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March 19

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Template:Campaignbox Libya-US

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The campaign box is a mishmash of various incidents, including a discotheque bombing and a terrorist act on an aircraft. Not a military campaign or a continuous military conflict. Brandmeistertalk 15:17, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - Fails WP:CAMPAIGN: "A "campaignbox" is a type of navigation template that contains links to articles about the battles in a particular campaign, front, theater or war" but as noted this template does not relate to a campaign but to "a mishmash of various incidents". Nigej (talk) 17:08, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

Module:Wordify

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was relisted on 2021 April 17. Izno (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

Template:Lht

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was no consensus. Izno (talk) 16:24, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unused; seems to be a version of {{Pagelinks}} exclusively for help pages? No reason for this to exist. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Primefac (talk) 13:29, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Namespace Link to subject page Link to talk page
General {{pagelinks|FULL PAGE NAME}}
 Same as for subject page
{{ln|NAMESPACE|PAGE NAME}} {{lnt|NAMESPACE|PAGE NAME}}
Article {{la|ARTICLE}} {{lat|ARTICLE}}
Draft {{ld|DRAFT}} {{ldt|DRAFT}}
Template {{lt|TEMPLATE}} {{ltt|TEMPLATE}}
Wikipedia {{lw|PAGE}} {{lwt|PAGE}}
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ {{lafd|PAGE}} —
User {{lu|PAGE}} {{lut|PAGE}}[1]
Category {{lc|PAGE}} {{lct|PAGE}}
File {{lf|FILE}} {{lft|FILE}}
Portal {{lp|PORTAL}} {{lpt|PORTAL}}
MediaWiki {{lm|MESSAGE}} {{lmt|MESSAGE}}
Help {{lh|PAGE}} {{lht|PAGE}}
Book {{lb|BOOK}} {{lbt|BOOK}}
TimedText {{lttxt|TIMEDTEXT}} {{lttxtt|TIMEDTEXT}}
Module {{lmd|MODULE}} {{lmdt|MODULE}}
  • I obviously can't stop you from shooting yourselves in the foot, but it's not something I'd feel good about not raising again (despite it being raised by the author at the top). It's also worth noting that this would only be deleting the {{lht}} template, leaving the main Help namespace template {{lh}} intact. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ For a similar template for user accounts, see Template:user
  • Keep Not a fan of unused templates, but I'm even less a fan of broken sets. The name is systematic so it makes complete sense that someone who uses the rest of this system would try to use {{Lht}} if they ever were in a situation where it would be useful. --Trialpears (talk) 22:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

COI article-space templates

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was keep. This discussion boils down to essentially "this is a badge of shame, redundant, improperly used, and/or unnecessary" versus "this template is useful for tracking UPE and COI editing for maintenance purposes".

  • Those opposed to these templates feel that the talk-page disclosures of paid/COI editing are sufficient. Those in favour find that the talk page templates, while required and necessary, do not necessarily indicate any immediate issues with the article (e.g. a paid editor could have added legitimately neutral text to an article, which would mean a talk page banner but no article-space maintenance tag).
  • Those opposed (in addition to point 1) feel there are better templates that can be used, with supporters of the opinion that these are more accurate to the specific problem (e.g. the text is not blatantly promotional but relies on PR/native advertising sources, which is a different issue)
  • A large majority of those opposed to these templates feel they are improperly used, and either promote drive-by taggings or do not have the "mandatory talk page discussion" (which for the record is not truly mandatory but still gives editors an "out" to remove without further reasoning) to indicate why the template has been placed. Those in favour have largely cited that OUTING prevents them from specifically identifying the reasons for placing the tags.
  • Those opposed are concerned, along with drive-by-tagging, that the users adding the tags should deal with it themselves; those in favour say that there is no requirement for the person placing a tag to deal with it (similar to patrollers adding tags).

The most salient point here is the third one, in that improper use is a reasonable reason to delete a template; if no one is using it properly then the temptation to do so should be eliminated. Similarly, if a maintenance tag or category is not actually being checked/updated/cleaned out, it is a waste of space and effort. That being said, there are a substantial number of users who feel that this template is being used correctly, at least a majority of the time and/or when they are the ones using it to track and/or maintain articles that have been affected by COI/UPE, and that the categories are useful for finding pages that need maintenance (plus, those using them indiscriminately or incorrectly should be chastised for it).

Both sides have reasonable arguments, but the weight of opinion is clearly with those who are in support of these pages (by more than a 4:1 margin). Whether this is due to an improper forum for discussion (i.e. TfD), the beginnings of WP:CCC, misunderstandings (potentially on both sides), or something else, from reading through the subthreads and conversations it's very clear that there is a disconnect somewhere between how the rules and guidelines regarding COI and paid editing are interpreted as it pertains to maintenance tagging. The best path towards determining that would be a larger discussion elsewhere about how to best disclose/track/etc paid or COI editing and if (in general) there should be specific COI/UPE templates to do so.

With all that being said, as far as these templates and this discussion goes there is not a consensus to delete them at this time. If following discussion it is determined that some or all of these templates should be merged/deleted/deprecated/what have you, there is no prejudice against a renomination. Primefac (talk) 15:06, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

These templates encourage fire and forget behavior and should be deleted for multiple reasons:

  1. We have talk page templates ({{connected contributor}}, {{connected contributor (paid)}}, and {{COI editnotice}}) that communicate paid or suspected paid editing which these templates are redundant to.
  2. These are cleanup templates which are frequently misused as a "scarlet letter" or "badge of shame" template (which goes against WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND).
  3. Placing editors frequently do not provide any guidance for cleanup editors (uninvolved editors simply trying to work through any issues the placing editor has) to work from to get the template removed (which just reinforces the scarlet letter/badge of shame aspect of these templates).
  4. NPOV issues are already better handled through templates like {{weasel}}, {{advert}}, {{NPOV}}, {{tone}} and so on (see Category:Neutrality templates (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for more).
  5. There are over 200+ COI edit requests as I write this, with the oldest from over four months ago. I've noticed a tendency for placing editors to flat out tell COI (or presumed COI)-editors they are forbidden to make edits to articles, despite the actual language only "discouraging" the act (see WP:COIEDIT). These templates give a color of authority to the claim that using {{request edit}} is required.

