User talk:WhatamIdoing

If you expected a reply on another page and didn't get it, then please feel free to remind me. I've given up on my watchlist. You can also use the magic summoning tool if you remember to link my userpage in the same edit in which you sign the message.

Please add notes to the end of this page. If you notice the page size getting out of control (>100,000 bytes), then please tell me. I'll probably reply here unless you suggest another page for a reply. Thanks, WhatamIdoing

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Just want you to say thank you for giving me guidance. Actually his page was incorrect and filled with less details unlike his era's other celebs pages are well written. Currently, the page is not revised that's I contributed. You are all experienced than me so I really need your support. Gooshh (talk) 18:30, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gooshh, one thing you could do is to try to build some trust on the page by making just one small edit to the article. A simple edit would be best. It could be something as small and simple as a spelling correction. If you are changing a factual claim, then be sure to add a good source. After that, wait for a day or two, to see if anyone reacts. If there are no objections, make another small edit and wait again. Yes, it could take a very long time to improve the article at that pace, but you'll learn more about what's accepted when you move slowly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank u so much for your guidance. I won't give up I am just fixing the page of a notable figure. But Orangemike words are really pathetic I am sorry to say "deleting all this fluff". I really like the way you guided me this what I needed Gooshh (talk) 07:19, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gooshh, I am disappointed by your response. I suggested making one (1) small edit. You have instead made 33 (thirty-three!) edits. That is too many edits for the current situation. If you want to be successful, you need to slow down. Really, really, really, painfully slow. You need to approach this situation as if it were a tiger. The tiger is smart, and it would like to leave you alone, but if you make big or fast motions, it will feel threatened and attack you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

look I started my journey on January by fixing small edits in Wikipedia. Then I have discovered that this page wasn't well written. Thank you for your message and guidance. I understand your concerns about making large edits early on. I genuinely appreciate the effort experienced editors like you put into maintaining the quality of Wikipedia. I just want to clarify that my intention was never to override community norms. I’ve been working hard to improve the article on Sunil Dutt because I noticed it was incomplete and had a few inaccuracies. Since the article hadn’t received much attention for a long time, I tried to gather well-sourced and verifiable content to enhance it. I completely welcome corrections, improvements, and feedback. If it’s better to propose substantial edits on the Talk page first, I’ll gladly follow that approach moving forward. I’m here to collaborate and learn from the process.

Thanks again for your time and support. Gooshh (talk) 07:32, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My advice is not about what to do because you are "early on". My advice is about what to do when someone has recently made a big complaint about your edits at that article.

When someone is already mad at you, try:

• Not editing that article at all, or
• Making one (1) small edit at that article and then stopping.

The option that sounds like:

• Someone complained that I did a poor job at that article last week, so I decided to make a huge number of edits again this week

is the option that is most likely to lead to you getting in trouble.

When reviewers see your name, you want them to think "Oh, it's that nice person who slowly fixes up articles. He might still be learning a few things, but his edits are usually good, and it's easy to revert or fix the one or two bad ones". You do not want them thinking "Ugh, him again! Some of this is okay, but he made literally dozens of edits today, and I don't have the patience necessary to sort out which ones are good and which are truly bad". WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:22, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are roughly 16k pages in Category:Wikipedia pages about contentious topics, if we count an article and its talk as a single page.

If I understand Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Extended_confirmed_definition#Numbers correctly these are good hunting grounds for socks.

So what I would propose is a bot that follows the eventstream and gets the editcount of each user who edits one of those ~16k contentious articles.

(Optimize it a bit so that you don't repeatedly get the editcount for the same useraccount, wait a reasonable amount of time when people have very few edits before checking again, and store the usernames of accounts above a certain threshold so that you don't have to get their editcount. Maybe add a list of accounts with many edits so you know they are not suspicious.)

