Wikipedia talk:Perennial proposals

Automatic Semi-protection of TFA's

I was reading through the page and noticed that the part about automatic protection of TFA's needing an update. I dug and found a RfC that was closed in favor of a trial for semi-protection of TFAs, but then checked the protection logs of a few articles in September and October 2021 (RfC was closed at the end of August 2021) and it seems to never have been implemented by anybody. I thought here was a good place to note its non-implementation. —Danre98^{(talk^contribs)} 20:16, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

IP edit stats are widely outdated

All estimates of IP activity are given as of 2007. An update is warranted. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 04:24, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Add an entry about "rename blacklist"?

I found at least three failed renaming requests on changing the "blacklist" word, which affects both articles and project pages, any ideas on this topic? Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:47, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Crisis hotlines

This was boldly added, and I've removed it:

Add prominent links to crisis hotlines on relevant articles

• Proposal: Add a prominent banner or text in the lead to articles such as suicide referring readers to crisis hotlines or other resources.

• Reasons for previous rejection: Proposals along these lines generally start from a position of advocacy or righting great wrongs, calling on us to override Wikipedia:No disclaimers because suicide, mental health, domestic violence, and so on are important social issues, which can lead to slippery slope concerns (e.g. should we have a Surgeon General's warning banner on smoking and cigarettes?), and pointing out that many other sites have given in to this advocacy. Proposals also frequently advocate one nation's resources, while if we were going to do this we'd need an in-house geotargeted service.
  In recent RFCs, the most strongly supported argument against has been the fact that independent research has found that these warnings have little benefit in actually preventing suicides and such, and Wikipedia:No disclaimers should not be overridden for such questionable benefit. Also of note is that the World Health Organization's guidance suggests resources at the end of an article, not at the top; we generally have links to articles about prevention inline and in "See also" sections.

• Partly done: In the 2019 RFC it was decided that a hatnote on the Suicide article stating "For information on prevention, see Suicide prevention." was an acceptable balance between wanting to provide some sort of link to prevention information and the Wikipedia:No disclaimers guideline.

• See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 161#Proposal to add suicidal disclaimer at Suicide, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 192#Suicides, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 212#Suicide hotlines, Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 43#Topic related help resources, Talk:Suicide/crisis hotline link.

I don't think that the community has come to a consensus that this will never happen, partly because it depends on exactly what you're proposing (e.g., automated localized messages vs a carefully selected hatnote vs paragraphs of relevant, encyclopedic content). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Seems to me that we've had several discussions and they've all gone the same way. I intentionally didn't try to claim that "paragraphs of relevant, encyclopedic content" were in the scope of this addition, and noted that "a carefully selected hatnote" was accepted in the 2019 discussion. Anomie⚔ 22:58, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Which means: Sometimes we do want this kind of content, and sometimes we don't. This page is primarily intended for "no, never, and don't bother us with your latest variation on this idea". We haven't reached that point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

No, it means you're conflating different things to set up a strawman. What has been rejected is specifically banners or notices at the top of articles, beyond a hatnote to a very clearly related article. Please stop trying to bring in "encyclopedic text within articles" to confuse the issue. Anomie⚔ 10:30, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

In practice, people don't read this list very closely. If you put a headline in like "Add prominent links to crisis hotlines on relevant articles", then many of them will stop there and will conclude that there is a solid community-wide consensus against any sort of prominent link to any crisis hotline in any relevant article.

If you want to say "We reject only banners directly encouraging people to call a specific number, and only when such a banner is placed at the top of the article, but relevant hatnotes are accepted, some creative approaches to article content, such as an image showing the 988 (telephone number) as an illustration are okay, and everything else is still unclear", then you have to really spell that out.

I'm sure you've heard aphorisms like "TLDR is the law of the internet" and "Every click costs readers". One of the realities that we have to deal with is that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions. WP:Policy writing is hard because you have to write pages (including non-policy pages like this one) to defend the wiki against people who don't actually read it, or who don't bother reading more than the section heading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

That would be very long for a section heading, I doubt your lowest-common-denominator people who only read section titles would bother to read all that either. I'm also not sure whether the 988 image would really be accepted at the top of the article if there were a better image available for suicide prevention and it came to a Village pump for discussion. Anomie⚔ 10:39, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The difficulty of reducing it to a single soundbite is one of the reasons I think this page should stay silent on the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Should we add a section about proposals for adding prominent links to crisis hotlines at the tops of articles?

