The experiment to see how new users who create viable new articles are treated (see last issue), has been criticised after allegations that a participant was using the trial to disrupt Wikipedia and prove a point. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Newbie treatment at CSD followed Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556's issues with the creation of articles Magic pen (software) & Huntsville (game). During the discussion it was noted that the experiment was driving some participants away from doing new pages patrol, although Angr noted being inspired to become a patroller on the strength of it. Most participants in the debate agreed that there were lessons to be learnt from the experiment, but that it was now time to review and discuss the data collected to date. The initiator of the experiment, ϢereSpielChequers proposed to:
pause the creation of new articles whilst we discuss some of the implications, any safeguards that users might suggest, and of course the data collected so far.
There was vigorous discussion this week on how to classify policy pages at the Policies and guidelines talk page. In this discussion, Dank suggested that, over time, three things happen on most (but not all) policy pages: they eventually supersede other pages on the same topic, they lose material that doesn't have broad support, and they gain material that is helpful and informative. Dmcq distinguished "general principles" (such as WP:5P) from policies ("fairly specific but still based on principles") and guidelines ("very down to earth").
In the previous section, Kotniski would like to see less emphasis on ArbCom and enforceability in the analysis, and points out that pages generally get marked as policy because they contain some very important principle, even if not every statement on the page inherits this importance. WhatamIdoing thinks that "What would ArbCom do?" isn't a useful way to think about the content policies, since ArbCom avoids content issues. Blueboar adds that some pages that are currently marked as policy probably shouldn't be and points to WP:The rules are principles as a good essay on understanding policies and guidelines. Ohms law is "completely on board", but believes the discussion is still too "theoretical". Camelbinky stresses that policies are not always preemptive; that is, if somehow a clear consensus against current policy develops in discussions elsewhere, such as the village pump, then policy should be changed, no matter how fundamental the change.
Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations has been launched as "a process intended to identify users who have repeatedly introduced copyright violations into many articles, typically over a long period of time, and to systematically remove this infringing material." The process was the idea of User:Moonriddengirl, who noted that "Wikipedia has several processes in place for dealing with limited copyright concerns--single articles or files, even a small grouping of these--but no workable process for dealing with massive multiple point infringement." The process opened on November 12, adopting many of the cases from the now superseded Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys.
Thirty-two Requests for comment have been made in the week of 9 November to 15 November:
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