Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2022-06/Streamlining the approval process of online sources

Input welcome

@AG202, WordyAndNerdy, Kiwima: I need to create a good voting template for when you click on the blue button in User:Fytcha/Sources but apart from that I think most things are covered. Ideally we would also display the current source votes on user's watchlist pages as we do for normal votes but that may be a bit difficult to implement.

Let me know if you have any suggestions. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 00:52, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Dealing with terms affected by the prior validation votes

If this proposal passes, we should also rerun the RfVs on all the terms that were the subjects of this past couple months' validation votes (FaCIAbook (vote), elfism (vote), melanoheliophobia (vote), sin flattening (vote), troid (vote), and creeper (vote), so far), given that the outcomes of those RfVs were dependent on the outcomes of their respective validation votes, and said votes were marked by extremely high abstention rates from editors who did not regard them as the proper venue for approving or disapproving online sources (in one case, the number of "abstain" votes exceeded the total number of "support" and "oppose" votes combined). With the creation of a concrete policy as to what that proper venue is and the process for [dis]approving online sources there, most to all of these editors would actually participate; additionally, what sources are usable for attestation in an RfV would also depend on the outcome of source evaluations at the aforementioned proper venue (especially given that many of the oppose votes in the validation votes were opposed to the source website, not the term itself). Both of these factors could potentially drastically change the outcomes of those terms' RfVs, justifying rerunning said RfVs under the new policy (if it passes). Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 19:00, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

@Whoop whoop pull up: I agree and I will see to that if this vote passes.

If you have any other thoughts regarding the contents of this thought, it would be much appreciated. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 19:12, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

@Fytcha, Whoop whoop pull up: perhaps we should impose a requirement that a certain minimum number of editors must either support or oppose a validation vote (abstentions to be disregarded), otherwise it fails? Perhaps at least five or seven editors? — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I am not presently opposed on principle to the imposition of such a requirement. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 19:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Big suggestion

The table at User:Fytcha/Sources makes me feel like I'm back at Wikipedia trying to make sense of one of their overly-detailed, colour-coded, gigantic, generally unreadable tables of info. I'm going to have nightmares. It doesn't even need to be a table - clarity is much more important than sortability.

How about a simple page with sections and a list in each one. The cognitive load is that much lower, and it's also easier to manage when editing. Example:

Twitter

https://twitter.com

• Status: Approved (votes: 1 2)
• Archival: As tweets are so short, the whole tweet should be used as a quotation. This will be verified by other users at the time of the RFV. As a result, external archiving is not mandated.
• Weight: Each tweet counts as half an attestation.
• Other notes:
  • Consider that a single tweet may not always provide enough context to demonstrate the meaning of the term in question. Use {{quote-multitweet}} to quote a conversation of several tweets between multiple users.
  • According to this vote, tweets containing the skull emoji are banned.

Reddit

https://reddit.com

• Status: Approved (vote)
• Archival: The relevant conversation must be archived in the Wayback Machine or similar service.
• Weight: Each Reddit use counts as one attestation.
• Independence: Posts within a single subreddit (https://reddit.com/r/...) are not treated as independent of each other. For example, if two posts using a term are found on https://reddit.com/r/superbowl, only one of those can count towards the WT:ATTEST requirements.

Pastebin

https://pastebin.com

• Status: Not approved, due to the fact that anyone can post anything there without even needing to log in (vote)

I would also like to suggest a general section at the top of the page about establishing independence (I'm thinking of the situation at Talk:girlmeat here):

Care needs to be taken when establishing the independence of posts on user-generated content sites, such as blogs, forums, Usenet groups, and social media sites. Under certain circumstances, an individual may be motivated to post under multiple usernames on the same website. Posts should not be treated as independent if it appears likely that the same individual may be responsible for them – for example, if there are numerous idiosyncrasies in the language used that are difficult to explain any other way.

At the same time, if there is no particular reason to identify two distinct usernames as the one individual, we should not unnecessarily reject independence of their posts.

This, that and the other (talk) 08:32, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Couple of extra points: the content of my example list above is just an example - I'm not suggesting we vote on those exact terms as part of this vote. Also, it would be logical to organise the sites in alphabetical order of their name. This, that and the other (talk) 08:44, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

It makes it unsortable, if that's something we care about. It also uses a lot more vertical screen space which is more scarce than horizontal screen space. I have to think about it some more, perhaps a preliminary "which style do you like more" poll could be held in the BP. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 12:47, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@This, that and the other: FYI, I launched a small preference poll now: Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/October § Styling of the list of discussed online-online sources — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 00:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Sgconlaw’s proposal

@Fytcha: How will this work with Sgconlaw’s proposal (i.e., “Wiktionary:Sources” and “Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Accepted online-only sources”)? Or will (if it has not been already) you cancel this vote? J3133 (talk) 07:08, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@J3133: I think I would just incorporate the results of that proposal into my vote if that's fine with @Sgconlaw (i.e. writing my proposal in a form that reflects the consensus reached in that discussion). I still think there's a place for my vote because there are many holes in the online-only source vote that haven't been definitively addressed. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:09, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, @Fytcha, thanks for this. I have a few points and questions:

• I have no issue if we direct editors to vote in this formal vote instead of on the proposal I previously made.
• What does the following sentence in the draft mean? It's not very clear to me: "Note that WT:SOURCES can not^{[sic – meaning cannot]} override WT:CFI; in particular, sources deemed acceptable by WT:CFI may not be voted on in this forum."
• Your vote may wish to clarify that when an online source is a magazine or news website, what is being approved is the edited content of the source and not readers' comments on articles. I think this point was raised by someone in the Beer Parlour discussion. Alternatively, we could either (1) leave it to editors to indicate whether readers' comments should be included or excluded when proposing a particular online source (e.g., "XYZ News (edited content only; readers' comments excluded)"); or (2) have a default position, such as "Readers' comments in online sources which are magazines or news websites are excluded unless there was a vote to expressly include them". The position should be stated somewhere in the policy.
• Perhaps there also needs to be a separate page where “failed” online sources are also recorded.
• I think you might want to add something in your vote which explains how the vote is to be implemented. For example, the policy, if passed, will not affect the status of discussions which are closed before the formal vote ends, but will apply to discussions which are not yet closed. (Of course, I suppose, an editor can always re-open a previously closed discussion.)

— Sgconlaw (talk) 15:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

By the way, the results of the discussion at "Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September#Whether Reddit and Twitter are to be regarded as durably archived sources" are that HuffPost and Vice are to be regarded as durably archived online sources, but there is no consensus that Reddit and Twitter should be regarded as such. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: Thanks for your feedback.

1. Okay, let's do this. I will try to finish up this vote as quickly as possible.
2. That line means that this forum cannot change anything about the acceptability of sources that are acceptable as per WT:CFI. In particular, it cannot change the acceptability (or weight or anything else) of book quotations, Usenet quotations etc. If editors want to change that, they should try other venues (most appropriately, a regular vote).
3. Good point. I think it would be best to leave it to the proposers to clarify which parts exactly of their website should become citable because websites are too varied for us to come up with a general ruling. I will however make it very clear that this has to be part of each proposal.
4. I intended them to be included on the same page as the approved sources.
5. I thought I would just incorporate the result of Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September § Whether Reddit and Twitter are to be regarded as durably archived sources into my sources table. EDIT: Ah, now I see what you mean. I've made this change just now. What do you think?

— Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 20:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)