11WB (talk) 00:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Of course there are valid sources discussing the ethnic origins of many competitors in many sports from many countries, but that would suggest that it would be of more benefit to expand on the specific subject(s) in an article or a series of articles, and similar evidence did not prevent almost all of the other categories being upmerged, resulting in these two groupings being retained in a completely illogical manner; either this is valid for a categorisation fork across the board, or it isn't, because 20 years of this project have shown that the proliferation and maintenance of categories is not adequately patrolled and policed to have narrow, particular forks without 'siblings' being created and populated for similar matters.

There is no evidence that Category:Canadian sportspeople of Slovak descent has specific sourcing for its individual importance, and also nothing to prevent Category:Canadian sportspeople of Czech descent being created if half a dozen qualifying biographies were found (by the way, glancing at Category:Canadian people of Czech descent, about half of the 68 articles there look to be sportspeople, so in that respect it would be perfectly valid), regardless of sourcing. On the French side, there is no evidence that Category:French sportspeople of Portuguese descent has specific sourcing for its individual importance, and also nothing to prevent Category:French sportspeople of Spanish descent being created if half a dozen qualifying biographies were found (by the way, glancing at Category:French people of Spanish descent, perhaps 100 of the 336 articles there look to be sportspeople, so in that respect it would be perfectly valid) – because that's not the way categories work in practice and never has been: it is assumed that the source exists in the article if there is already a category present which prompts another to be added.

Finally, the deletion of other groupings has left a silly imbalance for certain intersections: Category:French sportspeople of Turkish descent is still present but Category:German sportspeople of Turkish descent was upmerged, somewhat farcical for any reader with a passing interest in German/Turkish culture and/or sport in the past 50+ years, and of course that complex relationship is a published topic of relevance (see Turks in Germany#Sports) but that did not 'save' the particular category at the earlier CfD. We are not discussing whether the topic exists independently but whether it is relevant for the continued existence of this entire intersection of categorisation. And in that regard, there is no difference between the surviving Canadian / French groupings and the deleted American / Australian / British / Spanish groupings other than one or two people contributing to the CfD. The principle is identical, either those should be restored or these other 'survivors' merged too.

PS I'm not certain if the RfC type I have selected is the most suitable, please change it if not. Crowsus (talk) 09:55, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

1. ArbCom-designated contentious topics (WP:CTOPs);
2. Community-designated contentious topics (WP:CCTOPs), which were recently formalized at this recent RfC;
3. ArbCom-imposed topicwide restrictions (for example, the topic of South Asian social groups is subject to an extended-confirmed restriction; the topic of genetically modified organisms is subject to 1RR); and
4. Community-imposed topicwide restrictions (for example, the topic of Kurds and Kurdistan is subject to a community-imposed extended-confirmed restriction; the topic of cryptocurrency is subject to 1RR).

Currently, enforcement requests and appeals arising from categories #1-3 can go to either the arbitration enforcement noticeboard (AE) or the administrators' noticeboard (AN), as appropriate. (Enforcement requests tend to go to AE, whereas appeals can go to either venue at the sanctioned editor's choice, as guaranteed by ArbCom's procedures). By contrast, enforcement requests and appeals arising from category #4 can only go to AN.

The question is: should the community allow enforcement requests and appeals arising from all community-imposed general sanctions (including category #4) to be heard at AE (in addition to AN)? 22:52, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

The RfC closer for WP:NEWLLM stated that a community consensus on identifying AI-generated text would be necessary in order for that guideline to be properly enforced.

The question for this RfC is thus: should this proposal be accepted as a supplementary essay to WP:NEWLLM (and future AI-restricting guidelines) to serve as a consensus standard for how to identify AI-generated text? Athanelar (talk) 00:19, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Proposal

Deprecate the Associated Press Stylebook as a naming authority within WP:USPLACE. Future decisions about the inclusion or omission of state names in U.S. city article titles should be based solely on Wikipedia’s internal policies and verifiable usage evidence.

Replace the existing paragraph:

"Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier in newspaper articles have their articles named 'City' unless they are not the primary topic for that name."

with:

"Cities are titled by the most common and unambiguous name used by readers and reliable sources, in accordance with WP:TITLE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The inclusion or omission of a state name is determined by actual disambiguation need, not by external style guides.""

Add an explanatory note:

"References to the AP Stylebook in earlier versions of this guideline are deprecated. Wikipedia naming conventions should rely on internal policy and verifiable data, such as reader behavior or reliable source usage, rather than on external editorial manuals."

Background

The current wording of WP:USPLACE incorporates the Associated Press Stylebook as part of its reasoning for which United States cities are exempt from the “Placename, State” format. This reliance on an external publication is unusual within Wikipedia’s system of self-contained policies and guidelines. Other country-specific naming conventions (for example WP:UKPLACE, WP:CANPLACE, WP:NCAUST, WP:NCIND) rely only on internal policy principles such as WP:TITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

Rationale

The AP Stylebook was created for journalistic brevity, not encyclopedic clarity. Wikipedia’s naming standards are designed for reliability and reader intent, not for newspaper copy. No other country’s naming convention cites an external editorial manual as authority. The United States should not be an exception. The AP list of cities without state modifiers is dated and arbitrary, reflecting mid-20th-century newspaper familiarity rather than modern global recognition. Wikimedia’s pageview and clickstream data provide transparent, empirical evidence of what readers mean when they search for a city name. This change aligns WP:USPLACE with WP:TITLE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, ensuring that the same principles apply worldwide.

Intended outcome

Consensus to remove or deprecate references to the Associated Press Stylebook from WP:USPLACE and clarify that U.S. city naming follows the same internally governed, data-based principles used for other countries. TrueCRaysball ^💬|✏️ 18:07, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

• Option A adopt the new guideline in its entirety
• Option B adopt specific subsections (please specify)
• Option C keep the existing guideline as is.

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:07, 5 November 2025 (UTC)