And that doesn't even get into the behavioral issues this creates (basically, any paid editor that sees how these templates are abused to effectively stifle any hope of collaboration would likely not willingly disclose their relationship and simply get smarter about "hiding" their connection to avoid detection). We will never get rid of people attempting to get paid to edit Wikipedia, and as a project forcing them into hiding just makes working with them even harder. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:23, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Timtrent: what is the utility in e.g. tagging {{COI}} vs. tagging {{POV}}? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Topics can have an improper point of view without having a conflict of interest. 331dot (talk) 08:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, 331dot, so there is always a reason to use {{POV}} on POV articles, but what is the added benefit in using {{COI}} on some of them? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:01, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The added benefit is that it needs to be looked at differently as a COI editor usually has very different goals in mind for this project and their work should be evaluated as such. AGF does not mean accepting things on blind faith when our common sense tells us that a COI editor's primary goal is not in keeping with ours. If I was not allowed to mark an article has having COI related issues to evaluate I would reconsider my participation here. I see such issues almost every day. 331dot (talk) 09:10, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
{{POV}} is better, if there's a POV. But at the time the COI is identified we often don't know that. Maybe the article is broadly NPOV, but there are minor issues with {{weasel}} words, {{peacock}} phrasing or over-reliance on {{primary}} or {{unreliable sources}}. Or maybe the problems go deeper, with contentious {{unsourced}} claims, covert {{advert}}ising, or a fundamental lack of {{notability}}. Maybe there are no problems at all. The point is that while COI editing makes it orders of magnitude more likely that those problems are there, we don't know for sure until a volunteer has time to review it in depth, which is exactly what {{COI}} etc. says. – Joe (talk) 20:45, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Yes, if editors are not using the templates properly, they should be educated on how to do so, not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Paid/COI editors often have goals that are incompatible with this project and their contributions should be evaluated as such. Very few COI/paid editors examine the use of templates across Wikipedia before editing as they have a specific goal(to get their subject on Wikipedia for promotional purposes). 331dot (talk) 08:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @331dot: How is an article-space template necessary when we have talk page templates that provide the same (or more, actually) information? These are ostensibly maintenance templates that should be temporary until the situation is resolved that got them placed in the first place. And there are already better options in {{advert}}, {{weasel}}, {{NPOV}} and so forth (which also put a big banner for all readers and editors to see that there are allegedly issues with the article content). —Locke Cole • t • c 18:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Locke Cole Not every user looks at talk pages or even knows that they exist, to know of the existence of a discussion or concerns posted on the talk page. I think any concerns here can be addressed with some tinkering, not throwing the stuff out completely. 331dot (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @331dot: {{advert}}, {{weasel}}, {{NPOV}} go on the article page and convey the content issues just fine. Whether or not the article was edited by a paid contributor makes no difference when {{advert}}, {{NPOV}}, etc. is placed on the article. Discuss CONTENT not contributors on articles. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:28, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Locke Cole I'm not sure I agree that several tags are better than a single tag. Sometimes the contributor is very relevant as well. 331dot (talk) 12:33, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @331dot: You don't need to use "several", I was stating there are several options available: these options can be mixed and matched and provide guidance for editors looking to fix neutrality concerns about what specifically is wrong with the content. The contributor to an article has nothing to do with the article itself, we do not let contributor issues spill over into our article text, that's why we have WP:COIN, WP:AN/I and WP:ARBCOM for content/conduct issues as well as other WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE tools to resolve user conduct issues. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:53, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Except that the COI templates, as pointed out, do make clear a specific issue: the whole article needs to be checked for things like poor sources (press releases), whitewashing, excessive routine coverage... which is not something made obvious in the default NPOV template. If editors are misusing it well then I'd like a) evidence and b) reasons why that couldn't be solved simply be clarifying template usage (deletion is a last resort). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @RandomCanadian: I double checked, WP:ABF is still tagged with {{humor}}. I think there's a misunderstanding here: we don't tag articles for things we think might be wrong, we tag articles for things that we've reviewed and perceived to be wrong but feel it is beyond our ability to fix ourselves. This is why two of the three templates up for discussion (with the third currently going back and forth with having these instructions) here have this boilerplate in the documentation: Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning. I'm sorry you thought these templates were a call to action to have somebody else double check them. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:08, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - a comment from a long-time paid editor. The Paid template (This article contains paid contributions. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page.) has been added to some of the articles I've worked with. I'm always telling about the customer on the talk page of the article using the template (The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution; see WP:PAID. For advice about reviewing paid contributions, see WP:COIRESPONSE. X has been paid by Y on their behalf.). So "my articles" are now flagged on two categories: [1] and [2]. Let's take an example. Orivesi is a small Finnish city. I've changed few photos on the article and corrected its founding year. There's no reason given on the talk page about why the tag was added. As a paid editor I'm not allowed to remove the tag even if I think there's nothing wrong with the neutral point of view of the article so now I should make a edit request so that someone unpaid would evaluate the case. Jjanhone (talk) 09:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Unlike the instructions for the template "Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning. Be careful not to violate the policy against WP:OUTING users who have not publicly self-disclosed their identities on the English Wikipedia." the people adding the templates are not starting the discussion as required. So should I start flagging the users who forget to start the discussion? Where? Jjanhone (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    On the user's talk page, telling them something like "you placed a paid editor tag on the article but did not start a discussion. Could you start that discussion so I can address your concerns? I am allowed to remove the tag if there is no discussion to support it. Thank you.". 331dot (talk) 09:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no deadline on Wikipedia, they say. So how long do I need to wait before I can remove the tag if there is no discussion? Jjanhone (talk) 09:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally I would feel that a week or so would be a reasonable amount of time, especially if the editor who placed the tag seems to be an irregular participant here. 331dot (talk) 09:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps what is needed is a brief addition to the tags to the effect of "this tag may be removed by anyone if there is no discussion" along with amending WP:WNTRMT to say the same. 331dot (talk) 09:47, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Twinkle now prompts for a reason and starts a discussion on the talk page when applying the templates. Cabayi (talk) 10:04, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep the nomination forgets about one very important point: WP:UPE:undisclosed paid editing. Not all the editors follow guidelines, and disclose themselves as paid or connected editors. Most of the editors who have conflict of interest with the subject of article, come along, and they edit the article in biased way. Sometimes, that is done inadvertently by a bunch of fans/followers, sometimes, it is someone connected to the subject. The different types of templates have different uses. They dont need to be deleted. —usernamekiran (talk) 10:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I also support the point that, It can be done inadvertently by a bunch of fans/followers, sometimes, someone connected to the subject. They know that subject. They want to contribute WIKI. That contribution may need to verify and clean to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Placing editor/admin were not setting reasonable expiration date. This template leads WIKI's data authenticity to totality. Netenhancer (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC) [reply]
  • Delete These template confuse content issues and conduct issues, which leads to editors warring to keep them on articles because of the conduct issue (which sometimes they claim can't even be specified on-wiki because of WP:OUTING) with no indication of (and sometimes outright refusal to discuss) what content issues might actually exist. IMO it would be better to delete these templates in favor of existing templates that focus on the content, not the contributor, and encourage people who have problems with the contributor take those to an appropriate dispute resolution forum.
    If these wind up being kept, I strongly encourage we Establish strict instruction on the usage of these templates, specifically that they should be removed once cleanup has been done or there is no indication what needs cleaning up. In other words, they should be treated no differently from say {{cleanup|reason=Suspected COI or paid editing}} or {{POV}} and that whether there was COI or paid editing is not at all relevant towards whether the template should remain on the article or not. Anomie⚔ 12:37, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reading through subsequent discussion, I'm seeing a lot of people arguing to keep for what seem to be really bad reasons.
      • "It helps track cleanup of COI/PE sockfarms!" Except it doesn't, really. It doesn't (and sometimes can't) identify the problematic editor, and it doesn't link to any tracking page. Each article so tagged stands entirely on its own with no context. If you actually want to track the cleanup of sockfarm contributions, I'd recommend taking xeno's suggestion of copying what's done at WP:CCI.
      • "COI/PE is a problem with the content!" No, it's not. It's against our policies, and it is often associated with content problems, but it is not in itself a content issue.
      • "Once the article has been evaluated, the tag can be removed!" This conflicts directly with the previous point. It seems that, after an uninvolved editor does review the article and remove the tag, someone else who believes that COI or paid editing is a fundamental problem will just come along and re-tag it. And then a new review will be demanded.
      • "If the tags are being misused, the editors doing so should be dealt with!" We're here specifically because of discussions attempting to address misuse of these tags. Yes, in those discussions the nominator behaved poorly, but let's not let ad hominem get in the way of subsequent discussion. These templates seem to be an attractive nuisance, ripe for misuse while their intended purposes can be better served in other ways. We can easily keep the baby without the bathwater by using existing templates that focus on the content issues in the article rather than the contributors to that article.
      • "Some EU nanny state law requires a permanent disclaimer!" Fortunately the English Wikipedia is not subject to such laws, and if such a disclaimer were required we'd probably have to put it on every article.
      • "I shouldn't have to actually read or discuss the article I'm tagging!" I agree with those who reply that you should save yourself even more work and not tag it at all then. Again, a process like WP:CCI would work better to track articles that might need cleaning up.
      • "We shouldn't delete this without a plan for replacement processes!" A plan has been proposed: Use {{NPOV}} and other templates that comment on the content rather than the contributor, identify known COI editors on the talk page with existing templates (better than the existing "some unspecified person had a COI" messaging from these templates), and deal with problematic editors through other existing processes.
      • "We need to warn readers!" Wikipedia:No disclaimers says otherwise. Other maintenance templates are generally accepted as they invite readers to become editors by presenting them with a problem they can fix, but they can't fix the fact that someone else was at one point paid to make an edit.
      • "We need these to hold COI/PE editors responsible!" At best these templates only mildly affect paid editors by causing trouble for their clients by having a blatant tag on the article that implies the subject paid for it. We can better hold them responsible through dispute resolution and through tagging or fixing the actual problems in the articles.
      • "There are special concerns with COI/PE POV that don't exist with regular POV!" These templates do nothing to define what these actually are, and I suspect we'd benefit more from applying the same special guidelines to all POV issues (if they're not already there) than by claiming COI/PE has special concerns.
      I encourage whoever takes on the unenviable task of closing this to remember that this is not a vote. Anomie⚔ 01:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC) Expanded 11:48, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      So what? Identifying who the problematic editor is does not help cleanup the mess left behind; and it also avoids leaving a nasty ad hominem (the edits might actually be ok, they just need another pair of eyes to look at them). I fail to see how COI/PE is not a content issue. Yes, it's first a behaviour issue, but this very often can have negative consequences on content, so it is undoubtedly a content issue which needs addressing. Re. CCI: so instead of tagging the specific article and clearly identifying the nature of the problem (which is not just a generic "NPOV" issue - a template which is also itself misused), we should have some new distant noticeboard for this? WP:CREEP. Article content problems [as opposed to behaviour: problematic COI behaviour can already be reported to COIN or ANI if it involves more generic behaviour issues] should be addressed by a) tagging if unable to b) resolve when possible (after all, WP:NODEADLINE), with the caveat for C) BRD if some issue is contentious. "Misuse" still no evidence or link to discussions about alleged "widespread misuse". This, for example, seems a perfectly valid usage: there are issues of COI and biased writing (some of which I corrected); but it needs a more thorough check, so perfectly appropriate. Some of the rest seem a bit vecatious. Again, NPOV (which doesn't further help solve the problem, and is - to an experienced editor - vaguer about the specific kind of issues which might need addressing) is not an adequate replacement. Simply because you disagree with others is no reason to suggest their opinions should be discounted as though they were unlogical votes.RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:42, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Your argument could equally well be used to claim that IP editing is a content issue, because IP edits very often "have negative consequences on content" (i.e. vandalism). Students too. As the rest of your comment follows from that incorrect premise, it's all flawed. You also seem to think that "It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view" (from {{COI}} is somehow clear about what needs cleaning up; I find it to be about the same as {{cleanup}}, except the latter has a |reason= parameter. Anomie⚔ 13:36, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete (or redirect): maintenance templates should have a clear and obvious path to remediation/removal. Content concerns introduced by paid editors are already covered by clearer maintenance templates that address the content, and not whether the contributor may have been paid.
    In other words: whether a contributor was paid is largely irrelevant to suitability of the the article content: if it’s promotional, add a promotional tag (or NPOV, undue, etc.).
    (Disclosure: I recently took a paid position with the Foundation, however my views on this subject remain consistent.) –xenotalk 12:53, 19 March 2021 (UTC) 19:43, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Change to redirect others to and keep {{COI}} (per Joe Roe's comment). –xenotalk 20:06, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Xeno. Having been falsely accused of being a paid editor, my conclusion was it is self-defeating to police both the content and the editor. Sometimes paid editing may result in the very best article possible. If the content adheres to the myriad of WP policies already in place, let's not continue the self-defeating witch-hunt of trying sniff out which editors might be paid or unpaid (do we really expect the worst offenders to abide by the rules?), and certainly stop trying to judge content on whether or not an editor has significant COI. In practice, with this template, I could brand some article I don't like as having a COI problem without declaring that I have COI in applying it. But once applied, the burden falls on the accused while the accuser can simply skip off to find some other target to bomb. This is extremely disruptive behavior and this template lacks sufficient safeguards against it. Though not intended, it has become weaponized. Let's focus on the content itself. ShoneBrooks (talk) 15:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: These templates offer no utility that is not offered by an NPOV tag on the article, plus a COI/PAID tag on the talk page. Additionally, they are so frequently misused that I see little hope of solving the problem by educating the people that are using them wrong. Sam at Megaputer (talk) 13:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Once a COI template is placed, the required action is clear. Two options: 1) full review of the article and clean up or 2) go through all contributions of the COI/UPE users and check them. Also, I would ask the closer to not consider votes by paid users here, since they have a strong financial COI on this !vote itself. MarioGom (talk) 13:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    MarioGom: What does 2) have to do with the incident article hosting the maintenance tag? A notice to review user conduct belongs at a noticeboard or private reporting queue, not the top of some random article edited by that contributor. –xenotalk 15:03, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    For UDP, the user is likely already indef. blocked. The clean up is what remains to do, and that has to do with the article. I think it would be productive to discuss how to organize faster and more effective clean up task forces. For example, a large UPE op was uncovered recently and a few users organized to quickly check every single contribution of every sock and check them to fix every problem. I would like to see more of that kind of collaboration, but I don't think it's currently possible for every case. The tags, as usual, help to identify the articles needing the review when the tagger couldn't do it immediately. MarioGom (talk) 15:10, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This function can and should be done by templates that indicate what the actual problem with the specific article is so that editors know what needs to be done, rather than a vague "something about this article might or might not be right, but you have to guess what." Thryduulf (talk) 12:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: I have edited pages across the Internet Security sector (both companies and people). I have also disclosed the company I previously worked for in the security sector many years ago (I never edit that page but have made suggestions on its Talk page). What I have noticed, even after a substantial re-write of a page, some editors often come back and place a COI template on the page and will not engage on the Talk page. If you remove it after no response, they often come back and place it again without explanation. COI can be a "fire and forget tag". I have resolved one by going to the COI notice board, but I think there should be more clear accountability. For instance, if an editor places a COI TAG without a Talk page comment, or refuses to give a clear way to remove it, or does not comment on edits that are intended to improve it (with the improving editor stating they don't have a COI), the COI TAG editor should be suspended from placing that TAG anywhere or suspended from Wikipedia for some duration. There has to be a way to prevent editors from using this TAG without responsibility. If this cannot be done, I vote to delete. PKIhistory (talk) 14:11, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete It acts as a scarlet letter over an entire article when any specific instance of evident COI can be tagged and/or discussed on the talk page. Moreover, an organization's media person adding purely neutral historical / technical facts to that organization's article may be connected to that organization but is not adding anything conflicting with the interest of presenting pertinent, factual information. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete At least in my experience, this template has been misused repeatedly with a significantly stifling effect. There are other and seemingly better ways of curbing abusive COI behavior. What I have witnessed is editors swooping in out of the blue and acting like official Admins, splashing an article with this template accusing non-paid editors of COI based solely on suspicion and expecting those editors to declare COI of some sort as a means of refuting the suspicion while at the same time arbitrarily deleting large portions of content based on their belief that it was bought, but often telling the accused editors not to make further edits because of the (inaccurate) COI accusations. Those same accusing editors are typically hostile toward requests for help in addressing the situation, sometimes incorrectly quoting WP policies that don't really apply. If the accused happens to access the correct COI declaration process, it is still challenging to navigate because it has different paths toward resolution mostly assuming the accused really is a paid editor, when such is often not the case. Meanwhile the article goes into some state of arrested development, with this ugly template banner splashed across it (which clearly is not good for Wikipedia) because the editors who were interested enough to work on it have been branded COI and told to stay away from it and other potential editors don't care to get involved in the mess. It's obviously much easier to just slap this template banner on the article than to take the time to engage with sincere, active editors to address any legitimate CONTENT problems. In practice, the template is applied and then whoever did it (this thing should at least require a legitimate username and not just an anonymous MAC address) just lurks in the shadows to further the attack if someone tries to fix it. I have also observed that the more one tries to defend against such unfounded COI accusations, the more the accusers point toward that effort as further evidence of COI. That seems to be the basis of its use, "Guilty until proven innocent" which is obviously flawed. It's a very negative experience for your average volunteer contributor working from the basics of "Boldly" editing in good faith. The whole COI strategy needs improvement to better deal with a legitimate problem. Abandoning usage of this on-article template would be a good place to start. The policing and clean-up efforts will work much better if we keep the focus on the content itself. ShoneBrooks (talk) 15:23, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep "Personalizing" an issue is the point and benefit here. Paid editors are, and should be, the subject of increased scrutiny because there is a larger -than-average chance of biased editing practices on their part. This template tells me that the contributions of specific editors to this article may require extra vigilance and double-checking (which of course depends on clarifying notes on the talk page by the tagger). This is different from "this article may contain weasel words, check the entire article"; it's "specific editors may have added doubtful material, check their contributions". If Facebook is tagged with {{weasel}}, I have 250,000 bytes of text to get lost in; if it's tagged with {{COI}} and an explanatory note on the talk page that MinionOfZuckerberg may bear watching, I know what to look for. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Elmidae: As I stated in my nomination, the use cases you describe are already handled by {{connected contributor}}, {{connected contributor (paid)}}, and {{COI editnotice}} on the article talk page. These templates serve as a "badge of shame" which is against policy. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:35, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    How exactly do these templates do what you say? They don't in any way specify which editors are being paid, and at times it has been claimed the editors can't be named due to WP:OUTING. Anomie⚔ 23:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    They highlight the problem clearly, and invite editors to take a look through the article and be particularly cautious about certain aspects; as already mentioned so many times previously. Or should we get rid of all maintenance templates, if we follow your logic? After all, even {{cn}} doesn't solve the problem which it identifies. Oh wait, that's not what maintenance templates are supposed to do... Can you provide instances where these templates are used as actual "badges of shame"; and evidence that this is what these templates are used for most of the time? I doubt it. And that would still be a sign something needs to be done not about the templates but their misuse. Id est, as already said, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    In what way is "It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view" clear about what needs cleaning up? As for the rest, nice slippery slope fallacy. Anomie⚔ 13:40, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Certain editors have weaponised the tag to harass the article’s subject. Often the justification for using the tag by those certain editors is “off-wiki evidence”. They don’t use the tag constructively. They use it to brand article subjects with a mark of shame. We are all familiar with the editors abusing this tag. They are among the most outspoken critics of paid editing and clearly on a power trip. The way these vigil antis police UPE is not consistent with how we police a civilised society.92.40.188.85 (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2021 (UTC) — 92.40.188.85 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
* The above user seems to be editing behind a proxy. If you are not editing with a residential proxy, I would recommend to check your mobile phone for malware, since it is infected with at least 4 callback proxy networks and it can and will be used for abuse at Wikipedia and elsewhere. --MarioGom (talk) 16:11, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
They are a flag for an article needing further examination for issues that arise with COI and UPE editors. That much is quite plain. And before you reply, I am not goign to argue with you, as your strategy here seems like bait and bludgeon.--- Possibly (talk) 04:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all We don't need to make UPE harder to label and resolve. Sometimes, entire articles are corrupted, and section-by-section tagging is not productive. As argued above, Talk-page templates are insufficient for the purpose. The solution to the tools being (supposedly) misused is to educate about their proper use, not to remove them from the toolbox. The assertion that these violate policy for being "badges of shame" is unfounded; undisclosed paid editing is inherently uncivil, as it is a breach of the community's trust. Assuming good faith does not require us to avoid labeling articles damaged by demonstrable bad faith. XOR'easter (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If the entire article is "corrupt" then you should be able to explain why and place the appropriate article-level template at the top of it and explain on the talk page what the specific issue is so that other editors know what needs fixing. It's also worth pointing out that these templates do not require bad faith to be demonstrated, merely alleged, with no specifics or sources to back it up - in every other situation that is done in article space that is a massive BLP violation, and this is no different. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe this has been responded to elsewhere in the discussion, but for completeness I'll try here. An argument for additional explanation isn't an argument for removing the brief summary. {{COI}} is the appropriate article-level template in many circumstances, as it points to a specific type of problem that affects the quality of article content. It can be supplemented with other templates ({{fringe}} comes to mind) if they are pertinent, but it's a valid start. And many if not most of those other templates could also be smeared as "badges of shame"; is {{NPOV}} or {{fringe}} a BLP violation because they allege that editors are lazy, incompetent or crackpots? XOR'easter (talk) 15:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    An afterthought: Wikipedia nowadays has the reputation of being one of the least bad major websites. Serious people will say that instead of drowning in hate speech and advertisements, we stand up for old-fashioned values of scholarship and journalism. We're even called the last surviving beacon of Web 1.0 idealism. Do we really want to trade that for headlines like "Wikipedia Makes It Easier for Spammers to Have Their Way"? XOR'easter (talk) 16:00, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all per 331dot et seq. --JBL (talk) 16:47, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment could someone post or link to the stats on how many pages used these templates?--- Possibly (talk) 16:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Possibly and XOR. Blablubbs|talk 17:00, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete clear weaponisation of COI tags “What I have noticed, even after a substantial re-write of a page, some editors often come back and place a COI template on the page and will not engage on the Talk page. If you remove it after no response, they often come back and place it again without explanation. COI can be a "fire and forget tag". I have resolved one by going to the COI notice board, but I think there should be more clear accountability. For instance, if an editor places a COI TAG without a Talk page comment, or refuses to give a clear way to remove it, or does not comment on edits that are intended to improve it (with the improving editor stating they don't have a COI), the COI TAG editor should be suspended from placing that TAG anywhere or suspended from Wikipedia for some duration.” @U:gss: we’re looking at you here.92.40.188.85 (talk) 15:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Moved the above comment from #Template:Lht, where it clearly didn't belong. * Pppery * it has begun... 17:24, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This IP has already voted. MER-C 17:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Coourtesy ping: GSS (talk · contribs) the IP pinged you above, but their ping failed.--- Possibly (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per 331dot, Possibly and Xor. NPOV is not the only problem with many COI/UPE articles. In many cases, not only is the entire article corrupted it would not, and should not, have existed at all unless the conflicted editor showed up. The conflicted editor should not be making inclusion decisions. The tags also serve to alert editors to coordinated abuse, or cases where the client doesn't give up. UPE is done increasingly in bad faith by sockpuppet or meatpuppet farms who have zero intention of contributing to Wikipedia otherwise. MER-C 17:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • How does tagging the article with a vague message help solve any of these problems? These tags don't identify any other problems, don't nominate the article for deletion, don't identify the editor with COI (and possibly can't), and don't link to other articles or to any page tracking abusers. At best it might serve as a sort of disclaimer to tell editors to check the talk page for details, assuming the tagger left any. Anomie⚔ 23:33, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and please see Special:Diff/1012108905 for more context. —PaleoNeonate – 17:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep We can improve how we work with paid and COI editors but nominating these templates for deletion with no plan for moving forward and without any accompanying discussion is disruptive and borderline WP:POINTY. ElKevbo (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a plan for moving forwards: Use the existing templates that these duplicate but which are more specific and do not have the issues that the nominator and others have identified with these. Thryduulf (talk) 12:40, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I believe these templates serve an important purpose when used correctly. Corpwalt (talk) 18:58, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. If an editor is misusing these templates, that's an individual editor issue. These templates are pretty much vital for dealing with and fighting UPE and bad faith editing, and should be kept as per MER-C, 331dot, Possibly, and Xor. Large scale abuse exists, and removing tools to tag it and identify it just makes the problem worse. UPE handling is an uphill battle, and this would be the equivalent to removing the path markers and leaving everyone lost. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:13, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all per XOR'easter, Possibly and MER-C. This nomination reeks of WP:POINT. DoubleCross (‡) 19:22, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. Relatively few editors look at article talk pages. Forcing all COI-related templates to be on talk pages is pretty much a guarantee that most editors will never see them. If the problem is over-use of these article-space templates, or edit battles regarding their use, a better solution is to lay out clear and appropriate guidelines for usage on the Template pages, and then deal with editors who refuse to follow those guidelines. Or to otherwise modify rules for using these templates. Simply nuking them is the wrong approach. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep It would not be in the best interest of the encyclopedia and the readers when concerns about reliability due to connected editors are not openly showed. Deleting the templates would give the bad editors more space to undermine the encyclopedia. The Banner talk 19:28, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Deleting all 3 templates without any kind of plan for alternatives is a non-starter. The claim that the templates have no end point are false, as the templates should be removed when the articles are balanced and lack a promotional tone. A broader proposal around paid and COI editing should be discussed at the village pump.Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:31, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are not alternatives. The templates you cite are meant to be permanent documentation for the talk page. The nominated templates are maintenance tags that should be removed once the issues are addressed. MarioGom (talk) 13:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • At least one user has advanced the argument the Paid contributions template is required even after remediation due to an EU directive. Anachronist: could you take us through that argument, and whether there needs to be a different template to serve this purpose once the content issue is considered addressed? –xenotalk 13:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - If these templates can still be seen on the talk-page then wouldn't the "encourage fire and forget behavior" argument still apply? In either case the nominator has provided no evidence to back up this claim. Points 3 and 4 are opinions without pointing to any specifics while point 5 sounds like a cleanup issue which does not require deletion. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:48, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Tagging articles encourages COI editors to follow the paid editing guidelines, and they know it. I can't count how many edit requests I've seen where paid editors have suggested removing promotional content if only to persuade the reviewer to just remove the darn tag! If we need to reform use of the tags, we could mandate that any tags placed without a corresponding explanation on the talk page may be speedily reverted, or set clearer norms for when an uninvolved editor may remove the tag. But deprecating the tags entirely is a step too far. Altamel (talk) 19:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If the article contains promotional content then tag it with {{Promotional tone}} and/or {{Advert}} as appropriate to the specific article so that readers and editors know what the specific problem with the article actually is. Thryduulf (talk) 12:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The nominator and the people arguing for deletion can't have much experience in actually dealing with disruptive COI/paid edits (a general trend in the "don't see the big deal about COI" crowd). When we identify that an article has been edited by someone with a COI, it's usually not immediately obvious if or how the content is problematic. That's the problem with COI editing. It creates a tendency to bias which often manifests itself in subtle ways, such as small distortions or selective use of sources to favour the subject. {{COI}} and similar templates exist to flag that possibility for further investigation. Ideally they should be followed up with a review by an independent editor, who can either remove the tag if there are no problems, or replace it with more specific cleanup templates if there are, but that can be time-consuming and a volunteer who spots a COI problem is under no obligation to do it straight away. In the mean time, the templates serve to sort the page into an appropriate cleanup category and inform our readers that its content might not adhere to NPOV. Which, by the way, is exactly what it says: A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page. The idea that it's a "badge of shame" or used as a weapon is a purely a projection of what you think about people writing Wikipedia articles on their own business (or paying someone else to). It's nowhere in the template. – Joe (talk) 19:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I do wonder whether {{COI}} belongs in this group nomination, as it is a much wider issue than disclosed or undisclosed paid editing. –xenotalk 20:01, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It should also be noted that this nomination comes right after Locke Cole tried to unilaterally remove the templates from a bunch of articles. @Anachronist and Perryprog: who participated in that discussion. – Joe (talk) 20:06, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Joe Roe and after he said he would deliberately edit disruptively and intentionally engage in an edit war if anyone restored them, as well as disruptively tag articles where it doesn't apply.[5] VAXIDICAE💉 20:14, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to watch WP:ASPERSIONS since you seem to be dead set on intently mischaracterizing my statements or only presenting them out of context. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
if you feel that way, take me to ANI. Accusing people of casting aspersions with no basis is on itself a personal attack. I provided a diff in which you said exactly what I summarized. VAXIDICAE💉 23:01, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I removed them because they were placed inappropriately, which is also the reason for these nominations. Editors are abusing these templates as a "badge of shame" rather than as the maintenance templates they're designed to be. There are also many other, significantly better, options to these templates. They are not necessary. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
COI, like the other two, is a maintenance template alleging NPOV concerns because of editors with a claimed COI. We have talk page templates that can call out the user behavior better, and {{NPOV}} which can call out the NPOV concern. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Joe Roe: Regarding your claim that the placing editor is under no obligation to properly disclose what is not neutral about the template: on the documentation for {{COI}} and {{paid contributions}} (with discussion on adding it to {{undisclosed paid}} stalled), there is this language: Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start a discussion, any editor will be justified in removing the tag without warning. The placing editor must provide a rationale and cannot simply tag the page and leave it to others to figure out what the placing editor saw that prompted the addition in the first place. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:53, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Locke Cole: That's not what I said. Nobody is under an obligation to immediately review a COI-edited article to find out if it is NPOV. I and others have already explained to you that {{COI}} can signify many other problems aside from {{NPOV}}. You (and others) are acting like content issues are always immediately obvious to anyone who looks at an article. They're not; it takes time and patience to review the text, its cited sources, and other available sources to check for balanced coverage. No volunteer should be told that they have to do that just because a COI or paid editor doesn't like the look of a template on top of their work.
