Wikidata talk:Requests for comment/Verifiability and living persons

Pre launch discussion

There seem to have been very few discussion about this launching. I remember having raised a few question about Wikidata not-being a wikiproject as the over one as its datas are bound to be reused. I see no discussion about the discrepancy problems/risk from the necessity of having our own policy wrt. relying on over projects policy and/or the general BLP if it exists of the foundation : I see https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people . In that conditions I'll not participate to the current RfC as it's been written by a single user because it's not been thinked enough through in my views. I'd like to see a more global discussion invlving wikipedias. author  TomT0m / talk page 10:26, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: Please freeze the vote sections and allow some discussion about the subjects and the formulation of the questions. We first need to be sure that the questions cover correctly the mentioned problems and avoid any big changes during the vote period. Snipre (talk) 17:05, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@Snipre: Your chance to do that was at this now-archived thread. If you had any specific suggestions, you should have done them there.--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:59, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: A discussion of two days in a project where thread disappears after one or two weeks ? And even if the topic was discussed, the formulation of questions was discussed at that time. You can do as you want but again I am pretty sure that a small number of contributors will take part to the RfC because only one or two guys propose their vision instead of a more global view. When I look at the number of RfC and how many finished with a clear decision, I dont bet too munch in this RfC. People should be involved from the start and not at the end to be concerned. Snipre (talk) 05:28, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Snipre: Uhm, no. This discussion was archived a whole 11 days after I posted it originally. I was hoping the community would comment more on it, but it didn't.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:12, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

It looks to me like Jasper has thought carefully about this - it's been in preparation for almost a month (see History). There's plenty of room for discussion on the RFC page, I don't quite understand the above objections. ArthurPSmith (talk) 19:27, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd really like a further examination of the relationship beetween wikipedias and wikidata. The assumption as far as I understand is that a BLP policy is necessary for Wikipedia to use our datas for example. I think it's not necessarily true. First there is a risk that if we are too lax for them, they decide not to use Wikidata at all. If we're not enough compared to some Wikipedia, they might decide to keep some of their datas, if not all, to themselves. My impression until now was that we tried to be inclusive wrt. wikipedias as they are one of the main reason wikidata event exists. I think this deserve a way more complete discussion about the implications about a policy on the project, and if we can imagine a different way of doing that does not imply such risks, more policy and wikipedia neutral, maybe inviting wikipedias to discuss this. Of course the foundation has rules about living persons, which is of course a necessity, but they also might want to be involved into the discussion considering the central place of wikidata into the wikimedia ecosystem - any wikipedia can adopt its datas. Compared to commons for example, local wikipedia can have a media repository for files allowed by their policies disallowed in commons. There is no really this option for wikidata, in a structured way. author  TomT0m / talk page 19:38, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

To elaborate on the potential relationship beetween wikipedias and wikidata, a user of a wikipedia with high sourcing standard might have t have a source for informations on someone. I'd really like that he does this sourcing on wikidata as most as possible so that we share the sources, and not on his wikipedia. If we achieve that, we will have high quality datas on wikidata, and we might not have to make a policy. A bad policy could also make him do the job on his wikipedia. So it's really important to pull that string on how to play that move. If we need to. But what's really important is a good inter project communication, which I see no real sign on here. author  TomT0m / talk page 19:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Did you not read the RfC? For one, BLP is a foundation-level principle that we must uphold regardless of whether other Wikipedias will use it or not. If you think the policy as proposed is bad, then it is your responsibility to suggest specific, concrete changes to it rather than merely criticizing it (but I, for one, think it is fine as-is; I took into consideration the previous project chat discussion on it).--Jasper Deng (talk) 02:59, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

May I ask you how ? author  TomT0m / talk page 16:40, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Canvassing

What's the opinion about people canvassing like this for example. It's only causing people repeating each other, making the discussion hard to follow. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 15:16, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Agreed,this compromises the normal consensus decision-making process as defined.-- H^akan·IST 15:30, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

If I had my way, all those canvassed comments (literally all the oppose votes in the past 12 hours) would be deleted. But I am the RfC starter and clearly am too involved to do that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 15:33, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

So much for Assume Good Faith. My comments were not canvassed. Not only had I not seen the tweet in question until I just read this section, but my comments (which fall within your 12-hour timeframe) pre-date the tweet in question; as do many others. You have presented no evidence whatsoever that everyone (nor indeed anyone) else who has commented - including the many making thoughtful critiques - saw it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:50, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

