. You have a good point about keeping instructions neutral, so I have gone back and edited the box. It's shorter now too. What do you think now? Jruderman (talk) 11:38, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
  I think your use of tmbox style was in fact a problem during the previous discussion. But I will let other editors comment if they think the current tmbox is a problem, the TMBox as presented is still not neutral in my opinion. And lends itself to cause more structural problems this RM as well, assuming you want to allow people to suggest other options. Soni (talk) 12:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
  I tried to make it even more neutral by adding "If you have options to add, then add them here, or ping me in the comment where you introduce the idea." Do you feel like we're converging on something mutually agreeable? I do. Jruderman (talk) 12:20, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
I am quite close to already taking my closer hat off and becoming Involved for the purpose of this RM, so I'll just say this before that - Please do not start a 2nd sub-RM here midway through the discussions. If you have new options people should consider, just add the options to the original RM and ping people. Changing tacks midway through the discussions or proposing 10 new locations for the move without clear-cut options is why the last one was unable to form consensus. Soni (talk) 12:15, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
I disagree strongly. Changing tacks (from brainstorming to rating to analyzing ratings to focused discussion) was the one thing that allowed us to come anywhere close to consensus. It worked so well that I am calling the meta-procedure "The New Wiki Way" and encouraging others to use it to name their children.

The only reason we failed to reach consensus is that the conversation trailed off for reasons unclear to me. Maybe the discussion was too long overall, or maybe not enough participants cared to weigh in on the minuscule difference between "IT outages" and "IT system outages.

Your idea to give us a clean start (here) was a good one and I applaud you for it. I appreciate everything you're doing to make this clean, new discussion take us over the finish line. Jruderman (talk) 12:24, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
The procedure has many phases and is hard to explain. You can find partial explanations at special thanks and the silent art of analyzing numeric ratings and list of seven phases (if logged in to Twitter).

But you don't have to understand the procedure to see that we went from a chaotic brainstorm to a solid candidate using "CrowdStrike-related" plus several other plausible contenders in only a few days. You're better at writing than I am, so if you do come to agree and understand, maybe you'll be in a good position to write a better explanation. Jruderman (talk) 12:36, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Jruderman, I will be somewhat honest with you. The primary reason I didn't participate in the last discussion outside of one comment was because of that 0-10 scoring system you had. It wasn't the only reason, but the primary one. I found your "New Wiki Way" to be very distracting and confusing, though somewhat humorous. In any case, to hopefully make it clear, if you keep making "phases", then fine. But don't be surprised if that leads to more No consensus and to closes being made before seven days have passed from the latest phases. Move discussions don't get relisted past seven days when there is plenty of discussion. --Super Goku V (talk) 21:13, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for explaining your thinking. It's okay that you didn't participate in the rating phase. Most participants didn't. Enough did that I was able to pick out patterns, identify two top candidate titles, and in two cases, identify families with a shot and synthesize what I thought was the best possible title within that family. Jruderman (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Focusing the discussion down to four final candidates helped us have a more productive second phase of discussion. That was the entire goal of the short numerical-rating phase. (I expected that between one and five top candidates would emerge; I ended up recommending four to advance to the next stage.) Jruderman (talk) 23:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

For example, "cyber" was out. "Microsoft–CrowdStrike" was replaced with the more plausible "CrowdStrike–Microsoft". That kind of thing. It was just about narrowing down the discussion, not enforcing my views on the final choice. Jruderman (talk) 23:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I do not think the discussion would have reached consensus within a week if it had continued along the lines of what I am retroactively calling the "brainstorming" phase. There were just too many participants, too many candidate titles, and too many concerns connected to the core article naming criteria. Jruderman (talk) 23:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
I appreciate your effort to try and wrangle a sea of proposed titles into something that avoids a WP:NOGOODOPTIONS close. However, as someone who was outside of that discussion, when I saw it I found it confusing and complicated to unravel. Like Super Goku V, I did not participate in part because I didn't have the time to do that; it also seemed clear that it couldn't reach consensus, since participation had trickled from the original discussion into a small handful of highly active participants. Most editors are going to express their opinion and move on; this doesn't make those opinions less valid as part of determining consensus, and a closer needs to take that into account.