As for the talk page discussions, it says something similar for most other cleanup templates, and people rarely follow it with those either. Why didn't you mount your campaign against them? Please consider spending some time at WP:COIN, WP:AFC, WP:NPP, etc., and try to understand how bloody difficult it is for volunteer editors to "fix" the problems caused by the torrent of overt and covert spam we get, before you decide that we are simply placing these templates out of laziness. – Joe (talk) 12:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Joe Roe: On two of the three template instructions there are literally these instructions: Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start a discussion, any editor will be justified in removing the tag without warning. How do you reconcile those instructions (emphasis in source) with Nobody is under an obligation to immediately review a COI-edited article to find out if it is NPOV? —Locke Cole • t • c 21:31, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - There are certain warning templates which I believe are necessary to inform our readers that article may have problems which affect their neutrality or accuracy. This is one of them. The edits of paid editors are prima facie suspect, and talk page disclosures aren't -- for the most part -- seen by the reading public, they're seen by editors only. No one on Wikipedia has the time to follow-up all the edits of paid editors, so this template serves to tell our readers that they shouldn't take what they read at face value. It differs from the COI template in that it should be placed only when there is a perceived actual problem, which can be a matter of dispute. This template, on the other hand, is purely factual. If a paid editor has contributed to an article, then there are paid edits, and there can be no dispute about that. unless the paid edits are reverted, the template should remain, indeed, in fairness to our readers, it must remain, to protect Wikipedia's reputation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:09, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And what about the UPE template; when will that be removed: if no one can prove or agree on whether paid editing took place? I think this group nomination should be procedurally closed without prejudice to renominating these templates individually. –xenotalk 20:11, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A different issue entirely, which has no real bearing on the use of this template. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:16, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    In most cases where the UPE template is used, there are reasonable indications of paid editing. In some cases, there is evidence beyond any doubt. Either way, the template says may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments. While UPE sockpuppets often ask us for invoices to justify the template, that is not really required. If we have reasonable indications that paid editing took place, requesting an article review and clean up is due. MarioGom (talk) 20:20, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The wording, and the logic, is the same for all the templates. Once someone who hasn't been paid has checked whether the article requires cleanup (and if so either done it or added more specific tags), it can be removed. I get your point that a suspicion of UPE is unlikely to be resolved and has little direct bearing on the article, but maintaining separate templates for {{COI}}, {{Paid contributions}} and {{UPE}} probably does serve a useful purpose in triaging how severe any resulting content issues are likely to be. – Joe (talk) 20:25, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I harmonized the UPE version with the Paid version (referencing a policy). It had something like this in an earlier version. –xenotalk 23:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The bundling of three templates in this nomination is counter-productive. Each should be considered separately. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:21, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    All three of them are maintenance templates that allege NPOV concerns but which are frequently misused (as stated above in the nomination). —Locke Cole • t • c 22:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - serves an important role in informing readers and editors of potential problems with articles where COI editing is suspected or known to have occurred. - Bilby (talk) 23:32, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep — All are generally very imperative templates & most pertinent for AFC reviewers. Celestina007 (talk) 23:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all - Ridiculous nomination. They do exactly what they're supposed, draw attention to problems -- and a pretty widespread problem that hasn't abated -- in a place where they can noticed and acted upon. If these are frequently misused as a "scarlet letter" or "badge of shame", then:
  1. I'd like to some of actual evidence of this
  2. stopping misuse is the problem, if this is true, not the templates themselves
--Calton | Talk 00:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, various reputable newspapers mark as "press release" articles they publish that are ads rather than their own reporting; more an informative tag than shaming so that readers know it's not an article representing WP (in this case, the situation can eventually be improved by independent editors if they care, or the article deleted, etc). —PaleoNeonate – 13:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Calton: Addition without any discussion on what the tagging editor considered non-neutral, it was removed by me, then re-added and this discussion was started on the talk page, however instead of providing what the tagging editor considered non-neutral, they justified their assumptions that the "paid" editor was in fact paid. I can cite dozens of similar examples, but I don't know how WP:POINTy you want me to get just to satisfy your issue with these templates being used as badges of shame. As to your second point, well.. that ignores the rest of my nomination: much of what these templates do overlaps with other more specific templates as well as talk-page templates which identify paid contributions being a potential issue. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all as they serve an important function to warn the reader that articles may not be neutral or have been created in contravention of Wikipedia's terms of use, readers largely ignore talk pages. Undisclosed paid editors are lucky their articles are not summarily deleted in my view, Atlantic306 (talk)
  • SNOW Keep These draw attention to a very real and persistent problem; in a very visible space; for both readers and editors. Removing them and hiding it away on the talk page would do nothing to solve the problems of COI editing, and really if there is actual misuse (no evidence given so far) then this would be an example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:48, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per 331dot and others. SarahSV (talk) 04:11, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all Any template can be misused, that is not a reason to eliminate them. Any specific case of misuse can be corrected through editing. And if the tagger needs coaching, that can be delivered. --Worldbruce (talk) 04:21, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the {{COI}} template, with no opinion at this time as to the other two templates. I am willing to consider changing my Keep to a Neutral or Weak Keep if I am provided with detailed precise instructions for use by AFC reviewers and New Page reviewers that will be as effective as the use of the COI template. I think that neutral point of view should continue to be the second pillar of Wikipedia, and that it is essential to have a variety of tools to deal with non-neutral editing and editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:20, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. An important tool in our arsenal against COI and UPE. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Please explain how this is useful given the detailed arguments in the nomination about their problems and how other, existing templates do the job without those problems. Thryduulf (talk) 12:45, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: These templates draw attention to a problem in a way that is immediately visible upon visiting a page. The talk page templates are useful by themselves, and can be (and are) used by themselves if the problem is not significant, but in cases where the conflict of interest editing is causing a lot of problems for a page, it's important for people to immediately be able to see this. Some people might not even usually visit the talk pages of articles, so having a notice for the problem on an article itself, as is the case with notices for other article problems, is, in my view, a good idea – and just because it can be misused, that doesn't mean we should delete it. Many templates can be misused, but they're still important and, for the most part, used correctly. DesertPipeline (talk) 08:25, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all messages between editors should go on the talk page, not inside of articles. These do not tag specific, identifiable issues - and therefore tend to linger unhelpfully. {{POV}} should be used instead. Elli (talk | contribs) 08:28, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Except these aren't just messages between editors. A lack of specificity is remedied by, for example, giving a fuller explanation on the Talk page, which is just a matter of editing conscientously. XOR'easter (talk) 15:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There are different opinions about the meanings of the tags, let's take the Paid template as an example. I think there are two parts in the tag. 1) This article contains paid contributions. 2) It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. So while 1) is true, the 2) part is giving a hint that there is a problem in the content. The template "Paid" has been used in 162 articles while there are 5,294 "Talk pages of subject pages with paid contributions". This week Beyond My Ken added the Paid template (without starting a discussion on the article's talk pages) to all of the articles I've edited for my customers that wasn't already tagged saying it is a strictly factual tag. Is it? Jjanhone (talk) 09:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a good example of why these templates should be deleted. They identify no actual issue and are therefore useless in articles. Elli (talk | contribs) 09:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia readers might be scared about this kind of templates. So if one needs to choose between an editor, who is disclosing their edits and then marked with this kind of warnings or a UPE who have no history of this kind of edits (maybe no Wikipedia history to show to customers at all), which one would they choose? So I think these tags are making paid editors to go down under, it is a bit frustrating to follow the rules, if you are only getting punished for doing so. Jjanhone (talk) 11:20, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah. Paid editing is a much larger issue, but it's going to happen whatever we do, so it's better that it's above-board. A tag saying "this isn't neutral, here's XYZ why, and by-the-way the person who made this was paid" wouldn't be an issue - but the current tags do not identify an actual problem. Elli (talk | contribs) 11:22, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem being identified is that the articles were editied by someone with a COI. This, in turn, can lead to other issues. If it is determined that there are no other issues, and that the article is balanced, then the tag can be removed. In the same sense that newspapers and other publications need to identify to the reader when material is paid for, we need to identify when there is a COI. The difference is that we continue to check and edit articles, and are able to remove the tags ratehr than leaaving them there forever. - Bilby (talk) 11:27, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed - but that's not what the tags actually say. They say "there might be a problem". If they are used de facto in a more reasonable way - that should be specified in the template's wording. Elli (talk | contribs) 11:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think I might not be explaining myself. The problem is that the articles were editied by someone with a COI, which is clearly stated by, for example, "This article contains paid contributions". COI editing is fundamentally problematic, because of the risk of serious issues with articles where COI editing is involved. So we flag that problem, and we ask editors to check to see if it has, in fact, caused additional problems with the article as a whole. If it has not, or those issues are fixed, we can remove the tag. - Bilby (talk) 11:56, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bilby: perhaps a better phrasing for the tag would be "a user who contributed significantly to this article had an undisclosed COI. This article has not been thoroughly-checked for neutrality. Please help by improving the article's neutrality, or removing this tag if you check for neutrality and find no issues".
    (not sure of the exact wording but I think you get the idea of what I mean here. give something clearly actionable instead of something vague and not potentially an issue - the issue isn't that it was created by a COI, it's that it was created by a COI and has not been vetted for neutrality) Elli (talk | contribs) 14:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And these tags may also generate a business for UPE/sock puppets. One of my contacts got an email: "I’m an independent Wikipedia editor. I’m writing to you in my personal capacity about the warning on your Wikipedia page. The orange warnings show at the top of the page, which means that the page is not in compliance with Wikipedia’s policies. I would love to help you get the issues on the page fixed and bring the page in compliance so that the warning goes away. There is a fee to my services but I don’t charge anything upfront, only after the services have been successfully delivered. I will not be using my editors’ ID to fix the issue. I will create a new users ID for you and give it proper authorisations so that any future edits made from this account on your page will not result in any errors on Wikipedia as long as the content is compliant". Once I introduced the case on Facebook group "Wikipedia Weekly" there were people thinking that there could be people who first add this kind of tags and then take money for removing them. Jjanhone (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you realize that every maintenance template is an offense to UPE? I've seen so many UPE sockpuppets going crazy for any tag (be it {{advert}} or {{NPOV}} or whatever). I don't think removing COI and UDP tags will decrease the amount of UPE sockpuppets we have. In fact, my hypothesis is that removing COI and UDP tags specifically can aggravate the problem. Also, the number of articles with UDP tags is really dwarfed by articles edited by UPE in general. MarioGom (talk) 12:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Those scams have been around for years and there is no evidence that the people sending them are active editors. They usually represent blocked paid editing sockpuppet rings. In other words, exactly the kind of pernicious spam {{UPE}} helps us spot and combat, so using it as an argument to delete that template is bizarre. And it won't help: they'll just shift to targeting the subjects of AfC submissions or articles with other cleanup tags. – Joe (talk) 12:44, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete - I have seen so many good pages that are worthy of Wikipedia be ruined by some moderators who stick the UPE banner at the top without regard to the subject or any proof of the accusation. It's just used to bait IMO.SunSickDays (talk) 11:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC) see below SmartSE (talk) 18:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SunSickDays It is not always possible to provide proof due to WP:OUTING issues. 331dot (talk) 12:30, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Then it is both a BLP violation (as an unsourced accusation of wrongdoing in article space) as well as entirely unnecessary: explaining the problem with the article content does not require any information about which editors may or may not have broken a rule. Thryduulf (talk) 12:48, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between an unsourced accusation and a claim that we cannot provide the proof for due to policy. Accusations that have no basis can and should be removed; if a claim is based on off-wiki information, then that should be said. 331dot (talk) 13:03, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between an unsourced accusation and a claim that we cannot provide the proof for due to policy. How is anyone other than the person who placed this tag meant to tell difference? How is another editor meant to know whether the accusation should or should not be removed? There is evidence provided at Template talk:Undisclosed paid (and possibly elsewhere) that readers interpret such tags as accusations against the article subject. There is evidence in this discussion and elsewhere that editors will edit-war to keep these templates on articles, so it seems dubious to claim that such accusations can be removed (especially as any editor who is not very well known to the community removing such a template will be accused of UPE themselves). You have also not addressed that these do not explain the specific problem with the article content or that doing so does not require any personal information about anybody. Thryduulf (talk) 13:13, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We can ask that editors placing such tags provide the basis in the edit summary or on the talk page. If there is edit warring to protect a tag that has no basis to be there, that can be addressed. The tag does explain the specific problem with the article content, and I think that has been addressed by others so I won't add to this lengthy discussion by repeating it. 331dot (talk) 13:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete all per the well-reasoned nomination. These templates are being used in three primary ways - one is as a badge of shame, contrary to policy (the talk page templates should be used to mark where it is actually necessary); the second is to cast aspersions against contributions who might (or might not) have a COI, also contrary to policy; and thirdly to mark where cleanup is needed, but these are vague in this regard and duplicate the more specific (and thus actually useful) templates that document what the actual problem is so other editors (and readers) know what needs cleaning up. Finally, per template talk:Undisclosed paid, these templates are being interpreted by at least some editors and readers as making unsourced allegations against the article subject making them a massive WP:BLP violation. Thryduulf (talk) 12:29, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thryduulf: Regarding your first two reasons: it's already been pointed out here that nothing in the templates themselves suggest a "badge of shame". They neutrally state the presence of a COI and say the article may not meet our content policies. If some editors are using it inappropriately (an unsubstantiated assertion at this point), that should be dealt with as a user conduct issue, not by deleting a widely-used and useful template. Regarding your third reason: the typical chain of events is that an NPP reviewer or WP:COIN investigation finds an editor with a COI or financial interest, usually affecting multiple articles, and their creations are tagged for further review. What you're suggesting is that this NPP/COIN patroller should be obligated to do a detailed review and find specific content problems with each of them. That strikes me as not only contrary to WP:NOTMANDATORY and WP:NODEADLINE, but frankly offensive to those editors who volunteer their time to clean up the messes other people have been paid to make. It's akin to saying we should delete {{notability}}, because it's better to do a WP:BEFORE and take it to AfD, or delete {{refimprove}}, because it's better to do a thorough source-check and tag individual statements with {{cn}}. Yes more specific tags are more useful but in no other area of the project do we insist that editors should be barred from pointing out general problems if they don't have the time to check for specific ones. – Joe (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If we find a contributor has committed a copyright violation on one article, do we mass tag every article that editor ever edited with {{Copyvio}}, without first confirming each individual article has the issue?