Based on discussions from 2019, 2022 (×2), April 2024, and June 2024, as well as Talk:Suicide/crisis hotline link, should we add an entry to Wikipedia:Perennial proposals about proposals for adding prominent links to crisis hotlines on articles? 22:41, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Poll

1. Support as proposer. I tried to add such a section recently, after someone else in the most recent discussion suggested one (which reminded me that I hadn't done so after thinking that after the previous discussion), but User:WhatamIdoing insisted that we need an RFC. Now that the most recent discussion has been archived, here's the RFC. Anomie⚔ 22:41, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
2. No and SPEEDY CLOSE this per all previous discussions. This is a waste of time. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

   @Headbomb: Which previous discussions? The only ones I'm aware of are just above where WhatamIdoing and I were arguing with each other, and a few subthreads of the same in Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 59#Resources on severe mental illness pages after one comment by User:Rosguill. Anomie⚔ 23:04, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

3. Support It's been brought up enough that it will be useful to compile links to all of the previous discussions as helpful background for anyone who wants to propose anything related. As the page says, It should be noted that merely listing something on this page does not mean it will never happen or is to be rejected on sight, but that it has been discussed before and never met consensus. Schazjmd (talk) 23:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
4. Oppose because the proposed text is massively oversimplifying a nuanced and complex situation. I don't think that the time is ripe to add this at all, because discussions involving PEREN items tend to go like this:
   • Alice: I have an idea.
   • Bob (turns brain off): Bad idea. See 17th entry in PEREN. 'Nuff said.
     when what we need is to turn our brains on and think about what we're doing. Additionally, I think the specific text is bad, because it's simplifying this down to "(We always reject proposals to) Add prominent links to crisis hotlines on relevant articles", but it's more complicated than that. For example: There's a photo in Suicide methods that shows a crisis hotline. It's a fairly prominent image. Is that banned perennially rejected? There's a hatnote at the top that links to List of suicide crisis lines. Is that rejected? There are even little problems, like the "recent" RFC (that should be in singular) that happened five years ago and cites a single paper published eight years ago. (The state of the science has changed since then, BTW.) Another sentence claims that "we'd need an in-house geotargeted service", as if we don't already have one. Every time I open an incognito window, I get a notice about another California-based event, so apparently that code already exists.
     This whole thing feels very POV-pushy, like one editor has decided he doesn't want to do this, so he's trying to put a formal "repeatedly rejected" note on it. This will facilitate editors turning off their brains; it will discourage editors from developing ideas. If the only goal were to make a handy list of discussions, then that could be done in a separate WP:Essay. The insistence that this is the only page that will serve for recording this information tells me that merely keeping a handy list of prior discussions is not the point. The point appears to be stopping editors from talking about this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     It'd be nice if you're remove the WP:ASPERSIONS and other inaccuracies from your comment. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 00:23, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     Mind the gap between casting aspersions ("continually accus[ing] another of egregious misbehavior...such as participation in criminal acts" or "objectively unsupported or exaggerated claims of misconduct") and talking about perceived motivations.

     Do you think that disagreeing with these proposals is actually "misbehavior"? Would trying to discourage further discussions truly count as "misconduct" on the part of the discouraging editor? I don't think so, I doubt that you do, and I know that a reasonable person wouldn't; therefore WP:ASPERSIONS is irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     I'm disappointed that you decided to double down instead of admitting you took it too far. I'm getting the feeling that you have a strong POV on this and so are unable to reasonably discuss that consensus in all these discussions has gone against you, so instead you have to resort to personal attacks and untruths. Anomie⚔ 11:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     If you can quote any actual WP:Personal attack in my comments, I am prepared to apologize for it.

     I have a strong POV that the community is not done discussing how to handle suicide content. I have a strong POV that putting an item about suicide content in the PEREN list will reduce the number of discussions and discourage thoughtful contributions to those discussions.

