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Latest comment: 6 years ago by TonyBallioni in topic RfC on the enforceability of logged voluntary editing restrictions
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Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments7 people in discussion

When I’m expanding an existing Wikipedia article, one way to find good info to add is by using the “What links here” button. But this is ruined if the article that I want to expand is in a template that’s used in a ton of articles. For example, consider Picket Lake, Minnesota. If you go to that article and click on “what links here” you get a ton of useless search results that are listed merely because they each use a template that happens to include a link to Picket Lake, Minnesota and it’s impossible to tell which of the search results will actually provide further substantive info about Picket Lake. So, I suggest that the “what links here” button should exclude search results that merely have templates mentioning the article in question, although the template itself would be a valid search result that would not cause any difficulties. Or else the search results should indicate which ones result merely from a template. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

This is a question that probably needs to be added WP:PERENNIAL. The answer is, yes, it could be so-modified, but no, it probably won't happen, because it is marginal utility for some probably-large amount of software work to make the search and WLH functions work inconsistent with expectation. --Izno (talk) 13:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Well, the above example can still be "handled" as the total number of incoming links is still limited, but there are examples with hundred-thousands such incoming links making it a complete nightmare to reverse-lookup stuff through WLH. So, some options to filter and/or sort the WLH output in useful ways would be highly appreciated, and any time spent into developing a solution is time well-spent: Solved once, used often.
In some cases, however, there is a good working and easily applicable (although not perfect) solution to this problem already:
The link through the template should go through a (specially crafted) redirect rather then point to the target article directly. This way, incoming links through that redirect are easily distinguishable from "normal" links (and links through other redirects) in WLH.
At present this isn't really applicable to navigation box links as we try to avoid redirects there so that the navigation link is displayed in boldface on the page itself (a practice with IMO only marginal value and that could IMO be abandoned).
However, there are other use cases where it is applicable without any backdraws: For example, some of the templates linking some kind of numerical identifiers to a common article use this through special redirects ending on …" (identifier)" as parenthetical extension of the subject's name, see {{CVE}} for an example. This nicely groups all those links under a single redirect in WLH and allows a user to optionally ignore or even focus on them depending on what kind of information s/he's trying to look up through WLH. Also, unlike navigation boxes these templates aren't normally used on the target page and so the desire (if any) for boldface links doesn't exist. Of course, this only catches links going through the template (but that could be easily solved by bots), so, depending on how consistently such identifiers are routed through such templates in related articles, it might help to remove more or less clutter from WLH and thereby help reverse lookup of relevant stuff. It was also used by {{ISBN}} thereby helping to remove a lot (!) of clutter from the ISBN article's WLH list - but one editor decided to edit-war over it. It would help even more, if the citation template would use it as well (which would be trivially easy to adapt).
--Matthiaspaul (talk) 10:58, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
In the case given, would it help to do a "Search Wikipedia" for containing... "Picket Lake"? (The quotation marks are necessary.) There would be fewer results and they may be more relevant. Bus stop (talk) 21:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Dear Anythingyouwant, you may publish your request later this year at the 2018 Community Wishlist Survey. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
It might be helpful to sort the results. Sometimes I copy the results to a text editor so I can sort them, see the namespaces separately, and easily scan the one I'm interested in. Bob Webster (talk) 05:20, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
If you install User:PrimeHunter/Source links.js then Picket Lake, Minnesota gets a link below What links here saying Source links. {{Source links|Picket Lake, Minnesota}} produces Source links.
Adding this issue to WP:PERENNIAL may be a good idea considering these requests:
PrimeHunter (talk) 03:32, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Parameter for subject area in certain templates

Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion

What I am proposing is the following:

  1. Certain cleanup templates that require subject-area knowledge to effectively respond to should accept a parameter marking the subject area of the article being tagged.
  2. This information should be used to categorize tagged articles into subcategories by subject area (as is currently done by month).
  3. [this item added on May 14th] Alternatively: The creation of more subject-specific maintenance templates and categories (like the existsing {{LawUnref}} and Category:Law-related articles lacking sources) should be encouraged, but not implemented through template parameters.
Background

Many of our cleanup templates (and some other types of templates) tag articles for the kinds of attention that only editors familiar with the subject matter will be able to effectively provide (e.g., {{lead rewrite}}, {{context}}, {{expand section}}, {{missing information}}, {{confusing}}, {{disputed}}, {{undue weight}}, {{clarify}}, {{dubious}}, {{original research}}, {{more citations needed}}, {{citation needed}}, and several others). While the dating of templates (using |date=) has become almost universal, indicating the subject matter in a similar way has not (although {{expert needed}} does have a mechanism for associating the tag with a WikiProject). As far as I know, only stub templates are routinely marked with the subject area, allowing "sorting" into an appropriate stub category, but this is done by creating a separate template for each subject area.

The proposal
[edit: ignore the above line… — see explanation below for the odd ending here. - dcljr (talk) 04:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcljr (talk • contribs) 18:00, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

But more importantly, there is an external tool that does this for all imaginable maintenance problems by checking tagged articles against WikiProjects (not limited to geographical scope by the way) see e.g. Germany. It's super useful and automated and basically does what you want, and more. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:58, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
WP:Petscan can also do the same as the tool provided by Finn. --Izno (talk) 20:16, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
@Finnusertop: Yes, I was trying to say {{expert needed}} was an exception. To my knowledge, all the other templates I listed ({{lead rewrite}}, etc.) do not have a way of marking the subject area. @Izno: The template version of {{PetScan}} looks quite useful, especially for linking to lists of articles needing attention in, say, WikiProjects and "Portal:" pages. Unfortunately, it doesn't really replace the functionality of categories. I'm sorry but I literally cannot take the time to talk about this right now. Tomorrow I can say more. - dcljr (talk) 04:40, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
…Or not. [grin] sorry for the delay… - dcljr (talk) 19:58, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
@Natureium, Finnusertop, and Izno: OK, basically what I'm saying here is, the current system of (sub-) categorizing article-improvement issues by date is useful only, perhaps, in tracking the lack of progress in dealing with them, not in effectively getting editors to notice the issues and address them. In cases where some degree of familiarity with the subject matter significantly improves the chances of being able to actually deal with the tagged issue (see partial list in my original post above), it makes sense to "sort" the request into subcategories by subject. So, for example, if I put {{unreferenced|date=September 2017|subject=sports and games}} (or whatever) on the article American Poolplayers Association, it would be listed at Category:Articles lacking sources in subject area sports and games (or whatever), as well as Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2017 and Category:All articles lacking sources. This would allow related WikiProjects, portals, etc., to link to such (subject-based) categories to direct the attention of those editors most likely to be able to fix the problems. As things stand now, only the users interested in sports/games who happen to visit or are watching the article American Poolplayers Association will notice the tagging. Relatively few (or possibly none) of those users will ever look through Category:Articles lacking sources from September 2017 and Category:All articles lacking sources looking for things to fix (since the vast majority of articles there have nothing to do with sports and games). And those users who notice the tagging of that article will not see a category link to other related articles tagged the same way, only to a mass of articles on completely different topics. If this kind of subject-based subcategorizing is implemented/popularized, as it becomes better known more users could start regularly looking through categories such as Category:Articles lacking sources in subject area sports and games looking for things they can fix. Now, granted, there are issues with this approach, including most obviously (1) creating the required categories (/avoiding redlinks), and (2) controlling which subjects deserve a subcategory (like sports and games) and which don't (like Power Snooker). Thus, perhaps a template-parameter approach may not be the right way to go (although templates can detect things like missing categories automatically, and issue warnings). In light of these considerations, I have added a third alternative above (so, either do #1–2 or #3). Finally, to return to {{PetScan}}, like I said before, this could be useful for WikiProjects and portals to link to (although the user interface of the tool itself is slightly intimidating—i.e., you don't get the list you want until you submit a form), but using an external tool like that is of little use to the vast majority of users who are just looking at articles. (Of course, one could say that the vast majority of editors never look at the maintenance categories anyway, but I'd think that more of them would use categories over external tools than the other way 'round.) - dcljr (talk) 19:59, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
OK, I realize I screwed up the initial posting of this proposal, but now that I've fleshed out my idea a bit, it would be nice to see some kind of discussion about this. Comments? Questions? Suggestions? I don't think an {{rfc}} tag is necessary here, but if that's the only way I'm going to get this noticed… - dcljr (talk) 19:13, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

At AfD, enable search on multiple names for a single person

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

I follow AfD nominations for articles about women, and this is a recurring problem. Our current AfD tool to find news/books/etc. about the person, to determine notability, inputs a single "name," the title of the article suggested for deletion. For example, a woman may have done notable work under a previous married name but then divorced and re-taken her maiden name. Or vice versa.

Here is a related problem, for both men and women, potentially easier to solve with an algorithm. For example, if the article title includes a middle initial (e.g. Holly M. Lewis but potentially reporters write about the person using just the first and the last name. This problem also occurs for people with Spanish last-name styles such as Gina Ortiz Jones. The algorithm could simply offer a choice of including or not including a middle initial or name that is part of the article title. Would this be possible? HouseOfChange (talk) 19:09, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The AfD process adds {{Find sources AFD}} with the article name, e.g. {{Find sources AFD|Newell W. Spicer}} at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Newell W. Spicer. You can manually change the name afterwards or add a second {{Find sources AFD}} (I don't know whether this is ever done). Articles are supposed to use the common name and I don't think an automatic algorithm could make a meaningful choice to change the name. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:53, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, PrimeHunter, that is a very helpful suggestion. HouseOfChange (talk) 11:02, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
{{Find sources AFD}} allows for multiple parameters, so you can just replace the template in the AFD with one that contains more parameters, e.g. {{Find sources AFD|Newell W. Spicer|OR "Newell Spicer"}}. See the template's documentation for details. Regards SoWhy 11:21, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Newbie guidance in AFD discussions

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I posted this on WP:CENT, but since people objected to that for some reason, here's a WP:VPR notice instead. The idea is to give helpful link during the AFD process so it's less brutal for newcomers, and that they feel less lost/overwhelmed/powerless. Please comment at the above link.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Delete blank talk pages RfC

Latest comment: 6 years ago27 comments20 people in discussion
I think we see where this is going. WP:SNOW. --Jayron32 02:25, 24 May 2018 (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.

Should we delete talk pages that are currently blank and had never contained any actual discussions? WP:TPG says not to create empty talk pages just so that they can be used in the future. My G6 tagging of Talk:Host Healthcare has been declined by GorillaWarfare, so now we need an RfC. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, I have done plenty of IAR applications of WP:CSD#G7 to empty, single-author, namespace_talk: pages--and would be generally supportive of expanding at least this use case. Perhaps adding a "with non-substantive history" guideline along with it. I think lacking "a discussion" alone is too broad though. — xaosflux Talk 01:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose no, this is dumb, and why on earth is anyone patrolling for blank talk pages? There's no valid reason to delete them (and no, it doesn't save server space.) Blank talk pages are preferred to non-blank ones because they get rid of the annoying red link and they also encourage people to actually post compared to the red link (i.e. people are going to be more likely to post on something that exists compared to one that doesn't exist). There is no meaningful difference in terms of discussion between a blank talk page and a talk page with only WikiProject banners that has never had discussion. If you come across a blank talk page, add a WikiProject banner rather than a CSD tag. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:31, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
    @TonyBallioni: these days pretty much all strict talk (e.g. namespace:1) talk pages get tagged, I was considering the scope of this discussion to be any talk pages. I'm quite opposed to actually encouraging creation of every possible "talk" page. Just looking at some random new pages without talk, I can't see turning Module talk:Location map/data/Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, User talk:Copystar/sandbox/The Polish-Canadian Business and Professional Association of Windsor, or TimedText talk:Bleedingloveleona.ogg.en.srt blue just to do it as very helpful. — xaosflux Talk 01:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
    @Xaosflux: if an admin wants to delete those pages, sure, I don’t see the harm, but I also don’t see any harm in having them. I was thinking of articles, where I consider blue talk pages helpful. On the flip side, I consider anyone who tags a talk page for deletion as simply wasting other people’s time: an admin has to review those, and the deletions are at best a neutral, certainly not a positive. I suppose I just don’t want to encourage “blank talk page patrol” or something as pointlsss as that. Even if it’s just tagging them when you come across them, I don’t see it as contributing anything to the encyclopedia more than busy work. I guess I’m “meh” on deleting these but strongly opposed to people going around regularly tagging them. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
    Yea, in general "article talk" pages can usually be made in to something useful. I'd oppose any bot request etc to just create pure blank pages as wasteful though. A benefit of red talk pages is: if the main page is tagged for CSD, and the talk is red - the deleting admin doesn't have to go read it to see what's going on that could impact the CSD nomination (for example a CSD objection). — xaosflux Talk 02:34, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose. I get your point here and I understand why you would want this. However, I think I'm going to have to agree with TonyBallioni on this one - it's easier as a whole to just keep them.--SkyGazer 512 What will you say? / What did I do? 01:36, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: We already have criteria for speedy deletion, the general ones apply to all pages, including talk ones. Patent nonsense, test pages, pure vandalism, comments only by banned users, talk pages of a page that is no longer there (because deleted, moved, etc), all those can be deleted if the right conditions are met. Cambalachero (talk) 02:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
    I'm unclear why someone is trying to delete a talkpage of a page I sent to AfD while it is still at AfD? Talk pages are regularly deleted with the article. Legacypac (talk) 02:23, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
    The admin may commit a mistake, and delete the article but not the talk page. If such a talk page is found, it may be speedily deleted (unless it was retained on purpose for some other reason). Cambalachero (talk) 02:59, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose in most cases, "blank talk pages" should have a WikiProject template on them, and not be deleted. I thought there was a Speedy Deletion criteria already for situations where the only revisions on a talk page are article content, but don't see one. In this specific situation, a deletion (and timely re-creation with WikiProject templates) would have been appropriate, but it's rare enough I see no reason to add a rule for blank pages, relying instead on WP:IAR or a (not-yet) proposed rule about "articles on talk pages". power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is makework for CSD taggers and the administrators who monitor the CSD category, and with no real gain. There is no harm in a blank talk page existing (unless this is causing considerable server load that I don't know about, which I strongly doubt...), and for most articles the talk page will eventually be used for wikiproject templates and discussion. If the article isn't worth keeping, the talk page can be quickly deleted per G8 alongside the main article. But I personally have no interest in combing through random empty talk pages of existing articles just to delete them, especially when they'll probably be recreated soonafter. This RfC seems very much like a solution in search of a problem. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:04, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose pointless, give some benefit for this, and it is as easy generally to fix it; add wikiproject banners, or redirect - Obscure talk pages can often be redirected, e.g Module talk:Location map/data/Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship can be to Module talk:Location map, and there are no masses of blank talk pages either Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:17, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose GorillaWarfare's decline of the G6 was valid, since the page had history - even if that was merely a draft of the article. The page was blank at the time of the tagging for G6, but it had not always been blank; if it had been blanked by only significant contributor to the page, and also tagged for speedy deletion by that person, it could have been deleted under G7, but the blanking was done by somebody else. The subsequent (valid) speedy deletion under G8 does not change any of those. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:39, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose as pointless. As GorillaWarfare said, a solution in search of a problem. Richard0612 10:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose turning good, correct sysop actions into RfCs. No reason to delete, and misapplying CSD criteria certainly isn't a valid reason to ask. I would like to revisit WP:OLDIP for IP talk pages with, say, no blocks and up to two warnings 5+ years ago, but that is neither here nor there. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above. Can someone name an example of a page in Talk-namespace that ought to be red-linked when the article exists? Regards SoWhy 11:24, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
    @SoWhy: How about the last minute of this list? Note, I'm not advocating that if any sort of content at all were placed on the not-yet-created talk page it should be deleted, just that it simply doesn't need to immediately exist. — xaosflux Talk 20:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
    My question was about talk pages that should be red-linked when the article exists. That a lot of them are, especially for new articles, is clear. But is there any example of a talk page that should not exist when the article does? Regards SoWhy 20:24, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
    I think we are looking at this from a different point of view @SoWhy:, I gave an example above - a brand new article. As far as namesapce:1 in general, I don't think a lot of redirects need talk pages. If anyone puts anything useful in any of them (even just a project link) I don't think they should be deleted, but I don't think they should be created empty just so they "do exist". — xaosflux Talk 01:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Gorillawarfare and Redrose64. Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't see the problem it's trying to solve. At best tagging this pages would be a mild waste of time, at worst it would unnecessarily clog the CSD queue and cost us a very occasional piece of relevant history. We shouldn't needlessly create blank talk pages either - just leave them alone unless validly deleted as a consequence of G8 or similar for the article they're attached to. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:36, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Rather than add a {{Db-g6}} template to it, editors should be encouraged to add {{Wikiproject XYZ}} instead, so that an interested Wikiproject gets notified on the article. There may be exceptions to this, but I don't see the talk page from the original post as one of those exceptions. —SpacemanSpiff 11:41, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The page doesn't really go away, it just gets hidden, so "deleting" it doesn't do much. Maybe an editor will click the link and not see any discussion, but if he clicked the link, then there's a chance he wanted to bring something up. A blank page might be worthless, but it is relatively benign. Glrx (talk) 19:57, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose basically per WP:CHEAP - deleting blank pages makes the database slightly larger by having to record and log that the page is deleted. Users shouldn't create blank pages, but deleting them is not a solution, it's just pointless busywork. I also don't object to them being deleted, I just don't see a point either way. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:03, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Blank talk pages should neither be created nor deleted. That being said, there is no good reason to reverse these actions but the user who does either should probably be warned about wasting volunteers' time for no good reason. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 21:03, 23 May 2018 (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.

