Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-01/Handling of citations that do not meet our current definition of permanently archived

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Handling of citations that do not meet our current definition of permanently archived[edit]

Voting on: At WT:CFI,

Where the current text reads
Where possible, it is better to cite sources that are likely to remain easily accessible over time, so that someone referring to Wiktionary years from now is likely to be able to find the original source. As Wiktionary is an online dictionary, this naturally favors media such as Usenet groups, which are durably archived by Google. Print media such as books and magazines will also do, particularly if their contents are indexed online. Other recorded media such as audio and video are also acceptable, provided they are of verifiable origin and are durably archived. We do not quote other Wikimedia sites (such as Wikipedia), but we may use quotations found on them (such as quotations from books available on Wikisource). When citing a quotation from a book, please include the ISBN.
Amend to read
Where possible, it is better to cite sources that are likely to remain easily accessible over time, so that someone referring to Wiktionary years from now is likely to be able to find the original source.
  • As Wiktionary is an online dictionary, this naturally favors media such as Usenet groups, which are durably archived by Google.
  • Other online-only sources may also contribute towards attestation requirements if editors come to a consensus through a discussion lasting at least two weeks.
  • Print media such as books and magazines will also do, particularly if their contents are indexed online. When citing a quotation from a book, please include the ISBN.
  • Other recorded media such as audio and video are also acceptable, provided they are of verifiable origin and are durably archived.
  • We do not quote other Wikimedia sites (such as Wikipedia), but we may use quotations found on them (such as quotations from books available on Wikisource).

Schedule:

Discussions:

Support[edit]

  1. Support We desperately need to update our current criteria, and a voting on each source as it comes up seems the only way around all the disagreements. Kiwima (talk) 22:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support Anyone who's spent a decent amount of time at English RFV will realise that this proposal is critical to us being a dictionary for the 21st century. Our ability to cover real, genuine words that are in quite common use online, yet never find their way into print media, is dependent on being able to allow online sources. The current CFI is holding us back. This, that and the other (talk) 22:57, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support, long needed. —Svārtava [t•c•u•r] 03:35, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support pretty weakly and reluctantly, but something has to be done, and this is the best proposal I've seen. TT&O's "21st century" remark (and the fact that OED has no scruples about tweets) are somewhat compelling to me. If it really ruins the entire world we can vote it out again, ha. Equinox ◑ 17:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support. We seriously need reform; there's no reason why a word that has only three hits in a remote part of Usenet should trump words that have widespread usage in online news or even on Twitter, just because they're not "durably archived." It's a bit frustrating as well to see a cycle of "we need more discussion" when discussions have been going on for ages. There needs to be more participation across the board before and after votes rather than comments solely during the vote (this is a general comment not in relation to any specific person who voted oppose in this vote). Overall, we should strive to be proactive rather than reactive, otherwise nothing will continue to get done on this front. AG202 (talk) 18:35, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support for the moment. I think such a change is necessary, but that the wording should be improved. I do believe, however, we should give the current wording a go before trying and improving it, to see more clearly which problems it can lead to, if it leads to problems at all. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support. The criticisms raised are valid, but I think this is so badly needed that I'll take it, warts and all. We can refine it later. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support. It’s a shame that words and phrases that are clearly in widespread use can’t be verified according to our durability criteria. Perhaps a better solution in the long term would be to properly define ‘clearly widespread use’, or rewrite the inclusion criteria to avoid the phrase altogether but to allow entries that aren’t currently allowed. Other issues are what about citations from podcasts and memes that get lots of hits on Google Images? It’s because of all these reasons that I think FaCIAbook should have been kept as an entry, among others. An exception should of course be made for obvious examples of cyber bullying but this current proposal, whereby everyone basically has a free vote, would surely lead to such entries being eliminated. Overlordnat1 (talk) 18:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Weak Support. This is an interregnum solution and better than what we have currently. Still, I hope this will only encourage further discussion and development. brittletheories (talk) 08:10, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Leaning Support, but I do see merit in Imetsia's arguments. There are thousands of potential 'sources'. Will there be a two-week discussion for each? This might just prolong RfVs and RfDs while editors decide whether the source is acceptable. --Rishabhbhat (talk) 08:25, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support per TTTO, AG202, and Overlordnat1. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 11:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support There are way too many verifiable terms (primarily internet slang or fandom/subculture-specific terms) that aren't documented here solely because they haven't been used in print media or Usenet. Binarystep (talk) 04:24, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support per above, with an addendum. I think there will be future amendments to this vote, but we need some reform when it comes to internet citation and I think this is a step in the right direction. Vininn126 (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support. Google, a for-profit company that could shut its Usenet archive down at any time if it deems it to be a burden, should not be considered more reliable or durable than the non-profit Internet Archive. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 16:35, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support This proposal is better than what we have now. The major thought that stands out to me if this becomes policy, and that others have mentioned, is centralization of discussions and their results. If this passes, discussion should be continued on how we want to organize discussions about including certain online sources and where we want to the record the results of such discussions. I personally support the creation of a new discussion board that would be akin to English Wikipedia's Reliable Sources Noticeboard, maybe called Wiktionary:Durable sources noticeboard, were instead of judging the reliability of sources their durability is judged. For archiving the results, something like Wiktionary:Idioms that survived RFD or Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, maybe called Wiktionary:Sources judged durable, would be good. Two weeks might be too short a time period, but I think it is worth test piloting, we can always make a change. Godspeed to us all. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 22:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support 🦀🦀🦀 – Jberkel 23:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support - an improvement on what we have now. John Cross (talk) 21:53, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support: "Print media ... will also do" sounds like reluctant acceptance, I have some magazines going back 80 years. DonnanZ (talk) 10:29, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support, and I also agree with @The Editor's Apprentice. I see that this is a move towards a model for whitelisting certain sources for which there is consensus that they are reliable. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:57, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support The requirement for consensus will hopefully safeguard against fringe and promotional sources. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 04:26, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 18:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose[edit]