     I have no strong POVs about whether suicide-related non-content messages are useful, appropriate, relevant, expected, etc. But I will give you a hint that if you use Wikipedia:Who Wrote That? on Trauma trigger, you will be find out what I have learned over the years about a closely related subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     Reducing the number of discussion is the point - we want fewer discussions that just rehash previous ground because the proposers were unaware of the previous discussions. What we want are higher quality discussions that aren't just dismissed out of hand for being lazy or duplicative, and a PEREN listing encourages that. Consensus can change, but when it hasn't multiple times in a row then it is pretty guaranteed that it wont change unless something about the proposal or something underlying the proposal (in this case that would be something in the real world) has significant changed and the proposal clearly and explicitly explains at the start what has changed and why the proposer thinks that means the previous arguments against are either not now relevant or can be rebutted in way that was not possible every previous time. For example if it became possible to geolocate every reader with 100% accuracy that would be a newly-possible rebuttal to some of the arguments against that have held sway on previous occasions. Thryduulf (talk) 19:32, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     In my experience, putting an item on this page results in discussions that are "just dismissed out of hand for being lazy or duplicative", even if it's a new idea or a variation. See, e.g., what editors say about PEREN at Wikipedia:If you could re-write the rules. See @Jclemens last year having to tell people repeatedly that he'd already read and considered PEREN. See how the OP uses it here and here. It is a lazy way to shut down discussions.

     Also, these discussion aren't obviously duplicative. Here's a few:

     • update the hatnote at Suicide
     • "public service message about suicide at the bottom of recent suicides (not forever)" (e.g., in Robin Williams, not Suicide)
     • adding an anti-suicide editorial message to articles about suicide (i.e., in Suicide, not Robin Williams)
     • adding a note to Special:Search when people search on suicide-related keywords (i.e., not in any article)
     • a script that geolocates the reader and displays a message about the local crisis number
     • provide encyclopedic information about how to access treatment in articles (e.g., "The National Charity was the first to offer SMS-based text messages") or as ==External links==

     There are some obviously duplicative comments. I'd personally put the "We'll never be able to keep it up to date – Oh, you mean the WMF is already doing that work for us?" exchanges in that category. But the proposals themselves tend to vary quite a bit in the pages they're targeting, what information to present, and whether the proposal is about the content of the page vs the user interface. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

     I'm too sick of you subtly insulting or disparaging me to want to continue this fruitless discussion. No matter what I point to, you'll just deny it and come up with more ways to do it. Anomie⚔ 22:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

   Also, if you're at all interested in this subject, and especially if you deal with articles about recent deaths, please read MOS:SUICIDE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

5. Support per Schazjmd. A listing doesn't mean such proposals should be instantly dismissed, it's a list of previous discussions that proposers are advised to review first so that they don't just remake the same proposal that has been rejected previously, wasting everybody's time. If their proposal is different they can know this and explain from the outset how it is different - particularly why previous objections are not relevant or what mitigations have been put in place to minimise their downsides. Thryduulf (talk) 00:57, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
6. Support established centralized discussion documentation and linking to it I proposed doing it after the model at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gender_identity#Discussion_timeline for transgender biographies. While I do not think that we currently have any plan or process for turning a large number of discussions over years to any kind of consensus, at least if we centralize all the discussions then we can come to know how many hundreds of pages of comments and thousands of commentators we will eventually have to summarize in any consensus statement. I expected that this issue was already a perennial proposal but if not, then sure, it is no big deal to register as one if we can meaningfully link to a page which collects all previous discussions. Bluerasberry (talk) 10:40, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
7. Support per Schazjmd and Thryduulf. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:50, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
8. Support per Schazjmd. Some1 (talk) 22:43, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
9. Oppose May be simply changed afternote, I will try such a change-of-consensus, like the blacklist-related section above. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:27, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

