Wikipedia talk:Inaccuracies in Wikipedia namespace

Citing WP:OUTCOMES or precedents in AfDs

"Just pointing" at a Policy, Guideline, or other Wikipedia: namespace page is something best avoided.

It's possible to search for AfDs where WP:OUTCOMES was cited, or precedent was invoked:

• WP:OUTCOMES prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion 3,206 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
• "common outcomes" prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion 125 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
• precedent prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion 5,991 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

-

• "keep per WP:outcomes" prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion 77 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• "delete per WP:outcomes" prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion 3 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The number of ways of stating "(keep/delete) per outcomes" vary so much that the above can't indicate how many of the total number of AfDs mentioning WP:OUTCOMES may do this. E.g. "keep per Wikipedia:articles for deletion/common outcomes" prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (7 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)), etc.

Whether people did do more than just point, or whether just pointing or making use of WP:OUTCOMES was criticized (and/or defended) would require more manual investigation. E.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Montenotte, Ireland, closed 3:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC), actually mentions that WP:OUTCOMES was tagged as unreferenced at one point.

• consensus prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion 42,415 results as of 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

might involve vague invocations of consensus as precedent as well, but the word is so often used in closing regarding the consensus within the AfD (usually much easier to determine, but not without occasional controversy) that this search is not very useful. The ability to search AfD nominating statements, discussions, and AfD closing statements separately or in combination would be a helpful feature. Шизомби (talk) 17:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Facts in Wikipedia: namespace

WP:ESSAYS can offer "opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors, for which widespread consensus has not been established." One may find essays which recommend the deletion or keeping of certain kinds of articles. While logical arguments and evidence may improve the quality of such essays, it's within the authorial prerogative not to do so. On pages that are Policy, Guidelines or other non-essay pages that a consensus exists for X, this may be a form of weasel wording that should be avoided.

• Who determined what the consensus was?
• Where was the consensus worked out?
• When was the consensus worked out?

In the interest of providing context and avoiding jargon, what is meant by "the consensus" or "the common outcome," etc. should be explained in enough detail to be comprehensible to and verifiable by even a newcomer, though still as concise as possible. Anybody can make a good faith attempt to work out what the consensus is on a given topic. In order to present the consensus as objectively as possible, the best practice would be to "show your work," i.e. share the process, the reasoning by which the consensus was determined. A reader should be able to say, "I understand how this consensus was determined and I am not left with any questions." In the interest of verifiability, facilitating the reader's ability to independently verify the statement is desirable. Creating a Template:Search link utilizing refined searches would keep the reader's amount of work and specialized knowledge of Wikipedia tools to a minimum.

It may be necessary to tweak Wikipedia:POLICY#Not part of the encyclopedia. On the one hand, it states regarding policies, guidelines, and process pages that it is "not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's rules, or to phrase rules in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Wikipedia's own rules and procedures." On the other hand, it states "they do not generally need to conform with the content standards" (emphasis mine) and "content of these pages is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors" (emphasis mine). If it were the case that leaving policy, guideline, and process pages unreferenced and unverifiable (or relatively unverifiable), "generally" indicates this is not always the case. Clear statements, showing work, and linking by search or directly to discussions are consistent with the principles of "clarity, directness, and usefulness." Additionally, another look at the first statement indicates ways these statements are not as opposed as they might initially read: it is "not necessary [i.e. but not prohibited] to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's rules, or to phrase rules in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Wikipedia's own rules and procedures." And while Wikipedia itself does not meet the definition of a "reliable source" for articles and there is not likely to be an "outside authority" regarding, e.g. AfDs on schools, there is no reason why Wikipedia cannot be a reliable source for itself in the Wikipedia: namespace except that some editors might not care to take the time to do it, which is not an especially good reason. It states it is "not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's rules" (emphasis mine); there would be something circular about a Wikipedia rule citing a Wikipedia rule to verify Wikipedia's rule. What is being addressed by this essay is not the verification of statements about rules but statements about other aspects of Wikipedia such as "common outcomes." It states "determining Wikipedia's own rules and procedures," but something like a statement regarding a consensus or outcome is a product of studying the product of a procedure, not a procedure in itself. Шизомби (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

