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I discovered this in the "perennial requests" page so you could say I found it in a manner that suggested that I should not be attempting a DRV for this template. However, after finding that this and its variants are often used in the Japanese Wikipedia and probably many other language Wikipedias, I found them very useful in understanding what they are saying, and was wondering why there did not exist a version on the English Wikipedia, so the perennial requests page notified me that it did exist some time in the past, which is why I am filing this DRV right now. In any case, the major reason why I find that there is a usefulness to comment icons that outweights the disadvantages, as well as the Template:Comm (short for "comment," a much better name than Template:Object) is that to those who are not so good at English, it enables people to follow the discussion much more easily than if they were not there. Although this is the English Wikipedia, we cannot expect everyone to be native speakers in English, just like how the Japanese Wikipedia cannot expect all of its users to speak perfect Japanese (I can understand about 50% of Japanese writing, and did not know the word for "support" in Japanese, but the image definitely helped). For example, on page here in the Japanese Wikipedia, even if you do not understand what they are saying at all, you can at least know where they are making a comment supporting or opposing a certain suggestion. As can be seen on that page, the icons especially help in understanding the gist of what is said―they are not used for voting, but merely elucidate the conversation. In terms of encouraging voting and such, I would say these icons encourage voting no more than simply writing "support" or "oppose" (or any of the other phrases like "keep," "delete," etc.) in bold, which we do already, and which newcomers quick come to copy in discussions. If we truly want to get rid of voting, we should all stop engaging in that practice - as long as we continue, this is only to make it more clear, especially to those who are not native in English. Thus, they do not perform any function other than something similar to the icons commonly used in the sockpuppet investigations pages, which I find useful in summarizing what is said. Furthermore, even if they do not need to be used in AfD discussions, they clearly (as in the example I have given previously) have a positive usages in article talk pages, where the argument that "they are useless unless everyone uses them" is invalid since they are not used in an vote-like sense on the talk pages in the first place. The more major reason given in the previous discussion was the load time. Given that the images themselves are small, I do not think that this is an issue - the bigger issue is the pages themselves getting long. That is what tends to slow down my browser, not small images like this. I have experienced no problem with loading times in my experience of pages that have used these icons. (For references, the Japanese Wikipedia does currently use two sets of templates, one for comments on talk pages listed in the documentation here, and one for AfD discussions listed here.) New questions? 18:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC) [reply ]
- Comment With regards to AfD discussions, I found them extremely useful since I did not know a significant number of the Japanese words used there, like "speedy delete," "keep," or "delete a particular revision" until I saw the words used next to the icons, as in the page here.--New questions? 18:54, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It's not just the Japanese Wikipedia, actually; of the languages I speak, fr.wiki uses these templates but de.wiki doesn't. Personally I don't see a good reason to object to these templates being created, but I don't care strongly either way.—S Marshall T/C 16:17, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Your only new argument - that bolding keep and delete already encourages vote-like behavior, so it's ok that these templates that encourage it even more are ok - isn't particularly persuasive. Yes, vote bolding is tolerated. So is exceeding the speed limit by five or ten miles an hour. That doesn't mean it's ok to drive 120 in a 35. (Bolding comment, as you do above, is particularly counterproductive - by doing so, you're drawing more attention to the simple fact that you made a comment than you do to what you actually said!) 74.74.150.139 (talk) 20:01, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- The nominator presents more arguments than just that one, actually.—S Marshall T/C 20:18, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- But no other new ones. Both the language and load-time arguments were addressed in the
very first tfd. (And he misses the point of the load-time argument anyway. What slows things down isn't an image being displayed a thousand times on an afd log page, it's another template being transcluded an extra thousand times.) 74.74.150.139 ( talk) 20:28, 7 April 2012 (UTC) [reply ]
