Talk:GrapheneOS

Relevancy discussion

Posting my comments from conversing with the author on Discord here:

Yeah, I think we just generally need to have a discussion as a community on exactly where the line should be for creating articles about companies or entities which embody positive aspects of consumer protection, and what the appropriate level of detail is when talking about them

Might be better to have this conversation on the wiki and try and draw some people's attention to it, but I'll put some thoughts here for now:

I've been playing around in my head trying to come up with some rules for this, e. g. if x, then it should be included, if y, then it should not. I've not come up with anything properly satisfactory, but one idea I've played with is essentially 'if what's notable in a positive about a company/entity can be fully conveyed by linking to its wikipedia page, then it does not need a page here'. One of my concerns with something like the Graphene article, is where it might lead to article creep. e.g. 'if we have a graphene OS article, then why not an article on every major linux distro?' Personally I feel like Graphene is more unique and notable than your average linux distro, but it would be a hard line to draw and argue. Keith (talk) 13:42, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

What if the criteria must be that the organization or product must provide overwhelming emphasis and work into being either private or secure? For example: My Mullvad VPN article would fit within the criteria because they provide extended features for privacy and security, such as: requiring no private information, using diskless servers, and offering various methods of anonymous payments. However: the Fedora Linux distro would not fit the criteria because their main offer is not security or privacy, rather a beneficial secondary feature. Tails, however, would fit the criteria because their sole purpose is to be an amnesic operating system for the user's security and privacy. Although emphasis is vague, I believe it is just specific enough for people to get the gist and is a good way to categorize which products/organizations should be included on the Wiki! Pancho (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I think it can be good to have examples of 'good companies'. Its a fine line to balance but I think its something that could help the wiki overall. Maybe an idea to help limit it is to restrict the sourcing policy to only reliable secondary sources for 'good' attributes to cut down on spam or marketing. If a company gets a shout-out for being openly pro-consumer, and its not a marketing piece, imo it deserves a place here. JackFromWisconsin (talk) 16:58, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree! It is imperative that we maintain the integrity of the contribution guidelines regardless if the company is "good" or "bad."

I think secondary sources are valuable for reception and verification, but primary sources would be best when talking about their "Privacy Policy," "Terms of Service," and license. Pancho (talk) 17:06, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes - having a strict approach to sourcing will probably be neccesary to prevent the wiki from being flooded in this way.

We should also consider what kinds of 'good' attributes are relevant to the wiki, as our relevancy criteria, at the moment, only really examine what kinds of negative attributes are relevant. Obviously it is beneficial for the consumer if a high-quality product is offered at a low price, but that shouldn't be sufficient for an article to appear on the wiki. Maybe we need to draw something up around the definition of 'new' consumer protection as defined in the Mission statement? Keith (talk) 20:04, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I will draft up a proposal of the necessary requirements for this category of companies and products and include it here! Pancho (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2025 (UTC)