What typically works best here is to have a single proposed title in an RM (even the new one above, with its by-contrast limited set of six options, strikes me as overly complicated). Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 13:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I think you are doing a great job as a closer, consensus shepherd, and policy enforcer. I urge you to continue in this role. Want to email me about what exactly you mean by switching to Involved? Jruderman (talk) 13:03, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
In the longer move discussion, I acted as both an involved argumentator and a consensus shepherd. I'm glad I did, because I think I was able to make important contributions in each role. I'm curious how others think I did at maintaining neutrality when it came to creating new sections and writing instructions. Jruderman (talk) 13:07, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

See Involved and NACINV. --Super Goku V (talk) 21:14, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

New section for "About RM Structure": I decided to give "About RM Structure" a Level Two heading so that people don't provide arguments for moving in that section. --Jax 0677 (talk) 22:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

In process of trying to assess this for closure, I've put it back as an L-3 subhead so that the entire discussion structure archives cleanly. Whatever purpose was served by having this be a stand-alone L-2 is no longer served at this point. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:42, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Move Discussion 3

Latest comment: 2 months ago52 comments14 people in discussion

Pre-formal discussion about how to structure this third round of move discussions

My favorites at this point are:

The major open questions seem to be:

A) CN
- Whether any title segments are WP:COMMONNAME enough that WP:NDESC is moot for that segment
- Whether there is a COMMONNAME full title
B) Outage description
- Windows system outages vs IT system outages
C) Attribution
- CrowdStrike-related vs
- CrowdStrike-triggered (newer option with perhaps less media support) vs
- CrowdStrike-caused (possibly too blamey)
- If we select "Windows system outages" for (B), are there shorter options by leaving out this kind of hyphenated suffix?
  - "CrowdStrike Windows system outages"? (I don't love it.)
  - "CrowdStrike–Windows outages"? (Shorter but not a lot of Google hits.)
  - "CrowdStrike outages of Windows systems"? (Zero hits, but at least Google understands that this is the right Wikipedia page to point to.)
  - "Global CrowdStrike outages of Windows systems"? (Even fewer hits, but I kinda like it? It uses a simple attributive while maybe being clear enough that CrowdStrike's stuff wasn't the extent of the outages.)

Let's have a quick discussion here about how to structure round three. I'm leaning toward the third move discussion being formally open-ended, but nominating exactly ONE or TWO specific titles may have an advantage in speed.

(Most of this is from the expanded closure message from User:SMcCandlish on round two, with a few of my own opinions and ideas mixed in.)

— Jruderman (talk) 13:06, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jruderman I'm not sure why you proposed those three alternatives when the close of the previous discussion states that Consensus leans against including "Windows". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:41, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

+1; I agree with SMcCandlish's closing that there is not consensus for including "Windows" in the title, and further that there is no consensus for any "-[something]" construction at all; various editors have favored shorter versions, and this would be more consonant with WP:CONCISE policy. My personal view is lengthy titles should be avoided when something like "2024 CrowdStrike outage" or "2024 CrowdStrike IT outage" are clearly identifiable. Article titles don't need to properly attribute the exact causes of the incident; there's a reason no one is pushing for "Channel File 291 Incident". I think this will go smoother if we stop creating options from grafting together everyone's specific concerns. Options like 2024 global CrowdStrike outages affecting Windows systems go well beyond what is necessary for disambiguation. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 14:57, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

"2024 CrowdStrike IT outages" (plural) sounds very good to me. Concise, common in sources, clear enough that it wasn't just crowdstrike without circumlocution. Jruderman (talk) 18:21, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dylnuge I've never heard of WP:CONCISE as I spent more time editing Thai Wikipedia than English Wikipedia. (WP:CONCISE does not exist on Thai Wikipedia.) Now that I became aware of it I do agree that the mention of Windows/Microsoft in the title is relatively unnecessary. Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 06:15, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, personally I would like to refrain from this discussion for the time being. Jothefiredragon🐲talk🐉edits 02:30, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Cf. my recommendations here. They're hardly binding, but this hopefully final round needs to avoid another circular re-re-rehash like has already transpired. I don't have a "dog in the fight" and don't much care what the eventual choice is, but I think my assessment of issues raised with several sorts of choices is pretty accurate. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:37, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
I suggest a Two-option !vote between 2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows system outage and 2024 Crowdstrike IT system outage. With only two options, and !votes accompanied by thoughtful consideration of all five core criteria for article titles, it should be possible to determine what the consensus is. Jruderman (talk) 15:02, 9 August 2024 (UTC) Edited to de-pluralize; see my reply below. Jruderman (talk) 20:25, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
Again, one of the options in the vote shouldn't be something ("Windows") where there's already an established consensus against it. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:45, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

