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User:Zlamma/Rfc:WP docs improvement re demonstrations

< User:Zlamma

About this page

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This page is a product of the discussion in WP:Verifiability > Talk > Grey area: user-generated demonstrations based on otherwise well sourced statements.
It attempts to focus the discussion by working on the prospective content [additions/changes], and trying to collectively make sure that they are an improvement to the Wikipedia policy and/or guideline pages.

How to help

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Share your sentiment: Put your name in Support:/Oppose: below. Communicate nuanced votes in short parenthesis text next to your name. Elaborate in Talk page topics.

Improve: Minor copyediting is encouraged to be done directly by editing this page.
Bigger [changes/new ideas] are encouraged in the Talk page (except where a place is left to fill-in), for the sake of manageability and working on ideas in parallel.

Page structure and improving it

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The proposal is organized into subsections of different specificity and subject, in order to separate feedback/disagreements on the core of this initiative's propositions, from those about its details, and further, from the more cosmetic ones. Feel free to help bettering each subsection, or even propose changes to this organization (for the latter, consider the Talk page first).

Scaffold-only, general idea (avoid detail - they go in the next section)

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Somewhere in 'WP:' pages (exact places are subject to debate below) new paragraphs (sections, if content ends up longer) would be added, that allow users to discover the following sentiment:

[Acknowledgement of nuances: First nuance, that Verifiability (through reliable sources) is a core tenet, but in some cases, above the well-sourced theories there is substantial room for originality in how the information about them is presented - especially in demonstrations through digital multimedia like visual & audio. Second nuance is that this room for originality is an area prone to human errors, contributing to inaccuracy. The more complex the multimedia creations are, the more error-prone they can get. Minimizing this type of errors is also a goal, but reliable sources cannot help spotting errors in the original part of the creations, so this goal must be achieved through other means.]

[Words of guideline for Alice who intends to [initiate/defend] the inclusion of a demonstration in an article. Remind that users need to be able to check the demonstration for accuracy and errors. If this is not easy enough, Alice should consider including source code, original files in the editor-software format, or prose giving the recipe for the creation of the demonstration.]

[Words of guideline for Bob who intends to remove a demonstration they see a problem with. Rather than removing the demonstration, they should first consider whether the intent to provide a demonstration has merit. If it does, they should follow WP:PRESERVE and act towards compliance to the Alice guideline text above.]

Support: Zlamma,
Oppose:

Content to introduce/change

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TODO - after getting at least some positive feedback on viability of the scaffold, make an attempt at producing a more detailed text that embodies it.

Targets to be affected by the proposal

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Subsections below point to pages/sections which are candidates for housing the above proposed 'content' (further referred to as 'content'), along with other pages that could benefit from some improvements:

(The structure of this section may be harder to see because heading styles have been exhausted by the deep subsections levels - see the navigational menu for a guide on structure of this section)

WP:Verifiability

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Rationale for making any change here: With the way WP:V article is currently worded, it can easily end up being the only page that is brought to awareness in any dispute (especially with its verbiage like "All material in Wikipedia articles must be attributable to a reliable published source.", and lack of links for discovering any of the exceptional cases).

As for the extensiveness of the change, options to consider are:

VP:V Housing the main 'content' proposed

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This option is for the WP:V to house the 'content' proposed above.
This will probably be only viable if the 'content' ends up brief, to fit a single subsection.

As for the place on WP:V page, the options are:

VP:V Only linking to the 'content'

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Another option is to merely link to the main 'content', where it ends up placed.
As for the place on WP:V page:

  • a change to the introductory section, or a small subsection on its own (suggestions welcome)
    Support: Zlamma (if housing in WP:V is rejected),
    Oppose:
  • an alternative is placing a "Not to be confused with ..." disambiguation hatnote near the top.
    Support: ,
    Oppose:
  • other ideas welcome

WP:No original research

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Context: There already is a section that seems related: WP:NOR > What is not original research > Original images, but, although it is called 'original images' it's missing the explicitness of another page: WP:Image use policy > Diagrams and other images's and its allowances for "user-made images ... wholly original ... [when they] ... serve an educational purpose".

Options of improvements to consider:

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Support: Zlamma (regardless of outcomes in other points),
Oppose:

Make sure WP:NOR acknowledges the allowances of WP:IUP and establish cross linking with WP:IUP.