- And, looking closer at the tfd, I see that the bolding was addressed there as well. Speedy endorse; nominator provides no new arguments, just asserts that the previous consensuses were wrong, exactly as Perennial requests says not to do. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 20:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I gave you an example showing that it is not encouraging vote-like behavior - on that Japanese discussion page that I linked to, it is used to highlight discussion points, not to "vote" for anything, and it certainly did not slow down my loading time.--New questions? 21:57, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll see your ja:WP:VFD and raise you commons:C:FPC. This particular argument, that they encourage the perception that discussions are a vote, is the single most discussed issue about these templates; a single counterexample is patently inadequate to overturn on this basis. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 00:22, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Commons is different from Wikipedia, since commons can be about voting, without adding a rationale. Perhaps the previous discussions were based on the perception of how they were used in commons, without looking at how it would be applied to Wikipedia itself. When it was used on Wikipedia itself, as on the Japanese Wikipedia, and as well as the French Wikipedia that I looked into, it was not used for drive-by voting. Rather, they all had reasons attached to them. These are not just "a single counterexample," but rather the more applicable examples than commons, since commons has different practices about voting.--New questions? 02:08, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, I did not find the language issue addressed adequately in the previous TfD - just brought up a tiny bit, and ignored.--New questions? 21:59, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It was directly addressed by Cryptic, ALoan, Silversmith, and Fir0002 in the first tfd, by Grappler in this truncated tf in 2006, by O in this tfd in late 2007, and by Metroplitan90 in the 2008 September 10 drv. Exactly how much discussion would you consider adequate? 74.74.150.139 (talk) 00:22, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It seems like those were arguments saying "everyone who comes here can perfectly understand English," which strongly rang as a false statement to me since I went to the Japanese Wikipedia without knowing Japanese very well and found them very helpful, and I suspect that there are many more people who cannot speak English very well on en.wiki than people like me who go to ja.wiki without speaking Japanese very well.--New questions? 02:13, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't think we'll be speedy-endorsing based on a TFD that dates back to 2005 and was last reviewed in 2008. Particularly where the logic used to justify the deletion was rather shaky: these templates can be used to reduce discussions to votes, but we shouldn't delete things just because they can be misused. I don't particularly mind which result we get to but I think we should get there based on clearer thinking than has so far been evident.—S Marshall T/C 22:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, after looking through one of these discussions, I found the comment, "the bigger underlying reason for these kinds of templates being deleted over and over again is because the English Wikipedia is not multilingual and therefore not useful." I somewhat laughed at that comment - English Wikipedia, not multilingual? I know that there are more than just a few here who are not so good with English, and my experience at the Japanese Wikipedia would have been much more confusing without those kinds of templates.--New questions? 01:50, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That's a strawman, you've picked on one comment made (I can't see it in the two discussions listed in the previous post) and basing and argument around that. The reason for deletion has as far as I know nothing about being multi-lingual, so knocking down that strawman isn't helpful. I'd actually argue your point about making it easier to understand if not native in the language is just a reinforcement of it being about voting. If you can't even understand enough of the language to see a general sentiment being expressed, then the chances of you understanding the detail of the argument, any nuance etc. is pretty much non-existant, you are wanting to boil their argument down to a tick or a cross. If you take it one step further look at a typical DRV here, there are huge numbers of different sentiments bolded, certainly more complex that can be shown with a simple graphic. However for the sake of argument let's assume if can be a tick or a cross, then without actually understanding the language and the argument what would a tick mean? Would it mean I support the argument of the nominator or would it mean I support the result of the deletion debate? Who's not to say they are used ambiguously - indeed within DRV I've see people say to support undeletion, or to support outcome of the debate, without actually understanding the expression of the words the ticks and indeed bolded sentiments are meaningless. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 09:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- To repeat, as I said from the beginning, my Japanese is 50% good enough so I can understand enough most of what people are saying in their comments, but I did not know certain vocabulary words like "support," "speedy delete," etc. so it helped in that way. It allowed for me to more quickly understand the more general idea of the rest of the comment without danger of misconceiving what they were saying.