Please note that the goal of this RFC is to summarize the consensuses reached in the linked discussions, not to have yet another discussion over whether we should have such links. Also note that this is about banners, hatnotes, infoboxes, or the like, particularly ones that directly address the reader. Questions such as "Should List of suicide crisis lines exist?", "Should more such lists be created?", "Is WP:DUE coverage of crisis lines within articles ok?", and "Are WP:EL-compliant external links to crisis organizations or lists of hotlines ok?" are outside the scope of what's being proposed here. Anomie⚔ 22:41, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging people involved in the most recent discussion: @AddWittyNameHere, Barnards.tar.gz, Berchanhimez, Bluerasberry, Chaotic Enby, Donald Albury, Headbomb, JPxG, Ju1c3machine, Khajidha, Masem, Phil Bridger, Rosguill, Schazjmd, Some1, Thebiguglyalien, The Wordsmith, Traumnovelle, and WhatamIdoing: Anomie⚔ 22:41, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused. The section header says Should we add a section about prominent links to crisis hotlines at the tops of articles? but the opening text says should we add an entry to Wikipedia:Perennial proposals about proposals for adding prominent links to crisis hotlines on articles? Which is the question the RfC is answering? Schazjmd (talk) 22:57, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

They're basically the same question. Clarified the section heading. Anomie⚔ 23:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I read the header as whether we should add a section to articles, but now I can see how I was misreading it. Schazjmd (talk) 23:21, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Wordsmithing

Here's my current take. Feel free to make improvements, hopefully we can reach consensus without having to have a second RFC. Anomie⚔ 22:41, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Add prominent links to crisis hotlines on relevant articles

• Proposal: Add a prominent banner or text in the lead to articles such as suicide referring readers to crisis hotlines or other resources.
• Reasons for previous rejection: Proposals along these lines generally start from a position of advocacy or righting great wrongs, calling on us to override Wikipedia:No disclaimers because suicide, mental health, domestic violence, and so on are important social issues, and pointing out that many other sites have given in to this advocacy. Proposals also frequently advocate one nation's resources, while if we were going to do this we'd need an in-house geotargeted service.
  In recent RFCs, the most strongly supported argument against has been that independent research has found that these warnings have little benefit in actually preventing suicides and such, and Wikipedia:No disclaimers should not be overridden for such questionable benefit. There has also been concern over our ability to accurately maintain such a list, and concerns over a possible slippery slope (e.g. should we have a Surgeon General's Warning on cigarette and smoking?).
  Also of note is that the World Health Organization's guidance suggests resources at the end of an article, not at the top; we generally already have prevention information inline, links to articles about prevention (where they exist) inline and in "See also" sections, and relevant external links in "External links" sections.
• Partly done: In the 2019 RFC it was decided that a hatnote on the Suicide article stating "For information on prevention, see Suicide prevention." was an acceptable balance between wanting to provide some sort of link to prevention information and the Wikipedia:No disclaimers guideline.
• See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 161#Proposal to add suicidal disclaimer at Suicide, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 192#Suicides, Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 43#Topic related help resources, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 212#Suicide hotlines, Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 59#Resources on severe mental illness pages, Talk:Suicide/crisis hotline link.

As of now, I think this is dece. jp×g🗯️ 00:09, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't love the wording "given in to this advocacy" but I can't immediately think of anything better. Thryduulf (talk) 01:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

About this sentence:

"In recent RFCs, the most strongly supported argument against has been the fact that independent research has found that these warnings have little benefit in actually preventing suicides and such, and Wikipedia:No disclaimers should not be overridden for such questionable benefit."

• The linked RFC (singular) was five years ago, which is not "recent".
• The one research paper discussed in the old RFC is out of date. PMID 36475827 says that "existing evidence suggests that hotlines reduce caller distress and suicidality during the telephone call and for a short time after". PMID 33437833 says they found "mostly positive and statistically significant effects on mental health outcomes" for chat-based crisis lines and conclude that they "may be effective" in wealthier countries. PMID 35809251 found "evidence that direct telephone interventions are effective". PMID 33383161 says that crisis lines "may" work.