    If a tag has a mandatory requirement for placing, then the volunteer can avoid mandatory work by not placing an article template that mandates an additional step. Those potentially compromised contributions can be tracked elsewhere, just as they are with WP:CCI. MarioGom: you mentioned earlier that there workflows could be improved, I’d look to CCI’s structure. I disagree with the argument that this necessary and useful work task requires article templates to track individual user conduct. –xenotalk 13:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    In my experience, mass tag every article that editor ever edited rarely happens. For a sockfarm that edits dozens or hundreds of articles, some of us tag just a small number of articles that pass some thresholds (e.g. not just a typo fix), or if the contributions are smaller, I revert and don't tag. In any case, I would support the creation of something like WP:CCI, where we can create cases with automated lists of every single contribution of a UPE sockfarm and then we check every contribution individually. We did that in a recent case and it was really effective. What I don't find reasonable is putting 20 hours of work in uncovering a UPE operation and then being asked to not act on it unless you put 40 more hours on clean up upfront. In my opinion, we should discuss how to put more resources against UPE and get more people to collaborate, rather than pushing to remove some of the few tools we have today. MarioGom (talk) 13:51, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You are not being asked to put any work at all into the cleanup problem - you are just being asked to not tag articles unless you can explain the specific problem with the content of that article. If you want to read the article to identify a specific issue then you are doing the same amount of work as you should be doing now but using a more specific tag. If you don't want to read the article you are being asked not to tag it, which is less work than you are doing now. Thryduulf (talk) 14:19, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If the contributions are smaller, I revert and don't tag. you should never be reverting article content based on anything other than the content you are reverting. If the content is problematic: revert it for being problematic, fix it or tag it for the specific reason it is problematic. If the content is not problematic: leave it. If you don't know whether it is problematic or not: leave it. Thryduulf (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If the edit is clearly non-controversial or is clearly an improvement, I don't revert. When in doubt, I do, per WP:REVERTBAN. MarioGom (talk) 14:52, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I want to expand on Joe's point a little: Spam doesn't just come in the form of articles about barely notable individuals created by someone offering UPE on upwork or fiverr. I've seen sockfarms whitewash pollution scandals ahead of a merger, I've seen them extensively edit politicians' biographies ahead of an election, I've seen them inserting negative material about living people and entire states on a significant scale, I've seen them edit highly contentious areas that involve active armed conflict. I'm one of maybe 5-10 editors who regularly work on large, PR-firm UPE sockfarms (others who immediately come to mind are MarioGom, GeneralNotability and MER-C); I've invested dozens of hours into linking individual accounts that sometimes have little to no overlap based on behaviour alone. Once that's done and the socks are {{bnt}}, we're sometimes looking at hundreds of pages that have been edited (some targeted, some to cover up other activities) and massive numbers of page creations. Yoodaba has run more than 100 accounts; VentureKit has made thousands of edits, Jaktheladz has created and modified a large number of pages. Cleanup is a relatively lonely job; legal and the WMF as a whole certainly don't care very much; paid-en is perpetually understaffed and has been for years; CU effectiveness in these cases has decreased over the years for a variety of reasons; the community is often indifferent because we're usually looking at articles that have relatively high viewcounts, but are unattractive to edit if you're not being paid to do so.
    It is simply not possible or feasible for the few editors who work this specific area (the NPP/AFC side is staffed a little better, but still lacks people with this focus) to individually review every single edit or affected article. And when you're looking at expensive PR firm edits (which usually come in conjunction with less competent, throwaway SPAs), you're often not talking about promotional content being inserted, but about things like undue weight being given to certain ideas, creation of bloated "awards and recognition" sections, articles being stuffed with trivialities and slowly being turned into the wikified equivalent of a website's "about us" section.
    Tagging affected articles for further review by others is one of the very few measures we have to action the actual edits (mind you, accounts are very cheap – what these people care about is that their edits stick). Yes, this can lead to the occasional bad tag, which is sort of unavoidable given the massive volume of contributions – I've made some in the past that I'm sorry about, they've been pointed out to me, and I've improved over time. As for the "where is the evidence?" part: We're not always able to link these activities to specific firms or individuals, but the specific identifiers of PR editing become very clear once you've worked the area for a while. When we are able to link farms to operators and individuals, we often can't talk about it because we'd be in violation of WP:OUTING. Even the specific PR identifiers are problematic – I've talked too much about them at SPI in the past, only to watch sockfarms change their behaviour quite significantly. Hell, I've been sitting on a farm with dozens of accounts that's linked to a lobbying firm and has edited the areas of biosecurity and bioterrorism extensively for weeks because I'm still trying to figure out how to link those accounts without giving too much away.
    These tags are necessary, because they are among the very few measures we do have to alert both the reader and the community, and I note that the people who have voiced their opinions here who work this side of things extensively all seem to be in agreement about that. They're not a badge of shame, they're an encouragement for others to look over the edits; if they're unneeded, they can be removed or discussed in more depth; if they can be made more specific by placing a different maintenance tag, that can be done as well. But deleting them is not the solution. Just deleting them and pretending that the problem doesn't exist amounts to capitulation – UPE socking is not the same thing as being a regular editor with a POV issue, and we should not treat it as such. Blablubbs|talk 13:57, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Those who place the tags say they are useful, but those who deal with them afterwards are saying they are not - there is a big difference. There is also a massive issue with those who frequently deal with UPE to see everything though the lens of fighting undisclosed paid editing and that saying "UPE" explains everything that needs to be said - but it doesn't. Paid editing is a user conduct problem, neutrality is an article content problem, the two are completely different. The tags alert the reader and the community only to the fact that someone thinks there might (and or might not be) a user conduct problem with one or more unspecified editors of the article that might or might not have resulted in some unspecified problem with the article. That is not helpful in the slightest. A tag like {{Neutrality}} on the other hand does alert readers and editors to a specific content problem that exists and is fixable. Thryduulf (talk) 14:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Joe Roe: Yes, I am suggesting that an editor who places a tag on an article saying there is a problem with the content of that article should be required to explain what the specific problem with the content of that article is. If they are unable or unwilling to do that then they should not be tagging the article - as Xeno notes, there are other and better ways to track user conduct issues.
    You also keep repeating the assertion that these templates are "useful" without explaining why those of us who explain why they are not useful are wrong. {{Notability}} and {{refimprove}} are not comparable because they highlight specific problems with the article content that an involved editor can review and determine whether they have been resolved or not and, if not, know what specific action they need to to take to resolve them. A user having a COI or being paid to edit is not a problem with article content, it is an unchangeable aspect of the user that indicates that articles they have edited have a higher likelihood of content problems like neutrality and peacock terms than average. Especially in the case of COI it doesn't even apply to all articles, it only applies to articles where they have a COI - e.g. if user:Example owns a widget retailer in Oregon their contributions to articles relating to widgets should be examined, but there is no reason to tag articles about asteroids or poetry because they have edited them. Thryduulf (talk) 14:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a whole parade of straw men. Nobody is tagging articles on asteroids or poetry. Nobody is using these tags to deal with user conduct issues. The people who place the tags and the people who subsequently deal with them are by and large the same people. These templates highlight a specific problem with article content, which you have eloquently described yourself: they have a higher likelihood of content problems like neutrality and peacock terms than average. The main arguments are for deletion here are a) a range of alleged or hypothetical ways they may be misused, with no actual evidence that it is happening; and b) the observation that more specific templates are more useful. The second point is true, and subsequent review of an article tagged with {{COI}} should be able to remove or replace it with something better, but as Blablubbs and others are telling you from direct experience, it is simply not practical to expect editors in the trenches, dealing with dozens or hundreds of COI-affected articles, to do so straight away. – Joe (talk) 14:53, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    These templates highlight a specific problem with article content except the problem with these templates is that this is not what is happening. I know from reading discussions like this what the problems might be, but readers do not and not every editor will. Is the problem that the article contains peacock terms? Is it presenting only one side of the story? I certainly can't tell from the application of this template and I've been on Wikipedia over 15 years. Nobody is using these tags to deal with user conduct issues UPE and COI are user conduct problems, and editors placing these templates does nothing but highlight the user conduct issue - as has been repeatedly explained they do not address article content problems. Nobody is tagging articles on asteroids or poetry so why do other editors in this discussion say that it is important to highlight all the articles edited by these editors? If you are reading the articles sufficiently to say whether there is a problem with them enough to add a COI template then you are reading them sufficiently to place a specific tag on them highlighting what the problem is, if you aren't reading them enough then you should not be placing any tags. Thryduulf (talk) 16:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all. These templates provide an opportunity to make vague accusations against editors without expecting, or even allowing, any proof. Comment on edits, not on editors. If there are issues with an article, by all means tag them as NPOV, or non-encylopaedic, or advertisement, as the case may be. But why the issues are there nobody needs to know. --Pgallert (talk) 13:10, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The "why" is very relevant as it provides the proper context with which to evaluate the article. There needs to be some sort of basis for it- and if the tags are being applied without any basis, they should be removed- but that is the case with any tag. It also simplifies things to have one tag instead of several. 331dot (talk) 13:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. For instance, if an article is promotional then there is a clean-up task to do. How does this task change if the cleaner-up suspected paid editing? --Pgallert (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is possible for someone to write promotionally without being a paid editor or even having a conflict of interest. The context of the two situations is different and require different mindsets and approaches when evaluating them. As has been said, if the tags are being misused, that should be addressed. Others like Joe Roe have made better worded arguments than I probably am. 331dot (talk) 13:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is the promotional editing, not why the editor wrote promotionally. The latter might make a difference to how we deal with the user, but the cleanup task on the article is identical in both cases. When tagging articles the only thing that matters is what the problem with the article content is. Thryduulf (talk) 14:07, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the cleanup task is identical in both cases. The problem with the article content is that it was written by someone with a COI/UPE- which we discourage. That's the problem. Independent editors should examine it, and if they find nothing wrong, remove it. No badge of shame, just marking for evaluation. Removing these valuable tags removes one tool we can use, and as I said above I'd reconsider my participation in article tagging if I couldn't use them. If the tags are misused, that should be addressed. 331dot (talk) 14:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
How does the cleanup task differ between "this article was written by a person with a COI or UPE and needs to be checked for neutrality" and "this article needs to be checked for neutrality"? Thryduulf (talk) 14:39, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I (and others) have answered that. If you don't agree, fair enough, but I think it's a very important consideration. 331dot (talk) 14:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, it has been repeatedly asserted that it is different, but it has never been explained how it is different. What steps must be taken by an uninvolved editor to check the neutrality of an article written by an alleged COI editor that are different to the steps they need to check the neutrality of an article written by someone without an alleged COI? Thryduulf (talk) 16:32, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how much this aspect has been discussed, but one important consideration that needs to be made when cleaning up a COI/UPE edited or made page is what precisely is being cleaned up. You need to be on the lookout for blackhat SEO sources, misleading figures, omitted information, factual inaccuracies, whitewashing, omission of "negative" press coverage, as well as NPOV wording. There is a very big difference between the two tasks. Perryprog (talk) 15:02, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, different causes of non-neutral writing can lead to different manifestations that sometimes require different skill sets to clean up. There's crackpot physics, crank medicine, corporate PR, political whitewashing, etc. A tag like {{NPOV}} can be less descriptive than the ones nominated for deletion here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're arguing for more specificity than provided by {{COI}} then. {{COI}} does not inform editors whether the issue is misleading figures, ommited information, or any of the other issues you mention (not that any of them are exclusive to editors with COI and/or UPE), nor does it give any clues where someone should start looking to find that out. {{NPOV}} is not perfect, but it explicitly tells editors and readers that the problem is with the neutrality of the article rather than making them guess this is what the tagger meant. Thryduulf (talk) 16:36, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No template is going to be that precise; they're templates, after all. {{NPOV}} could apply equally well to any one of the cases I mentioned (and those were just the kinds that came to mind first because I've happened to see them the most). XOR'easter (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Extended discussion on pinging