My favourites at this stage are 2024 CrowdStrike IT outages or 2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outages. I think "IT system(s)" is redundant and meaningless. I don't think "IT" is ambiguous or troublesome on its own, and is WP:CONCISE. I agree with Ahecht against a title with "Windows" given the general consensus opposing it. Just my two cents. GhostOfNoMeme 17:27, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
I think these are reasonable options. I'm among the editors who prefer the singular "outage" (as it's how the event is commonly referred to in sources) but I'd also support 2024 CrowdStrike IT outages if these were the options presented. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 18:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
I'd also be on board with 2024 CrowdStrike IT outage — both singular and plural are acceptable to me. If indeed the singular is more common in coverage (which you seem to be correct about) then that'd probably be my vote. GhostOfNoMeme 18:31, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
This little sub-discussion is already perfectly highlighting what I'm getting at in the round-2 close and the follow-on recommendations I already linked. Right off the bat, every commentator has their own variant to suggest, just like in rounds 1 and 2, so the only way to avoid round 3 being another waste of time is to a) FIRST, re-review the presently-available source material and see if a clearly most-common phrasing has already developed. If so, then propose that, yes/no. b) IF that doesn't pan out, then we have to make up a phrase (WP:NDESC) and we already know everyone's thinking of a different one, so just list them all; whatever emerges with the most support (or, more precisely, the most support with rationales a closer can assess as clear and sensible) is what the page title will become (which in theory might still be the same one it's at now, though this seems unlikely). Cherry-picking two or three ideas that others already object to is not going to work. Everyone will just re-inject their preferred version and it'll be an exact rehash of rounds 1 and 2. This is not hard, so we need to stop trying to make it hard. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:43, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
We should consult Jruderman on what his New Wiki Way proposes as the next step since he is leading the discussion. 91.223.100.43 (talk) 19:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
Please don't wait for me; I'm not paying close attention at this point. Jruderman (talk) 20:26, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Source analysis

I'll kick off the source analysis, looking primarily at a variety of current news coverage about the <insert word here>. Detailed breakdown of sources I looked at is below. In general I found:

There is no obvious single common name. Some sources use multiple descriptive names in the same article. Some sources avoid giving the event a proper name at all, preferring to alternate between full sentence description of the events (e.g. CrowdStrike pushed a faulty software update that crashed at least 8.5 million computers all over the world) and generic terms (e.g. the outage).
Articles covering the event as it happened were less likely to give it any name, but there's not an obvious common name that emerges in more recent coverage, either.
outage is by far the most common descriptive term for the event. Other terms like "incident", "situation", "software glitch", and "faulty update" appear in some sources, but outage is generally agreed on. The singular "outage" is far and away more common than the plural "outages".
CrowdStrike is frequently directly used in the initial description of the event. Every source I looked at mentions CrowdStrike, and it seems to be a clear part of the common name used to reference the event. Some sources say CrowdStrike's outage instead of CrowdStrike outage, but this is not common.
global IT outage is the second most common descriptor after CrowdStrike outage; global tech outage is a close third. Interestingly, when these terms are used, it is almost always "global IT outage" or "global tech outage" and not simply "IT outage" or "tech outage".
Microsoft and/or Windows are occasionally associated with the name of the outage, but never without CrowdStrike also being mentioned, and are more commonly separated from a descriptive name.
No sources I reviewed used any form of suffix like "CrowdStrike-caused" or "CrowdStrike-related". Some did use a possessive, i.e. "CrowdStrike's outage", though this was not common.
Recency bias applies, but sources do not seem to find it necessary to disambiguate by year and certainly are not disambiguating from other, non-notable Linux outages earlier in the year.

Specific sources looked at

Primary Sources

CrowdStrike — Channel File 291 Incident is the official term used by CrowdStrike.
Microsoft — CrowdStrike outage is the official term used by Microsoft.