And then it outputs a list of edits made by people whose editcount is just high enough (lets say 500 to 700) to edit for example, Israel/Palestine stuff. Am I making sense? Polygnotus (talk) 07:00, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the idea, but once you've got the list, then what? We can't checkuser the whole lot of them just to see which ones are actually socks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

True, but experts in that particular field can use it in addition to their watchlists.

I don't know how to make an infallible sock detector without seriously infringing on everyone's privacy (and committing various human rights violations), but I think that a tool like the one I describe could make it easier to identify problematic newcomers to contentious areas (who may not be new or independent).

And you could even add some code that figures out what percentage of their post-ECP editing is in a particular CTOP field.

The pattern of 500 unrelated edits and then almost exclusively CTOP edits is an interesting one. Polygnotus (talk) 23:03, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been studying JS for many years, and now I'm struggling with the problem of how to draw rain in Canvas/

But I didn't know that markdown is not equal to markup, but I haven't even heard about wikitext and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Babel (it's a pity that Wiki doesn't understand its internal link. And it doesn't show it in the 1st place in the search.). It happens that way too. Tnx Seregadu (talk) 04:15, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you use the button on the toolbar, it will convert the URL into a link for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. I have been working in the "External links" section for a good while. The section is often overlooked, even in some higher-quality articles, and can frequently grow very large, including multiple subsections. I have run into counts of thirty or more. Sometimes they appear to be just links to add to a page,sometimes POV pushing, or both.

I have recently been working towards external links cleanup. The tags go back to 2015.

While I suppose there is no maximum accepted amount, it seems that three or four will not garner objections. When performing maintenance, I usually don't bother with links of five or fewer unless I see no benefit to the article. When the number is excessive, I will move all but three or four to the talk page for discussion. Generally, I do not receive much backlash and do receive thanks for trimming the section.

You made mention at Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard#Blogs_in_external_links that "Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum" and that "WP:ELBURDEN is quite strict". I agree with this. I also don't think WP:BRD applies if someone contests one or more links.

I moved excessive links at Code 128 to the talk page. Because I did not return a reply fast enough for the editors timeline, it was reverted. The editor liked the old version, which is "helpful". If you get the chance, could you please take a look at this? I suppose this is a request for a third opinion. -- Otr500 (talk) 14:12, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @Otr500. I'll take a look later, but I have a couple of suggestions in general:

• You are correct that there is no single maximum accepted amount. However, it's very unusual for more than 8 or 10 to be a good idea. By the time you're looking at EL #11 in a list, there are usually duplicates. I also would not usually bother with links of five or fewer, though keep in mind that for films, there is a standard set that can easily exceed that level.
• I find that fixing formatting (e.g., WP:ELCITE), removing WP:ELDEAD links, copying an official link to the infobox, and adding appropriate descriptions is helpful, even if the result is a somewhat larger number of links remaining. About descriptions, I mean that people often copy the official title of the linked page or the website's name, even if it's uninformative. Sometimes what you need is a description of the contents, like "Photos of the historic house" or "Obituary tribute written by his political opponent" or "Oral history collection by soldiers surviving the battle", so readers can figure out if they want to click on it.
• Arguing about inclusion/exclusion can be time consuming. If you get reverted, you will probably find it faster to ignore the reversion and move on to other articles. You can clean up ten messes in the time that it takes to argue about one.

Also, thank you for weeding the link farms. I appreciate your efforts to improve this part of Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the detailed reply and your positive acknowledgment. It is proof that we are never too old to learn. I hadn't considered copying the official link to the info box if it is not included. I think 10 years of "career" tags is too long. If I take too long on individual articles, possible improvements in tag removal might take longer than my expected lifespan. Most of the several hundred tags don't have talk page discussions. I started transferring excessive links to the talk page, including some policies and guidelines, especially WP:BURDEN, for any possible discussion. With so many tags (and the time-consuming factor), moving links to the talk page seems like a less-than-ideal but workable solution over some indiscriminate removal. I will not be concerned with some re-additions to the list, and so far, only a couple of concerns have been raised. Usually, any interaction means there is an active editor taking interest, which I consider a plus, so I am not going to be overly concerned, as incremental progress is still progress.