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Thryduulf I literally did 10, now 11 times. This is getting to the point of WP:BLUDGEON now. VAXIDICAE💉 16:47, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, I didn't make the connection between your signature and username (I don't know why). Thryduulf (talk) 17:05, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf: if you do a mass ping like this ever again, I will block you for disruptive editing. I don't give a fuck that you're a functionary. Nick (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why? A single notification to people who have commented in a recent directly related discussion but who are apparently not aware of the current one is explicitly allowed when done impartially. Thryduulf (talk) 17:09, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's disruptive when taken in combination with the significant number of edits you have already made to this discussion - you're well over the line of BLUDGEONING right now, you need to stop and allow others to more easily take part in the discussion. I count 23 edits to this discussion so far. Nick (talk) 17:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nick, I think your threat was inappropriate. Pinging people who participated in previous discussions is a good thing, and if someone is talking "too much" – well, maybe bringing in other voices will help balance that out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I too think the threat was completely inappropriate. 331dot (talk) 18:01, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mass pinging and bludgeoning are disruptive, and functionaries should know better. Whether this is a case of WP:UNBLOCKABLES or, more proabbly, if it's a too minor incident which just requires a few choice words (but not blocking), I don't think Nick did anything inappropriate. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:14, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that pinging 15 people is "mass pinging", and "Editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)" is expressly approved by Wikipedia:Canvassing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Non-voting comment I don't think that TFD is the right place to address this problem. IMO the problem is that we don't have a good shared understanding of what these tags are meant to do. The use cases appear to include at least these:
    1. I personally can't imagine why someone would write about this subject; therefore, they must be getting paid/be a family member/attend that school/work for that company. (This usually appears for businesses, products, and articles about marginalized people, but not, e.g., for train stations, pop culture, or the other things that we think are 'normal' Wikipedia article subjects.)
    2. This is probably a notable subject, but this new editor said something nice about the subject, and I dislike the subject, so they must be getting paid. ('Black hat' paid editing is never detected by these editors, even though we have seen many examples of this over the years, such as plaintiffs in lawsuits editing articles to say that a lawsuit is going on.)
    3. This article was edited by a sockpuppet. I don't know whether there's anything wrong with the article, but someone should probably check.
    4. This article was editing by a person who actually followed our poicy about disclosing a COI, and I want to punish them for admitting to the COI. (Yeah, they're never going to say it that way, but they're operating with the same illogic that beats a dog for returning home, as a method of teaching it not to run away.)
  • So what could we do? Well, I have a little list...
    • We could decide whether we want disclaimers in articles. We didn't used to, but WP:Consensus can change, and maybe we do now. If we do, then we could change the text of these templates to do that: "Disclaimer: One editor thinks that this article was improperly edited by a person with a conflict of interest in May 2018."
    • Assuming we still don't want disclaimers in articles, then we could reinforce the long-standing two-part process through training and feedback of established editors, e.g., reminding editors that maintenance tags are not supposed to be used to "warn the reader". The two-step process is:
      1. If you believe that there's a problem with the article, then you either immediately fix or tag the article (and explain on the talk page, if it's not absolutely obvious), with the primary goal of getting the article fixed and the tag removed as soon as the article is approximately compliant with the main content policies again.
      2. If you believe there's a problem with the article, then you leave a message on the editor's user talk page (and/or various block-oriented noticeboards, if applicable).
    • Assuming we still don't want disclaimers in articles, then we could re-phrase the article templates to reinforce the correct use of these templates. For example (not a comprehensive list):
      • Adding language about when/how/who can remove them: "Any editor can remove this tag unless there is an active discussion on the talk page about this concern."
      • Auto-hiding the template when it is a certain number of months old, since "active discussions" rarely last for even two months, much less years and years.
      • Adding links in the templates to encourage editors to use more specific templates.
      • Changing the text for one of them to make a sock-specific template, for the main purpose of letting CUs tag articles edited by a large volume of socks without expecting them to read the article.
  • I think there are a lot of things that we could do, and I think it requires more work than we could hope to accomplish here at TFD. So, maybe adjourn this to a temporary WikiProject? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There is an important category missing:
    5. A large scale UPE operation was uncovered. Its modus operandi is known, and they have subverted every possible Wikipedia policy they could. However, the scale of their contributions over years is so large that it is impractical to immediately check every article that received substantial contributions by them.
    I'm working on a proposal to organize clean up work in these cases, but indeed, it's way beyond the scope of this TFD. MarioGom (talk) 19:40, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - addressing the points in the nomination:
    1. Those do not alert the reader to anything and that is these templates main purpose. As a reader, it is something that I would want to know when reading an article.
    2. That's entirely down to personal interpretation. If they have been edited or reviewed thoroughly after COI/UPE by independent editors, then the tags shouldn't remain in place.
    3. It's often unclear what needs addressing and it can take substantial research about a subject to be able to begin to address. There's no single problem that needs fixing, there could be unreliable/fake sources, unsourced content, content which looks sourced but in fact isn't, copyright issues, promotional tone, noteworthy negative information excluded, despite seemingly numerous sources the subject is not notable etc. Often when the tags are applied, all we know is that there is a potential problem and therefore the article should be flagged for attention from an independent editor, this is only the first step to cleaning it up. It would be a dereliction of our duties as editors to just ignore these issues and often tens of affected articles are found at a time, making it unfeasible to expect a single person to list all the problems that need addressing. If this process is unclear to others, then I guess we need to write a guide.
    4. Those templates are too specific and require that a problem has been found (see previous point). They also only refer to problems with the existing content, but say nothing about the potential for negative information having been left out.
    5. That's a problem completely unrelated to these templates existing and will not be fixed by deleting them. See WP:BOGOF for some commentary on the problem.
  • SmartSE (talk) 18:21, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Addressing the points with rebuttals:
    1. WP:NODISCLAIMERS would seem to apply here. Ostensibly these templates are for the benefit of our editors, however, whether or not the NPOV concerns are related to paid contributions or not is irrelevant as the issues with the article will generally be the same.
    2. Indeed however there is significant resistance to even identifying what is wrong with the article that prompted the template to be placed in the first place.
    3. It can be, but two of the three nominated templates (the third having inclusion actively discussed as we speak) include this language in the template documentation: Like the other neutrality-related tags, if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start a discussion, any editor will be justified in removing the tag without warning. (emphasis in source) It is unacceptable to tag a page with these templates and not identify what the problem is. These templates seem more interested in shaming paid editors than in identifying content issues.
    4. See previous point for why specific issues must be included. For missing negative information, {{too few opinions}}, {{unbalanced}}, {{puffery}} would all be potential options and tag the entire article.
    5. Well the major concern with this bulletpoint was that COI editors use these templates to enforce the non-existant "rule" that editors with a COI must make their edit requests on the article talk page. That's simply not true. Removing these templates would take some of the "authority" the templates may exhibit to keep editors away.
  • It's possible a model similar to what is done at WP:CCI might be better, and avoid many of the pitfalls this current system has (and perhaps be clearer for all editors, since even among all the Keep !votes there's disagreement over how these templates are even meant to work... —Locke Cole • t • c 07:56, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - These templates are useful and I don't think deleting them is a netpositive for the community and cleaning up articles. They're useful as well in identifying articles with potential COI beyond the talk page tags. -- Dane talk 19:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, since Thryduulf chose to ping me to this discussion: Keep. I'm going to focus primarily on the UPE template. As an occasional placer of that tag, here are my usual rationales for placing it:
    • I have received off-wiki evidence showing that the article's creation or substantial expansion was paid for. This usually involves someone finding a freelancer ad, emailing it to paid-en with me CC'd, and me feeling that there is no question that the evidence does suggest the article is paid-for. To be perfectly honest, I would rather not be one of the handful of people who are the go-to for "email screenshots of Freelancer to prove UPE," nor have I ever asked people to send me off-wiki evidence except in my capacity as an SPI clerk, but paid-en is currently a joke and I don't see anything that suggests that's going to change anytime soon.
    • Blatantly obvious telltales in the article. When I say blatantly obvious I mean "leaving directions from the client in the article text" kind of obvious (I wish I were joking about that one)
    • I am convinced baesd on on-wiki behavior that the creator is being paid for their articles. No, I am not going to list out all of those telltales - there are enough WP:BEANS here as it is.
    • An article was created or substantially contributed to by a known UPE farm, or a sockpuppet investigation turns up a group of editors which are pretty clearly UPE - Blablubbs hit most of those.
    • I'm not placing these just because "there's no way anyone would be interested in this topic", as some people suggested above.
  • My intent when adding those is to communicate...well, exactly what it says: the article appears to have been edited by an undisclosed paid editor (which, I'd like to remind everyone, happens to be against the terms of service), and that it might need cleanup. Or it might not! It might be a halfway decent article.
  • I certainly have not been great about starting talk page discussions, but I at least try to leave a useful edit summary.
  • My expectations for removing it are pretty simple: any reasonably experienced editor acting in good faith may remove it if they think the article subject is notable and the article itself doesn't have any major issues (promotional tone, for example). There are specific reasons for each of those caveats:
    • "Reasonably experienced": a) brand-new editors probably won't know what issues to look for in a UPE article, b) the folks behind these articles don't like UPE tags and have an unpleasant habit of creating "uninvolved" accounts to remove these tags.
    • "Acting in good faith": Given the incidents leading to this discussion, I think it should be obvious.
  • "But GN, why don't you do it?" Because I recognize that I'm not the best content person, and I also recognize that I'm not the most neutral person when it comes to dealing with UPE; if I were dealing with these, I'd probably be taking a lot of these to AfD or stubifying them, when these articles might actually be decent.
  • And since it apparently needs emphasizing: UPE is against the terms of service, and so the UPE template is indeed communicating something to the readers: "someone wanted this article enough that they were willing to ignore the ToS to get it created; skepticism is encouraged."
  • GeneralNotability (talk) 20:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep All Just because there are people who misuse these templates, does not mean that we should delete these templates. In fact, it is very well known that all templates are being misused. By the nominator's reasoning, deleting all templates might be a better option by their explanation. There is a reason why these COI templates exist. A large number of articles with these templates means there are not many editors attempting to fix the issue, or there are not many users experienced enough to fix the issue.
I do agree in regards to the article talk pages for use in the discussion of these issues, but there are many articles with these issues which are infrequently visited. Thus there needs to be another way, other than COI'd articles catagory, if the nominator intend to delete all these templates.
Paid editing here, one-sided articles, copy-pasted content is nothing new here, it has happened, it does happen, and it will most likely unfortunately would continue to happen. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 02:57, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Fiddle Faddle, 331dot, Cabayi, usernamekiran, MarioGom, Elmidae, VAXIDICAE, Possibly, XOR'easter, JBL, Blablubbs, MER-C, etc. Making such behaviors more difficult to track is a step backwards in neutrality.   — Jeff G. ツ 12:49, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Two contributors to this TFD account for 31.6% of edits to this page, and 37.5% of the total text added (granted, I haven't split out the top sections, but they don't have all that much weight given their brevity) – given that we are now at dozens of !votes, that seems a little off-balance. Yes, deletion discussions are not votes, but repeatedly making the assertion that the arguments advanced and supported by those on the other side are invalid when it's obvious that many people do indeed see them as valid is not helping the quality of the discussion. Yes, it's the argument that counts, but when there are two or more developed and well-reasoned lines of thinking that a number of people adhere to, then it isn't necessary to restate them in every !vote, and it isn't necessary to interrogate everyone who voices their support for one of them. The arguments here seem rather clear and well-developed, whether one agrees with them or not, and it seems to be that no new ones have recently been advanced; I think that trying to litigate them under every !vote is going to generate more heat than light. I trust that we'll get a well-reasoned close by an experienced editor; if that is indeed the case, then bludgeoning will not change the outcome either way. Blablubbs|talk 18:09, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Asking participants to justify and ground their argument in actual policies and not evince internal contradictions is not bludgeoning. And ignoring such requests, suggesting they are merely "bludgeoning" is a failure to engage in reasoned debate and such inability to provide logical justification for the position should be considered by the closing administrator. –xenotalk 19:04, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that some of us might not feel the need to repeat over and over the same arguments that many have already written in this discussion. MarioGom (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Not repeating arguments that are logically fallacious, internally inconsistent and/or based on a false premise (and pretty much every argument for keeping is at least one of these) is a good thing. It does not mean, however, that those pointing out and/or asking questions about such arguments are bludgeoning the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 22:53, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all - Per above arguments. COI & UPE activity contributes to a loss of credibility for Wikipedia and shadows efforts to maintain NPOV. COI/UPE also creates alot of junk and wastes the time of good-faith editors that could be spent more productively. It should known be up front and center if an article has been paid for or created by COI editor. Netherzone (talk) 18:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Further
[edit]
Unhelpful. If we need separate subsections for each template; then this is a case of WP:TRAINWRECK and individual nominations (though we seem to be too late for that now, given the high participation). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