One does not find a Wikipedia policy citing itself, e.g. the WP:V policy does not say "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. The proof for this is WP:V." However, in e.g. an AfD an argument stating "delete per policy" would be unverifiable. What policy, where, how does that policy fit? It has to be named and ideally wikilinked in order that others can verify for themselves that the policy in fact says what the person says it does (and further, quoting the relevant portion and explaining its relevance is often desirable and makes for a stronger presentation of evidence and argument). One could not say "delete per WP:V, which states that articles must be entirely the opinion of Wikipedians and have no sources." That would be verifiably false; the text of WP:V is the proof that it is false. Thus something like "Schools are frequently nominated for deletion. Most elementary and middle schools that don't source a clear claim to notability are now getting merged or redirected in AfD, with high schools being kept except where they fail verifiability. Schools which do get merged are generally redirected to the school district which operates them (North America) or the lowest level locality (elsewhere)." is substantially similar. Each of these statements is given as a fact, and as such is something that can or can't be proven. If it isn't sourced, there's no merit to citing it. Шизомби (talk) 19:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

As I think about the statement that it is "not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's rules," I realize in fact it may not be saying that citing Wikipedia is incorrect in the Wikipedia: namespace. If that were the case it would say something like "it is not necessary to wikilink to Wikipedia policies, discussions, etc. so that the readers may verify them for themselves." It's saying that it's not necessary to provide WP:reliable sources to WP:verify Wikipedia's rules; in effect despite the "or" in the sentence, this appears to be synonymous with saying it's "not necessary to provide [...] an outside authority in determining Wikipedia's own rules and procedures." That is, the text of the rules, etc. the primary sources are in fact sufficient evidence of the rules when it comes to the Wikipedia: namespace; a secondary source to verify them is not needed. Similar perhaps to how a lawyer or a judge would cite directly to a law when it is unambiguous and only go to a secondary source (law article, prior court decision) to back up the primary source when the law has some ambiguity. In a sense, a page like WP:OUTCOMES is an unreliable secondary source, where the AfDs are the primary source. Thus, if you wanted to cite precedent, you're best off citing to the primary sources. However, if Wikipedians want to create a secondary source so that people don't have to keep completely reinventing the wheel by figuring out how to research precedents and what outcomes were common, then this ought to conform to WP:V in a way that renders that page as reliable a secondary source as is possible.

To return to another point above, "Who determined what the consensus was?" In an AfD, the statement regarding the consensus is attributed. Theoretically, the signature of the closer and even the signatures of the nominator or additional participants are not needed since they are recorded in the edit history. The information is provided for ease of access; it could be time-consuming to keep checking diffs to see who said what. That who said what would appear to be important is testified to not just by the practice of using signatures, but by the fact that it is possible to create named user accounts and that IP information is recorded for those who do not. If it didn't matter who contributed what, then all edits could in effect be made by a single account with no way of telling who did what or even how many people were participating.

I'm coming close to saying that a statement regarding what was the consensus across multiple AfDs should be signed the same way the statement regarding what the consensus was within a single AfD is signed. I don't think that's necessarily necessary. If the people who worked out what the consensus was show:

• How was the consensus worked out?

and it can be verified by anyone reading it, there's no real issue with who did it. If how it was worked out is not indicated, and it's not easy to verify, then who did it becomes more important. If an unsourced statement that "X articles are usually kept" was written by an inclusionist or "X articles are usually deleted" was written by a deletionist, I'd probably want to know that. (To digress a moment; I do wish one could highlight text on Wikipedia and then get an edit history for just that highlighted text, rather than only be able to get the edit history for an entire article. It would be easier and quicker to attribute old vandalism, ask questions of people who added things, etc.) However, using the five tildes to automatically sign the date of when it was done might be desirable.

Compare how the consensus within an AfD is handled versus how the consensus across multiple AfDs of a single category are handled. In a single AfD, all the different opinions and the statement as to the consensus are in one place, easily verifiable. Across multiple AfDs, the statement as to the consensus and each relevant AfD is in a different place. Imagine if a single AfD were handled this way, with the nominator's statements, each contributor's statements and the closer's statements on different pages, unlinked! Following the model of a single AfD might be the way to go with a statement regarding the consensus across multiple AfDs:

Elementary schools are usually deleted. ~~~~~

• Delete [WP:Articles for Deletion/relevant AfD] (date of AfD closing)
• No consensus default to keep [WP:Articles for Deletion/relevant AfD] (date of AfD closing)
• Delete [WP:Articles for Deletion/relevant AfD] (date of AfD closing), etc.

