Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines
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Category talk:Canadian sportspeople by country of descent
| Following a CfD for categories relating to British sportspeople in 2023 here, followed by those for several other groupings nominated by myself in September 2025 here, all of which resulted in upmerging apart from the Canadians and French, I submitted a deletion review in November here which endorsed the no-consensus closure. I have no problem with that, my purpose was to seek a logical global consistency on the suitability of this intersection - it was suggested that RfC was the best place for that, so here I am, again.
Of course there are valid sources discussing the ethnic origins of many competitors in many sports from many countries, but that would suggest that it would be of more benefit to expand on the specific subject(s) in an article or a series of articles, and similar evidence did not prevent almost all of the other categories being upmerged, resulting in these two groupings being retained in a completely illogical manner; either this is valid for a categorisation fork across the board, or it isn't, because 20 years of this project have shown that the proliferation and maintenance of categories is not adequately patrolled and policed to have narrow, particular forks without 'siblings' being created and populated for similar matters. There is no evidence that Category:Canadian sportspeople of Slovak descent has specific sourcing for its individual importance, and also nothing to prevent Category:Canadian sportspeople of Czech descent being created if half a dozen qualifying biographies were found (by the way, glancing at Category:Canadian people of Czech descent, about half of the 68 articles there look to be sportspeople, so in that respect it would be perfectly valid), regardless of sourcing. On the French side, there is no evidence that Category:French sportspeople of Portuguese descent has specific sourcing for its individual importance, and also nothing to prevent Category:French sportspeople of Spanish descent being created if half a dozen qualifying biographies were found (by the way, glancing at Category:French people of Spanish descent, perhaps 100 of the 336 articles there look to be sportspeople, so in that respect it would be perfectly valid) – because that's not the way categories work in practice and never has been: it is assumed that the source exists in the article if there is already a category present which prompts another to be added. Finally, the deletion of other groupings has left a silly imbalance for certain intersections: Category:French sportspeople of Turkish descent is still present but Category:German sportspeople of Turkish descent was upmerged, somewhat farcical for any reader with a passing interest in German/Turkish culture and/or sport in the past 50+ years, and of course that complex relationship is a published topic of relevance (see Turks in Germany#Sports) but that did not 'save' the particular category at the earlier CfD. We are not discussing whether the topic exists independently but whether it is relevant for the continued existence of this entire intersection of categorisation. And in that regard, there is no difference between the surviving Canadian / French groupings and the deleted American / Australian / British / Spanish groupings other than one or two people contributing to the CfD. The principle is identical, either those should be restored or these other 'survivors' merged too. PS I'm not certain if the RfC type I have selected is the most suitable, please change it if not. Crowsus (talk) 09:55, 1 December 2025 (UTC) |
Template talk:Infobox chess biography
Should |country= be used for the flag under which the player plays or the federation to which the player is affiliated? This issue has previously been discussed here: Khiikiat (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2025 (UTC)
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Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)
There are currently four general categories of general sanctions (i.e., sets of special rules or restrictions that apply across entire topic areas):
Currently, enforcement requests and appeals arising from categories #1-3 can go to either the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (AE) or the administrators' noticeboard (AN), as appropriate. (Enforcement requests tend to go to AE, whereas appeals can go to either venue at the sanctioned editor's choice, as guaranteed by ArbCom's procedures). By contrast, enforcement requests and appeals arising from category #4 can only go to AN. The question is: should the community allow enforcement requests and appeals arising from all community-imposed general sanctions (including category #4) to be heard at AE (in addition to AN)? 22:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC) |
User talk:Athanelar/Identifying AI-generated text
| This has been up for a bit over 24 hours and has had a fair few eyes on it with no strong objections and some good tweaks, so I'm moving forward to RfC.
The RfC closer for WP:NEWLLM stated that a community consensus on identifying AI-generated text would be necessary in order for that guideline to be properly enforced. The question for this RfC is thus: should this proposal be accepted as a supplementary essay to WP:NEWLLM (and future AI-restricting guidelines) to serve as a consensus standard for how to identify AI-generated text? Athanelar (talk) 00:19, 28 November 2025 (UTC) |
| Should the subsection |
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables
| Should data table captions be required only for screen readers? If yes, the first sentence of MOS:HEADERS would be changed to remove "and used on all data tables." In its place, a second sentence would be added saying that captions are still required for accessibility, to be voiced by screen readers, with Template:Sronly hiding the caption from sighted readers by default. Binksternet (talk) 00:49, 23 November 2025 (UTC) |
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
| This request for comment proposes deprecating the Associated Press Stylebook as a naming authority within WP:USPLACE. The current guideline ties certain U.S. city article titles to whether the AP Stylebook lists them as not requiring a state name, a practice that dates back to Wikipedia’s early years. However, this external dependency conflicts with Wikipedia’s self-governed policy hierarchy and with the way other countries’ naming conventions are structured. No other national convention relies on an outside publication to determine article titles. This discussion invites editors to consider whether Wikipedia should instead base U.S. city naming solely on internal principles such as WP:TITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, supported by verifiable usage data such as pageviews and clickstreams.
Proposal Deprecate the Associated Press Stylebook as a naming authority within WP:USPLACE. Future decisions about the inclusion or omission of state names in U.S. city article titles should be based solely on Wikipedia’s internal policies and verifiable usage evidence. Replace the existing paragraph:
with:
Add an explanatory note:
Background The current wording of WP:USPLACE incorporates the Associated Press Stylebook as part of its reasoning for which United States cities are exempt from the “Placename, State” format. This reliance on an external publication is unusual within Wikipedia’s system of self-contained policies and guidelines. Other country-specific naming conventions (for example WP:UKPLACE, WP:CANPLACE, WP:NCAUST, WP:NCIND) rely only on internal policy principles such as WP:TITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Rationale The AP Stylebook was created for journalistic brevity, not encyclopedic clarity. Wikipedia’s naming standards are designed for reliability and reader intent, not for newspaper copy. No other country’s naming convention cites an external editorial manual as authority. The United States should not be an exception. The AP list of cities without state modifiers is dated and arbitrary, reflecting mid-20th-century newspaper familiarity rather than modern global recognition. Wikimedia’s pageview and clickstream data provide transparent, empirical evidence of what readers mean when they search for a city name. This change aligns WP:USPLACE with WP:TITLE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, ensuring that the same principles apply worldwide. Intended outcome Consensus to remove or deprecate references to the Associated Press Stylebook from WP:USPLACE and clarify that U.S. city naming follows the same internally governed, data-based principles used for other countries. TrueCRaysball 💬|✏️ 18:07, 10 November 2025 (UTC) |
Wikipedia talk:Make technical articles understandable
Should we adopt the text of Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable/Workshop as the new text for this guideline (compare)?
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