  1. Oppose. As Kodiologist and I said on the discussion page, this proposal is inefficient, inconsistent, and not easily administrable. It does not even pretend to establish fixed criteria for permissibility, instead opening the floodgates to ad hoc votes on every new web-source citation. Because RFV's are archived, there is no simple way to cite prior votes as precedent, unless someone goes through the trouble of tracking down prior cases from memory. In addition, RFV is in poor health right now due to its significant overload. Inviting users to create even more requests for verification to check on Internet sources would just make the problem worse. Imetsia (talk) 20:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Imetsia: It has been changed so that the votes are no longer linked to RFV - did you read the rewording? Kiwima (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, and my objections still stand. I suspect that most discussions will happen at RFV anyways, because that's the most natural place to post citation reviews. If they are not centralized at the RFV, the problem is even worse; a patchwork of discussions spanning the BP, user pages, and RFV makes it even harder to cite precedent and get consistent results. Imetsia (talk) 22:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose There's an easier solution: simply use Internet archive or other internet archiving services to durably archive the websites. Buidhe (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Allowing anything that can be archived is a terrible idea which thankfully did not pass. — SURJECTION / T / C / L / 21:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Buidhe it sounds like you are in favour of the general idea of allowing online sources to support the attestation of words, yet you're willing to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If everyone voted this way, no vote on online sources would ever pass! This, that and the other (talk) 23:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose. If this passes we might as well merge RFD and RFV and just vote on whether each entry makes us happy, because we're giving up objective criteria. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I may have been voting on an earlier version, but this is still too vague and confusing and subjective and so still oppose. The proposal to vote on should have been decided in advance, not changed substantially at or after the last minute. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:33, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sorry you felt blindsided. During the comment and revise period, there was active discussion on the talk page that led to the current wording. If you had been watching that page, this would not seem sudden or last-minute. Kiwima (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Vox Sciurorum: What do you mean? The change was made a few days ago, in response to input that was given at the time. Plenty of time for you to raise objections and make yourself aware of the changes. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:30, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I'm inclined to Oppose because I think if we're going to be more permissive of online sources we should have generally-voted-upon general criteria, listed in CFI ("anything archived on such-and-such archiver is acceptable", or better yet "such-and-such news sites are acceptable" etc) and not ad-hoc two-week discussions about individual online-only sources.
    Somewhat separate from this specific vote, I do also still worry that opening the door to more online sources markedly increases the potential for abuse, e.g. a handful of people decide [non-publicly] to tweet [publicly] using "ashleymarierichardsy" as a synonym of "ugly" to bully their classmate Ashley Marie Richards; optional bonus (malus?) points if the tweets, which we'd use as citations, also include her school or address or other personally identifiable info. (I think "security by obscurity", "would someone really game the system like that??", is not a sound/futureproof policy.) This could be solved by not necessarily accepting just anything archived by archive.org, but instead, as Kiwima and others have proposed elsewhere, only accepting specific sites with editorial oversight. - -sche (discuss) 00:36, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @-sche What's stopping that from being cited on Usenet right now? I'm still concerned that some of the terms we have here wouldn't pass the smell test if they were anywhere else but Usenet. If we're going to use that argument to limit Twitter, then we should do it across the board and stop giving preferential treatment to Usenet. And regardless, I would hope that people would be rational enough to not make the entry, and if it were to be made, that they'd stop it at RFD. In terms of my own personal take though, I think that there's a balance between opening the floodgates and disallowing any and all online sources. There are twitter corpora out there and I don't think that it'd be super super difficult to start setting guidelines for usage, but without some kinda of discussion to begin with, we can't even start getting there. AG202 (talk) 01:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    For future readers of this vote, see: the RFD discussion on D*rky C*ntinent (and Talk:D*rky C*ntinent once it's archived) for the clearest and most prevalent example (which I tagged folks in question about as well but there's yet to have been a response there either frustratingly enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). AG202 (talk) 10:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @-sche We already include some rather questionable entries (like roflcopter) thanks to Usenet attestation. brittletheories (talk) 08:10, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, I don't roflcopter is questionable at all. I am personally familiar with the term despite never being on Usenet, it has made its way into books [1] [2] [3] [4], and still sees use on Twitter to this day. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @-sche Would you instead advocate the deprecation of the use of Usenet for citations? Graham11 (talk) 05:35, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose. I don't like the idea of a vote that, instead of finding substantive consensus, authorises some unknown number of two-week discussions to find consensus, knowing that fewer people will see them and engage. Surely we can actually propose a reform and put it to a vote instead! —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 07:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately, every time a vote has been proposed, see: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2012-08/Citations_from_WebCite & Wiktionary:Votes/2021-09/New_standard_for_archived_quotations, it's often shot down by folks who don't participate in discussions before or after the vote. It's unfair to expect people to keep coming up with nuanced votes when few people participate in the conversations to begin with. How are they supposed to know what people want if people don't say anything?! It's noticeably bad when people are responding to "oppose" votes here to get an idea of why or to point out discrepancies, and then those people do not respond! How are folks supposed to come up with a better proposal if people aren't even engaging in back-and-forth discussion here? Something needs to change, and we gotta stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. AG202 (talk) 15:27, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In this case, I am content to let the perfect be the enemy of the mediocre at best, potentially problematic at worst. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:47, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with much of this. Novel objections presented for the first time at the time of voting should be stricken, for the reasons you provide (I've argued along the same lines before). Maybe this is good fodder for a new policy proposal in the future. Imetsia (talk) 18:34, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose. Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain[edit]