The example above added back too many links, and the rationale for reversion seemed pretty much nonsensical. Again, thank you for your comments and advice. -- Otr500 (talk) 14:59, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for Wikipedia:Article titles and scopes. I've encountered the issue of deriving scope from title too many times, so it's good to see this written down. Now the real issue, I'm trying to think of a shortcut I'll remember. CMD (talk) 04:13, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. I kept seeing the problem at Ketogenic diet. "But the fitness influencers all say they're doing a keto diet, so why shouldn't adult weight-loss diets be on this page?!" Um, because it's about medical treatments for refractory pediatric epilepsy, not about lifestyles. Your thing is over at the page on low-carb diets. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recently saw it on Overseas territory (France) vs Overseas France, and you know, they're not the most distinguishable names. Actually, I should add hatnotes... CMD (talk) 06:44, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if you need an example of the boundaries of scope, but perhaps Cutter (boat) is one? There are several different types of boat termed "cutter", but Cutter has many more subjects. The article scope is everything under that name that is a boat or ship. Part of the decision-making is that several of the boat types do not really have enough material to make a reasonable article on their own. (Avoid over-short articles that don't have a lot of potential content.) The rest of it is if a reader sees the word "cutter" in a maritime context, they need a quick way of discovering what it means. (Reader based scope. Hopping between several articles would be tedious.) But this might just be me championing the significance of an article on which I have worked, so not a problem if you don't think it fits the bill. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:23, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ThoughtIdRetired, it sounds like Cutter (boat) is a WP:SETINDEX. If you agree, it would be a good example for the SETINDEX page. Most articles tagged as a set index are not what you'd hold up as a good example, so the possibility of finding another article to recommend as a model is always exciting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I do agree. Cutter (boat) tries to give complete coverage of each meaning in the one article, which surely makes it different from an index from where you can follow a link to an article on each individual meaning. (Perhaps I have misunderstood the concept of WP:SETINDEX?)

The decision-making on this article structure included considerations like:
(a) The reader may need a relatively full explanation in order to learn which meaning of the word they had encountered.
(b) Most of the meanings would, in an individual article on that meaning, be a particularly short article. Maritime subjects in Wikipedia already have too many articles that are very short. I found one such article a little while ago where the article was shorter than the corresponding entry in Glossary of nautical terms. Typically, I failed to make a note of which term it was and now have little hope of finding it again. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 10:07, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are correct about the SETINDEX idea.

If you'd like to add a paragraph about Cutter (boat) to Wikipedia:Article titles and scopes, that might be helpful. It's important for editors to be able to say "our scope is an overview of all the boats that might be relevant", just like it's important for editors to be able to say "our scope is this exact thing, not any of the similarly named things". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SCOPETHENTITLE? WP:TOPICTHENTITLE? WP:SCOPEBEFORETITLE? CMD (talk) 04:49, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The last seems clearest to me, though I appreciate the alliteration in the middle option. However, I don't feel skilled in the choice of shortcuts, so you should choose whatever you think best. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:15, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or, per the middle one, go for WP:TTT and make people actually read the essay, rather than make assumptions from your shortcut. I do wonder if "Article titles and scopes" would be better singular: "Article title and scope", as it is about the choices made for one article, rather than an observation about tiles and scopes in general. If we want to encourage thinking about scope before the title, shouldn't we do that in the essay title: "Article scope and title". Lastly, the topic of this essay is clearly a request to think about the scope/topic before debating the best title, rather than imposing a scope/topic as a consequence of the title. It isn't a general discussion of article titles and article scope. So maybe its title should reflect that. -- Colin°^Talk 08:07, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A 'meaningless' initialism has some advantages.

Feel free to WP:MOVE the page. I'm not overly fond of the existing title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

COVID-19 has become endemic in several parts of the world, meaning it is consistently present but at predictable and manageable levels within a specific population or region, according to UNC-Chapel Hill.