If you're going to criticise the actions of another editor, please notify them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:50, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I put a message on w:fr:Projet:Wikidata a few days ago to make peple aware of what's happening. This is necessary because the RfC had absolutely not enough participation, and I know a lot of people who would be unhappy that this would be adopted without them knowing. We don't have a rule for defining "enough" participation for a RfC to be valid. And people that does not follow closely Wikidata had no chance to no whatsoever. author  TomT0m / talk page 16:57, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I notice the first few "votes" were all "pro", so if you assume the "no" votes are all from my Twitter followers, I'll assume the "pro" votes are from your (Jasper Deng) "guys". I have no evidence for that, but neither have you. I don't do "canvassing", as in spamming other people's mail or pages; I highlight an (IMHO) important issue on Twitter, before it gets "voted in" by a handful of people, because no one else saw it. I also believe my Twitter followers are able to make up their own mind, even if they have seen my opinion on the subject. --Magnus Manske (talk) 17:02, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

If it's not canvassing according to others, okay. But it's still rather annoying that people use this RfC more as a voting page than a page to actually discuss. Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 17:11, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I certainly won't let anyone tell me I can't mention Wikidata on Twitter, or publicly voice my opinion on a topic! And as a personal opinion, this RfC seems to come out of nowhere, is rather massive, and seems excessively restrictive, so maybe people don't want to discuss it, they just want it gone. --Magnus Manske (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@Magnus Manske: Where is your evidence of my supposed canvassing? Also, I maintain that I made a very reasonable effort to seek out commentary first (see the first thread on this talk page), so all objectors are at fault for not having commented there first. Blatant canvassing like this reflects badly on you, and is quite frankly deplorable.

With that said, I am glad to finally see more extended participation. But I want constructive suggestions, not just "this is no good".--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:34, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you might re-read what Magnus wrote: "I have no evidence for that, but neither have you.". I'm surprised, now that you have posted here again, not to see a response to my reply to your first post in this section. I had thought you might strike your demonstrably false claim, or even apologise for it. As for constructive suggestions, there are several on the page itself, not least the one I made to collaboratively draft guidelines, before asking for their endorsement as policies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:17, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I see the Twitter post as an effort to unfairly influence the outcome of this RFC, and that should be taken into account when closing the RFC. With that being said, I haven't voted on a lot of the proposals here because while they are a step in the right direction, they are a bit vague and simplistic. I may offer proposals of my own at a later date. Nevertheless, I thank Jasper Deng for taking the initiative in discussing this topic which is long overdue. --Rschen7754 00:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the mode of communication is a problem. I saw the Twitter post and also saw an active discussion of the RfC on the Wikidata mailing list. Since when is it a bad thing to make a public discussion more public. The objection to this seems at base bizarre. As far as the concern about canvassing, I know that I responded because there was a lot of smart people I hold in high regard saying that this RfC needed to have community input. If I felt that opposing or supporting different elements was for or against consensus I would have said whatever I believed. It is sort of insulting to imagine that this is a group-type action here. The RfC takes a pretty extreme approach to scrutinizing the Wikidata project's basic principles and quite frankly, should have been more researched and supported. As it stands I think the responses have been pretty great, and in that way the RfC is a success. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 14:07, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

How is a RfC a success when the majority of votes are unconstructive opposes? Sjoerd de Bruin (talk) 14:10, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

It was a Request for Comment -- not a request for rubberstamp. Unless I am missing something fundamental. That seems sort of clear. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 14:12, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Unconstructive proposals will probably always be met by unconstructive opposes. I can tell that I missed the publishing of this RFC since it was published at the same time as another RFC, which failed to get my attention. It was the announcement by Pigsonthewing at WD:PC who made me learn about it. I hate these kinds of RFD, who invites to voting about a set of already written proposals. I think we first should identify the problem and together find solutions who could get support, before we invite to voting. If the result of the discussion is obvious, voting is maybe not even necessary. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 15:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Motivation for this RfC

I don’t get the point how this RfC is motivated. Could someone please point to serious incidents in the past and describe how the existing set of policies was not sufficient to properly deal with them? Unfortunately the “Background” section of the front page does not do this job. In general I definitely understand the wish to improve the reference density here at Wikidata, but is it worth to create an RfC that includes the risk of tearing down a big fraction of our content again? If this RfC was successful, any user could simply start to mass-delete data “since it is not referenced”. And we could not prevent them from doing so… I’m seriously confused, to be honest. Regards, MisterSynergy (talk) 16:04, 7 July 2016 (UTC)