  1. Abstain --Numberguy6 (talk) 21:22, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Abstain: On one hand, I agree that we need some leeway in CFI, but on the other, I also agree that this wording is less than ideal. Also, I think it's important to note that most books (for instance those published before 1967) don't have an ISBN number, but I suppose that was known. Anyway, I don't have a strong enough feeling to vote either way. Thadh (talk) 14:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Decision[edit]

Passed: 21-6-2. Imetsia (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Kiwima: Could you add the proposed text to WT:CFI? —Svārtava [t•u•r] 04:31, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Added it here. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 07:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(Were the italics intended for the page or were they solely to illustrate the change proposed here?) More importantly, now that this has passed(!), there needs to be a discussion around implementation, because I really want to start focusing around including, for example, Twitter & tweets, obviously with more strict regulations than just 3 cites. I really like @The Editor's Apprentice's ideas for creating a page where durable sources may be listed. AG202 (talk) 10:48, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have started a discussion, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/February#Forming a standardized process for discussions about online-only sources and attestation, to discuss the implementation of this vote. Please do share your thoughts. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 22:15, 13 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Fytcha clearly the italics weren't intended for inclusion in CFI itself... This, that and the other (talk) 14:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Then they shouldn't have been used in the proposal in the first place... It's not my job to interpret what is and isn't intended to be added. I've removed them from WT:CFI now. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 14:44, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the italics to formatted text. —Svārtava [t•u•r] 15:41, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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