Here are several ways in which COVID-19 may have become endemic:

1. Increased Population Immunity:

Vaccination: Widespread vaccination efforts globally have helped build immunity in the population, significantly reducing the severity of illness and transmission rates.

Natural Infection: Many people have gained some level of immunity through prior infection with the virus, which also contributes to a higher baseline level of immunity in the population.

Combined Immunity: Vaccination combined with natural immunity helps maintain a lower prevalence of infection and offers greater resilience against future variants.

2. Viral Adaptation:

Mutation and Evolution: SARS-CoV-2, like other RNA viruses, undergoes mutations, which can lead to the emergence of new variants with altered characteristics, such as increased transmissibility or immune evasion.

Reduced Severity: While not guaranteed, it's possible that the virus may evolve over time to become less virulent, leading to less severe disease in infected individuals.

Codon Usage Adaptation: The virus has gradually adapted its codon usage to that of humans, enhancing its ability to thrive within the human host.

3. Changes in Public Health Response:

Shift in Focus: Public health strategies have transitioned from emphasizing broad lockdowns and strict measures to focusing on managing the disease and minimizing severe illness.

Vaccination Campaigns: Ongoing vaccination and booster campaigns are crucial for maintaining population immunity and reducing the impact of the virus.

Surveillance and Monitoring: Continued surveillance and monitoring of the virus's evolution are essential for identifying new variants and adjusting public health responses accordingly.

4. Establishment of Predictable Patterns:

Seasonal Flu-like Behavior: There is evidence suggesting that COVID-19 may eventually settle into predictable seasonal patterns, much like the common cold or influenza.

Manageable Levels: The disease is now considered to be at a level that can be managed by healthcare systems without causing widespread disruptions.

5. Living with the Virus:

Reduced Disruption: Endemic COVID-19 means that while the virus will continue to circulate, it is no longer expected to cause the large-scale disruptions seen during the pandemic's peak.

Individual and Collective Responsibility: Individuals and communities must continue to be vigilant and proactive in their health practices, such as getting vaccinated, practicing good hygiene, and taking precautions when feeling unwell.

Important Considerations:

Endemicity doesn't mean the virus is gone or that it's no longer a concern. Endemic diseases can still cause significant illness and mortality, as seen with influenza.

The transition to endemicity is an ongoing process, and the emergence of new, more dangerous variants could potentially shift the status back to an epidemic or even a pandemic.

By understanding these factors, individuals and communities can better navigate the transition to living with COVID-19 as an endemic disease and continue to implement measures to protect themselves and others. HelpfulBeagle (talk) 00:10, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you see when you were undoing my edit, your info was wrong. HelpfulBeagle (talk) 00:10, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@HelpfulBeagle, I direct your attention to two little words at the start of this long comment: Here are several ways in which COVID-19 may have become endemic: Do you know what "may have" means? It means "experts disagree about whether this has already happened". That's exactly the correct information that you were removing from the article: "As of 2025, experts were in disagreement as to whether COVID-19 had yet become endemic." The reason that experts disagree is because there are different definitions, as in the other words you removed from the article: "The transition point of a pandemic into an endemic state is not well-defined, and whether this has occurred differs according to the definitions used".

I direct your attention also to another bit that you posted above: There is evidence suggesting that COVID-19 may eventually settle into predictable seasonal patterns. Do you know what "may eventually" means? It means "hasn't yet". So according to your own comments here, COVID is not yet in an endemic state. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mean to remove that part. It may hard to tell with Wikipedia what I’m removing, but I only meant to remove one sentence. And that was “there is no single agreed definition that COVID-19 has become endemic.” HelpfulBeagle (talk) 00:28, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have Wikipedia:Reliable sources saying that there really is a "single agreed definition or metric that proves that COVID-19 has become endemic"? What exactly is that definition or metric? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many health experts and agencies describe endemic diseases as those that show predictable, stable transmission patterns within specific regions. COVID-19, by this framing, fits many of the criteria:

Seasonal surges, much like the flu

Widespread population immunity through vaccination or prior infection

Consistent presence rather than explosive outbreaks

You can quote this from the Wikipedia article on Endemic COVID-19:

> "COVID-19 is expected to become endemic in most countries."