Independent Coverage

BBC, 19 July — global IT outage and just IT outage are used to name the event. CrowdStrike and Microsoft and Windows are all mentioned but none are used in the name of the event. Outage is exclusively used as the descriptive word.
Wired, 19 July — No single common descriptor; ongoing digital catastrophe is the closest. Both "outage" and "outages" (plural) are used, as well as "crash" and "disaster". CrowdStrike mentioned causally. A separate Wired article uses Microsoft Outage Caused by CrowdStrike and otherwise has similar language, including both the singular and plural of outage.
ABC News (Australia), 19 July — global tech outage. "outage" is the most common descriptive word, but "issue" and "incident" are also used.
AP, 20 July — Splits cause and effect into faulty CrowdStrike (software) update and global disruptions, with "outage" used once as a descriptive word.
The Verge, 20 July — Also splits cause and effect into CrowdStrike’s faulty update and worldwide tech disaster. global IT outage appears in the subheading but not the article.
New York Times, 22 July — a tech outage, no more specific name given. "widespread outages" (note the plural) is used once in the article but the singular outage is still a more commonly used descriptor within the article.
CNN, 24 July — global tech outage and CrowdStrike software glitch are used to name the event. Microsoft Windows is mentioned. "Outage", "incident", and "glitch" all get used as descriptive words multiple times.
Mashable, 30 July — CrowdStrike outage and global computer outage both used, as is CrowdStrike situation. "Outage" is the more common descriptive term, appearing 13 times to the one time "situation" is used. Microsoft is mentioned extensively (the article is covering Microsoft's response).
CRN, 30 July — CrowdStrike outage and Microsoft Windows outage both used. "Outage" and "incident" used interchangeably as descriptive words.
NPR News, 31 July — CrowdStrike outage, with the word "outage" used exclusively as the descriptive word.
Wall Street Journal, 31 July — CrowdStrike technology outage
CIO, 1 Aug — CrowdStrike outage. Microsoft and Windows are mentioned, but not used as the name of the event. "Incident" is used in the subheading, otherwise "outage" is used as the descriptive word.
The Hindu, 8 Aug — Microsoft CrowdStrike IT Outage and CrowdStrike global outage both used.
Fox Business, 8 Aug — CrowdStrike's July 19 outage. Only source I found that was disambiguating by date. Microsoft mentioned extensively. "incident" gets used in the article as well as "outage". WP:FOXNEWS reliability may be contested here, especially if this falls under science, but I'm including it for completeness.
TechCrunch, 10 Aug — Global IT meltdown and global IT outage both used. The former is exclusively used as a headline flourish, though it still bears mention since many articles really only bother to "title" the event in their headlines. CrowdStrike is mentioned extensively, no mention of Microsoft/Windows.

Hopefully this is useful in building a set of options. It seems like we don't have a clear single common name in sources, but can rule out some options as being essentially unused by sources. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 14:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Dylnuge, this is very helpful.

I'm starting to come around on singular outage: it's less accurate in a minor way, but helps clarify that everything started at the same time. Jruderman (talk) 20:23, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Tables of title segments

Since there does not seem to be a single common name used by the majority of media outlets, I think that we should not vote on single titles but rather on title aspects because with so many title options, there is a very real probability that the plurality will be below 50%, and giving people only two or three options to choose from will probably elicit complaints about why the other options were excluded. I envision something like this:

Date (e.g., year only, month and year, or none)	Company-specifying word, phrase, or hyphenation (e.g., CrowdStrike, CrowdStrike-related, CrowdStrike-triggered, CrowdStrike-caused, CrowdStrike-linked, or CrowdStrike-Microsoft)	Technology-specifying word, phrase, or hyphenation (e.g., computer, technology, IT, information technology, IT system, IT systems, Windows, Windows systems, or none)	Singular or plural	Entire title suggestion	Rationale and signature
Month and year Year only No date	CrowdStrike-triggered CrowdStrike-caused CrowdStrike-linked CrowdStrike-related CrowdStrike	None if the month is specified Windows if the month is not specified	Singular	July 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered outage	CrowdStrike#Severe outage incidents lists four outage-causing incidents in 2024, so we should either specify the month or specify that Windows computers were affected. (Yes, there are other articles, like Hurricane Maria, that do not bother to distinguish the article subject from less notable alternatives (such as Hurricane Maria (2005) and Hurricane Maria (2011)), but this is simply following WP:COMMONNAME rather than its own guideline in and of itself, so we should not use that here.) I think that July is better than Microsoft because July is more concise than Microsoft, not all machines running Microsoft were affected, people might not know that all of the affected computers (e.g., airline check-in computers) were running Microsoft, and we don't want to have to rename the article again if CrowdStrike rolls out another update before the year ends. I think that CrowdStrike-triggered acheives a good balance of making it clear that the outage would not have happened without CrowdStrike while accounting for the fact that the usage of memory unsafe programming languages also contributed. Lastly, I think that the title should be singular because even though there were technology outages in many different cities, they were all connected, with the same cause and same error messages, so singular would be consistent with other article names, like how the title of 1999 Southern Brazil blackout is singular even though there were blackouts in many different cities. Yes, the article mentions that the impact of the CrowdStrike-triggered outage was compounded for companies in the Central United States by not being able to access their storage on the previous day, but the article only spends two sentences about it and does not describe its causes or otherwise cover it as extensively as an article of this length would if it were also about the Microsoft Azure outage. I shall also mention that that the Microsoft Azure outage (which only affected one region) is not even mentioned in this table of significant outages, which makes clear that it is not notable enough to have an article about it. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 21:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This way, we can establsih consensus for each variable individually. If some but not all variables achieve consensus on the first try, we can relist while still having made partial progress instead of being back where we started. We could have more columns if we want to have more degrees of freedom. Here is an example:

Date (e.g., year only, month and year, or none)	Date position (beginning, end, or none)	Initial adjective (e.g., global, worldwide, international, or none)	Company-specifying word, phrase, or hyphenation (e.g., CrowdStrike, CrowdStrike-related, CrowdStrike-triggered, CrowdStrike-caused, CrowdStrike-linked, or CrowdStrike-Microsoft)	Technology-specifying word, phrase, or hyphenation (e.g., computer, technology, IT, information technology, IT system, IT systems, Windows, Windows systems, or none)	Event-describing noun (e.g., outage, crash, incident, glitch, bug, issue, or faulty update)	Singular or plural	Entire title suggestion
Month and year Year only No date	beginning	none	CrowdStrike-triggered CrowdStrike-caused CrowdStrike-linked CrowdStrike-related CrowdStrike	None if the month is specified Windows if the month is not specified	outage	singular	July 2024 CrowdStrike-triggered outage
none		worldwide	CrowdStrike-caused CrowdStrike CrowdStrike-triggered	Windows systems	crash glitch outage	plural	Worldwide CrowdStrike-caused Windows systems crashes
Year only Month and year No date	end	global	CrowdStrike	technology information technology IT system IT systems IT	outage	plural	Global CrowdStrike technology outages of 2024
Year only	beginning	none	CrowdStrike	none	incident	singular	2024 CrowdStrike incident (no change)
Year only No date Month and year	beginning	Global Worldwide None International	CrowdStrike–Microsoft CrowdStrike	none	faulty update bug glitch issue outage incident	singular	2024 global CrowdStrike–Microsoft faulty update

We would have separate sections for arguments and comments.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by The Nth User (talk • contribs) 21:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of tables

This is great. ~~Can you reformat the table to be narrower? Check out how I handled Talk:House_demolition#?? for an example method.~~ Jruderman (talk) 01:57, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

For me it seems like complication rather than simplification, as it creates so many possibilities. I think no "initial adjective" is needed or desirable per WP:CONCISE. My current top preference is

2024 CrowdStrike IT system outage[s]

Other acceptable titles seem like

2024 CrowdStrike-related IT outage[s]
2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows system outage[s]
2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows computer outage[s]
2024 CrowdStrike update incident
2024 CrowdStrike software update incident

The "[s]" suffix indicates that either singular or plural in those places seems acceptable. If adding "July" seems needed for disambiguation, that would be OK, but I suspect it should not be necessary. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, any of these titles would be an improvement to me as they are less vague than just "CrowdStrike incident". Even the last two are good for indicating that the update was involved. --Super Goku V (talk) 05:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Jruderman, I don't see how that would be an improvement. --Super Goku V (talk) 05:56, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