New article template

Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

When someone starts a new article, there is a template with useful links above the editing box, one that starts with "Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article". The last line says "You can also start your new article at Special:Mypage/Article. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready".

What about adding a link to Draft/Article as well? The text may mention that it would be preferred for drafts that would be worked by several users (at least, that's the idea), and that the userspace is more suited for personal projects. Cambalachero (talk) 01:23, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Support. I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. I propose changing this
'You can also start your new article at Special:Mypage/Example. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready.'
to something similar to this,
'You can also start your new article at Special:Mypage/Example or Draft:Example. There, you can develop the article... (etc.)'
this,
'You can also start your new article at Draft:Example. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready. Additionally, you can do the same thing in your personal user space, by going to Special:Mypage/Example.
or this.
'You can also start your new article at Special:Mypage/Example. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready. Additionally, you can start the article in the draft namespace, by going to Draft:Example.
If somebody else has another suggestion, please comment here, as I'm not the best when it comes to writing stuff like this.--SkyGazer 512 What will you say? / What did I do? 22:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
@Cambalachero: Do you want to start an RfC for this? It's been up for almost a week, and I'm the only person who has replied. Also, an administrator will have to see this post before it can be implemented, as changing this would involve editing a page in the MediaWiki namespace (which can only be edited by admins).--SkyGazer 512 What will you say? / What did I do? 19:13, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Which is the name of the template we are talking about? Perhaps someone else will notice if I ask at its talk page. Cambalachero (talk) 12:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Aha! I finally found it, Cambalachero (I've been looking for it for a while). {{Newarticletext-confirmed}}, which is used on MediaWiki:newarticletext. However, I can tell you that you're likely going to get more traffic here than on the talk page of the template. If you start an RfC either here or there, though, users are probably more likely to see it. Of course, submitting an edit request would result in admins seeing it the soonest, but it's probably best to get the support of more users before we use that.--SkyGazer 512 What will you say? / What did I do? 17:08, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Text of new article template

Should {{Newarticletext-confirmed}} include a link to the draft namespace? Cambalachero (talk) 03:07, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Expanded explanation: {{Newarticletext-confirmed}} is the template that shows up above the edit box when someone tries to start a new article. The last line says "You can also start your new article at [link to page name in userspace]. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready." I propose to replace it with the following lines:

  • You can also start your new article at [link to page name in draft namespace]]. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready.

  • Another alternative, if you want to manage the draft mostly on you own before making it ready, is to start the page at [link to page name in userspace].

    Cambalachero (talk) 03:07, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Alexey Dushkin

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Good Day Article frankly breaks a neutrality. Nationality (that is ethnic origin "Russian" it is confirmed with nothing). Its birthplace is the Kharkov Governorate Alexandrovka (modern name Oleksandrivka ) is village of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohodukhiv_Raion the area (Ukraine) for that time the Russian Empire https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexeï_Douchkine (Bibliographie)wiki link to the settlement page Therefore nationality Russian is changed for the Russian empire. Russian and the Russian empire are a different nationality . It became history as the Soviet architect.

that it Russian architect is not present data. It is impossible Soviet to turn into the Russian automatically at all. About categories. In categories costs Russian much. But let's look at date of birth and then we will walk according to its autobiography. After the termination of modern Ukrainian Kharkiv institute (or then the Soviet Ukraine) - it worked and projected objects in city of Donbass there is no information that we had cities only from the Russian sector - therefore it is necessary to consider кк the cities of two countries) ( and was as a part of group on creation of a structure of college in the city of Kharkov (the Ukrainian city) And here we have two ways and two logicians Logic and way number 1 We write categories that it Russian, ukrainian and Soviet because created in the territory of the Soviet Russia and the Soviet Eastern Ukraine Logic and way number two we call it only Soviet and we delete all categories Russians. In general it is option the most correct. We definitely do not know, perhaps he created that that in the countries of the Caucasus or Kazakhstan which then were a part of the USSR. It is not correct to put category "Russian" only on the Russian sources and the websites at all.

The French Wikipedia did most right thing - made it only Soviet in CATEGORIES — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bohdan Bondar (talk • contribs) 20:16, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Please argue your case on the Talk page of the article. Britmax (talk) 16:30, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Account passwords

Latest comment: 6 years ago16 comments10 people in discussion

Hi! When creating a new account, on the passwords, thinked I to change globally so only the characters A-Z and 0-9 be used and not special characters (such as ?, !, @, + and so) to make it easier to choose a password, and other websites disallow §, +, =, ? and so, because these passwords are harder to guess. Please make so only characters A-Z and 0-9 be used on account passwords --46.227.72.88 (talk) 16:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

If you don't want to use special characters, don't, but we're not going to lower security to makes things more easily hackable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:10, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. You should not want your password to be easy to guess; if it is easy for you, it is easy for a hacker. 331dot (talk) 19:08, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Require special characters for passwords (ok, not really, but...)

Remember a few weeks ago when someone tried to hack into every account on the site? Yeah.

Ok, so I'm already well aware that length is more important than special characters in passwords, but a request to reduce site security just pokes me in a way that makes me want to retaliate in some way (and I'll try to see that it's for the better).

Why don't we require passwords to be at least a minimum of 12 or even 16 characters? It'd be stupid to not require at least 8 characters. There's also lists of most common passwords, why don't we make it so those can't be used as passwords?

Ian.thomson (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Isn't 8 characters already a minimum? On a more serious note, your last point is a great idea. The password page could check the Pwned Passwords API (via Have I Been Pwned?) to ensure users don't choose a previously compromised password. This could even be limited to just the "top million" if you didn't want to be too restrictive. — AfroThundr (t•c) 22:01, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
A request is already open to expand the password blacklist, see phab:T151425 to track progress. — xaosflux Talk 22:33, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Why don't we actually respond affirmatively to the mathematical reality Randall Munroe explained so well, and which Ian.thomson referenced, and require the infinitely more secure "four random common words" password format? (Shorthand: 4RCW). Is there some technical reason why this doesn't work? I can't imagine why it wouldn't, and I know one company that requires 4RCW--YouNeedABudget.com.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 07:55, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
It seems that thousands of smart IT folks have read xkcd #936, forwarded the comic to friends and posted it on social media sites, agreed with Randall's conclusion ... and then proceeded to "increase security" for their company or employer by requiring longer passwords that are even harder to remember and still relatively easy for the bad guys to hack.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 08:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Shortly after posting the above, I remembered my teenage daughter teaching me the acronym (and website) GIYF. Darn it! I posted without checking the Google first. Looks like there is a reason why the 4RCW method won't help much. At least I was persuaded by this Ph.D.'s article on the topic: Password Security: Why the horse battery staple is not correct. Do you In who know a lot more about this topic than me agree?   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 08:15, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately, not all software clients can be used with a password manager. For example, I know one game client that prohibits the use of copy&paste in the password field. I'm sure it is not the only one either. —Farix (t | c) 10:28, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
The firefox addon Enable Right Click and Copy may solve your problem. It doesn't work on all pages, but is usually does work. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:29, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I also found this:[1] (I have not tried it). --Guy Macon (talk) 12:31, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Guy Macon's robust password advice

I am going to ignore what other websites do, because we can only control what Wikipedia does.

Every time I have looked into the nuts and bolts of how the WMF does security, it has always, without fail, turned out that they do it right, so I am not even going to bother finding out how they stop an attacker from either making millions of guesses per second or being able to lock out an admin by trying to make millions of guesses per second. Clearly the WMF developers read the same research papers that I do.

That being said, as explained at Kerckhoffs's principle#Modern-day twist, while doing things like rate limiting and key stretching are Very Good Things, we are not to rely on them. We are to assume that the attacker knows every byte of information on the WMF servers (and in fact the attacker may actually be someone who has knows every byte of information on the WMF servers -- If a nation-state offered a key WMF employee millions of dollars if he complied and made a credible threat to torture and kill his family if he didn't, there is a 99%+ chance that they would end up knowing every byte of information on the WMF servers.)

The WMF does not store your passphrase anywhere. When you enter it it a cryptographic hash is performed and the result compared with a stored hash. This means that an attacker who knows every byte of information on the WMF servers can perform a high-speed offline passphrase-guessing attack, but cannot simply look up your passphrase and use it to log on. So according to Kerckhoffs's principle, you should choose a passphrase that is easy for a human to remember and hard for a high-speed offline passphrase-guessing program to guess. I will call this "Macon's principle" so that I don't have to type "Make it easy for a human to remember and hard for a high-speed offline passphrase-guessing program to guess" again and again.

Bad ways to follow Macon's principle

  • Passwords instead of passphrases (single words instead of strings of words with spaces between them).
  • Random gibberish.
  • Short passwords or passphrases. 8 is awful, 16 is marginal, 24 is pretty good, 32 is so good that there is no real point going longer.
  • Character substitutions (Example: ch4r4ct3r sub5t|tut10ns)

Good ways to follow Macon's principle

  • Use a standard English (or whatever language you know best) sentence with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
  • Make it longer than 32 characters and have it contain at least three (four is better) longish words plus whatever short words are needed to make it grammatically correct.
  • Make sure that sentence has never been entered anywhere on your hard drive (including deleted files) or on the internet. "My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels" is bad because a dictionary that contains every phase used in Monty Python's Flying Circus would find it.[2]
  • Make it meaningful, easy to remember, and something that generates a strong mental image.
  • Make it meaningful to you, but unguessable by others (don't use your favorite team, first kiss, mother's maiden name, etc.)

An example of a good passphrase that follows Macon's principle would be: 

 Geoffrey painted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with his flamingos.

(This assumes that you actually know someone named Geoffrey and that he owns a non-pink Subaru. Replace with a name/car from among your acquaintances to make it easier to remember.)

That's 78 characters that nobody in the history of the earth has ever put together in that order until I just wrote it. Typos really stand out (Geoffrey paibted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with the Flamingos.) and are easy to correct. The sun will burn out long before the fastest possible passphrase-guessing program completes 0.01% of its search. And yet it would be far easier to remember than the far easier (for a computer) to guess BgJ#XSzk=?sbF@ZT would be.

BTW, There is no need to do the math for short passwords. Steve Gibson has done it for us. See [ https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm ]. Note that since he wrote that the password-guessing computers have gotten even faster. See see [On the Economics of Offline Password Cracking - Purdue CS].

The GRC calculation is done locally, using Javascript, so you can safely test your passwords - the password doesn't leave your computer. But if you want to be extra safe, try these examples...

  • HZn?m+jW
  • PhBixXL4
  • qza7nm3g
  • pgupwmxn
  • 54606559

...as your 8-character test password.

I generated the above from my atomic decay true random number generator, set to chose from:

  • The 95 ASCII printable characters (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ `~!@#$%^&*()-_=+[{]}\|;:'",<.>/?)
  • The 62 ASCII a-z/A-Z/0-9 characters (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
  • The 36 ASCII a-z/0-9 characters (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz)
  • The 26 ASCII a-z characters (abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz)
  • The 10 ASCII 0-9 characters (0123456789)

Not happy with the results for an 8-character hard-to-remember password? Try entering the easy-to-remember password "Geoffrey painted his Subaru pink so that it would blend in with his flamingos." on the GRC calculator. The time to crack goes from 27.57 seconds to 10.05 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion centuries.

I have done a similar analyses with the assumption that the attacker uses a password-guessing dictionary instead of a brute fore attack (a competent attacker will run both in parallel) and my conclusion still holds. I can get into the details of how I calculated that if anyone is interested.

Optional modification to the above scheme

Use a password manager to manage very long (and impossible to remember) unique passphrases (and maybe usernames) and use Macon's principle to choose the master passphrase for the password manager. Also, have the password manager enter long random answers to questions like "what is your mother's maiden name"?