=====[[Template:COI]]=====

This subsection is specific to the {{COI}} template, additional comments about this template appear above.
This seems overly bureaucratic, unduly confusing and placing way too big a burden on volunteer editors who have already made plenty of cogent, coherent points. VAXIDICAE💉 16:53, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

=====[[Template:Undisclosed paid]]=====

This section is specific to the {{Undisclosed paid}} template, other comments about this template appear above.

=====[[Template:Paid contributions]]=====

This section is specific to the {{Paid contributions}} template, other comments about this template appear above.
  • xeno: These discussion breaks are confusing. Now it's hard to find the end of the original TfD to add comment where they are supposed to be. Also, let this comment serve as a notice that comments below are not part of the survey for the original TfD. --MarioGom (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Trainwreck is exactly why these subsections were created. You’ve got people arguing with each other who aren’t even referring to the same template. You’ve got UPE sleuths clamouring to keep their markers, people who just don’t want to see the long-serving COI template go away, and people who are confused about the legal status of the Paid contributions template. A lament for the closer. –xenotalk 18:02, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's the closer judge that. I see a majority of keep !votes and quite a few of them said explicitly that the keep goes for the three templates. MarioGom (talk) 18:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
While the keep votes may currently be more numerous, TfD is not a vote and the closer will address the strength of the arguments for and against deletion. I agree this is not going to be an easy job, but given how few people recommending keep can seem to agree even what the purpose of the templates are or answer the why and how questions being asked, I don't think the result is as anywhere near as clearcut as you seem to. Thryduulf (talk) 22:39, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Way to try to put your thumb on the scales: the questions HAVE been answered; that you're not happy with the answers is irrelevant. Also, few people recommending keep can seem to agree even what the purpose of the templates are is not the killer argument you seem to think it is, as it, among other things, implies that there should be a single reason for doing something. --Calton | Talk 05:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Believe what you wish, but try not to accuse others of bad faith while doing so. I have no reason to believe anyone commenting here is doing so in anything other than good faith, it would be nice if that same assumption was extended by everyone. Thryduulf (talk) 12:00, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The close is easy - there's no consensus to do anything about anything. It could (and maybe even should) all be closed now, there's no chance any consensus will emerge in another six days, and I think we'll all become much more pissed off and grumpy by next Friday. I do think we should have a proper RfC about where we all go with this though, as there are valid concerns on both the Keep and Delete sides of the debate. There are some good suggestions here and in related discussion elsewhere, and I'm sure there's a way to compromise on the way in which these templates are used without losing the transparency they provide to our readers and the service they provide to other editors. Nick (talk) 18:06, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, that’s fine. I’d like to discuss further on the covert advertising marker requirement, and whether that should be served by Paid contributions, or whether that should be served by a purpose template. Does that sound alright? As Nick said, there’s some useful discussion among the friction. I’m going to move the relevant text out of the collapse. –xenotalk 18:12, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But there are those, like me, that want to refer to all templates being a keep according to our explanation. The problem of the templates being abused for prejudice, bashing, or shamming, is not something that should be raised in the templates nomination for deletion. It should be referred to Dispute Resolution, which then could lead to a nomination for deletion. The inability to prove for paid editing is not something in regards to, was it paid or not? But does it look paid, by statements or claims that are hard or not found online. Another common way to inference paid editing is if a professional photo not found online is posted on the article in regards of the subject, we are talking about a professional portrait studio photo. To me, there should be a to do list to follow on the template's help section to decide if it should be considered undisclosed/paid editing and the template should be placed. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anachronist mentioned at the talk page of the paid contributions template that some notification may actually be required by a EU directive. I'd like to learn more about this in this section, and ask: if this is the case, is this template the way to signify that, or would it be better signified in a more robust way? And if so, has it been properly deployed? (I think it has not) Further, if this is the way (and it's now a forever-template), do we need to include a parameter for articles that have been "checked" (and suppress the content notification)? –xenotalk 16:41, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Xeno: While looking through the history of this template, I came across a previous discussion Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 March 19#Template:Paid contributions in which the creator of this template, Temulco3 stated that the template was created in response to an EU court judgement described in Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia#European fair trading law and the more detailed treatment of this ruling in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-11-12/News and notes. ~Anachronist (talk) 16:52, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It, along with several other legal rulings are covered eloquently and succinctly here as noted multiple times above. VAXIDICAE💉 16:55, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Anachronist and Praxidicae: eloquently and succinctly are not the words I would choose: IANAL, and as far as I know, none of you are either; regardless, the Wikimedia Foundation has lawyers, and if these were a concern, there would be instructions from WP:OFFICE telling us these templates need to exist for some legal reason. As far as I know, there's not. Hand ringing about alleged legal concerns is still just hand ringing. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:45, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is no need for the Wikimedia Foundation legal staff to express an opinion if the concerns are already handled by the community. Don't pretend to have knowledge of the legal team's operations. Nothing is hand-wringing, and you're making unfounded assumptions, as you have done since the beginning when you misinterpreted the template documentation that permits removal of the template as a requirement. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So there's this concept called a "burden of proof" (see also the more straightforward Sagan standard), and right now the burden is on you to prove that these templates are a legal necessity. I'm not going to prove a negative for you, so if you think they're a legal requirement, get the Foundations opinion, otherwise it is quite literally you hand-ringing. And as to the latter bit, considering that's more WP:ASPERSIONS, thanks for that. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:26, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The burden of proof is on you to show why deleting these templates is an improvement. The legal opinions given seem clear enough that if we identify a case of UPE or COI editing (which constitutes "covert advertising"); we should seek to fix the problem, and given that often time there's large groups of pages which need to be checked, it's unreasonable to expect someone to spend all their time fixing many pages. At least tagging seems to both bring action from experienced editors and even the COI editors (either the bad faith removals, or the somewhat better attempts at improving the articles via edit requests so the tag can be removed). And my own experience is that I wouldn't want problems about the article to be highlighted only as vague templates in the talk page - removing the mainspace templates would in no way fix the perceived (if so far uncorroborated) misuse: users could just tag the talk page, which would lead to even less action than before. Out of one problem (alleged misuse of maintenance templates) we'd have two (misuse and inaction). Talk of "two birds with one stone"; except this is in the wrong direction... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:30, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I provided reasons ("proof") in my nomination, other editors also provided even more thought out reasons in their Delete !votes. I numbered my reasons so editors with questions about a specific one could inquire, if there is something specifically you're asking me for, please let me know. As to the legal question, again, if the Foundation had a concern relating to these templates, you would find a page linked here: Wikipedia:List of policies#Legal. The reason you don't is because there isn't. Now you're more than welcome to contact the Foundation counsel and make your case for why these templates are a necessary part of the English Wikipedia, but in so far as our discussion here? Legal concerns are not a reason to keep these templates. We have perfectly fine neutrality templates that can inform editors about concerns with article content without making editor conduct issues a matter of article-space concern. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:58, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused how a template can be considered a legal requirement and at the same time be removable. –xenotalk 21:33, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like this has been asked repeatedly and not answered. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:58, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This templates are essential. It doesn't actually matter in a practical sense whether the wmf requires them or not, nor whether they or some similar form are legal requirements, because our own policy requirements are, as they should be even stronger. NOT ADVERTISING is one of the basic principles here. Our requirements are strongerthan the foundation;s because of all the WPs, we're in the most exposed position--the most widely read, even in countries which have their own language WPs, and consequently theo ne in which all businesses and professionals and organizations of all sorts want most to advertise. The other do have problems from local advertisers, and need to do something similar, but we are continually under attack from everywhere. . We do, and we need them as the first step towards at least identifying and eventually removing the immense amount of promotional content in Wikipedia . I'd say they should be used considerably more more often. in any case, they're a warning, not a judgment. We also need to judge, and this should no be forgotten. (I tend not to use the templates much myself, because I try to deal more dfinitively from the start, but not everyone is in a position to do that) The templates are only the first step., and they're valuable especially because they're relatively easy as compared to actually doing what we need to do, which is to remove the promotional material. The way to get a judgment is to 1/ try to remove the promotionalism or 2/ if it is not removable without totally destroying the article , listing it for deletion at AfD. or 3/ if it's recent and fixable, move it to draft space. If the promotionalism is removable but keeps getting replaced, remove it and ask for page protection. If even that does not work, then AfD. Unfixable promotionalism is one of the basic reasons for deletion, under the basic rule for contents, WP:NOT, Advertising can destroy the value of the encyclopedia , and is probably at this point our biggest threat. If we start tolerating it, we'll soon be no better than google. I admit these templates are a relatively weakfirst step, but we need that step. DGG ( talk ) 22:06, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all and focus on the behavior of people misusing the tags, where it exists. Eliminating critical and useful tags because there are users who weaponize them is misguided. Grandpallama (talk) 19:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There is nothing wrong with the templates. There is only an issue with the misuse of the templates. Those should be addressed individually with editors using them or at ANI, not a deletion discussion here. --CNMall41 (talk) 23:58, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or reform, mainly per Anomie. When readers encounter an article, they need to know whether or not it is neutral, not who wrote it. In other words, they need to know about content issues, not conduct issues. If it looks not neutral, we should tag it with {{NPOV}} or {{Advertising}} or similar. If a COI editor has edited a bunch of pages that need to be checked, they can be added to a behind-the-scenes queue and tagged with {{POV check}} while they wait. And if neither the content nor the COI editor is suspect, there is no reason to tag. Therefore, the COI tags are fundamentally redundant to the existing tags, and are not necessary for us to address the (very real) problems from COI editing. Weighing on the negative, these templates are chronically misused to tag articles that have been edited by a COI editor, even when no actual problem has been identified. This goes against the purpose of tags, but even in this discussion there are editors admitting to and defending the practice. The templates should at minimum be revised (with correspondingly revised documentation) to make clear that they should not be added to pages unless a problem is suspected. But it's pretty clear that that will never be enough to stop the misuse. Deleting them as redundant is both valid on its own terms and solves the misuse problem. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:44, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I am in favor of keep and we do need such notices to alert readers, but we also need clear instructions on when the message can be removed. There are no clear criteria for that as to when would it be OK to remove it. Let's just say it was a paid article but it was written perfectly per Wiki guidelines, should another editor that reviews it be able to remove without any edits, because he feels it is meeting all Wiki guidelines? I also suggest that there be some kind of monitoring on these pages every 6 months for admins to review and decide if the tag should still stay. Expertwikiguy (talk) 01:58, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. In response to the original nominator's reasons:
  1. The average Wikipedia reader is barely aware of the existence of talk pages, let alone tracing the edit history of identified connected contributors. I'd argue that few readers even check the citations in the article body; they just accept the article content verbatim. That's not criticism, but a realistic portrayal of the "lay" user of Wikipedia. Per WP:COI's own words: Readers expect to find neutral articles written independently of their subject, not corporate or personal webpages, or platforms for advertising and self-promotion. Losing these tags would seriously impair our ability to alert readers about content of this nature. We owe it to them to have clear and visible notices in the articles edited by parties with self-serving interests and not yet dealt with.
  2. Drive-by tagging without followup is a problem, but we have to be realistic when considering the scale of problem. The reality is that Wikipedia is assailed daily by hundreds of spammers and spin doctors, either blissfully ignorant of or knowingly evading the rules. There is neither enough time nor warm bodies to keep up; the best we can do is tag the ones we spot, notify the editors and move on to the next one. Per my first point, I place the interests of the reader above those of the contributor; it's worth the risk of a few bruised egos. Ideally, it would be great if we could spend time with each individual COI/UPE editor and explain the error of their ways, help them understand the rules and hope to turn them into productive editors (or, hope they leave forever if they have no intention of following those rules). I'm happy to spend time with editors who are genuinely interested in following the rules, and have had several positive outcomes.
  3. Cleanup editors should at least be able to follow any evidence trail left by editors identified by {{connected contributor}} and {{connected contributor (paid)}} on the talk page. Examining the edit history from those editors and seeing any relevant talk page discussion should give sufficient guidance to identify and excise bad content.
  4. Those templates aren't clear on their own to show that outside parties with self-serving motives have made changes. I believe it's important for a reader to distinguish between an article with just poor quality writing vs. an article that's been changed to deliberately manipulate the narrative.
  5. That's a problem not of the templates, but of the editors applying them. Undisclosed paid editors absolutely cannot edit until they've disclosed; unpaid COI editors still can even though we would prefer they not. We are supposed to tell paid editors "you must disclose" vs unpaid COI editors "you should disclose". If our messaging to them is wrong or inconsistent, then let's work to fix that practice. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 04:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Re point 4, most articles that have been tagged with {{NPOV}} have been subject to attempts to deliberately manipulate the narrative (often including COI editing, just not crystal clear enough for us to use a COI template). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:54, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all three per the well-reasoned arguments of the nom, Thryduulf and Anomie. The templates are basically saying that the content violates WP:NPOV. There are very specific templates to highlight specific problems like notability, advertisement, POV, etc and these three attack the editor than the issue. Take the article to AfD if you need more eyes.Vikram Vincent 07:54, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    AfD is not the right venue to bring more attention except for some article creations. UPE often involves spamming, manipulating or spinning well-established articles. MarioGom (talk) 08:23, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. Very few of the pages affected in the recent Wolfspam incident deserved to be deleted, for example; the most serious disruption was to articles on topics whose notability is not in the least questionable. XOR'easter (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's very important to realise that UPE is not necessarily the same thing as spam. Spam implies something being a blatant advert for a product that is not worthy of note or consideration; yes, CSD and AFD can handle that part, though too much still slips through the cracks. But what worries me most is UPE in subject areas where people actually want to read the articles; high-profile companies, politicians, high-profile individuals. Look at the Radovicdarko farm, which was clearly paid (look at the timecards, that's a MENA work week) and liked attacking Saudi Arabia and promoting Qatar, or at this lot which is currently promoting Ukrainian public figures xwiki. If the community was willing to delete UPE articles (which often involve misrepresentation of sources and undue weight more than BUY IT NOW type language and take a lot of time to thoroughly check and clean up), then this would be another matter. When we're talking about subjects that are clearly (or at least borderline) notable, then we either need a large group of people willing to undertake complex reviews (which in the cases I'm thinking about would be far far more complex than the Wolfspam thing) to specifically identify and fix problems immediately after discovery, or we at least need tags like this. Because with the handful of people working this area, tagging is the only feasible option. Is it the best one? No, I'd love to work over all these articles and nuke all the sock edits all the time, but I simply cannot. And until that part is addressed, these maintenance tags are a valuable tool to at least alert the reader and the community. Blablubbs|talk 00:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I use this quite often because I spend so much of my Wikipedia time removing spam and blocking spammers. I agree it has to be subject to monitoring, but that's not a reason to get rid of it. Deb (talk) 08:59, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment: As reason for re-adding the template:paid contributions to Orivesi when it was removed after checking was It's my opinion that as long as there are contributions by a paid editor in an article, then the template is justified and should remain. (Paid edits in this case were [6]) I think that the template requires least more strict wording in the documentation that in the article there should be some other problems too than person who have edited it and there should be least accountability for the users who are adding the templates to explain why the problem tag should stay. --Zache (talk) 13:30, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Calton: You were looking for evidence of these templates being used as a "badge of shame", here's a recent example for you. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:10, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The whole story is told in ANI I made on Sunday, more than 50 tags added without the discussion. The Paid template instructions says "If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning." So does this "any editor" include also paid editors? If not, could that be added in the instructions too?Jjanhone (talk) 19:24, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think some things don't need to be spelled out - someone being paid to remove a paid editing tag just seems like bad idea. Generally, it is always best if someone independent of the cause of the issue removes the tag, whatever the tag may be. - Bilby (talk) 22:08, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that it would be best if someone independent to issue removes the tag. The practical problem, however, is that currently, it is very easy to add paid contributions templates to multiple articles at a very fast pace. Say to all articles which the user has edited in the last 5 years the example. However, at the same time, those problem templates are very complex to resolve because the template's scope is that there may be undetected problems .