This aligns with comments from agencies like the World Health Organization and CDC acknowledging the virus is settling into an endemic phase in many places. HelpfulBeagle (talk) 00:43, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Is expected to" means "hasn't yet".

"Settling into" means "isn't yet". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:05, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of adding a WP:NOTAI to WP:NOT. Bon courage (talk) 05:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That WP:UPPERCASE sounds it would have predictably harmful effects: "You can't use machine translation, because Wikipedia is NOTAI" – "You can't use an LLM to fix your grammar, because Wikipedia is NOTAI" – and so on, even if the actual policy says "AI-based grammar fixes are acceptable, and any lying liar who claims otherwise will get a minimum 24-hour block". And what will we do in a couple of years, when Predictive text expands to an AI-based system, and people genuinely don't know that they're technically using an AI tool?

On a related point, you might be interested in reading https://www.404media.co/teachers-are-not-ok-ai-chatgpt/ It's semi-paywalled (you can read a lot but not all of it). I think that the story from the "managing editor at Gamers With Glasses" that progressed from acceptance to disclosure to ban sounds like some of what our discussions on wiki. Kittycataclysm, I think you'll also be interested in this, given the Wikibooks discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTAISLOP then? My wife is a university teacher and AI has made for interesting times (the solution may be to have everything assessed by written exams in big halls as in days of yore). The trouble on Wikipedia is that discussions have become huge hang-wringing multi-thousand word disquisitions when I think what we want to say is quite simple: don't paste generated AI content into article space and don't use generated AI content as a proxy for yourself in discussion with other editors (as with the OP here). Bon courage (talk) 06:41, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOGARBAGE, whether AI or otherwise?

The link above from 404 Media is almost entirely stories from teachers about how they are coping with student (mis)use of AI. The graduate program on ethical AI use, which ended with multiple students unethically abusing AI for their final project was interesting in a make-you-want-to-cry kind of way. Another said that he's thinking about old-school oral exams. And, yes, supervised in-class writing time, with the kinds of anti-cheating precautions you'd expect for a test, seems to be a popular solution for writing classes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:58, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I have just replied to your RFC about Muffins. There is a similar issue surrounding Cinnamon Roll/Cinnamon Bun. Depending on where you are in the world the name is used for either a pastry or sweet bread product, but the article mainly construdes that its a pastry. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:19, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Davidstewartharvey, what does the word pastry mean to you?

There's a definition in ISBN 9780191756276 that encompasses all fat+flour+water doughs (i.e., shortcrust, rough puff (or flaky), puff pastry, choux pastry and filo, but nothing with yeast). I don't think that anything in Cinnamon roll meets that definition.

There is another definition that says anything sweet that you get from the bakery is "a pastry", even if it's a cake or a pie or whatever. Pastry in this definition is more like "whatever the pastry chef makes" or "whatever is sold in the pastry section of the bakery". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing Cinnamon Roll or Buns have two different recipes pastry [1] or [2], while the article says it is a Sweet roll, the article section says Pastry, which as you pointed out is non yeast leaven, but the section discusses how to make yeast dough! A quick search shows that the name Cinnamon roll or bun means different thinks. US chef Barefoot Contessa recipe (although called Sticky Buns) uses puff pastry [3], while this US recipe is for bread product [4]. That's just the US, in Britain and Australia there is a similar mixup with name and product (Cinnamon rolls are sometimes even called Danishes in the UK). As per my question I have raised on the article, should the article be split (I don't think it should) or re-written to show the differences? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:20, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's talk about it at Talk:Cinnamon roll#Bun and Roll. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @WhatamIdoing, I've learned your essays in the past and I noticed you are very experienced with AfD, so I would really appreciate your perspective on a recent AfD I nominated which ended in a unanimous !keep. I'm really inexperienced with notability concerns, and I don't quite understand what was wrong with my arguments. I have read relevant policies and essays, and honestly I don't see how my argument is not valid. Any guidance would be really appreciated. IAWW (talk) 15:00, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @It is a wonderful world. I like your username. I don't usually contribute to AFD discussions about sports, but I can tell you that the median Wikipedia article has four inline citations, and that when articles already cite 10+ sources, they're often kept at AFD.