This optional modification to the above scheme has a few disadvantages: You are depending on your password manager being secure and bug free. Leaking the passphrases to an attacker is bad. Losing all of your passphrases is worse. Will you be able to recover if your computer is stolen?

My solution to the above is to keep a set of standard text files that look like this... 

Filename of text file: Example web site.txt
Website: http://www.example.com
Username: jfhsx4ih2l91m7xawwhoup96svovfp46
Password: F@ZBgJsTzk=?#X@ScPh%b#iBxXL4F%qz
Security Question: What is your favorite sport?
Answer: iJStVIgdfXWZbhEqmidrXFTFgUCwEgAF

...and store them on a thumb drive that is encrypted with Veracrypt. A copy of the thump drive is in my safe deposit box and another copy is stored on a remote backup server in another city. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:18, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

  • We are to assume that the attacker knows every byte of information on the WMF servers (and in fact the attacker may actually be someone who has knows every byte of information on the WMF servers -- If a nation-state offered a key WMF employee millions of dollars if he complied and made a credible threat to torture and kill his family if he didn't, there is a 99%+ chance that they would end up knowing every byte of information on the WMF servers.) If some nation state cared enough about Wikipedia to resort to torture and murder, there is little that any editor could do to prevent it from happening. Frankly, editor passwords would be the least of the security concerns at that point, and there's nothing that such a nation state could do with editor passwords that couldn't be undone or fixed. While what you're saying may be true for those with developer and sys-admin access to the servers, it's completely overkill from an end-user standpoint. Assuming that the WMF sticks to some basic security standards, the only feasible attack venue editors should worry about would be an online attack (since a compromise of the servers that yielded the password database would likely have much juicer targets than editor passwords). An online attack is easily throttled and managed, and if the password database did leak out, it would be trivial to force a password reset for editors with advanced permissions. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 15:25, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Guy Macon: Indeed, the security controls should be proportionate to both the risk and the likelihood of compromise. Admins (and security passionate, technically minded users) should definitely follow your advice, but for regular editors, I wouldn't reasonably expect them to keep up with all of this. For myself, I use KeePassXC in a Veracrypt container that gets synced via Keybase, but I had a difficult time getting my mom to convert to a password manager just to remember the half dozen variants she uses on everything. I'm slowly getting her to realize that if KeePaas remembers the password for her, then it can be randomized. Slow steps. Ahecht is correct that the most likely threat vector is an online attack, for which there are many mitigations already in place. — AfroThundr (t•c) 15:38, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
The above is a legitimate viewpoint, but I would like to avoid advising anyone to use weaker security. That's a decision each of us have to make for ourselves based upon our circumstances. The main point that I was trying to get across is that ch4r4ct3r sub5t|tut10ns make it hard for humans to remember and easy for computers to guess, while following my advice above makes it easy for humans to remember and hard for computers to guess. If you don't care about security at all (and often you don't; why pick a good password for a %$#*! website that makes you register just to read it?) just use "swordfish" as your password. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Increase G13 Speedy deletions to a one year grace period

Latest comment: 6 years ago53 comments26 people in discussion

Only four days since the two discussions started, but already it's freezing here hard. (non-admin closure) Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 04:48, 30 May 2018 (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.

The G13 speedy deletion system means that any draft or AFC submitted article that has not been edited for 6 months may be deleted without prejudice. The obvious downside to this is that it can be a very WP:BITE thing to do especially for new editors, who are the type to use AFC. I think we can all agree that not every drafter is going to finish the draft in a short period of time. Many people may start a draft and then leave it for a while, maybe coming back to it later. To me 6 months seems like an incredibly short time period for which to penalise a drafter. People may have life events (job change, house move, weddings, babies, study) that get in the way of working feverishly on a Wikipedia draft. Coming back to an empty page of a draft you spent time working on must be a demoralising and frustrating thing for any editor.

Yes of course there are drafts that haven't been worked hard on. Of course there are drafts that have been made full of nonsense. But what harm would it do to keep them around a little longer? I'm not proposing that we shouldn't delete those drafts, simply that we extend the time frame, so the genuine drafters aren't so heavily penalised. The G13 system is deletion without prejudice. Deleting admins may glance at what they are deleting, but are under no obligation to and many good or potentially great drafts are deleted in this way.

So I propose that the G13 be extended to 13 months. Which means in theory a drafter may return to their draft a year after last editing and still have a month in lieu to work on it. This system does not abandon the G13 system but simply makes it less Bitey. Unedited poor drafts will still be deleted and genuine drafts and encyclopedia newcomers have less chance of being penalised. Egaoblai (talk) 19:39, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

6 months is a pretty fair amount of time for something to sit there without touching it. Natureium (talk) 19:40, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
  • It is very easy to request that drafts deleted under G13 be restored, and this is usually communicated in the deletion log entry. Also, as I understand G13, they only need to make one edit, even a minor one or dummy edit, to reset the 6 month time frame. We also have Template:Promising draft which can be used to prevent a G13 deletion by any editor. I guess I am not seeing a huge need for this proposal. 331dot (talk) 19:51, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No. We’ve had countless discussions on G13, the grace period, and draft deletions. The community consensus is clear: draft space is an utter mess and we are not a webhost. It isn’t exactly like we’re dealinh with biographies of Nobel prize winners in most of these cases: G13 is mainly stuff that would be A7, A11, of G11 as an article. No need to keep that stuff for a year. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose; 6 months is plenty of time to get an article up to snuff if someone is actively working on it instead of half-assing it for exposure. Not to mention that G13s are almost always restored at WP:REFUND upon request (the main exceptions being undiscovered copyright violations and drafts that went right back into turnaround after the first undeletion). —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 20:43, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose if anything it should be three months. Six is more than enough to get drafts up to snuff. And should a user want the draft back, WP:REFUND is thataway. ƒirefly ( t · c · who? ) 21:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
If people are working on it, then yes of course you can make a good draft in less than six months. But there are people who put the draft on the backburner for a while. it's not "half-assing", it's that people have lives outside of Wikipedia. Making it a year instead of 6 months decreases the amount of bite. What advantage does 6 months have over a year? Egaoblai (talk) 21:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
The "half-assing" bit is aimed at me, so I will point out that TonyBallioni is right in one. When I say someone is "half-assing" a draft, it's because the person working on it is doing it without bothering to educate themselves on core Wikipedia policies (WP:N, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, etc.) for the sole purpose of making a deadline or exploiting Wikipedia's preferential treatment by search engines. A large chunk of these users are from South Asia (more specifically the Indian Subcontinent area) and therefore part of the issue is also a language barrier, as a large number of these users are only selecting the English Wikipedia based upon its prevalence and cannot read or write English with the proficiency en.wp requires. Quite a few of these users, when I've dealt with them in #wikipedia-en-help, refuse to go to the Wikipedia for their native language because the people they're intending to target with their articles aren't there and search engines are less likely to pull up articles from the Malayalam or Bengali Wikipedias than English. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 04:41, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
the problem is that new editors are being bitten and potentially good drafts are being lost too quickly for anyone to check. Is there any advantage for 6 months over 1 year?. Egaoblai (talk) 21:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Can you cite specific examples of what you claim? 331dot (talk) 22:04, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
First, these are mainly spammers. I am 100% fine with biting spammers. Second, yes, the advantage to 6 months over 1 year means it is harder for a client to hire a new freelancer to work on their prexisting rejected draft. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:22, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
You have a very negative view of new editors. I'm not denying there are spammy editors, but your world view seems to treat every new editor as one and you can't accept that there are good faith editors who get lost in the shuffle due to bite.Egaoblai (talk) 07:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose 6 months is already too long for most of the crap in Draftspace and we have a hard enough time at MfD deleting garbage which leads me to believe 3 months unedited would be better. Gnoming edits by random users often give pages a lot more than 6 month unimproved anyway. Having extensive experience in Draftspace I don't suffer from the delusion that Draftspace is full of ready to go gems waiting to be finished by some slow but soon to return editor. Legacypac (talk) 04:54, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose 6 months is plenty of time. If an editor hates asking for refunds they need only to make a minor edit to the draft to reset the time. That's a very low bar. VQuakr (talk) 05:04, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose The bar is already extremely low. 6 months is plenty of time with no edits and refunds are easy. I don't see how this change will make any improvement to the current system. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 05:09, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I would be in favour of lowering the time to 3 months. The draft namespace is for articles that are actively being improved to get ready for mainspace. Bradv 05:10, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Solution looking for a problem. Decreasing time limit to 3 months is a good idea. If an draft has gone 6 months, there is a good chance it is beyond salvage. The AfC reviewers are already sorting the one's with potential from the one's without. Dlohcierekim's sock User talk:Dlohcierekim 07:04, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: Some editors mistakenly believe G13 is only about deleting drafts. While the vast majority need deletion, there are some useful ones that should be saved. Listing the pages as G13 eligible Wikipedia:Database_reports/Stale_drafts brings them to the attention of experienced editors and admins who can act on promoting or at least improving the pages. More eyes sooner on Drafts is the answer, not setting up systems that ignore them longer.
  • We should also consider expanding G13 to the huge mess of copyvio, attack, spam and other crap that are userspace drafts. There are even a few useful pages there to save if someone looked at them. Legacypac (talk) 05:20, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as more in tune with the community philosophy (see WP:NODEADLINE in particular). For people who haven't had the good sense to avoid the draft namespace, it can be dispiriting to return after a break and see that their unfinished work has been deleted: it doesn't help much that refunds are easy: a reaction like "Great! Let me fill out this form now." isn't any more likely than "Oh, why bother.". Still, though a step in the right direction, this proposal isn't going to do much about the real problem: the indiscriminate deletion of drafts. A more meaningful solution is to abolish G13 altogether and replace it with a rule that after a certain period (6 months, 1 year, 3 months, 1 month, whatever), a draft becomes eligible for the article speedy deletion criteria. This will add more accountability to the deletion process, and it will weed out the vast amount of junk, leaving the community more time to deal with the promising content. – Uanfala (talk) 10:12, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
WP:G13 already says "Redirects and pages tagged with {{promising draft}} are excluded from G13 deletion," and the deletion comes from a human admin who is perfectly free to tag a draft with the promising draft template (not some indiscriminate bot). The only difference between your proposal and G13 is that your proposal would put more work on the few people helping with AFC. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:02, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
The only difference is that between the ideal and reality. Yes, many admins will look at a draft before deleting it and will spare it if it's got potential, but the vast majority of G13 deletions are carried out by the admins who don't seem to look at all. And {{promising draft}} isn't even respected by the bot that does the tagging. The problem with G13 as it stands is that it allows for (and leads to) the more or less automatic deletion of pretty much anything, regardless of quality or potential. – Uanfala (talk) 21:58, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I get that not everyone logs in every day (I believe even I've had a couple of points where I didn't log in for a couple of months except to check messages), but if someone really cares, they need to check to see what's happened more at least once every half year. If someone believes they can post a half-written, unsourced puff piece in draftspace and that they're entitled to see it become the article they want without them so much as visiting the site once for over next half year -- that's a case where WP:CIR may override WP:BITE. Now, I get that that's an extreme example (even though I see "how dare you delete my company page" more often than I'd like), but the basic principle of "if you really cared, you should have checked back within the next six months" applies to any user. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:02, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the time limit is the very definition of arbitrary: it would make no difference whatsoever if the limit were 6 months or 6 years or 6 minutes, any page deleted under G13 can be automatically restored at WP:REFUND, no-questions-asked. It's part of the criterion. Also my perennial opposition to modifying G13 in any way that does not deprecate it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:06, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, G13 isn't even a "hard" deadline. An editor can work on a draft for years if they want to. G13 is just a cleanup mechanism that comes in if the draft is abandoned, and "hasn't been touched in six months and the editor did not respond to the deletion notice" is a pretty good sign that it is indeed abandoned. And if that turns out to be wrong, it's undeleted just for the asking. We're not a webhost, draft space is for articles that stand a reasonable chance of being acceptable encyclopedia articles one day. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - per all the above arguments --Quek157 (talk) 17:42, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose it's a non-solution to a non-problem --S Philbrick(Talk) 19:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. It's dangerous to think of most drafts as crap. They are a resource for the community to build upon. Keeping drafts for a year means that other editors will be able to work on them. I have been able to salvage many seemingly abandoned drafts, but I know that many other abandoned drafts with potential have been deleted under G13. WP:REFUND is only useful if you know the name of the deleted draft. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 20:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Nine times out of ten they do because HasteurBot notifies the main contributor(s) of each draft when it's near deletion. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 23:44, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I salvag pages too but often find them becuase of G13. I'll go with my experience that 99% are crap that needs to be deleted, based on my many thousands of pages handled. Legacypac (talk) 22:56, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - Expanding draft deletion was and remains a waste of time. As such, I see no problem but only potential benefit in putting off deletion longer. Also per the former half of Uanfala's rationale. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 06:27, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Counterproposal - make G13 3 months

Quite a few editors have suggested 3 months as a better solution. If others agree this can close as a change to 3 months. This would reduce a lot of problems in MFD, clear out the bad quicker and get eyes on the good faster. Legacypac (talk) 07:32, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm familiar with those. When found stale a dummy edit or any small edit buys thrm time. Some I just finish and promote. Not a problem at all. Legacypac (talk) 12:31, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
off topic
You said you were staying out of non-article space. What happened to that? Natureium (talk) 17:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Please don't stalk me please. drafts are as part of AFC work where I am still having some drafts pending approval. I just posted this sometime ago and this is the reply within 5 minutes, this is creepy and worrying. Did you watchlist me? Anyway I commented in the RFC above about MFD changes to add notablity so is perfectly reasonable I am watching this page what. And can you add to the RFC please, appreciate your inputs --Quek157 (talk) 18:37, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
You can't watchlist a person. I have this page watchlisted. I'm not stalking you, you just happen to be posting everywhere so you're not hard to run into. Natureium (talk) 20:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Uanfala. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 22:40, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Why? And again, why? There are hundreds or thousands of potentially-good and nearly-there articles in draft space. Leave them be. Concentrate, instead, on the hundreds of thousands of articles in mainspace which fail WP:GNG. Narky Blert (talk) 01:38, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Again, we already have a lot of drafts that are falling into G13 because of real-life complications; this would only make things worse on that front and do fuck-all to deter the dedicated promoters. I'd actually argue it would be easier to point users to our policies and note that Draft: space is noindexed, while the whole WP is nofollowed. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 01:57, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't like knee-jerk reactions, and this looks an awful lot like one. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 16:36, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • OpposeHow exactly will decreasing the time drafts are allowed "get eyes on the good faster"? G13 is already deleting good drafts, how will speeding up the process do anything but ensure more potential good articles get trashed without anyone checking them?Egaoblai (talk) 22:19, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - none of the arguments to cut to 3 months seem to outweigh the benefits coupled with the limited inconvenience Nosebagbear (talk) 11:25, 29 May 2018 (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.