The table was hard to read on mobile but it's great on desktop. So, nevermind :) Jruderman (talk) 06:39, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that would explain it as I am mostly on desktop. If the table isn't that great on mobile, then it might be a problem. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:04, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I care more about table accessibility in articles than on talk pages (where readers are more likely to be on full computers and almost certainly have access to one). Don't worry about it here :) Jruderman (talk) 12:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: While I admit that this method makes some possibilities more obvious in the sense that it fosters voting for combinations that not been listed and that some voters therefore probably wouldn't think of, all of those possibilities theoretically would have been possible before. In fact, by splitting the choice into several parts, it actually decreases the number of possibilities per decision because people no longer have to decide multiple things at once. Yes, some combinations, such as CrowdStrike-triggered faulty updates, may be less plausible than others, but each decision/column still has far fewer options than when users were supposed to evaluate nineteen different naming options, and even if some more options are added to some of the columns, I don't think that any of the columns will reach or surpass nineteen options. Thus, I believe that my system is actually simpler, at least by one metric. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 03:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jruderman: I could make it sideways to be narrower at the start, but my idea was that each user's vote would be in a separate row, so making it sideways would result in a new column getting added each time another user voted, which I think could be even less accessible in the long run. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 03:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, to both Jruderman and BarrelProof, I apologize for the delay in my response. Care to differ or discuss with me? The N^th User 03:18, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Requested Move - Archived

I am boldly archiving this as premature and against consensus established. See discussion below and above. Soni (talk) 09:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

2024 CrowdStrike incident → ? – Let's see if we can agree on a title in this third round. SMcCandlish and Dylnuge have written extremely helpful comments above. Jruderman (talk) 00:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC) Top two, according to Jruderman:

Top five:

Please !vote for your faves. If you have the time, please also compare it to your next-favorite, across the WP:CRITERIA policies and WP:NDESC guidelines that we are trying to balance. Jruderman (talk) 00:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

2024 CrowdStrike global Windows systems outage. I think including Windows is appropriate as scoping, and when done in this matter, neither lengthens the title nor blames Microsoft too overtly. — Jruderman (talk) 00:47, 11 August 2024 (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.

Discuss other questions

Meta discussion

Suggesting a one week moratorium between move discussion: Assuming this does not end up succeed in producing a new title to move to, I would like to formally suggest a moratorium on future move discussions to require a week to pass before a new one can be started. The article was created on July 19th. The first move discussion lasted from the 19th to the 30th. The second lasted from the 30th to August 7th. With this third one starting on the 11th, it will be the 21st day where there was a move discussion in progress out of the 24 days this article has existed. There might need to be more time discussing outside of move discussions to decide on a title. (And yes, I know this isn't a question. There isn't really any spot this fits into otherwise.) --Super Goku V (talk) 07:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
:/ My impression is that each phase of discussion has gotten us closer to an answer. I know this isn't how consensus is usually formed on Wikipedia, and that it can look like I'm exerting undue control, but I don't see what would be gained from waiting a week. Jruderman (talk) 15:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I feel that we aren't significantly closer to a consensus at this point. Of your Top five titles above, in the requested move, four of them include "Windows" which there seems to be a general consensus against. Perhaps I (and others) are misunderstanding what your "Top five" is meant to represent — but at the moment it seems like we're right back to proposing articles the consensus is broadly against. Regarding the proposed wait of a week, I have no strong opinion; perhaps it would allow time for a WP:COMMONNAME to emerge? GhostOfNoMeme 16:20, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I have WP:BOLDLY removed the requested move from this. I strongly request Jruderman to not unilaterally add options that consensus has been clearly discussed against, and editors have expressed opinions against (Windows options). The current RM structure as proposed is broken, and I do not expect Part 3 as written to result in any further consensus. I will not close the discussion itself, because there is value in narrowing down from 2-5ish options to 1-2, but this is not the way to proceed. Soni (talk) 09:41, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps the discussion needs to be structured better to get @SMcCandlish's close executed. Or maybe we need to just close this and wait a week or a month before re-opening the next RM. In either case, I cannot see "Discuss top 2 (Jruderman's opinions) and top 5" with "Discuss more options" working out. Soni (talk) 09:45, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Endorse this. I admire Jruderman’s dedication to this cause but we need some time to reflect as there is nowhere near consensus and the current title isn’t super problematic. Let’s wait a month or so. Local Variable (talk) 11:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
How bad would it be if I were to unilaterally move the article to "2024 CrowdStrike global Windows systems outage" today? I think this title is a significant improvement over the status quo, has a good chance of winning if we were to !vote, and a good chance of sticking for at least a month. Jruderman (talk) 15:24, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Please do not do this. It is obviously a controversial move, in that there have just been two no-consensus RMs. There is no deadline, and no reason to move now to a title that we don't have any consensus for (and indeed, some consensus against).

