User:HJ Mitchell/Thoughts on WP:V RfC

Statistics

A total of 447 registered a comment in the "support", "oppose", or "neutral" sections. It is likely that a large number of other editors commented in the discussion without registering a !vote.

• 276 editors are explicitly in support of the proposal
• 149 editors are explicitly opposed to it
• 19 editors stated they were neutral
• Taken via the "support/supoort+oppose" method, the percentage of support is 65% (rounded). The argument has been made that a higher threshold (70%) is usually applied to request for adminship. However, lower standards are applied elsewhere (such as for ArbCom elections), and consensus is not simply calculated by numerical support.

General conclusions

The volume of comments and the strength of the division between the perspectives (as demonstrated by the small number of neutrals in comparison with the supports and opposes) makes closing this RfC no easy task.

A large number of highly experienced and well-respected Wikipedians have commented in both sections (probably part of the difficulty in finding three admins to close the discussion). The proposal was made in the utmost good faith, and Blueboar is to be commended for the amount of work he put into formulating the proposal. The vast majority of those who commented also did so in the utmost good faith, and should be proud of the decorum that was maintained throughout most of the RfC. Given the number of people who have commented and that the result is far from a foregone conclusion, the discussion deserves to be closed with a thorough rationale, hopefully agreed upon by the three administrators (HJ Mitchell, RegentsPark, Worm That Turned) who have volunteered to close it.

Arguments

A list of some of the most common arguments advanced in favour of or in opposition to the proposal.

Support

In general, there is much less elaboration of rationales in the support section than in the oppose section. However, this is probably because the supporters are simply endorsing the proposer's rationale and so I will not give significantly less weight to supporters who did not provide a lengthy rationale. That said, !votes accompanied by articulate explanations of their owners' thought processes will hold more weight.

• The policy as it is unclear and the proposal will add clarity
• There have been long-running disputes over the first sentence of the policy for several years, and thus it does not have consensus
• The policy could potentially confuse new editors
• The proposed change is only semantic, and does not change the substance of the policy
  • A rather naive view in my opinion; given that over 400 editors have commented, treating it as a discussion over semantics would seem most unwise.
• "A step in the right direction" towards improving policy
  • Opposers see this as a slippery slope
• What do we do when what is verifiable is not what is true? Eg factual errors in published sources?
• The proposal is a compromise, arrived at after lengthy discussions
• The lead does not adequately explain the rationale behind VNT and would not be the appropriate place to do so anyway

Oppose

The only thing common to all opposers is that they oppose this proposal! Several different arguments are put forward against the proposal, no one of which seems to have the agreement of every editor who has commented in that section.

• The policy as it is not broken and therefore we should not attempt to fix it
  • A silly argument in my opinion, as policies are written by humans and humans are fallible, so no policy will ever be perfect and we should not dismiss good-faith attempts to improve them.
• The proposal (further) obfuscates the meaning of the policy rather than clarifying it as intended
• The proposal attempts to change policy through the back door, disguised as a semantic change
  • An assumption of bad faith not supported by the facts in my opinion. There is legitimate disagreement as to whether what is proposed is indeed a policy change, but I don't think plots to force a change in policy through the back door are genuine.
• "verifiability not truth" (VNT) is necessary to defend our policy on original research
• VNT is a key point in a core policy and has been for years
  • Not a valid argument in and of itself, as consensus can change.
• The current wording of the lead is powerful/pithy/memorable/succinct/simple
• Moving VNT out of the lead lessens its impact
  • Countered somewhat by suggestions that that is the idea
• The proposed changes are excessively verbose, and some of the meaning of the policy is lost in the verbiage
• The proposed changes are poorly written and, at the very least, would need to be redrafted

Other thoughts

Putting the two proposals together in one RfC may have been a bad idea, given that the removal of VNT from the lead seems to be far more controversial than the second half of the proposal. Had they been separate proposals, it is not inconceivable that the latter might have proved largely uncontroversial.

There were accusations of vote stacking and off-wiki canvassing affecting the percentages at one point. However, from examining the situation at various timestamps, the !vote seems to have been running at around 60% for much of its duration. Looking at only experienced, active editors, no strong deviation seems to emerge.

Conclusion

Over 400 editors have expressed an opinion one way or the other on this RfC, and closing it has taken most of an afternoon. The sheer volume of text makes this an unenviable task, but it is an important one.

One of the first questions in need of an answer is whether this is a proposal to change the policy or to make a semantic change to a policy page. The answer is that this must be treated as a substantial change to policy simply because of the sheer number and strength of opinions it has provoked. Many arguments have been raised for and against this proposal, with the majority of unique rationales to be found in the oppose section, but such is often the way when people are asked to support a proposal or provide a rationale against it.

The proposal as written has failed to gain consensus for its implementation. However, the waters have been muddied somewhat by including two separate (albeit related) changes in one RfC. The proposal to reword the lead, and in particular to remove from it the phrase "verifiability not truth" has met with considerable opposition. among the stronger arguments, opposers to this part of the proposal have objected to what they perceive as an attempt to reduce the importance of that phrase, to the increased verbiage in the proposed amendment, and to what they believe would increase the complexity of the policy and add to instruction creep despite the attempt to clarify it. Also mentioned was that the proposal appeared to be expanding the policy into areas already governed by separate policies and guidelines (such as reliability of sourcing). I hold no opinion on the merits of the arguments that attempt to address the substance of the proposal, but that these arguments have been independently expressed by multiple editors would suggest that they have legitimacy. I acknowledge that a majority of editors favour the proposal, many of them with excellent and well thought-out, articulately expressed rationales. However, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and making a major change to a core content policy when the changes is vehemently opposed by about a third of the community would seem foolish and ill-considered.

Instead, further discussion should take place in the future (at least a few months from now) to see if any common ground can be found. It is likely that such discussion might be very productive in the case of the second part of the proposal (to elaborate on the meaning of "verifiability not truth" in the body of the policy).

All participants are thanked for their patience in awaiting a close, the result of which was inevitably going to disappoint a significant number of people. The closers would like to take this opportunity to express their gratitude, on behalf of the community, for the decorum with which the vast majority of participants conducted themselves for the majority of the discussion. Blueboar (talk · contribs) is to be particularly commended for his efforts in putting this proposal together.