Proposal: A US-only CentralNotice in support of Net Neutrality

Latest comment: 6 years ago246 comments124 people in discussion

After two weeks of discussion, and multiple comments from both the support and oppose sides, regardless of any good intentions made in this discussion, with a near-even split in !votes (55 supports and 56 opposes as of this closure), it's clear that there is no clear consensus to post this at this point. I'm aware that I participated in this discussion, but given that discussion has slowed down and the !vote count, keeping this open longer would likely not have affect the final outcome regardless. Any further discussion is welcomed in the subsequent sections, which remain open. (non-admin closure). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 13:16, 20 May 2018 (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.

Proposal: A US-only CentralNotice in support of Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality is the principle that service providers should treat all Internet traffic as equal, and not discriminate on the basis of origin, destination, or type of data. Net Neutrality protects people's access to knowledge by prohibiting internet service providers from blocking, slowing, or prioritizing data traffic for a fee.

The Wikimedia Foundation and several US Wikimedia affiliates have come out in support of Net Neutrality in the United States, as well as the efforts in Congress to keep the Open Internet rules in place. Just as the Foundation considers Net Neutrality as essential for access to knowledge, the Wikimedia community should realize that equal access to knowledge is important to our mission and knowledge equity and act accordingly. The concern is that if access to Wikipedia and/or its sources is slowed, or allowed only as part of a paid premium, this could gravely harm our fundamental mission to provide free access to knowledge for all. Any restricted access could reduce the quality of articles and reduce the diversity of contributors who create and maintain Wikipedia’s content. If access is limited in a way that restricts access to sources we use to create Wikipedia articles, that hinders our mission of delivering free knowledge.

This proposal is to gauge the community's interest in presenting a banner to US-based viewers of the English Wikipedia, which would show the importance of Net Neutrality to Wikipedia's mission and encourage further reading and action. A landing page with more details has been produced here. A proposed banner with expandable information is previewable here, with a preview of its unexpanded form as follows:


Free knowledge depends on net neutrality.
We are asking for your support.

LEARN WHY AND TAKE ACTION

The reason this proposal is being brought up now is that on May 9, a petition will be filed in the U.S. Senate to force a vote on a bill to block the FCC's December repeal of net neutrality rules. The bill currently has bipartisan support from half the Senators, and only one more vote is needed for the bill to pass in the Senate.

In general, Wikipedia should remain non-partisan and non-political; however, Wikipedia's own mission of free and open knowledge for all is a political one, and the community must support public policy when that policy is vital to protecting its mission. Just this week the German Wikipedia ran a banner to support European Union copyright reform; in the past, banners were run in South Africa in support of freedom of panorama, and banners were run in Australia to support fair use. This proposed Net Neutrality geo-targeted banner would be in line with previous community efforts to support policies in the best interest of Wikimedia.

Some may remember SOPA and PIPA, two other laws that would have radically altered how the internet is used in the United States in a way that negatively impacted our mission. A Wikipedia blackout and banner was instrumental in turning public and legislative opinion against these detrimental bills. We're not going for a blackout this time, but hope that a US-focused banner can direct attention to the issue and preserve Net Neutrality by promoting a grassroots effort to convince Congress to act.

Thank you.

Further reading:

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamaliel (talk • contribs) 19:00, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Survey: A US-only CentralNotice in support of Net Neutrality

  • I'm puzzled by the assertion that "net neutrality is not in the interest of the global Wikimedia movement". Wikipedia Zero was a necessary step in countries where the situation is not ideal and net neutrality is not in place, but I doubt anyone participating in that would trade real net neutrality for a workaround like WZ. The Foundation (was in charge of WZ) has publicly come out strongly in favor of NN, so they seem to think it *is* in the best interest of our global movement, as do many in the Wikimedia volunteer community. Gamaliel (talk) 19:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • As a political reality in the states, the Foundation has to support net neutrality , but as a large player in the online marketplace, we are much more likely to benefit from Net Neutrality not existing than be hurt by it. We are the website run by a large organization that people complain about getting preferential treatment. The simple fact is that by our size and reputation, the ability to get preferential treatment from ISPs could actually help our mission of spreading free knowledge. We aren't the small startup website that someone is running from their home. We're an international organization that is the 5th most visited website in the world. People could use us as the reason to oppose Net Neutrality if they were trying to set up rival projects. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • We should look beyond the end of our own noses and support what is right. The possibility that Wikimedia may not benefit from net neutrality should not prevent us from supporting it. Surely an open Internet is more important. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • You don't get an open internet by giving government censors more power. As Reuters points out, "The FCC ... has introduced a so-called 'general conduct' provision in the latest version of the rules ... In the general conduct provision, the FCC will say that Internet providers’ actions cannot be harmful to consumers or content providers ... "A 'general conduct rule,' applied on a case-by-case basis with the only touchstone being whether a given practice 'harms' consumers or edge providers, may lead to years of expensive litigation to determine the meaning of 'harm' (for those who can afford to engage in it)," the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a net neutrality advocate, said in a filing submitted on Thursday."' --Guy Macon (talk) 14:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Net neutrality is key to the interest of the global free knowledge movement of which we're a part - Wikipedia's birth would never have been possible without it, and we'd be foolish to forget that.--Pharos (talk) 21:04, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • With that statement made—which is exactly the opposite of what existed—I don't think the US Net Neutrality law is what you think it is. The free market has driven the internet in America since the inception of the net. Why would you want to give the government more control now when nothing is broken? GenQuest "Talk to Me" 19:18, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Then start a PAC or other advocacy group and lobby for it that way. Using an organization that has in the past benefited from the lack of Net Neutrality around the world to lobby for Net Neutrality in the United States is a bad idea. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Whether it's the problematic grammar or the confusing line of thought, I don't understand your point. I'm not trying to be argumentative – I honestly don't understand it. Care to clarify? -- Fuzheado | Talk 19:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • For whatever it's worth, former WMF General Counsel Mike Godwin has in the past defended zero-rating alongside net neutrality. For lack of a better summary, it's an important nuance. I haven't asked him lately, but at any rate, even if you do think W0 and net neutrality are at odds, W0 is done with, so this shouldn't be a concern. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - This is an important enough issue not just in the US, but globally, and one where the community should have a voice of conscience. The modest proposal is not an extreme one like the SOPA blackout – it is a nondisruptive awareness campaign to highlight a troubling trend that could affect more than just daily traffic to Wikimedia projects but everything from multimedia uploads to bulk data contributions to GLAM collaboration – all the types of things have gotten Wikimedia to where we are today. -- Fuzheado | Talk 19:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Richard0612 19:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Also show to users with IPs from Canada and Mexico, as some ISPs near the borders serve both sides. Lojbanist remove cattle from stage 19:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:39, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Megs (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Extremely strong oppose. Wikipedia should not take stands on political issues. SOPA was arguably an existential threat; this is not. --Trovatore (talk) 20:03, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    All existential threats were once non-existential. Should we fold our arms until when we are aimed directly then we start running non-dismmisable banners across all WMF projects indefinitely?... –Ammarpad (talk) 20:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    We should not be involved in politics, period. Even the SOPA thing I have come to see, in retrospect, as a mistake. --Trovatore (talk) 20:35, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as coauthor. I've been researching this one and may have lots of further comment. -- econterms (talk) 20:05, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - Free knowledge depends on an environment that does not privilege large commercial websites.--Pharos (talk) 20:14, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We can't keep running political ads so frequently. The primary objective of this website is to provide a free encyclopedia, and the frequency of CentralNotice use is becoming very disruptive. (Also, the summary above re the US Senate vote is misleading. Passing the Senate alone will not determine the repeal, and the bill does nothing without the approval of the House and the President.) --Yair rand (talk) 20:29, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The last time we took a comparable action was over 6 years ago. True, it does not feel very long ago to those who were heavily involved at the time, but this is hardly a frequent occurrence.--Pharos (talk) 20:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    It has been 56 days since we had a CentralNotice pushing political action on the Turkish Wikipedia block. --Yair rand (talk) 20:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The Internet is not broken, and does not need to be "fixed" by giving the US government more control over the internet. The recently repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules adopted a vague but sweeping "general conduct" standard that gave the FCC the power to crack down on perceived bad behavior by internet providers without providing clear guidance about what would trigger enforcement. Wikipedia was built on internet freedom, not government regulations. Please at least try to read and understand the reasons who so many people oppose this: [3][4][5][6] --Guy Macon (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    • @Guy Macon: I actually wrote a large comment below that explains that the net neutrality rules were not just enacted in 2015. The FCC simply codified what they had been doing for twenty plus years. The Trump FCC's repeal was not simply a rollback of the Obama FCC's rules; it also took away other things as well, such as the FCC's ability to enforce anything. epicgenius (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
      • You are wrong. From our article on Net neutrality; "U.S In April 2015, the FCC issued its Open Internet Order, which reclassified Internet access - previously classified as an information service - as a common carrier telecommunications service; i.e. a public utility. But on December 14, 2017, the Commission, which was led by Chairman Ajit Pai, voted to partially repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order, classifying Internet access once again as an information service." At no time in the previous twenty plus years did the FCC classify ISPs as common carrier telecommunications services / public utilities. Prior to 2015 the FCC always classified ISPs as information services, and all regulation was done according to the rules for regulating information services. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:12, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
        • Look, I'm not going to argue with you, because obviously we have different opinions. However, your rebuttal is a straw man argument, because Title II wasn't my argument; the FCC's net neutrality enforcement was. Look at Net neutrality in the United States#FCC attempts at enforcing net neutrality (2005–2010). The FCC did try to enforce net neutrality (anti-throttling) against Comcast, and this is where it got them. Title II was a result of Verizon's similar suit against the FCC, which ended up in a dispute over whether the FCC had the power to keep enforcing its regulations. Title II only reclassified the ISPs so the FCC could continue to enforce these laws. Nothing happened to the enforcement process itself until Ajit Pai stepped in. The 2017 rollback took away the FCC's ability altogether to enforce these statutes; whereas before 2015, the FCC could still enforce the statutes against ISPs. All of this is according to the Net Neutrality in the US article. epicgenius (talk) 18:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support: The Internet is not broken, and we should state that we are in favor of keeping it that way. And this proposal is not similar to the previous one at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_147#Net_neutrality that asked people for overt political action; this one just encourages support for the principal. Dicklyon (talk) 20:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    @Dicklyon: There's a huge red button saying "Take action" linking to a page asking for "your support" and "your voice" to preserve Net Neutrality, as well as linking to a tool for contacting members of congress by phone, email, and Twitter. I think that counts as "asking for overt political action". --Yair rand (talk) 21:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support --denny vrandečić (talk) 20:52, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - net neutrality regulation is a partisan issue, with the left arguing that regulation is necessary and the right arguing that the same state of affairs can be achieved without regulation and that unnecessary regulation in this area is more harmful than good. I personally think that regulation is good here, but we aren't the internet wing of the Democratic party and I don't think we should be taking a side on this American political issue. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • No partisan issue is supported by all of one side and opposed by all of the other. My point is that this is a political issue and we shouldn't be involved. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Ajraddatz: It actually isn't as clear cut as "the left supports net neutrality and the right opposes it". Some Democrats have voted against net neutrality legislation in the past. Conversely many Republican citizens support such an action. I elaborated on this point in a comment below. epicgenius (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Of course. As I said, partisan issues are rarely support entirely by one side and opposed entirely by the other, especially in the American political system which is characterized by weak party discipline compared with parliamentary systems. But from what I can see, there is a clear Democratic position and a clear Republican position here, and I don't think we should be involved. Political matters are for the politicians. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:05, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Is there an actual problem here that needs to be fixed. I don't support extending governmental power over the private sector (citizenry) without some clear specific justification based upon a serious detrimental problem (not theoretical musing) and a clear specific belief that regulation will bring improvements. This is really fear of monopolistic control that must be "regulated" by the government, when monopolies really inspire competition which brings about more choices and better results than regulation. This is a political issue and WP should take no position. MB 21:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I would agree with you generally, but this is clearly a special situation. Scrapping net neutrality wouldn't encourage new ISP's to start up because the costs of starting a new network are simply too high. Removing it wouldn't have any affect on potential new competitors, just allow the existing duopoly to charge more for the same service. I doubt that anyone is sitting around wanting to start a new internet service but just can't because of net neutrality. It is a political issue, but we have a duty to do what we can to ensure Wikipedia continues to be a valuable resource into the future. --Blervis (talk) 21:58, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Support If we are going to take a historic stand for something which is likely to get media coverage then at least we need to assess what we have and what we are doing. I appreciate this RfC and I want to support this project but I think we should plan this a little better. Here are some things which I would want to see done:
    • Develop the right external partnerships
      • Someone needs to initiate on-wiki conversation with partners and get them to post to Wiki. A prerequisite for a Wikimedia partnership is that organizations should either have an on-wiki presence or a wiki community project here which is capable of two way communication. If they want a wiki call out then maybe someone can ask them if they can bring expert review and community engagement to wiki.
      • The proposal promotes Battle for the Net and Public Knowledge, a non-notable organization and an organization with a wiki page which probably would not pass AfD. It is not helpful to the Wikipedia community to associate with fringe organizations for which readers cannot get information on Wikipedia.
      • Wikipedia is the single most single most consulted source of information about net neutrality. These organizations have a communication strategy which does not include bringing expertise to Wikipedia, and they are making a mistake by not directing their staff to promote the development of the Wikipedia articles. I know these are small organizations but they are still funded, and there is nothing that they could do to better achieve their communication goals than give attention to wiki. If they develop wiki articles then they should claim wiki's audience to their funders, who almost certainly already require them to report impact and reach. Someone needs to tell them and they need to respond.
      • Battle for the Net organizes community events which they do not document. They should catalog their images and photos and get them into Wikimedia Commons. Unfortunately the many dozens of public demonstrations which they organize typically are not leaving behind a media record.
    • Develop the Wikipedia articles:
      • "Net neutrality" is in poor shape. For the amount of attention this article gets (it is high traffic by Wikipedia standards) I am a little embarrassed that so many people read it without it being well developed. Can we confirm that the wiki community wants this article to get media attention? It is intimidating for many editing to review high traffic complicated topics like this and I have doubts that we should showcase it without a cleanup effort.
      • We need to sort out {{Net neutrality}} and the articles in it. These are not good articles to promote on the world stage when we are asking for scrutiny and engagement
    • Have a community discussion about the circumstances under which we will endorse other organizations' work
I want to support this proposal. I would change my "oppose" to "support" if asked, but I wish that we could be thoughtful about the problems with this and plan to collect whatever resources we can to make this work. I do not want to set a high standard for what we need to begin an awareness campaign. However, I think that Wikipedia should have a minimal standard, however we define it, and I think that what I am proposing above about making an effort to improve wiki content and to consider our relationship to and the notability of partners when calling their names is reasonable.
Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:32, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm on board for improving Net neutrality and related articles. Will work on this soon. I do not think people in other orgs have an obligation to participate on our platform, but your arguments are significant and I'm processing them. -- econterms (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
I agree with most of what you are saying, but the time to act on this issue is limited. We can work towards improving what you mentioned, but if we don't act on the current situation now, any future efforts may be in vain. I also don't think this is a partnership with any of the above mentioned groups, we simply share the same goal. --Blervis (talk) 21:58, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
@Blervis and Econterms: How would you feel about removing mention of or links to other organizations? I would support this without the inactive partners, and if the wiki community came up with a few people to spend a few hours to revise the articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:00, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Hi @Bluerasberry: Re. the links to Fight for the Future and Public Knowledge, those can be removed - they're there simply as supplemental readings and are minor points in the proposal. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 02:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
@SuperHamster: I changed to support if the non-wiki partner organizations are removed. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
@SuperHamster, Econterms, and Blervis: I did a little article cleanup this morning as described at Talk:Net_neutrality#Split_of_content_to_Net_neutrality_by_country. I hope that what I did improves the article's readability, advances its development, and prepares it for any future education effort. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:52, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Last month, I noted that this was political, and shouldn't be broadcast through the entire encyclopedia. I like this pared-down version: it's significantly clearer, even if the technical issues involved are somewhat murky to this layman. However, the Wikimedia Foundation has already spoken about this, and no matter how much I agree with net neutrality, I cannot, in good conscience, support this proposal. Quite simply, it's a political issue, and there are other fora for issues of a political nature, including message boards, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, calling your Senators and leaving polite messages with the aides and staff, &c., &c., ad infinitum. So, the long and the short of it: again, no, it's too political. — Javert2113 (talk) 21:38, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Addendum: I agree with Blue Rasberry; I'd love to support this, but it seems slightly unorganized. If we do go about this (that is, if this proposal passes), we cannot do so haphazardly, and that means planning (dun dun dun); and while I have some minor quibbles with Blue's notes, by and large, he's not wrong, though I do balk at the mention of a Wikipedia community endorsement (at least, that's how this editor understood it). One thing I'd like to emphasize, if I may, is his final point: community and collaboration. At all times, we must strive for consensus, even if we don't all agree. — Javert2113 (talk) 21:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Erratum: Not "last month", but, rather, in late March. See the below challenge to validity from Guy Macon. — Javert2113 (talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 22:58, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I think it's okay for us to occasionally take targeted action against particularly egregious threats to the site. SOPA/PIPA were good examples. Process-wise, this is a significantly different proposal, so I am okay with it, although admittedly this is a bit soon after that one (and a bit down to the wire). More substantively, and I can say this at meta as well, but "We are asking for your support" in a banner looks awful similar to asking for a donation. I would worry many folks would dismiss it without clicking, even though it's not December. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Ian.thomson (talk) 21:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I didn't join Wikipedia to be a party to politics, and not every Wikipedia editor is either for/against Net neutrality. Adding this disenfranchises many people for that reason. For me personally, I have no interest in participating here if Wikipedia gets involved in ANY political issue. We are supposed to be here to build an encyclopedia, not champion a political cause, any political cause. This constant RFC after RFC is akin to shaking the magic 8 ball until it gives you the answer you want, and frankly, seems to be a form of bludgeoning the point. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:01, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Javert2113 and Dennis Brown and this is a political issue and feel there other fora are better for this.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 22:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Wikipedia should not meddle in political issues, not only because many editors are not here for this but also because of the unwanted attention this kind of stance is likely to generate. Building an encyclopedia has nothing to do with that. José Luiz talk 22:25, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – It is tempting to use Wikipedia as a means to promote public policy. However, I would advise extreme caution whenever we consider doing it. There is a very good reason why we don't normally get involved in politics, and that is because it is also part of our mission to provide a neutral resource where readers can find out more about a topic without getting the feeling that someone is trying to sway their views in a particular direction. It is our goal to create a place where readers can decide for themselves what they should believe based on a neutral description of what reliable sources have said. The moment our editorial community forms a consensus to take a stance on a political topic, we are betraying that mission by admitting that we have a conflict of interest with respect to some political topics, so we better be certain that if we don't take the stance, Wikipedia's ability to function will be fatally compromised. That, in my view, is the cost of taking political stances for Wikipedia, and I'm not sure enough evidence has been presented thus far to justify that cost for this issue. Mz7 (talk) 22:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support If we're not prepared to lend exposure to issues that threaten it, we can't claim to be working for free knowledge available to all. — OwenBlacker (talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 22:39, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
    • @OwenBlacker: On what basis do you assume that giving the US Government increased control over the Internet in some vague way "working for free knowledge available to all"? And why the US government? Why not the EU? The Internet is not broken and does not need fixing, and Wikipedia was built on internet freedom, not government regulations. The recently repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules adopted a vague but sweeping "general conduct" standard that gave the FCC the power to crack down on perceived bad behavior by internet providers and web site owners without providing any real details about what would trigger enforcement. How is this good for Wikipedia? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:57, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Net neutrality does not give "increased control over the Internet", no matter how many times you repeat it. If you oppose any law whatsoever that might help the weak, that's fine, but let's not get ridiculous. --Nemo 20:01, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Fuck yeah. Net neutrality is 100% in alignment with Wikipedia's core mission. The only reason not to do this would be if the Foundation say it jeopardises 501(c)(3) status. Guy (Help!) 22:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment on the false dichotomy underlying statements like "Wikipedia shouldn't get involved with politics" or "Wikipedia shouldn't be political" - The question should be whether this is something that furthers the mission of Wikipedia or is otherwise in the best interests of the people involved with writing/reading Wikipedia. Wikipedia is political, and not just because of this kind of initiative. An encyclopedia that anyone can edit is political, the way we use sources and define which sources are reliable is political, how we understand neutrality is political, the decision to cover a subject one way rather than another is political, not running ads on the site is political, having as part of our mission being accessible to everyone is political, not privileging academic credentials is political, our consensus-building processes are political... it's just that these politics are not, for parts of the world most participants here live in, nicely split along partisan lines in contemporary discourse. For many other parts of the world, however, these things we take for granted are explicitly political in a similar sense. Climate change has been politicized in the United States, too, and we have dealt with that in a way that really bugs one side because we determined that doing so is in accordance with Wikipedia's principles/mission/purpose, not because we decided to get political. This is likewise not a decision of whether to "get political." We are already political. The question isn't whether this is relevant to American politics, but whether this is or is not something that matters for Wikipedia's principles/purpose. Oppose if you decide that it is not, oppose if you think net neutrality isn't all that meaningful or if you think this particular aspect of net neutrality isn't something that matters for Wikipedia, oppose if you don't think we should have messages outside of articles that don't themselves follow Wikipedia content policies, oppose if you think our article needs to improve first, but don't oppose "because politics." It's just more nuanced than that. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Exactly! "Everything is political", and that's fine. Not posting this banner is a political decision. Thus, I agree that !opposing this because "it's political" is invalid. Davey2116 (talk) 18:34, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
    • No, it really really isn't. We shouldn't be taking political stands as an encyclopedia. Period. --Trovatore (talk) 23:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm fine with disagreement but this doesn't address at all any of Rhododendrites' thoughtful remarks, it just says "uh-uh". In many parts of the world, the encyclopedia's very existence is a political stand. We are a neutral encyclopedia but we don't exist in a neutral world, unfortunately. Gamaliel (talk) 23:25, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
        • Rhododentrites instructed me not to oppose the initiative because it's political, but I do oppose it because it's political. It really is just that simple. We should not be taking political stands as an encyclopedia. As for the existence being a political stand, I'm sorry, I think that's nonsense. --Trovatore (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
          • Agreed. In fact, the attitude expressed above "... Wikipedia is political..." is part of the problem, because such bias constantly and consistently finds it's way into articles, and must be regularly fought against. Wikipedia can't even keep it's own entries neutral, why then should it try to take on the internet? GenQuest "Talk to Me" 14:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
            • such bias - what bias are you talking about? The idea that Wikipedia is political is a bias? It's naive/simplistic to think there's some "politics" bogeyman that has infested our encyclopedia that can/should be contained before it dashes some objectivist fantasy about platonic apolitical truths. My point wasn't just about articles, but articles as part of the larger Wikipedian enterprise -- its own qualities and the world it exists in. You have extracted the words "Wikipedia is political" from what I wrote, but responded to those words as though I used them in the way I was arguing against. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I read the first of the four articles linked above by Guy Macon — the debate between Yoo and Wu. While I personally think the Yoo's arguments were more compelling, This discussion is not (or should not be) a simple vote on whether, on balance, regulation and supportive net neutrality is a good idea. In my opinion, there are some decent arguments on both sides, and as is almost always the case when considering a regulatory proposal the devil is in the details. Delivering a banner in support of net neutrality is not simply a statement that a majority of Wikipedia editors support the concept, but that the support is so overwhelming that we feel it is appropriate to make that statement in the voice of Wikipedia (as was the case with SOPA). I don't think that's remotely the case. On page 577 of the linked article, Yoo makes a similar point:

At this point, it is impossible to foresee which architecture will ultimately represent the best approach. When it is impossible to tell whether a practice would promote or hinder competition, the accepted policy response is to permit the practice to go forward until actual harm to consumers can be proven. This restraint provides the room for experimentation upon which normal competitive processes depend. It also shows appropriate humility about our ability to predict the technological future

--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:55, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't think that Wikipedia should be involved in any kind of activism, period. It isn't clear that Net Neutrality is going to have any detriment on Wikipedia's goals or functionality, and we should not get involved. This RfC is also too soon after the last one. The proposal is in violation of Wikipedia's core concept of conveying information from a neutral pint of view; picture the proposed banner at the top of the Net neutrality page. Does anyone accept that as being NPOV? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 23:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongest oppose possible as a US citizen without resorting to armed rebellion Not that I dont support net neutrality, and I am taking steps to protect it, its the 2018 mid terms and I have plans to vote against my current representatives due to their ambivalence regarding the issue. Keep politics off Wikipedia. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 00:20, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
I would like to clarify that unlike GM I support Net Neutrality as the only way to save us from the whims of for-profit ISPs, but this is the en.wiki not the US.wiki, something our Tommy editor friends love to remind us. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 01:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
@L3X1: To clarify, the proposal is for a banner that will only be shown to US viewers, unless I'm misunderstanding your point. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
...which is yet another reason for opposing the idea. The resulting increased US government control over the Internet will affect pretty much all English-speaking countries. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:12, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Wintonc7 (talk) 00:44, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Stop trying to involve wikipedia in politics. Natureium (talk) 00:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Wikipedia should remain non-partisan and non-political. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 01:00, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong support. I'm baffled by the folks above saying that net neutrality wouldn't affect Wikipedia. As for involving Wikipedia in politics, the existence of Wikipedia itself is political. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:02, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm going to flat contradict you on that. The existence of Wikipedia is not political. --Trovatore (talk) 01:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
      • And you likewise. Everything is political. We aren't above that. Our licensing, our mission, our assessment of sources, protection of individuals by our BLP policies, the concept of neutrality itself, where we are hosted, where we can't be hosted. All of it is political. We're kidding ourselves by denying that. Seddon talk 03:04, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
        • This is rapidly becoming a very silly argument about definitions. Perhaps we could say that Wikipedia is not about advocating, implementing, or influencing government policy, hm? These things can be tangentially related to our goals under certain circumstances, but participating in activism related to these topics can be problematic. Our differing definitions of "political" do not change that. --Yair rand (talk) 04:10, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
            • In my view there is only a single political question: How, if at all, should the state's monopoly on the use of force be used? Net neutrality is a position on that question. It says that the state should use its monopoly on the use of force to prevent certain economic transactions, by players deemed to have market power, to prevent certain results deemed undesirable.
              The existence of Wikipedia, per se, takes no position on how the state's monopoly should be used.
              Now, it is true that some people have a more expansive notion of "political" than I do. They're entitled to that view. As Yair rand says, we can still formulate the view that Wikipedia should not take political positions in a narrower sense. --Trovatore (talk) 04:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
        • Freedom of speech and open access licensing are political in a sense, but they are far from partisan politics. Net neutrality is similar. I believe this is the kind of policy that is directly tied to Wikipedia's core values, and that we should feel proud to share our views on in a public way once every few years.--Pharos (talk) 04:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Just as I opposed the SOPA/PIPA blackout years ago, Wikipedia must remain above the politics of any one (or group of) country. Courcelles (talk) 01:10, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Guy Macon. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 01:12, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: We are here to build an encyclopedia, and nothing else. That mission is better served by maintaining our impartial image than picking fights. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:20, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Mozucat (talk) 02:49, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose while it's tempting to say that Wikipedia shouldn't take political positions, I feel that's largely unrealistic. However, I don't support this proposal, which seems to be unilaterally encouraging people to contact their senators about a bill that is unlikely to be signed by Trump. It is too low-impact to justify a promo of this sort, which must remain rare. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I would disagree, it is only a few votes away in the senate, and if it were to pass there, attitudes throughout Washington would be changed. It already has significant popular support, and a "Yes" vote in the senate could signal that. Ultimately our support or lack thereof may prove the deciding factor. -Blervis (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
We are not the WMF. We are the English Wikipedia community. We can, and sometimes do, disagree with the Foundation with regards to what best serves our shared mission. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support -- the Australia Fair Use campaign demonstrates that these targeted communications activities, act as a way to communicate to a very focused audience the importance of an open public forum/environment for making Wikipedia work. Wikipedia is political, in that it radically challenges a number of assumptions about knowledge: one of them, "what is the purpose of the internet". Like SOPA/PIPA, net neutrality is an important pre-requisite for our mission -- and its appropriate for our communities in the United States to support it, when it becomes a political issue. Sadads (talk) 12:33, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
So let me get this straight. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a controversial effort to increase the power of the United States government to control and censor the Internet (including the Internet in Australia), so you opposed it, and Net Nuetrality is a controversial effort to increase the power of the United States government to control and censor the Internet (including the Internet in Australia), so you... support it?
  • Support - while I'm generally adverse to slippery slope arguments, it certainly is easier to ensure net neutrality now rather than risk something being problematic in the future (whether related to usage speeds or an alternate area of governmental action regarding net usage). Regarding certain discussion points arguing a futile action due to X & Y, a campaign can influence people other than US senators, so there is benefit to be gained in more than one frontline.
Purely out of interest, does the WMF have an opinion on individual wikis campaigning in this fashion? Nosebagbear (talk) 14:11, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
From The Fear-Based Campaign to Control the Net:
"Unfortunately, as the internet has taken on an ever more central role in our personal and economic lives, the temptation to seize control apparently became too much for the FCC. The political left is invested in the narrative of internet service providers as privacy-violating boogeymen—and the FCC as a heroic digital guardian—not because there is any evidence to support the position but as a means to exercise more control."
From Here’s why the Obama FCC Internet regulations don’t protect net neutrality:
"The FCC staff did their best with what they were given but the resulting Order was aimed at political symbolism and acquiring jurisdiction to regulate the Internet, not meaningful 'net neutrality' protections. [...] Aside from some religious ISPs, ISPs don’t want to filter Internet content. But the Obama FCC, via the 'net neutrality' rules, gives them a new incentive: the Order deregulates ISPs that filter."
--Guy Macon (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
To ensure we can keep writing this encyclopedia and to ensure people can keep reading it. Seddon talk 13:51, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
And giving the US government more power and control over the Internet accomplishes this ... how? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia was getting along just fine before the net neutrality law went into effect, and seems to be getting along just fine since the expiration of it. I don't understand where this nebulous 'ensurance' of which you speak comes from. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 14:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
The only reason net neutrality even had to become a law was because of Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission (2014). Beforehand, the FCC could enforce net neutrality statutes without it specifically being a law, but the lawsuit made it so the FCC might not be able to enforce the statutes anymore. The law just formalized this enforcement. The repeal of the net neutrality law does not allow the FCC to enforce the statutes anymore, not even informally. Therefore, your comparison of pre-2015 and now is incorrect. epicgenius (talk) 18:31, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
What statutes? There were no statutes. Lumbering, idiotic bureaucracy maybe, but no statutes. And the free market is working/will work just fine without further US government or FCC control of the internet. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 19:31, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
OK, let's say there were no net neutrality statutes that restricted ISPs prior to 2015. I'd expect that if I were an ISP and I had no regulations, I'd be pretty happy. Yet that's clearly not the case: the ISPs kept suing the FCC up through 2015 (e.g. Comcast Corp. v. FCC, 2010), so there's gotta be something must have had pissed off these ISPs. Anyhow, it's not as if the FCC sat back while the big ISPs were all well behaved companies who voluntarily enforced net neutrality. Case in point, in 2005, Madison River had to pay the FCC a fine because it blocked VOIP communications through certain providers - clearly a violation of net neutrality standards. Therefore, it's incorrect that the FCC didn't have net neutrality before 2015, or that it never enforced net neutrality prior to that date.
As for the free market in action, the internet is not like the healthcare or energy sectors where you have a wide range to choose from. The market of ISPs right now, is composed of a half dozen huge ISPs and a smattering of comparatively tiny ISPs. There are smaller ISPs in TN and NC who were prohibited from expanding their services because they would have competed against bigger ISPs. As far as I'm aware, these bans are still in place. If these small ISPs can't compete, then obviously the market is not "free".
TL;DR - Obviously this isn't relevant to the original discussion about whether the banner about net neutrality is appropriate. But if you're going to argue in favor of deregulation, at least get the facts in order. I'm not trying to convince you that the FCC regulation is going to be the cure-all to net neutrality, or that it's even the correct step. I'm simply refuting the misconceptions. epicgenius (talk) 21:00, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
You've made my point. Because there are very few examples of ISPs behaving badly in the past. But, with business being business, sometimes lawsuits ensue and sometimes government has to get involved. Let's take your Verizon example. When Verizon started their throttling shenanigans, the free market actually worked as it was supposed to. That behavior drove subscribers to their (often) much smaller competitors, and actually strengthened the marketplace. Saying ISPs won't be able to compete is simple fear-mongering which can be found on any progressive website out there. Doesn't make it so. News Flash: the internet isn't broken. It's working just fine. No need to man the life boats.
Back when I had my small business, if the big guys did something stupid, I capitalized on that and gained business. It's how competition works. The same thing happened to Verizon. They lost customers and eventually reversed their badly thought-out decisions. Things worked out, in a free market. I for one really, really don't want the US government to have any more bureaucratic control over our internet.
There is also no need for an unnecessary, non-neutral, devisive, controversial-at-best banner placed anywhere around an encyclopedia which touts its neutral voice. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 16:57, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
I concede that you are correct that the free market worked in the particular case of Verizon. I myself am a supporter of small business: my family are small business owners, and we don't want to get crushed by the big businesses. The concept of net neutrality is the same thing. Net neutrality forces ISPs to treat small businesses' traffic the same way as big businesses', regardless of whether the ISP is a multinational corporation or a small outlet like the local public library.
When you say I for one really, really don't want the US government to have any more bureaucratic control over our internet, that is a laissez-faire approach, not necessarily a free market. A free market allows companies to thrive, even with some regulation, while the laissez-faire approach is a lack of any meaningful intervention by the government.
Now the problem here is that, with the laissez-faire approach, larger companies can snuff out smaller competitors, which is the opposite of a free market. There are still state laws that prohibit small ISPs or municipal ISPs from expanding, which actually prevents a free market from happening. Even if a small outlet like Greenlight wanted to expand, they couldn't, because it would be illegal. The larger ISPs are usually the only choices available to most of the population in these states, as I mentioned. Net neutrality makes the playing field easy for everyone from the start; you still have a free market, but the big ISPs aren't just going to be allowed to bully smaller ISPs. Net neutrality includes the concept that if you wanted to create your own ISP, the big ISPs would not be able to block your traffic - which is good for free market competition.
TL;DR: Wikimedia is not being non-neutral by advocating for a neutral position. A laissez-faire approach is not necessarily the same as a free market; the free market will still exist with net neutrality. epicgenius (talk) 14:14, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. There seems to be too much focus among respondents on the goals of net neutrality and not the specific effects. I did research over the net neutrality debate for a speech class not particularly long ago, and I confess not being impressed by what I read. The ban on paid prioritization is pointless, as its effects already exist and are implemented without a paywall; instead it depends on the ability to purchase the relevant hardware. For example, it is relatively common for major websites to purchase dedicated servers at ISPs to expedite the speed at which they are processed. This website does a good job of explaining the details. Proposed net neutrality regulations fail to address this aspect of prioritization. The second issue raised, content blocking, is also not particularly important; I have only found one instance when an ISP used its status as an ISP to disrupt access to a website, and that's with Comcast throttling BitTorrent because the latter is extensively used to host copyright violations of movies. Wikipedia does a satisfactory job of policing copyright problems, and its popularity and humanitarian mission would make any attempt to throttle it deeply unpopular.
Consequently, I don't believe that Wikipedia is threatened by the issues purported by net neutrality supporters, and agree with TonyBallioni's statements that it could feasibly benefit from the regulations not existing. I will also argue that US regulatory agencies have histories of issuing absurd, impossible orders to enforce regulations, and that in this regard Wikipedia may actually be threatened by regulatory creep. I will also echo the sentiments expressed by numerous editors above: using Wikipedia to host a banner gives the impression that net neutrality is supposed by the Wikipedia community as a whole, and the controversy of this and previous RfCs clearly indicates that this is not the case. Furthermore, wading into activism for political issues undermines the project's appearance of being a neutral, independent source of information. Between the sacrifice of perceived neutrality and the lack of tangible benefits to the project, I must consider the promotion of net neutrality to be a net malus. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 14:11, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose: The entire discussion is turning into a political soapbox. While the Wikimedia Foundation can make political statements on behalf of itself, Wikipedia is a community project, and all of its decisions should reflect the consensus of its users and our core policies. In fact, a proliferation of support for net neutrality would actually place undue weight on the corresponding POV, as it will not equally promote counterarguments. Unlike SOPA, which was a much more clear-cut issue, Net neutrality is a more contentious issue, and in fact, the WMF had previously been involved in initiatives that blatantly violate its principles. ViperSnake151  Talk  17:12, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose for all the reasons mentioned above. Contact me for further information. Brian Everlasting (talk) 15:30, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong support There are plenty of times when one would be right to worry about "expansion of government power", but this is not one of them. Regulating industry for the purpose of protecting the citizens is a good thing for a government to do. (And, no, we can't trust the Free Market(TM) to save us when consumers have no choice among providers; nor is it all hypothetical: Comcast throttling BitTorrent — which blocked legitimate content as well as piracy — is only one example of ISP bad behavior [7].) I'm here to build an encyclopedia, but I'd like for people to be able to read that encyclopedia without Wikimedia having to slide cash under the table to Comcast and Verizon. And, frankly, in the current climate of the United States, wanting to build an encyclopedia — that is, holding education to be worthy and facts to be important — is itself a political act. XOR'easter (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
I assume your reference to Comcast-BitTorrent is partially directed at me, as I'm the one who mentioned it, so I should take the time to reply. I'm aware of the ACLU page, and in fact relied extensively on it in my research. But the other examples provided there aren't relevant, and I'll explain why:
  • AT&T's censoring of portions of the Eddie Vedder concert utilized the fact that AT&T was the official sponsor and sole provider of that concert. Their censoring actually made sense and was in my view justified, as the fact that they were a sponsor would have made it appear as though they were endorsing that political message when they weren't.
  • Verizon's discrimination against NARAL Pro-Choice America affected their text-messaging service, meaning that it involved their status as a cellular provider, not an ISP. Cell services are already regulated for this, and fall outside the scope of net neutrality anyway.
  • Telus is a Canadian ISP, so any regulations passed here don't seriously affect them.
The other claims you make have already been addressed elsewhere. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 20:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Expanding a little. tl:dr; The personal is political. "free knowledge is inherently radical"
Here's my reasoning. I'm a socially left (US left) leaning person living out the outskirts of a moderately sized urban center. Grew up rural. I'm more central (US central) when it comes to government, regulation, capitalism, etc.
I have two choices for my ISP. Both are large companies. Most folks, across the United States where this proposal will be most impactful, have an ISP like mine. ISPs, the large ones especially, can be considered government approved monopolies. Decades ago, taxpayers funded the initial cable to wire up the country. In exchange these companies are given exclusive status to prevent other companies from laying down their own wire. AT&T, as one of the oldest telecom companies in the country, just rents use of their wires to other ISPs, big and small.
I don't like the government sanctioning monopolies. That's a little libertarian sounding, I realize. If the government is going to do it though? They better regulate them. A government-sanctioned monopoly should follow the same restriction the government itself does for it's own utilities. That includes this kind of neutrality. I want companies like Comcast to have less power to coerce and distort the market. This is a complex, nuanced matter. While you might be against regulation in other areas, such as energy, or financial markets, or whatever - accepting this one actually works in our favor as a community, project, and movement. Ckoerner (talk) 18:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Question - Maybe I'm missing it, but what is the timeline for this discussion? If the event people would "take action" about is on the 9th, today is the 7th. Is there a plan for a specific point to stop discussion ans assess consensus about this? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:47, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Answer It doesn't have the votes here, desn't have the votes in congress[8], would likely be vetoed if it did have the votes, and would not accomplish what this RfC claims that it would accomplish.[9] --Guy Macon (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The question was not "Would someone be willing to restate their opinion, but with the word 'answer' in front of it?" Alternatively, someone quoted Inigo Montoya elsewhere in this thread in a way that seems relevant re: "answer". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I think these things normally run for 30 days or so? It would take a truly extraordinary consensus to justify accelerating the timeline to two or three days, just because of the timing of the vote in the Senate. I don't see that here; it's not clear there will be a consensus at all, but certainly there is no evidence of the sort of overwhelming consensus that could justify such a radical departure from our normal procedures. --Trovatore (talk) 20:55, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • An RfC typically runs for 30 days, yes. This is not technically an RfC, and I imagine that's intentional, given the time constraints. It would not be the first time we have had a discussion on a shorter timescale, but I do tend to agree that there should be a pretty clear consensus in such cases. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a platform for political statements supported by a majority of the few editors who happen to show up in a discussion on this page. That's regardless of the merits of the issues or how Wikipedia might be affected by them. We are Wikipedia editors, not political activists (although each of us is free to be a political activist off-wiki). In my view, this proposal should go the way of the proposal to show an anti-Trump statement before the U.S. presidential election. Furthermore, I think we should consider an explicit policy against using the encyclopedia as a platform for political statements. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:18, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as critical to Wikipedia's mission. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
    • So it is your position that a US government regulation that did not exist until 26 February 2015 and was repealed on 14 December 2017 (and pretty much not enforced during most of the 2 years, 9 months and 19 days it was on the books) is somehow "critical to Wikipedia's mission"? Critical?' In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."[10] --Guy Macon (talk) 20:13, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Net neutrality has de facto existed since the beginning of the internet. Net neutrality law is a more recent response to threats to the status quo that made a crazy project like Wikipedia possible, and you can disagree about any specific regulation, but the principle indeed remains critical to an open internet.--Pharos (talk) 20:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
      • My position is that net neutrality was in effect for pretty much the entire existence of the internet, until corporate interests decided to attack it, and now it needs defending. The principle was first enshrined into law/regulation in 2015, but it existed before. The issue is that the regulation/law has been since overturned to allow for violations of the principle. And yes, critical. Because otherwise a carrier may very well decide to have a surcharge for Wikipedia traffic, so they can send their subscribers to a Wikipedia mirror full of ads instead. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:36, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support: This issue affects Wikipedia and its users directly. It also has significant impacts for users who access the internet via smaller ISPs who are not affiliated with the major telecom companies. While in general WP needs to remain NPOV, it does not need to be silent on matters that relate to its core mission. Montanabw(talk) 20:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support shoy (reactions) 20:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose One of the pillars Wikipedia is built on is having a neutral POV. There are many other outlets that can voice opinions on Net Neutrality, however I do not feel that Wikipedia should be one of them with this message front and center as this proposal would be. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:50, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - let twitter and facebook do things like this. This feels too close to an ad or as Rick above says, a POV statement. I like WP because it is above politics or conflicts - it is a font of knowledge, nothing more. There ARE exceptions, mainly during the donation drive. But, this should not be an exception, imo. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ 20:54, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 20:58, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is an apolitical project, as much sympathy as I might have for this. The SOPA/PIPA blackout set a bad precedent that shouldn't be repeated. Mélencron (talk) 21:04, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose Net Neutrality is just a means to allow big content providers to dictate what gets distributed. Indyguy (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Am agnostic about NN, but I find the apocalyptic scenarios unpersuasive and often tinged by hysteria. Wikipedia's neutrality shouldn't be thrown away for such a hobby-horse. NPalgan2 (talk) 21:16, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's best for the WMF not to get involved in matters that can be perceived as being political issues. BillHPike (talk, contribs) 21:17, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • support--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong support - In the interest of being accessible to all, it would be remiss for Wikipedia to not get involved in issues of accessibility to the Internet. You can't be neutral on a moving train. Etzedek24 (Would it kill ya to leave an edit summary?) 21:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia isn't everything. It doesn't have to take a stance on a question external to Wikipedia. We shouldn't speak as a united voice because essential to our nature is objectivity. Bus stop (talk) 21:48, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Napplicable (talk) 21:54, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong Support Accessibility is extremely important. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 00:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong Support per User:Fuzheado. OhKayeSierra (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose While I am sympathetic to net neutrality, the debate about it is a partisan matter, and with extreme exceptions, Wikipedia should remain neutral and not involve itself in political affairs. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, while I'm opposed to the idea of Wiki(p|m)edia being involved in politics or activism in general, the exception is when something is a direct threat to our mission. A lack of net neutrality threatens efforts like Wikipedia, for not-for-profit entities to make information and knowledge freely available. In this case, then, we should speak in favor of net neutrality and against any type of preferred traffic being permissible. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: per NPalgan2. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:31, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - making knowledge freely accessible to everybody is the most political, the most power changing, act that anybody can do. And it is our mission. Making all internet content equally accessible is the only way we can accomplish our mission - otherwise we can be censored for "economic reasons", i.e we may not be profitable to ISPs. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above, I don't think it is appropriate for Wikipedia to be making political statements. And for the record, I do strongly support net neutrality. -FASTILY 03:05, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Complete and utter Oppose this is an encyclopaedia, not a political party, an activist group nor a debating society. Let us concentrate on the task of making the sum of human knowledge available and leave the politics out of it. No matter how much some of us feel that some political issue is important, it does not belong here. -Nick Thorne talk 07:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Very, Very Strong Support. Wikimedia's mission depends in part to net neutrality, so if they support it, this banner is fine. I don't get what all of the opposes are about. Are people being bought out by ISPs and big businesses? This is sarcastic, just so people don't take this last comment at face value.
    But in all seriousness, this isn't a political question. It's a question about whether ISPs can throttle access to sites like Wikipedia, thereby compromising its mission. And it's not really even a political question with that much opposition from the general public. Polls have shown that more than 80% of Americans do support net neutrality. epicgenius (talk) 11:12, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
This is certainly a political question because it boils down to an issue of free enterprise vs government regulation. ISPs provide services people want and if people want access to Wikimedia or anything else they will get it. As far as your 80% poll, I suggest that if that is true, it can be attributed to the benevolent-sounding name and ignorance. The US has supported spending on reducing poverty for over 50 years, but if you asked people if they would support "Spending $22 trillion with no improvement" [11] would they support that? How you ask the question is important. MB 12:37, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the wording is definitely important. But it doesn't change the concept of net neutrality which is to protect against unethical practices such as some content being prioritized over others. Here are some more surveys with different wording that support the idea that the vast majority of those who know about net neutrality support it. Net neutrality opponents argue that ISPs can self-police, but that's obviously not true. The truth is that without net neutrality, there is theoretically nothing to stop ISPs from burying Wikipedia links in favor of sponsored content, or even fake news stories. That really is against Wikipedia's mission.
In regards to being a political question, normally I'd agree that this would be a political dispute that should be kept off Wikipedia. However, net neutrality is an issue that directly affects this project. A banner is not even asking much. If net neutrality is such a politically charged situation, by that reasoning we shouldn't have had that huge anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA blackout six years ago. That was basically the same thing, except the entire project was inaccessible for 24 hours. A banner is not as obtrusive, it's simply asking to consider how Wikimedia projects would be like without net neutrality. epicgenius (talk) 13:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
I do not need the Federal government to protect me from unethical practices by ISPs. Government regulation really means transferring more power from the citizenry to the government. Since the government is far more corrupt than businesses which have to provide services people are willing to pay for in order to survive, it should be kept to a minimum as envisioned in the US Constitution. You have no idea what the would happen without "net neutrality" - your fears are purely theoretical. I happen to believe it will continue to get better at a faster rate with less regulation. MB 15:34, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
@MB: I don't agree with these points or think they make total sense, and I'm not trying to change your mind on this, but I'll just say my piece so others can understand my position: epicgenius (talk) 16:35, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
The rules reclassifying internet traffic under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 were codified in 2015; but before that, it had been a de facto assumption that the ISP would act ethically. The FCC did not need to explicitly say that the ISP had to act ethically; it simply enforced ethical standards. But in 2015 the FCC enacted the rules due to lawsuits from Verizon (Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 2014) and other ISPs that claimed the FCC was overreaching. Title II was the recourse because all the other methods of enforcement failed. The "net neutrality repeal" was not just a counteraction to the Title II classification; it also made it so that the FTC, not the FCC, was in charge of enforcing net neutrality standards. It just transfers enforcement from one government agency to another, but the FTC also doesn't have as much resources to enforce such rules.
As to your other points, they are political arguments so they are subjective. However, I will address them with factual evidence. To be fair, I may be a little biased because I did all of this research while writing the article on Net Neutrality (Last Week Tonight).
  • Regarding government is far more corrupt than businesses which have to provide services people are willing to pay for in order to survive - you are allowed to your opinion that the government is corrupt. But let's look at the facts: in large parts of the US, there is very limited choice in broadband providers. A 2010 study by broadband.gov showed that 96% of Americans have, at most, 2 providers to choose from. Here's another article from June 2017 which states that many people only have one high speed provider, or none at all.
  • You have no idea what the would happen without "net neutrality" - your fears are purely theoretical. - This is factually wrong. ISPs have blocked or slowed down access to competitors, promoted their own items, and even forced companies to paid for higher speeds. There are many examples of this. I think the most prominent is when Comcast slowed down Netflix speeds back in 2014 until Netflix agreed to pay a fee to Comcast.
  • I happen to believe it will continue to get better at a faster rate with less regulation. - Again, you are entitled to your opinion. Under normal circumstances, I would agree that if you leave the companies be, then they will be allowed to grow. But you are also missing an important point: the larger ISPs have successfully lobbied for laws that effectively shut out competition. In Wilson, NC, Greenlight tried to expand but they were blocked by a statewide restriction against municipal broadband - sponsored by private ISPs like Time Warner. And mind you, this restriction had bipartisan support. Same thing happened in Chattanooga, TN.
TL;DR - There are a lot of factors in play here. While the FCC's actions should technically be growth-inspiring and innovation-supporting, other actions at the state and federal level have made it so that this is essentially a monopolistic competition between a few large ISPs. I think everyone would agree that it would be better if a greater competition among ISPs was allowed, but this is unfortunately not the case right now. I would like to repeat that you are entitled to your opinion, MB. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I think there are many things to take into account here. epicgenius (talk) 16:35, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Addendum to previous comment: A lot of the political controversy boils down to "Obama/Democrats/liberals/the left likes net neutrality so therefore I hate it". This shouldn't be one side versus the other. In reality, there is nothing not neutral about something that literally has the word "neutrality" in its name. Some of the strong opposers are arguing that this Central Notice is not a neutral message. This is true to some extent, but for political reasons, not because the concept of net neutrality itself is wrong. However, as I have personally observed, this is based on a lot of mistaken thoughts or suppositions about what should be the case (i.e. political views about laissez faire market), and not a lot of what's actually the case (i.e. the difficulties that smaller competitors face in a non-neutral internet). This issue is more complex than what is being presented as face value. epicgenius (talk) 15:26, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Admittingly I'm divided between the 2 - On one hand Net Neutrality is important, On the other we're not a platform for political statements ..... Whilst I did support the whole SOPA/PIPA thing compared to 2012 social media is used a hell of a lot more now (and SOPA/PIPA was different) and as noted above we should remain neutral on this (Not everyone's going to agree with Net Neutrality),
In short if anyone agrees or disagrees with it then they're more than welcome to sign petitions and use social medias - I know the project is American and all that but in my eyes as I said we should remain neutral on this and this project should not be used for political things. –Davey2010Talk 13:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Hi Davey2010, I don't believe we've interacted before, but I have a curious question I hope you can help me with. You, and others in this conversation, have said, we're not a platform for political statements. I've always understood that the content of the Wikipedia project should be neutral, well cited, from reliable sources. Free from politics as it were. I think we all agree on that. :)
