Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Deprecated and unreliable sources

Proceeding to RfC

I asked some people whose expertise I trust on these things, and they didn't feel this was likely to lead to a productive outcome. One specifically mentioned that the open-ended structure is unlikely to get us closer to a consensus on the questions, and suggested it may be better to draft a page and seek approval for it that way. It does make me a bit less optimistic, and so I'm not going to try facilitate the RfC myself, but I suppose it's entirely possible the discussion ends up more productive than expected. If it's to proceed, and it currently looks like it's proceeding, I'd suggest tagging the top with {{rfc|policy}} and adding it to T:CENT and mentioning it at WP:VPP, WT:RS and WT:V to ensure representativeness and a range of opinions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:10, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No idea really. It was very much a draft (for which, thanks) and now it has firmed up a little but it is still more in the way of a pre RFC. Maybe it will turn into a full fledged thing or at least take us to a point where we could essay a guideline in a more complete RFC. It's getting some attention just now because of the ongoing discussions so that's a good thing.Selfstudier (talk) 23:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If nothing else, it seems sure to clear up what the actual history of deprecation is, since it seems we collectively hallucinated Daily Mail kicking it off. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 23:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, how I intended this discussion to go:

Discussion on the main unresolved issues. Hopefully it helps get a sense of the room and build a consensus (in the true definition of the word, rather than the WikiDefinition) on answers to these questions. This is a "request for comment".
Some folks take these results and ideas and write a guideline page for deprecated sources.
That guideline page is put for approval in an RfC, which would be a simple Yes/No question (whether to promote the newly developed page into a guideline).

So we're not exactly following the WP:PGLIFE steps, in the sense that this is a 'before' to those steps. This isn't quite a proposal yet, a future hypothetical draft guideline page would be (its content guided by the result of this RfC). This might not necessarily be the right structure, I mean you could go right into drafting and just ask the community if the draft reflects consensus, but given we have some unresolved questions (to which I don't think we have a single answer that everyone is happy with) I felt a pre-proposal step (this RfC) would be helpful. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:08, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, when you went off the idea for a while, I went on it, so to speak and by a process of muddle, ended up essentially following "If a proposal is still in the early formative stages...." from Template:Draft proposal. I don't think it matters that much right now, it matters more that we don't go on from here half baked rather than oven ready. Selfstudier (talk) 15:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CENT?

@ProcrastinatingReader: Should this be added to the template for WP:CENT? jp×g 05:50, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We originally put it in, then took it back out again while we waited a bit more to see what happened. Not clear if there would be much improvement consensus wise by doing so but if you think so, sure. Selfstudier (talk) 12:35, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This isn’t a consensus discussion per ss, it’s somewhere between that and brainstorming. The structure is also fuzzy so with too much participation this kinda breaks down. I think it needs a bit more participation but not too much more, so maybe advertising on relevant policy talks is better. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:21, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't a clear proposal being put, it's discussion with a supposed aim to clear proposals at some point - David Gerard (talk) 15:11, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]