WP:NOP to house the 'content'

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Support: Zlamma (if housing 'content' in WP:V is rejected),
Oppose:

House the 'content' in WP:NOP. Possibly in a new parent that would have the current 'WP:NOP > Original images' as a subsection. A pro of this is that it would make the guideline address all applicable media formats with minimum content (there would still be a question of WP:V linking to this section, to make it discoverable)

WP:Image use policy

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It's not an option to put 'content' only to WP:IUP, because audio-file demonstrations would end up unaddressed (the initiative's main example use case).
Nevertheless, in the course of the discussion options for improvements to WP:IUP have been proposed, so are noted below:

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Support: Zlamma (regardless of outcomes in other points),
Oppose:

In WP:Image use policy > Required information add a point containing a link to the 'content', specifically to the guideline for the party intending to [add/keep] a demonstration in the article, whatever advisory it makes to help others in inspecting correctness

"WP:IUP > Diagrams and other images" to be explicit about what doesn't require citations

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Support: Zlamma (regardless of outcomes in other points)
Oppose:

Change WP:IUP > Diagrams and other images sentence:
"it is required to include verification of the source(s) of the original data when uploading such images"
to start with
"there is no requirement to point to the similar presentations in any published work as a source (as they may be different) but it is still required to include verifiability information identifying the source(s) of the original data...".

Rationale: the original dispute that sparked this initiative was led astray by the fact that this phrase has been interpreted as requiring the cited source to contain the same presentation.

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Support: Zlamma (regardless of outcomes in other points),
Oppose:

Regardless of the above WP:IUP suggestions, it would be an improvement to cross link it with WP:IUP > Diagrams and other images, to make sure these sections are kept consistent with each other (perhaps even replacing duplicate content with a short linked sentence in one of these).

Write new WP page(s) to house 'content'

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This is alternative to the above options of placing the 'content' in WP:V or in WP:NOR existing pages is to place it in a new page. Options here are either page(s) specific to medium types affected by the problem (starting with audio, as this format is missing any guidelines for this problem while images have some guideline pages around the subject) or a page trying to capture the essential content type affected (e.g. demonstrations) covering all media possibly affected by the problem.

Contra:

  • If the 'content' ends up short, the division into a separate page may be premature, as the page will be unusually short. Alternative is to start with a section and extract it to a page once it's about to get big.
  • If the suggested page scope is not focused on the problem but rather being the wide 'guideline for adding ... files', more work will be needed to write a general introduction for the new page. This wasn't a problem that this initiative originally tried to address so there's concern for scope-creep. Additionally, without a problem of lack of such page being raised by users organically, there's concern that the content will be dead (not linked or de-facto not visited from the other guideline pages of the domain).

Pro:

  • TODO - proponents please help argue for this (edits can be accompanied by a Talk page topic to help uderstand)

If this is accepted, there's still a choice whether to create 'Format-specific pages' or 'One format-agnostic page':

Format-specific pages

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Support:
Oppose: Zlamma

Pros & cons to making a format-specific guideline:

Contra:

  • Pursuing a sound-file-specific guideline may be antithetical to reaching the right audience. Most audio/video files on wiki are, and will be, recordings or representations higher-level semantic content, like speeches, music (recorded or synthesized) etc., where there's completely no need to question the payload's detailed aspects like sound frequencies involved, scales, chords etc., like it was in the problem that sparked this initiative. Therefore, putting the suggested instructions at this level will be irrelevant to the majority.
    The initiative's highlighted problems are not 'format specific', but rather some 'functional-category-specific'. The cases likely to have this problem (physical phenomena that includes aural, maths, real-world-measurements) suggest that the more likely category is something akin to 'demonstrations' (of theories expressed with the vocabulary of exact-sciences), so a guideline capturing users creating these may be the more efficient communication.

Pro:

  • TODO Proponents please help to counterweigh the Contra concerns

Options as to what data formats to have this guideline:

WP:Sound file guideline

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As per suggestion in the talk. Proponents feel free to expand the details.

WP:Any other file types? Video?

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Have we missed any other content format? E.g. video (animated demonstrations) seems prone to this problem.

One format-agnostic page (e.g. WP:Guideline for demonstrations)

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Support: Zlamma (last preference - only if housing in WP:V or WP:NOR is rejected),
Oppose:

Addresses the point raised here that the problem is not specific to audio files.

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