More generally, I think that if you have a narrow view of secondary sources, then your AFD experience will be out of step with the community. Some of our "requirements", when you read the written guidelines, tend to sound a bit more stringent than they really are in practice. Part of that is because the GNG's wording has changed very little since its early days, but we are more aware now that Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. Back in the day, some editors (including experienced editors who wrote the early policies and guidelines) used the words secondary and independent and third-party interchangeably. They believed, for example, that if the local newspaper wrote a story that said "There was a car wreck yesterday afternoon. Witnesses said that nobody got hurt", then that was secondary for the car wreck, because the reporter wasn't personally involved in the car wreck, but was instead repeating what the witnesses said.

This old approach is technically wrong; WP:PRIMARYNEWS and WP:LINKSINACHAIN (partly) explain why it's wrong. However, the editors who say this these days aren't really trying to say that these are True™ secondary sources; what they're really saying is that they don't believe the article should be deleted. Since AFD's closers no longer care much about common sense, the path towards WP:PRESERVING the information in a separate article is to mis-label the news articles as "secondary sources" during AFDs. Basically, they're trying to finesse the general notability guideline's official requirement that secondary sources exist, when no true secondary sources actually exist (that they're aware of).

While it irritates me that they're technically using the wrong words, they're not disagreeing with the original intention behind the GNG.

In terms of advice, I suggest, to you and to everyone:

• Before nominating any article for deletion, ask yourself whether it already is – or with a couple of hours' work could become – a basically decent article with at least 10 facts/sentences that someone might be interested in. If so, don't bother trying to get it deleted.
• If you don't think it's possible to create a basically decent article, then look at the list of sources already cited in the article. If it's more than 10 completely separate sources, then you might slap a {{notability}} tag on it and move along. A future AFD will make a stronger case if the nom can say "This has been tagged as having uncertain notability for the last three years, so..."
• Remember that there are many ways to understand secondary sources. The smallest I've seen an editor claim is 'contains at least one adjective'. That's too narrow for me to adopt, but any compare-and-contrast statement gives us the encyclopedic context (which is what we're really trying to achieve), and thus if the adjective in question is one such as first, biggest, smallest, oldest, etc. then that definition will probably lead you in the correct direction. Others have a much, much more restrictive definition. My own standards vary by subject matter (e.g., higher for medical diseases/labels than for most other subjects).
• Outside of Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), the idea that we must have 2+ sources, each of which, when considered in isolation, amounts to "SIGCOV SIRS" all by itself is (a) a view that is dear to the hearts of some AFD denizens, and (b) nothing that we've ever been able to get adopted by the community. We can't even get the community to agree that there must always be two sources in the real world, much less that they must use an academically correct definition of secondary, or that the sources must have more than Wikipedia:One hundred words about the subject, or anything else you might think of. I therefore recommend that when contemplating article creation, you should try to find multiple sources, each of which individually meets all the requirements (i.e., the case least favorable to creating a separate article); when contemplating AFD, you should evaluate the sources taken as a whole (i.e., the case most favorable to keeping the article). This is a variation on the recommendation, applicable to internet communication in general, that one be expansive in what you receive, but narrow in what you send. See also WP:WHYN.
• WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is officially a rejected idea, but if there are articles on closely related subjects (e.g., a complete series of all Super Bowl games), that suggests an AFD nom is less likely to be successful, and therefore might not be worth your time.
• It is a good idea to learn how to search in non-English languages.
• It is a good idea to learn how to find ordinary daily newspapers and search their websites directly.
• Spend an hour in Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library to find sources that might be relevant. Since your recent AFD noms were about sports, see particularly Perlego (direct TWL link at the top of its talk page) and McFarland.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wow @WhatamIdoing, you've outdone yourself here. Pretty much everything you wrote here I didn't already know, and your advice is very applicable. Just to check I understand correctly: in this particular AfD, there was not any True™ secondary sources, but !voters felt like the article was notable because it had independent sources and possibly some other reasons like OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. This view chimes with the intention behind GNG but not the specific wording.