    How an independent reviewer who would like to remove the problem template should know if something is missing? Or if the content is the neutral presentation of the topic or not if there are no visible problems.
    To address this there should be some hint for the reviewer what to check/fix or problem template would be very prone for staying forever in the articles. One way to resolve this would be that there mandatory parameter which the user would need to fill to explain what is the problem in the article. When this is checked/fixed then the template could be removed. Zache (talk) 07:54, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that it makes no sense to say that someone can be paid to remove a paid editing tag, and I'd be loathe to argue that only paid/COI editors are qualified to check content in their articles, which seems to be the suggestion. Independent editors do a good job in writing the majority of Wikipedia. - Bilby (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I read Jjanhonen's comment so that it was genuine note that if de facto standard that paid/COI users should not be removing the templates then it should be said aloud in the template documentation and not to think that users will understand that automatically.
    At same time there is another problem how to get the problem templates resolved. If the templates only function is that it will be top of the article forever then it is badly designed. Zache (talk) 08:17, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems self evident that you can't be paid to remove a paid editing tag - I wouldn't have felt that needed to be specified. But ok. In regard to removing the tags, it is a lot of work which relfects the trouble that can be caused by paid/COI editing, but I've removed tags in the past. You need to check for all of the common paid editing/COI issues, and there's a long list, but if you know what you are looking for you can at least have a reasonable certainty that you can find the issues. The exception for me is articles regarding medical topics or ones completely out of my expertise, where I think someone with more knowledge of the field than me should make the final call. When someone like that checks the article I'm very happy to see the tag removed. - Bilby (talk) 08:23, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And another example from articles related to same ANI. Paid contribution template was added to article because of edits which added the infobox. Infobox did not contain problematic content and it would have been trivial to check before the problem template was added. In this case I removed it and my edit was reverted. Most likely because that i removed the template with summary where I said that the template was misused in this particular case. [7] In discussion was stated that paid edits qualifies the problem template no matter what they contains. Zache (talk) 20:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep All - I have been following this discussion with interest, and everyone makes valid points but I hope to add to the "keep" side in finding a consensus. I agree with those who say these templates have utility value for good-faith editors in finding articles that need to be cleaned up or nominated for deletion. If they are abused by bad-faith editors, that is a reason to confront those editors and not to throw away the otherwise useful tools that they have abused. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (TALK|CONTRIBS) 13:49, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As mentioned in the nomination, both {{Connected contributor (paid)}} and {{Connected contributor}} are available for use on the talk page, where they add tagged articles to Category:Talk pages of subject pages with paid contributions or Category:Articles with connected contributors respectively. Editors wishing to seek out articles with potential issues could start with those categories. Although honestly, it would be better for the project if they helped knock down articles in Category:NPOV disputes, where the current number is nearing 6,000 tagged articles (and those are generally organized by date, so you can choose to start with ancient POV issues or work on more recent ones). —Locke Cole • t • c 16:20, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This tag has been vital to communicate pages that need to be reworked. Honestly, I am surprised that something as simple as a COI template is nominated for deletion. Thanks, Andrew nyr (talk, contribs) 19:06, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep all. I think Timtrent's initial response gets to the crux of the matter, and when combined with 331dot's follow up comments throughout the discussion sum up the keep side quite adequately. POV is very different from COI/Paid Editing. We have literally thousands of fictional character articles which suffer from some stage of POV. Why? Because they're written by fans. But COI is different, they are not simply fans, but have a connection to an article. And UPE are worse. While POV issues reduce WP credibility, COI and UPE do far more damage to the project's stature. Onel5969 TT me 23:11, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - per nom. and in particular that there are already talk page templates (where I think this sort of notification should go). Wikipedia articles are for our readers, not our editors. And that aside, this just feels too much like internal Wikipedia processes to have it in article space. A reader, when reading, should not need to care about who edited an article. - jc37 05:10, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Readers can go and be editors too. However if we hide all issues on the talk pages they probably won't.----Pontificalibus 13:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per 331dot, XOR, & Praxidicae. Giraffer (talk·contribs) 06:44, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - This kind of declaration should be on a Talk page rather than the article itself. It is akin to a shame sign and is often used without the required explanation on the Talk page by the Editor placing it.RyBro (talk) 11:21, 24 March 2021 (UTC)— RyBro (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Keep Following some delete arguments here, we may as well remove all the maintence tags, forcing people to have talk page discussions instead and keeping casual readers in the dark about article issues. I don't see a valid deletion rationale.----Pontificalibus 13:18, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a straw man - the delete arguments explicitly call for maintenance tags to be used instead of these templates. Thryduulf (talk) 17:30, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but change the way these are used. These templates do have useful purposes, e.g. mass tagging the edits of a spam farm found at sockpuppet investigations for cleanup, or marking up pages that have obvious issues due to paid or coi editing, but "This page contains paid editing" isn't an issue that by itself requires cleanup (or that it is even nessasarily possible to "fix") - it's an indicator that the article may have other problems. I think these templates should be reworked to encourage editors to evaluate the content of the article and replace these templates with the specific cleanup templates for issues identified - something like "This article contains paid contributions. It may require cleanup to comply with wikipedia's content policies. Please review the contents of the article and replace this template with cleanup templates related to any issues found." (the wording could use work). 86.23.109.101 (talk) 13:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There's a legitimate issue about tags remaining on articles for too long, but we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 14:01, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all three. This feels quite similar to the recent TfD for {{expert needed}} (which did not result in deletion): it sucks that there's a backlog of articles with maintenance tags, but deleting the tags will not fix this. It will, in fact, make the issue quite a bit worse, since there will be no indication at all that the article has problems. The way I see it, maintenance templates are a way to give people an indication that the content below them may be flawed in some way; if we don't have this, what are we supposed to do about badly written articles? Provide them to readers with the same context as everything else? Or delete every article as soon as it gets a couple dogshit edits on it? jp×g 19:10, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I bring to mind a comment that Tristan Harris made in the film The Social Dilemma (available from Netflix). I don't remember the exact words or have the exact timestamp, but my recollection is that he said something along the lines of: these sites are released and they take on a life of their own. I think it's an interesting point in the context of this discussion and Wikpiedia because it raises the question of how much is it possible for any one group or any one entity to really exert control over the site, or to accurately know what's going on with it. What clear data is obtainable in terms of how much UPE is getting through and how much advertising/promotion is already in Wikipedia? How much has Wikipedia been built over the years by SPAs or transitory editors with some passing interest? Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You are conflating a lot of different issues here (I think, your comment isn't easy to parse) but if all someone does is write sourced, neutral prose about notable topics, doesn't edit war and doesn't get into arguments then nobody cares to even look whether they're editing for pay without disclosing that - we only see the problematic editors. We will never know how much good content was written by undisclosed paid editors. As for SPAs, again we only apply that label to editors who are behaving badly in some way - indeed if someone's single purpose is to write or improve neutral articles on a single narrow (but notable) topic then they get awards. Thryduulf (talk) 21:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    We see also disclosed paid editors too which are under more detailed scrutiny than general users. I don't think that is a bad thing as if they are doing it as work then we can expect some community defined level from the results as in the end general wikipedia editor is doing editing as volunteer. Beyond that, I think that paid editing is allowed in Wikipedia and Wikipedia is free in terms of that we don't care what is the motivation of the editor as long the editor follows the policies. Zache (talk) 05:52, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: Is there any data on the reader perspective? How are reader (non-editors) interpreting and responding to these tags? Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: Is there any data on the subject perspective? How are the subjects of articles interpreting and responding to these tags? (I speak a little bit about this in the data section below). Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Back at Template_talk:Undisclosed_paid I said that it seemed to me a "heavy negative weight" to unduly antagonize or anger subjects. I suppose I just take that as axiomatic. You want to avoid angering people (if you can and still do a good job). It's unclear to me really how subjects are responding to these tags. At least based on the two exchanges I've seen they don't seem angry but maybe just more perplexed. Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Questions expressing concern about the current status quo: In placing these tags is Wikipedia putting an unreasonable expectation on itself? The application of the tag is like a function call to future volunteer human labor. When will that labor manifest itself, and when it does what will its quality be? All the while Wikipedia and the article are waiting can the presence of the tag both legitimize and stimulate what it was intended to rebuke (see in particular above comments from Jjanhone beginning with, "And these tags may also generate a business for UPE/sock puppets...")? Perhaps I'll even bring to mind this: When the scientist Richard Feynman gave an introductory course in physics he found that the undergraduates were having a difficult time understanding the course material. He was disappointed with the results of the test (actually, if I recall right, I think that the students actually enrolled stopped showing up, but the room remained full because grad students started attending instead). At the end of the day perhaps Feynman's expectations of what was actually achieveable by the students didn't jive with the reality (this is all talked about in James Gleick's book). So in particular, referencing the VentureKit data, most of the tags are still on there, and for some of them the tag was just removed without review or editing. Is the situation like that of an assembly line in which station one is going way too fast for station two, and so things just keep accumulating at station two? On the other hand, it is true that for the data gained from using Wayback Machine, perhaps the results seem a little bit more encouraging. Apparently 217 articles got tagged in September 2017 but that's now been whittled down to 94. So perhaps more data could be gathered to try to ascertain how things are going. Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 19:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    By adding an incredibly large wall of text with subsections, you've broken the flow of the TfD and made much harder for new participants to find the end of the main section to add !votes. I would kindly ask you to move this elsewhere. I see you reference me, as well as large-scale UPE cases I'm very familiar with, but I had no time to read the full walk of text. I'll do later. MarioGom (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a quick note that my comment above referred to the deleted text. Not to the preceding comment. MarioGom (talk) 20:30, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Administrative note I have removed a MASSIVE 46k addition to this page, which is just unnecessary and excessive. In the interest of there potentially being useful info in there (I don't know, I'm just looking at not breaking things) I have moved the content to this subpage. Primefac (talk) 20:17, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep absolutely a vital template to warn readers of COI-editing concerns. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep We should never, ever, go softer on paid editors, disclosed or not. SK2242 (talk) 11:06, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The template is useful for when an article could be reworded or otherwise to not be promotional. Also per Timtrent above. bop34 • talk • contribs 22:11, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. All are very useful and serve important purposes. ♟♙ (talk) 23:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The talk-page tags are to indicate that a contributor has a conflict of interest, but they do not indicate that there is a problem with the article. These tags indicate there is an actionable problem with the article. The fix for these problems goes deeper than a normal POV fix, I think. Conflicted contributors have an incentive to be a bit more insidious, and a fix involves looking at all their contributions and the state of the article before they touched it, and anything they might have deleted. Paid editors have been reported in the press to succeed at making articles more favorable to the subject by wearing other editors down and throwing the wikilawyering book at the article page by page. For that reason and because some volunteers may be motivated to work specifically on this highly concerning problem, it's worthwhile to have separate tags. I have been doing a lot of spelling and grammer cleanup work, and it's a bit shocking how many articles clearly altered by a self-interested party have gone undetected. It's better to have these tags legitimately on articles for 10 years than to leave these problems unidentified; encyclopedia fact-checking is decade-scale work, even for professional publications. It's also better to have them on articles illegitiately for a year than to let borderline cases go undetected. If someone wants to reduce the amount of time articles are inappropriately tagged, then they should volunteer to do triage. In addition to poking drive-by editors who didn't explain any reason, maybe they could fix simple problems and shorten the backlog. -- Beland (talk) 01:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. (Sorry for my poor English, I'm French.) Those templates should not remain indefinitely on an article, but they are usefull to indicate that an article has been edited by paid undisclosed account(s) and that it should be reviewed (to check sources, neutrality, etc.). As a French Wikipedian, I always use it to report articles on EN-WP edited by accounts blocked on French Wikipedia for undisclosed paid editing, as my level in English is not sufficient to review those articles myself. Regards, Jules* (talk) 10:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, these templates are simply useful, and as such they should be kept. Devonian Wombat (talk) 13:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reform, but if not, delete. The templates do address a serious and important issue but they are also frequently misused. I believe that the templates, if they are kept, must be changed to explicitly require whomever places them to make a follow-up comment post at the article talk page explaining why the template had been placed. Such a modification would considerably cut down on the misuse of the templates. Otherwise they should be deleted and we have to consider other, less arbitrary and capricious, ways of addressing the COI problem. Nsk92 (talk) 14:00, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, just because they can be used wrong doesn't mean they necessarily are. Any tool can be used inappropriately. These encourage talk page and discussion. When I put one up, I engage with other editors, and work to resolve one. When I find a bad article that's untagged, I make a lot of edits or even TNT, but I don't always trawl the history or talk, but if I come across a similar artice with the COI tag, I carefully look through rather than TNT it, and collobarate as a newcomer with fresh eyes on what seems like anything NPOV and from whom on any already existing conversation, something deleting these templates would destroy. JesseRafe (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep For Mobile editors using default skin, article notices are far superior to Talk Page notices. Article notices appear when accessing the article, talk page notices require effort to access and are subject to banner blindesss. Additionally, this thread is very unfriendly to mobile users (or at least this mobile user) as it takes forever to load the editing screen. I had to use a PC to leave this comment. Slywriter (talk) 15:04, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
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