In other words, current independent research appears to have found the opposite of what's claimed here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

That's not the same claim at all, the papers you quote don't prove the opposite of what's claimed here. The previous research paper addressed the topic of warnings reminding people of the issue, while the more recent ones only discuss the efficiency of hotlines themselves. Not everyone who sees the warnings will end up calling the hotlines, and a lot of them might just end up being reminded of their issues in an uncomfortable way. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:50, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby, do you have access to the full text of PMID 27289303? Because what I'm seeing is a basic FRIN complaint, and what was said in the RFC was "unclear benefit", and what's written here is that it's a "fact" that "these warnings have little benefit". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Please note that the goal of this RFC is to summarize the consensuses reached in the linked discussions, not to have yet another discussion over whether we should have such links. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:57, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

If we're going to summarize the prior discussions, then we should do so accurately and not turn this page into a source of misinformation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Maybe replace "little" with "no proven"? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:12, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll ask WT:MED whether anyone can actually read the paper. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

In the linked prior discussion, that argument carried the day. The later discussions had similar arguments that similarly carried much weight. This discussion is for summarizing those prior discussions, not for re-arguing whether the studies pointed to are somehow wrong or were incorrectly summarized. If someone wants to actually propose again adding prominent messages at the tops of articles, the entry in WP:PEREN would let them know that persuasive new studies or re-reading of the old studies could be used to change past consensus. Anomie⚔ 20:29, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Iff we can determine now that editors misunderstood the cited study, then we should not say "the fact that research found"; we should say something a lot closer to "editors' misunderstanding of a research paper". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

My intention was to focus on the argument without judgement either way of its merit, but I see I missed the mark. I've adjusted the draft accordingly. Anomie⚔ 13:01, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:MED folks say that the paper cited doesn't actually cover the claimed content "in any way, shape, or form". Perhaps another adjustment is in order? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Next time someone starts a discussion proposing adding these sorts of disclaimers at the top of an article, feel free to bring it up then. This isn't the place for it, this is the place for summarizing what happened in previous discussions. Anomie⚔ 11:27, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Once you know that a prior claim is false, then repeating it without correcting it is spreading disinformation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to stop now, because we're not going to agree. I think anyone objective here will agree that the statement is accurate in saying that that argument (whether it was right or wrong) was a significant factor in the consensus in the past discussions. And I think most others here have agreed that this isn't the correct forum to debate whether the argument was right or wrong. Anomie⚔ 17:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I see nobody agreeing with you that this isn't the correct forum for deciding what this page should say, and I see @Chaotic Enby and @Barnards.tar.gz directly discussing what this page should say. The only editor in this discussion who thinks we shouldn't get this page right, on the grounds that there was a factual misunderstanding in the past, appears to be you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing for the avoidance of doubt, I agree with Anomie. This discussion is solely about how to describe past consensuses, not to determine whether they correctly or incorrectly interpreted sources or anything else. Thryduulf (talk) 22:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you actively object to summarizing the past consensus in a way that doesn't perpetuate misinformation? I'm convinced that we can achieve both goals here.

For example, we could say that "In a 2019 RFC about putting crisis hotline phone numbers at the top of some articles, editors were concerned that some of the advice in mass media guidelines such as https://reportingonsuicide.org/ had not been scientifically proven to prevent any suicides".

If we wanted to be complete, we might also add "...and decided to increase the visibility of the Suicide prevention article, rather than adding phone numbers directly". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Please don't misquote me. I made one comment explaining that the recent papers you were linking were not necessarily relevant, and then reminded, again: Please note that the goal of this RFC is to summarize the consensuses reached in the linked discussions, not to have yet another discussion over whether we should have such links. We're not here to discuss whether one paper cited in the discussions might have been misread, we're here to summarize the consensus of the previous discussions. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:30, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to your comment about whether the more recent papers were on the same topic as the 2016 paper, e.g., "The previous research paper addressed the topic of warnings reminding people of the issue" – except that it doesn't actually address that topic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby, I've read the paper myself now. It does not address the topic of warnings reminding people of the issue. It addresses the efficacy of the hotlines themselves for people who have called them (declared to have had "relatively low levels of evidence" but seemingly positive) and the efficacy of media regulations (e.g., rules against saying which suicide method was used; "insufficient evidence" and variable results). It recommends that future research use randomized controlled trials in both cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)