I am a bit confused about one thing. You say GNG has changed little since secondary often meant the same as independent, which presumably would mean the GNG would be less strict around secondary sourcing matters? But this contradicts that the guidelines "tend to sound a bit more stringent than they really are in practice". Sorry if I'm being thick, but I can't figure out how to reconcile these two pieces of information.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. IAWW (talk) 08:45, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The original intention behind the GNG is something like "Don't create spam or articles about every little thing. Write about Apple, Inc. not about a little apple orchard you saw one day; write about Bill Gates, not about your neighbor Bill; write about House fires, not about the time your friend's house caught fire."

So we ("they", because I hadn't gotten involved in policy and guideline work at that time) eventually wrapped that up in some fancy, academic-sounding language. The earliest summary of the overall trend in notability rules was "multiple non-trivial published works, where the source is independent of the topic itself". The language about secondary sources was added five months later. In practice, for most subject areas, the original is still the standard. This means that we regularly have this contrast:

• GNG: We must have significant coverage.
• AFD: I agree. The purpose of SIGCOV is to be able to write a verifiable article. I already wrote a verifiable article. Therefore, whatever sources I've used already prove significant coverage.
• GNG: We must have multiple sources.
• AFD: No problem: Two is multiple. Also, a single entry in the Dictionary of National Biography counts as multiple sources all by itself.
• GNG: We must have independent sources.
• AFD: I agree that we must have independent sources. Note that I will count a medical journal article by a drug manufacturer's employees as being Independent™ of their employer because I love science, and press releases from universities about their employees are also Independent™ because I want to have articles about WP:PROFs, and nobody independent of them actually writes about academics, so this is the closest I can get. Also, sometimes, I'm going to say that independent news reports are Non-independent™, when they report favorable information about people or businesses. If the news says something positive about a company, that means it's secretly a paid advertisement or a case of churnalism.
• GNG: We must have secondary sources.
• AFD: Okay, but note that I'm often going to use a definition that says "second-hand" information is secondary, so all independent sources, including eyewitness news reports and breaking news, are secondary ones, so this is redundant with the previous requirement and therefore irrelevant.

In other words, although the GNG states a requirement for secondary sources, AFD participants regularly twist the definitions so that they effectively reject that requirement whenever it suits the outcome the !voter believes to be correct. See also Consequentialism: what matters is whether the outcome is the one you believe most appropriate in the specific case, rather than applying a consistent, logical standard across all articles.

There is one area in which the GNG is laxer than AFD:

• GNG: What matters is whether the real world has the sources. It doesn't matter whether any sources have been cited in the article yet.
• AFD: You're kidding me, right? Because no way am I going to go look for sources myself, and that goes double for anything that requires more work than pasting the title into my favorite search engine. You have to hand those sources to me on a silver platter, or it's non-notable. In fact, if I'm feeling busy, or if I dislike the subject, I'm only going to look at WP:THREE of them.

I know this sounds like a messy or even broken process, and saying one thing while doing another is irritating (to me, anyway), but overall I think we are getting reasonable outcomes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for this. I've found your explanations extremely easy to understand. If I can return the favour (e.g. if you want a GA review), let me know! Otherwise, I hope I'll see you round :) IAWW (talk) 18:53, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the kind words and the offer. I hope to see you around! WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]