The confusion, and why I'm asking this question, is about the movement of people behind the projects. The work we do as a community is a political statement. We say, "Free knowledge for all". That is a rather radical statement to make (much less actually do) when you look at how, and by whom, knowledge was created and shared in the past. I think it's this last part we seem to have the most disagreement on as a community and particularly in this conversation. I would love to understand more why that is. From yourself and others if they're willing to humor me here or on my talk page. Yours, Ckoerner (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I support Net Neutrality, but we are not a political platform. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:32, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong Support Net neutrality is crucial to our goals in WP. SusunW (talk) 14:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Wikipedia should only take a political position in response to an existential threat. A very credible argument can be made that SOPA/PIPA rose to these levels, but I don't see the severity here. I'm happy to flip if the argument that net neutrality is an existential threat to WP can be made, but I haven't seen it made yet. Tazerdadog (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose Direct advocacy on a political matter is about the farthest you can get from maintaining neutrality. "Please do not add commentary, your own point of view, or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles", to quote {{uw-npov2}}. Go start a blog if you want to publicize your opinions about political matters, whether in your own country or another. Nyttend (talk) 22:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose Let's not get Wikipedia in the habit of advocating the progressive cause du jour. It's not going to convince anyone who isn't already sympathetic to the viewpoint, but it will alienate those who oppose it.—Chowbok ☠ 06:36, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I'm on this project to reduce walls between people and knowledge. Quiddity (talk) 06:37, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, mostly per Ajraddatz's remark. --Vogone (talk) 10:25, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose The Wikimedia Foundation should be less hypocritical. They spearheaded the anti-netneutrality Wikipedia Zero program knowing full well Facebook and Google would use it to justify their own Zero-rated programs. Refusing to entertain arguments that parts of the US have as much need for WP0 as existing deployments. Their actions speak louder than words and if this run it should rewritten to reflect their past actions ("Rules for thee, not me"). — Dispenser 11:24, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I've shown my support in the past for this, and still support it now. Esp. with something as low key as a geofenced banner. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:01, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I appreciate that editors feel strongly about this issue and share many of their concerns. But on Wikipedia the impartial credibility and integrity of this project should be our primary concern - advocacy activities should be a very rare exception reserved for imminent direct threats to Wikipedia's core mission. Also, some of the outlined speculative scenarios seem exaggerated or are still under discussion among experts. The net neutrality dispute, while serious and concerning, is not a direct imminent threat to Wikipedia. GermanJoe (talk) 12:25, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • strong support It is important that we speak up for this, as one of the only non-profits and public spaces on the internet that is *not* beholden to corporate interests, and thus as a project that can speak with authority on behalf of *users* of the internet -- not on behalf of companies trying to make a buck. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 12:46, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support This project is made possible by the free and open internet. 10Eleventeen 13:01, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, while Wikipedia should stay neutral on almost all everyday political topics, Internet regulation (or lack thereof) directly affects us, so we should take a stand and defend our position so we can continue to be neutral in the future. —Kusma (t·c) 14:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose we are not a political platform. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:22, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - is not in accord with the WP:Five pillars, specifically Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy. -- Netoholic @ 20:07, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Although I have rarely edited recently, I still frequently read articles, and I find CentralNotice and other banners to be very distracting. I also believe that this would constitute using Wikipedia as a soapbox, which I disagree with. Finally, the rules change is not nearly as disastrous as some people have indicated, as it is only restoring similar regulations to 2013, and Wikipedia had no difficulty existing then. Gluons12 ☢|☕ 17:30, 9 May 2018 (UTC).
  • Oppose Per Guy Macon and WP:NOT. Mr Ernie (talk) 00:29, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, and especially support identifying now, gradually over time (and not in response to any particular campaign), the areas of policy around copyright, the Internet, and other topics which are core to wikimedia's work and not generic advocacy. – SJ + 03:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. ℯxplicit 04:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support This proposal links readers to a relevant page where they can learn about an important ongoing political topic. I think that is by itself a benefit to our readers, and one that in my mind outweighs the nuisance of a banner (at least this one's somewhat unintrusive with the coloring). An additional benefit is that the Wikimedia Foundation has come out in favor of this position, meaning it would help inform readers about something the WMF thinks will be good for the encyclopedia (and the readers by extension). Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 06:57, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Andrevan@ 06:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While I favor net neutrality and dislike many of Ajit Pai's opinions (and his lame videos), WP is not the place for politics. Glrx (talk) 17:15, 11 May 2018 (UTC
  • Oppose Per Dennis Brown, TonyBallioni, Guy Macon, Ajraddatz, ICPH, Mandruss, Nyttend, and others, without prejudice to Net Neutrality. Granted, the WMF and most of its servers are based in the US, but all the encyclopedia users and contributors are in the clouds - and not only above the US but also throughout the whole world. Wikipedia encyclopedias should not be dominated by American politics - who or whatever the WMF is, Wikipedia is already a global thing. The only way political action of this kind would be tolerable would be if the WMF owned server farm and its connectivity were physically threatened by any US policy, in which case, along with the WMF corporate identity and staff, it would then have to relocate to a more traditionally neutral territory. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:30, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While I support net neutrality in terms of government policy, Wikipedia should stay out of partisan politics in view of our own policy of WP:NPOV. Sandstein 07:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • <Troll/sock comment removed and troll/sock blocked.> Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:56, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Very Strong Support Important issue not just to the U.S. but to Wikipedia as well. There are many benefits to doing this, and virtually no drawbacks. Davey2116 (talk) 18:15, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Commment there are very big drawbacks - offending volunteer editors who do not support increased government regulation of private activity. If you want to lobby for this policy, by all means go do so in any way to want to personally. But don't do so under WP's name which implicitly makes me a supporter. MB 19:17, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Your argument would be more convincing if the subject were something like tax or healthcare policy. But we're talking about net neutrality, which directly affects Wikipedia, so I think this banner is justified, as it was for SOPA/PIPA in 2012. Davey2116 (talk) 19:28, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
I agree net neutrality directly affects Wikipedia. However you think it is positive while I think the effect would negative - there will be unintended consequences and it will slow the rate of technological progress. I don't believe "Free knowledge depends on net neutrality" and don't want to forced to be part of the "we" that is asking for support. WP should not take any position.MB 19:45, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what "unintended consequences" you are referring to. Net neutrality has been the status-quo since the beginning of the Internet, and it has not been a hindrance to technological progress. If anything, covert 'bandwidth throttling' by ISPs (as has already been done by Comcast to BitTorrent, by AT&T to Apple, by Verizon to Netflix, etc.) would slow technological progress, and this is exactly the type of activity that net neutrality laws were formalized to prevent. Wikipedia would like to ensure that it does not become the next victim of such oligopolistic tactics; the reader should interpret "we" as the Wikipedia, not its entire base of editors. Davey2116 (talk) 22:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
The status-quo since the beginning of the internet has been Laissez-faire which allowed great technological progress. Net-neutrality is the opposite of that, putting the industry under the regulatory purview of the FCC which will have negative consequences as explained here. I have no fear that WP will become a "victim" of free-market capitalism but rather a benefactor. MB 22:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • How is that? Where would Wikipedia procure the funds necessary to gain access to the "speedy service" lane? I am 100% sure that Wikipedia will be hurt by the repeal of net neutrality; how many more $3 donations per year do you think there can be? Also, net neutrality has been the status quo (you can't argue with that fact) and the laws passed in 2015 only formalized those principles. Net neutrality and laissez-faire are not completely incompatible; net neutrality is not the abolition of the free market. On the contrary, net neutrality ensures a fair market, so that not too much power is concentrated at the hands of a few large ISPs. Your talking point is that the whole purpose of laissez-faire is competition, which drives innovation and efficiency; I completely agree with that, and I think repealing net neutrality hurts those goals by stifling such competition and allowing unfair business practices. (Further reading.) Davey2116 (talk) 01:38, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Davey2116: I agree with the gist of your argument. However, I don't think you should try to convince opponents to switch to "support". Most of the editors who post here with an opinion on net neutrality are set in their beliefs, and trying to convince them will result in the backfire effect. Regarding Also, net neutrality has been the status quo [...] net neutrality is not the abolition of the free market. I had actually mentioned a very similar thing in my comments above.
    (Side note: MB's comment about the pre-2015 Internet being laissez-faire is totally wrong. The FCC enforced net neutrality by filing lawsuits against violators such as Verizon. This is the opposite of what laissez-faire means, which is "leave things be and don't intervene".) epicgenius (talk) 23:54, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Even if the notice were implemented, it would have to include a prominent disclaimer similar to: This message is supported by 59% of 0.8% of the active editors of English Wikipedia. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:44, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think this disclaimer is necessary. The message is made on behalf of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, not its entire base of editors. Davey2116 (talk) 22:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't know how many causal readers are able to discern this. Any such banner should have a disclaimer.MB 22:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
1. WMF can advocate any position it wishes to advocate without using the encyclopedia as a delivery vehicle. 2. Wikipedia is its entire base of editors. Not the self-selected few. We will not make any statement on any political issue without making it crystal clear that it is the opinion of a minuscule fraction of the editing population, period. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:20, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not completely opposed to such a disclaimer; I was just going on the SOPA precedent, where the banner had no such disclaimer (so your claim that we always put a "crystal clear" disclaimer is categorically false). Also, as the Wikimedia Foundation owns Wikipedia, it can advocate any position using Wikipedia as the vehicle as it wishes (though doing so for any position other than those that directly concern Wikipedia (i.e., other than Internet law) would obviously damage its reputation). Davey2116 (talk) 01:38, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction. What I meant, which I thought was obvious enough, is that I will vigorously oppose any such use of the encyclopedia on the say-so of the self-selected few. It's patently wrong, but I can't force anybody to see that. Thankfully, it looks like I'll have plenty of self-selected company. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:50, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Okay. Don't get me wrong, I'm also annoyed that a (relatively) small group of people are 'deciding' for the whole of Wikipedia in this survey (especially since newcomers may find the village-pump very obscure). But this is the system we have, and we'd have to move mountains to change it. Davey2116 (talk) 03:51, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia has been built by volunteers from all walks of life and political alignments, and it never should be hijacked for a political campaign. --Pudeo (talk) 01:31, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia and politics should not mix. We have editors who support the governmental initiative, we have editors who oppose it, and we have editors who are neutral. We should--in this forum--be neutral. Editors should feel free to express their views any way they choose outside of Wikipedia. For Wikipedia to take a position would imply to the outside world that there is a voting system and a majority polling took place when really it could be just whatever a passing closing admin (or user) decided a conversation built as consensus from those who participate. We should avoid taking a position on issues like this as a matter of policy.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:15, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Paul McDonald, are you aware that Overwhelming Bipartisan Public Opposition to Repealing Net Neutrality Persists («Eighty-six percent oppose the repeal of net neutrality, including 82% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats)»? There is only one fringe extremist political position here, and it's the idea to repeal net neutrality. Not speaking against the repeal of net neutrality means, in fact, to acritically adopt a party line. To be neutral, Wikimedia needs to support net neutrality. Then, of course, one can say that there are different degrees at which we can support the bipartisan view. --Nemo 04:18, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
      • I disagree that "to be neutral, Wikimedia needs to support net neutr4ality." That's the opposite of "neutral" -- that's taking a position. And we shouldn't do that as a community.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:57, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose This seems very against the policy of being Here to build an encyclopedia, bordering even on WP:SOAP. Wikipedia is here to build an encyclopedia, not as a platform for points of view. [Username Needed] 08:43, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Saying that if one USA party adamantly opposes something then an issue automatically becomes partisan and all sides must be considered equal is bothsidesism. --Nemo 19:58, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, because even if Wikipedia was created at a time when the rules were dodgier, I believe that allowing ISPs to throttle back on certain services is laying the groundwork for future trouble for us. Also, the comments about us being apolitical are completely off the mark. Yes, we're a non-partisan resource, and we should continue to be. But we're not "neutral" in some abstract sense of the term; we have our definition of neutrality, based on presenting what reliable third-party sources say. The sources are literally all that matters; the views of political parties anywhere really don't matter a damn. So we write about climate change and Darwinian evolution as facts, we write most of our articles within a human rights framework (because that's what most scholars use), we're critical of the anti-GMO movement, critical of eugenics, etc, etc. A political party taking a stand on an issue is not a reason for us not to do so. Politicians can say what they like; this could threaten our mission, and that's all that matters. Vanamonde (talk) 06:26, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. We weren't always one of the top 5 websites in the world, and the only way we became that is because of effective net neutrality, because we would not have had the money to pay providers for speedy treatment. Same for most every other nonprofit, or startup, and especially nonprofit startup. --GRuban (talk) 20:38, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - What the proposer is actually asking is whether he can use Wikipedia to promote his own political viewpoint, and the answer to that ought to be a resounding NO! --Ykraps (talk) 05:18, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I agree. Even if a full audit was taken of all registered editors and active users that are not registered, and it could be validated, and exactly 100% of everyone supported the issue--if it were truly unanimous--Wikipedia should still remain neutral on all topics.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:17, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I have already !voted above, but I urge an immediate close as 1) there is clearly no consensus, and 2) the vote in the Senate has already happened, making this proposal as stated moot. Gluons12 ☢|☕ 14:04, 17 May 2018 (UTC).
The senate is not the only governing body that has to approve this. It still has to pass in the House and be signed by the president. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:03, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose This has no interest with Wikipedia. – TheGridExe (talk) 02:32, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I've read every comment, and after deliberating I strongly support this. This is beyond a political statement, it is about freedom and equal rights to access knowledge. If this is allowed to stay it is purely to maintain a manufactured social divide based on wealth and that is not why we are here. Mramoeba (talk) 13:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support Wikipedia depends on Net Neutrality. Allowing ISPs to pick and choose winners online is dangerous and should never happen. The Wikimedia Foundation clearly supports Net Neutrality. So why doesn't Wikipedia? Retroity (talk) 19:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- I have personal feelings about the issue, but, this issue doesn't matter in the slightest to my work here as a Wikipedian. We are here to build an encyclopedia. -- Dolotta (talk) 01:17, 20 May 2018 (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.