Such work could be presented in other ways, by tables or whatever. One might choose to include additional information such as how many people participated, etc. The wikilinks are to my mind essential. Right now, your (Noraft's) sample "best" statement:

• (Best) Breakdown of AfD's on elementary schools from January 2008 to June 2009:

Total Schools nominated for AfD: 51

Schools deleted for being non-notable:34

Schools deleted for other reasons: 10

Schools kept: 7

Is indeed the most specific one and thus the most instructive, but it is not sourced and thus not easily verifable.

Because a single page addressing the common outcomes of multiple types of things would get extremely long if all the statements were that specific and all the relevant AfDs were linked, probably it would be desirable to have the summary information above just include a wikilink to the sources on a separate page. Thus the above "best" would end with something like [WP:Articles for Deletion/Common outcomes/elementary schools] which would be a page containing information something like I indicated above, following the model of a single AfD but for multiple ones. That page could have the specific statements of fact following your model appearing as the header.

This all would also be a lot easier if my idea Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#add categories from articles to AfDs were implemented, but it could still be done without it. Шизомби (talk) 06:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

One of the problems with OUTCOMES is that the current statements directly influence the current outcomes. So if we say that nearly all American middle schools are merged and re-directed, then editors at the individual AfDs demand that this or that one be merged and redirected, even though nearly every American middle school with a sports team actually does meet the notability standard as explained by WP:ORG: all you need is one non-local newspaper article (e.g., about an "away game") and one in-depth newspaper article about some aspect of the school, which any local newspaper will certainly have written at some point.

But we've got a vicious circle going in which ORG-compliant organizations are being incorrectly deleted because someone (accurately) said that they usually are, and there's apparently no way to get off of this merry-go-round. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

As Ed McMahon used to say to Johnny, "You are correct, sir!" ɳoɍɑfʈ ^Talk! 18:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Copyedit needed

I think that you need to spend a little time refining this essay. For example, the last sentence is "If it isn't sourced, there's no merit to citing it." This could be reasonably interpreted as "If it isn't already sourced, then it doesn't need to be sourced," which I understand is exactly the opposite of the point. Perhaps you meant to say something like, "Adding citations to archives or other supporting material doesn't harm a policy-related page." WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Its in WP space, which means the original co-authors don't WP:OWN it. Have at it! ɳoɍɑfʈ ^Talk! 18:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Heh. I somehow doubt you'd appreciate me replacing the text with links to WP:RfC and WP:BURO. Jclemens (talk) 04:02, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

What I would or wouldn't like done with this article is my opinion alone, and my opinion is not ownership. The community takes care of its interests. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

A major rewrite was done last month. I think the essay is much stronger now. Thanks to WhatamIdoing for suggesting a copyedit. Thanks to Jclemens for the general contentiousness that led to all the improvements. If he hadn't MfD'ed the article it wouldn't look as good as it does now, have as many readers as it has now, or have as much support as it has now. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 05:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