@Jruderman, a word of unsolicited advice. I know and appreciate that you're trying to be helpful here, but consensus discussions are about finding a common conclusion amongst editors, not about convincing one editor who has taken on the role of leader what to do. In previous discussions of this structure, the concept of being involved came up. There is broad consensus on Wikipedia that people shouldn't act in a moderator-type role (closing discussions, taking administrative actions, etc) while also acting in participatory role (suggesting options, advocating for options, etc). This is because—no matter how well-meaning someone is it—is extremely hard to separate personal preferences from an impartial understanding of the situation.

You are, in this circumstance, an editor with their own opinions who is somewhat blinded by the fact you assume your opinions are representative of consensus. This is normal and natural and why you're missing things like the fact that there's some consensus against including Windows (expressed in SMcCandlish's close and the discussion above) and yet four of the five new titles you proposed in this RM include Windows. I'm not sure where your "top two/five" options are coming from; only "2024 CrowdStrike-related Windows system outage" is even close to similar to any option an editor expressed preference for in the previous discussions. Perhaps you're trying to come up with new titles you think address everyone's concerns; if so, I appreciate the effort, but doubt it will be effective. Article titles are not congressional bills; we won't get to one everyone is happy with by cramming everything anyone cares about in, especially since we care about concision. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 15:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

A number of editors now have pointed out that there is a consensus against Windows, and yet your suggestions (even after it was highlighted to you) still include "Windows". Can you explain the reasoning here? I would also strongly oppose a unilateral move: there is no consensus and, as mentioned, a general consensus against "Windows". The current title may be worth changing, but we lack a consensus currently. There should be no change until we achieve that consensus. GhostOfNoMeme 16:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Is there consensus that one of the candidates is significantly better than the current title? That's the main thing I'd want before performing a move (along with consensus that it's okay to do). Jruderman (talk) 17:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
There clearly isn't, and a unilateral move (that others already object to) in the absence of such a consensus would just be reversed via WP:RM/TR. If people want to wait, then let them wait. I would suggest using the interim to do the suggested current-source-usage research, and if it's not fruitful, then build a complete list of variants to choose from among those proposed so far (not just the handful that you personally favor) for use in a round 3 later. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:41, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
PS: Try starting here, ignore any story about CrowdStrike that pre-dates the outages incident, ignore anything that's not an actual news publisher, and just copy-paste relevant phrases from the articles into a text file and sort them. Do this the articles found in several pages of these Google News search results, and if there's a most-common phrase now, it will quickly emerge. Will take a little time, but less time than people are expending on circular argument. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:53, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Just a heads up that this is essentially the process I used for this analysis, with the added steps of looking under terms besides "CrowdStrike" since I wanted to ensure titles describing the event without naming CrowdStrike directly weren't missed (there really weren't any such articles). Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 23:10, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jruderman Please do not BOLD move this page. This is a highly contentious issue. Any move must be by consensus decision at this stage. In a month or so, a common name may emerge. Local Variable (talk) 01:12, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Comment Why do all options have the 2024 prefix? There was not another notable CrowdStrike incident as far as I know, so I think it could be dropped (Yes I know that I choose this name in the first place). PhotographyEdits (talk) 19:29, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Suggest and discuss new candidates

CrowdStrike channel file update 291, consistent with McAfee DAT 5958 update, but lacking the important word "outage" for a standalone article. Jruderman (talk) 00:45, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
I think that fails WP:OFFICIALNAME per the analysis above by Dylnuge. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:30, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Move to 2024 CrowdStrike global Windows systems outage

~~Jruderman suggested this move above to be performed by himself today. Let's vote on it here.~~ (Edit: I don't think a vote is wise anymore. Retracting.) 91.223.100.49 (talk) 21:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

~~This comment by an unregistered user is a little odd. Without making any accusations, a gentle reminder that editing while logged out to influence discussions is against policy.~~ Local Variable (talk) 01:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)