Discussion appears to have died down here too: time to close this. (non-admin closure) Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 04:50, 30 May 2018 (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.

I challenge the validity of this too-soon RfC

It has only been a month since the last time this proposal was rejected. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 147#Net neutrality. Editors should not be allowed to ask the same question over and over, hoping for a different result. This RfC should be closed and the proponent should be asked to wait at least a few months before asking again. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I am having trouble finding any meaningful difference between
Could we perhaps link to www.businessesfornetneutrality.com in a banner at the top of all pages?
...and...
Proposal: A US-only CentralNotice in support of Net Neutrality.
What makes them different? Is it the added US-only provision, or the slightly different wording in support on Net Neutrality? I didn't see any responses to the previous RfC that said "I would support it if the notice was US only" or "I would support it if you dropped the businessesfornetneutrality.com link". Generally, for a new RfC to be posted after a month, one would expect the new RfC to address some issue identified in the previous RfC. In my considered opinion, this is substantively the same proposal. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:30, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
I would support the banner which states: "Wikipedians are opposed to the advancement of government control over our internet!". Wikipedia, however, does not speak with one voice here. Let's get over it, and get back to writing an encyclopedia. Can someone close this waste of editor time and energy which will NEVER REACH CONSENSUS and is beating a dead horse? GenQuest "Talk to Me" 16:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia, however, does not speak with one voice here. Can someone close this waste of editor time? Pot, meet kettle. Just let the discussion play out first. Maybe there will be consensus for one side or the other, but no one will know unless the discussion runs its course. epicgenius (talk) 13:13, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment No matter what issue exists, on any topic at all, it is likely unwise for Wikipedia to take any stance on any issues based on "consensus of editors" on any Wikipedia page. The potential morass is vast. The gain is de minimis. And where iterated versions of such things get placed here on a monthly basis, the value of any "consensus" is Wertlos. Guy Macon is correct. Collect (talk) 19:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Of course it is too soon. Saying "Plenty of editors above disagree." is either disingenuous because you want your side to "win at any cost", or moronic. Bludgeoning the community until it grows weary of these discussions is not how you form a consensus. In the past it has been clear that a majority do not want to get involved in ANY politics. Saying the slightly different wording changes everything is bunk. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:06, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • While not technically against the rules, There is a strong appearance of a conflict of interest when the person who posted an RfC reverts a (at that time uninvolved) editor hatting it.[12][13]. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
You opposed the previous proposal so you weren't uninvolved Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
You are saying that the proposals are in fact the same thing? Natureium (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
I didn't say they were different anyhow; but presuming the proposals aren't the same, the proposals would still be on a similar enough topic that it'd be hard to call Guy Macon uninvolved Galobtter (pingó mió) 02:47, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
But whether or not I am involved because of my participation in another RfC, you do agree that the person who posted this RfC is involved, right? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:07, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
(...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 12:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

This would not accomplish what this RfC claims that it would accomplish

According to this legal analyses,
"The CRA would not undo the FCC’s decision to classify broadband internet access service as an information service. That classification decision was the result of an adjudication and is embodied in an order, not a 'rule' subject to the CRA. Nor would the CRA permit Congress to restore the net neutrality rules that the FCC eliminated in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.
Thus, the CRA joint resolutions of disapproval recently introduced in the Senate (S.J.Res.52) and House (H.J.Res.129) can neither return broadband Internet access service providers to Title II regulation nor restore prohibitions on blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. In fact, the result of an enacted CRA resolution in this case would be to disapprove the FCC’s transparency rule — the only substantive rule adopted in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order — and prevent the FCC from adopting substantially similar transparency requirements in the future. In short, the CRA resolution exercise represents nothing more than empty political theater rather than a serious legislative effort to preserve Internet openness."
Related: The Process for Using the Congressional Review Act to Protect Net Neutrality, Explained. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
So, a blog post written on a law firm's website, by a lawyer that represents communications companies against the FCC. Always nice to grab extra attention with a new subsection for such things.. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:10, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
(Snark ignored.) Actually, it was published on Law360. As a convenience to the reader I searched out a non-paywall version.
Do you have a source that disputes the sourced claim that the CRA allows review and possible overruling of new federal regulations issued by government agencies and does not allow the overruling of a repeal of an old regulation as a result of an adjudication?
Do you have a single example of the CRA being used to force an agency to adopt a rule as opposed to disapproving a rule? See Congressional Review Act. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:14, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
(Psst...saying something is ignored is the opposite of ignoring it.) ―Mandruss ☎ 23:27, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Watchlist Geonotice

A watchlist geo-notice targeted to the US is now in effect advertising this discussion, saying "Please participate in a discussion about whether to temporarily display a banner in support of Net Neutrality to U.S. readers only." As there is a very tight timeframe here and the notice is neutrally worded, this seems acceptable to me, though I assume some of the other participants here will disagree. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

  • I've asked this this be removed from watchlists ASAP. I view this as an attempt to get around the obvious no consensus here as it all but adevrtises this banner despite the fact that there is no consensus for it. This is already advertised on CENT. There is no need to further advertise it, and IMO, doing so undermines the discussion. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:10, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion update

IntelligenceSquared Debate on Net Neutrality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAJabAjoK08

The Federal Communications Commission’s recent decision to end Obama-era net neutrality regulations has sparked contentious national debate about the future of the web. Is net neutrality necessary to preserve a free, open internet for all?

For the Motion:

  • Mitchell Baker Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation & Mozilla Corporation
  • Tom Wheeler Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School and Former Chairman, FCC

Against the Motion:

  • Nick Gillespie Editor at Large, Reason
  • Michael Katz Professor, Berkeley & Former Chief Economist, FCC

--Guy Macon (talk) 15:01, 12 May 2018 (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.

First designs for page, category, and namespace blocks

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello all!

The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is working on building the ability for admins to block a user from a page, category, and/or namespace instead of the full site. With input from your comments, we've created the first round of designs for this feature. This involves some changes to Special:Block and we want to make sure we're thinking through all the details. We'd appreciate for you to review them and share your feedback at this discussion.

Thank you! — Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager (t) 23:21, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Portals#RfC: Adopt as a MoS guideline

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Portals#RfC: Adopt as a MoS guideline . - Evad37 [talk] 03:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

A discussion about the Main Page

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

A discussion about changing the Main Page is being held here. Please weigh in so that a rough consensus may emerge. Thanks122.163.93.250 (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

RFC for an Altered Main Page Design

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Following on from the discussion on the issue linked to above (point 16), a full RFC has been launched on the proposed style which is accessible here.

Please give your opinions on the new design. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

RfC on the enforceability of logged voluntary editing restrictions

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforceability of logged voluntary editing restrictions, all are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:07, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_148&oldid=955585223"