major rewrite and improvement

I've cleaned up the essay A LOT. In addition to condensing the language, I've removed some wikilinks, given some more practical advice for dispute resolution, better rationales for documenting consensus at the time a discussion happens. The change I expect to be most controversial is nuking the last section, but I just can't find a point to it; it seems to be philosophical soapboxing rather than specific directions or encouragement of how to fix things. Fundamentally, the "not a dictionary" thing seems to me to fundamentally be an effort to tie the essay to a policy and thus anchor it against MfD. Well, the MfD is over, the essay stays, and I'm not going to renominate it. I like the new name better, and the essay contents now much more closely match the name. Jclemens (talk) 08:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted. Let's discuss these changes and see where consensus is. Have to run at the moment, will write more later. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 10:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please do. The current version is clearly inferior to mine. I intentionally made changes iteratively so that they can be reviewed and reverted individually, rather than carte blanche. Jclemens (talk) 18:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Things that are "clear" to you aren't always clear (or true) to the rest of us, which is why the MfD on this article failed. Will get back to you on the individual points after I sleep (4am here). ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 20:23, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, then I'm reverting until you've had a chance to go through and offer individual critiques. Your reversion introduced at least one error that I'd eliminated, (saying "X are always kept" is a statement of fact, which may be true or false, rather than a statement of opinion) and I'm sure you wouldn't want the essay to languish in incorrectness any longer than necessary. I look forward to specific, detailed feedback contemporaneously with your next reversion, should you decide to revert again after giving the changes a thorough reading. Jclemens (talk) 22:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That is NOT a fact, unless it also happens to be true. And whether it is true or not, it is an opinion. "Grass is green," is an opinion; it also happens to be a fact. An opinion is something you believe to be true. A fact is something that is true, whether you believe it or not. Or more formally, an opinion is: "a belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty," while a fact is "a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred." Therefore, saying "X are always kept," is an opinion regardless of whether or not it is a fact. It may also be a fact, in which case the editor saying it should verify it with some level of proof so that other editors know he's not speculating, basing it on an incomplete observation, or otherwise talking out of his ass. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 17:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

1. (cur) (prev) 16:13, April 8, 2010 Jclemens (talk | contribs) (5,709 bytes) (→But WP Namespace is Not Part of the Encyclopedia!: remove this section as unneeded. There might be a call for a separate userspace essay on this, but this section is philosophical soapboxing,) (undo)

• • We had more than a half dozen editors vote to keep this essay in WP space, and that included this section. After (in that MdD) it was suggested to userfy, almost no one pushed that position. I think you need to demonstrate that there is a consensus to make these changes, specifically because at least two editors (the other author and I) think the essay's message was best delivered the way we wrote it, and so far, there's the two of us, plus the rest of the MfD opposers (nominal, but still something) against...you and only you. If some other editors review these changes and agree with them, I won't stand in the way of consensus. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 03:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
    • I was going to go through the changes one-by-one, but the above statement works for all of them. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 03:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Decided to go through them one by one anyway (→Incorrect “Facts” in Wikipedia Namespace: What to Do?: The statements listed are NOT opinions--opinions and unsupported facts are entirely different)

When someone says "All of X are deleted in AfD's," that is his opinion. Every statement in OUTCOMES is an opinion too. Whether or not it is correct has no bearing on whether or not it is an opinion. When someone says "The sky is blue," that's an opinion. It just happens to be a correct opinion. Separately from that, you didn't just change "opinions," to "alleged facts," you deleted a whole line that was important to the point. I'll accept "alleged facts" if we restore the rest of the line.ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

No, that's wrong. If an opinion is defined as "a belief or judgment that is not (emphasis added) founded on proof or certainty," then any belief of judgment that is founded on proof or certainty is not an opinion. It is entirely possible that the statement are (or were originally) founded on proof or certainty, even though the proof is not named in OUTCOMES.WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

We're about to stray into philosophy and I'm not going there. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 01:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

If the dispute is over whether something is accurately described as "an opinion", and your own dictionary definition conflicts with your claim, then I think you need to consider this "philosophical" problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:40, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

To put it another way: VerifiABLE is not the same as already WP:CITEd. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If it isn't cited, then often it isn't verifiable. When someone makes a claim about an AfD outcome trend over the last two years, it isn't reasonable to say that claim is verifiable because you and I have the ability to spend 6 hours combing through the histories and confirming whether the claim is correct or not. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 01:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I reject your sweeping generalization: Literally more than a million articles in the mainspace contained many uncited but trivially verifiABLE claims. What is uncited is often not only verifiable, but often common knowledge.

"See the last two years of AfDs" is a citation for a claim about OUTCOMES. In fact, there is no possible other citation at this time, because there is no statistical report or other "authoritative" source. Editors have been satisfied with brief summaries of their subjective impressions so far, and consequently no one has volunteered to spend several hours each week systematically tabulating the data. (If you want to create and maintain such a page, then I expect that nobody will object.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:40, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely incorrect about that, and I can cite it: please see the last two years of AfD's as my citation. Can you see how that citation is not a citation? "See the last two years of AfDs" is not a citation, it is an invitation to do research. A citation is a single source that has the information. If no single source has the information, then you need to do your own research, and show your work, as the essay says. We're starting to stray from the point, though, and that is that I don't support the revision that was made in this case, and I reverted it. What do you have to say about the revision? Did you see it? If so, do you support it or not? ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 10:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

---

(→Incorrect “Facts” in Wikipedia Namespace: What to Do?: ce, trim examples, remove expansion to comments, reorder)

Reordering is fine, but I think the expanded comments are instructive.ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

(→How can we keep pages in the Wikipedia namespace accurate?: ce clarify/strengthen)

This one is fine. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

(→How can we keep pages in the Wikipedia namespace accurate?: trim one sentence that's not really necessary)

Also fine. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

(→How can we keep pages in the Wikipedia namespace accurate?: rm link to V, which isn't applicable to Wikipedia space. Replace generalities with specific actions.)

WP:V can be applicable if we make it applicable, and the point of this essay is that it should be applicable in certain cases. Removing this philosophically changes the thrust of the article, weakening its point, IMO. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

So you think that independent reliable sources discuss the outcomes of deletion discussions at a level of detail that is useful to editors? Do you think that there are good sources that tell people whether an external link to an open wiki should be acceptable on Wikipedia? I don't, and those sources (plus the agreement of the community, which opposes this concept) must exist if we're going to really apply WP:V to the Wikipedia namespace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If we're going to apply WP:V then we need to apply it in spirit, in an appropriate manner. When you adapt something for use, you don't always use it exactly the way it was used before. Maybe we should write something called WP:WPV for verifiability in Wikipedia namespace. To answer your question: So you think that independent reliable sources discuss the outcomes of deletion discussions at a level of detail that is useful to editors? I say that I think that Wikipedia archival data has the answers and needs to be referenced. If you think this is wrong, write an essay that says so. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 01:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

(→Avoid making nonspecific statements of fact: Show your work.: rephrase and strengthen--positive statement vs. avoiding the negative)

I think the positive statement is good, but I think the negative statement is good too, and both should be included. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

(→Identify unverified and/or unsourced statements of fact where they occur.: This section has been mooted: the Unreferenced WP template has been deleted, and there's no consensus to use fact.)

Okay with deleting "The Template:Unreferenced WP tag has been created for this purpose, pending its TfD debate. It can be used in sections, or for whole pages." However "no consensus exists to do this" is not a good argument to do anything, because similarly "no consensus exists NOT" to do it. And I'd say there's more of a consensus because of the way the essay has been supported. Separately from the discussion on consensus, what's wrong with using a fact tag when someone is alleging facts that haven't been verified? ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

(→If whole pages are problematic, discuss on their respective talk pages.: expand this one to make up for the other. ce the existing material a bit. Give detailed instructions)

I think your instructions work fine when someone knows what the correct statement is, but not so much when someone doesn't know. Someone may know a statement they know to be false but may not know what the truth is. The instructions don't cover this. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

(→But WP Namespace is Not Part of the Encyclopedia!: remove this section as unneeded. There might be a call for a separate userspace essay on this, but this section is philosophical soapboxing,)

Aside from there being consensus not to remove this (as stated above), the purpose of including this section was (1) to address the line of reasoning that because WP space pages are not part of the encyclopedia, one can do/say whatever one wants; (2) to show that while not required, the policies and guidelines that govern articles may have some use with WP space pages; and (3) to instruct people in phrasing so they don't make incorrect assertions of fact. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

So is this a guide to how to deal with inaccuracies, or a philosophical treatise? I'm far more open to the value of the former than the latter, and I really don't see that the section is any less for the loss of this entire section. I would support you splitting it out into a userspace essay describing your perspective on things, but I don't see any good reason a philosophical treatise should be linked to in a nav template. Jclemens (talk) 00:05, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the question: "So is this a guide to how to deal with inaccuracies, or a philosophical treatise?" is sort of black-or-white. It isn't a guide for how to deal with inaccuracies or a philosophical treatise. It is an essay which identifies a problem, proposes some solutions, and refutes the claims of the opposition. That section exists to refute the claims of the opposition. In debate, people cite "Not part of the encyclopedia" as reasons why they can say "All articles about bananas are deleted," without having to back their claim up with any evidence. You say "Hey, where's your proof?" and they say "This isn't mainspace, I don't have to follow WP:V." Hence, the last section. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 01:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

(rm scare quotes: facts are not facts or "facts"; they're instead correct or incorrect facts.)

I'm fine with this, because it is an artifact from when the title of the essay was different. However, there's no such thing as an "incorrect fact," because if it isn't correct, it isn't a fact. The term incorrect fact is an oxymoron. Aside from that, I do want to tell you that your ascribing of motivations (e.g. "scare quotes," and "seems to me to fundamentally be an effort to tie the essay to a policy and thus anchor it against MfD,") is wrong more often than it is right. Please stick to the words on the screen and don't distract yourself and others from the real issues by ascribing motivations that you're really just guessing at. In other words, try to help keep inaccuracies out of Wikipedia namespace. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Your point is well taken on the second count, but scare quote is itself a technical term, rather than a disparagment. Jclemens (talk) 00:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Scare quotes. Huh. Did not know that. Learned something new today. Thanks! Question: Are you still getting around to the other comments, or should I take your silence as accepting my points? Because when we're done with this process, we should probably make all the changes that are not (or no longer) under contention, then continue to determine consensus on the ones that are. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 01:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to have a ton of time to deal with Wikipedia this weekend, so why don't you go ahead and reimplement the changes I've suggested that you agree with, to the extent you agree with them and modifying them per your preferences, so we can start again on Monday? FWIW, WhatamIdoing gets the point I was making about correct/incorrect facts vs. facts/opinions. Fact is instructive in that regard. Jclemens (talk) 06:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's his opinion. Its not that I don't "get" your point; I don't agree with you. Or him. It is a philosophical difference that cannot be resolved through debate, because I (like millions of others) don't believe in objective reality, so EVERYTHING is an opinion, including your existence and my own. I'll reimplement the stuff I accept tomorrow, and will be ready for you Monday. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 10:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

For someone who denies objective reality, you've spent a whole lot of effort on this task, but whatever. Jclemens (talk) 23:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

That comment is constructive how? Play nice. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 00:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

To WhatamIdoing's point, we can hold an RfC and you be outvoted by a more than 2-to-1 margin, or you can go along with the common usage of "fact" and "opinion" and pick other battles to fight--the only real question involved is how many people are going to see you not win that particular point; your call. Jclemens (talk) 23:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

You do realize that this entire line of argument stems from me saying I'll accept your use of the term "alleged fact" instead of "opinion" if we restored the rest of that line, right? Instead of holding an RfC on a philosophical point, why din't we hold an RfC on the line in contention, and learn what people think about Wikipedia, instead of philosophy. Also, you may want to note that when searching for consensus, I don't consider this a "win/lose" situation. It is always a win to know what consensus is. I find it saddening that you become embarrassed when "many people see you not win [a] particular point," but don't make the mistake of thinking others are like you in that regard. If I have an opinion, and 100 people come out and disagree, then I have a new understanding of consensus, and that's a positive thing. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 23:51, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC

Three versions of a line are proposed. The versions are numbered, set in italics and follow the previous statement, which is included here to give the line context:

Editors (in good faith) make statements about:

• common outcomes of Articles for deletion discussion (e.g. "all articles on X are deleted")
• trends in deliberative body decisions (e.g. "the ArbCom always sides with X in cases regarding Y")
• common outcomes in Good Article or Featured Article decisions (e.g. "No article gets approved as a Featured Article without having ALT text in all its images")

(1) These statements, when not asserted along with quantitative verification, are opinions, based on the editor's own prior experience. These statements are made in good faith, but suffer from three major problems:

(2) These statements of alleged fact are made in good faith, but suffer from three major problems:

(3) These statements, when not asserted along with quantitiative verification, are alleged facts, based in the editor's own prior experience. These statements are made in good faith, but suffer from three major problems:

Note that the third version is a compromise proposal between Jclemens proposed revision, and the original. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 01:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies in Wikipedia Namespace

A couple editors are seeking larger consensus on which line is most appropriate for an essay that deals with editors making unsupported claims on talk pages, at WP:OUTCOMES and other places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Noraft 00:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)