- That makes no sense to me, either you can "understand enough most of what people are saying" or not. If you don't understand their general sentiment, or key vocabulary terms for such debates (like "support") without a little graphic then I'd suspect it's the latter. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 15:46, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I am not sure how many times I need to explain myself to make myself clear, but as I said previously, yes I can understand most of what they are saying, but the graphic helped me understand it more quickly and prevented misconceptions since I did not know vocabulary words like "keep" or "support" etc.--New questions? 16:30, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Still not clear, I cannot understand how you can understand most of what is being said, without being able to work out if the view is one of support, keep, whatever... If you don't, I don't see how your misconceptions are being helped, as above people can say "support" and put various marks to indicate that meaning something different to a person in the same discussion. "Support" -original deletion was fine, or "Support" - should never have been deleted. This is the very objection, it's not voting, you can't boil the opinion down to a little tick, cross etc. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 14:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- In general, even in English, it can be hard to tell if a view is in support or opposition to a view even if you understand what the comment is saying due to ambiguities with written language and the lack of conveying things like tone and sentiment in written language. It is not about boiling it down to just "support" or "oppose" but rather, making one's position unambiguous, since if a comment begins with "support," readers know to read the following comment as a comment in support of an idea rather than a simple comment. This is especially true in a language you are not native in. For the case of DRV discussions, it is obvious as can be seen on the Japanese DRV page that "support" (with the plus mark) means "support page restoration" and "oppose" (with the minus mark) means "oppose page restoration, endorse deletion." If more DRV specific text is desired, then by all means, more specific text like "overturn" and "endorse" can be used, but the symbols are pretty unambiguous in DRV discussions.--New questions? 16:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Even unrelated to the language issue, I think there is another reason why saying "support" and "oppose" in bold is a good idea and it has nothing to do with voting. It is because written language is ambiguous in tone and sentiment, and this practice prevents comments from being interpreted more positively or negatively than they should be. For example, saying "comment" rather than "oppose" lets the reader know not to interpret the comment more negatively than necessary. If someone can at least understand the general idea of what is said in the comments, but does not know certain vocabulary words like "support" or "speedy delete," (as was my case on the Japanese Wikipedia), the graphic can help prevent misconceptions in that regards.
- If you would like to say that "multi-lingual was not the major argument," I would like to say that it seems like the more major argument in them so far has been "I don't like it."--New questions? 15:21, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Again another strawman, no one is saying not to bold sentiments, in fact it's pretty standard practice. Maybe the argument is ultimately an "I don't like it" coupled of course with the reason why people don't like it, which is a perfectly valid argument in such debates about the mechanics of the way wikipedia works, the preferences of the community is significant. Your argument seems to be "I like it" and "I want to use wikipedia to help me believe my understandanding of foreign languages is better than it is". --62.254.139.60 (talk) 15:46, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- If you are saying that I am arguing against a strawman that was not the main point, then please at least point out what was the main point, since I believe I addressed all of the points raised in previous discussions, not just one. I was simply saying that even bolding "support" and "oppose" is not really voting as much as it is simply making one's position unambiguous and clarifying how negatively/positively the comment should be interpreted in terms of tone and sentiment, so these icons would simply perform the same function, but more clearly. Also, I am not sure what you are trying to interpret my argument as, but if I was unclear, then to make it more clear: my argument is that these icons can help people who can generally understand English but do not know of certain vocabulary words like "keep" or "speedy delete."--New questions? 16:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- " I believe I addressed all of the points raised in previous discussions" that's the problem, you are simply rehashing old arguments and saying the overwhelming consensus is that past is wrong and you know better. That's the whole point in having a list of perennial requests to avoid people simply rehashing old ground, you need to come up with something new and substantive. As above the support, oppose etc. do not make things unambiguous "Oppose" deletion is completely different from "Oppose" recreation. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 14:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- No, I do not believe I am simply rehashing old arguments―please at least back that up if you want to insist on that claim. With regards to deletion discussions, that is why to be unambiguous there, we use "delete" and "keep" and correspondingly the symbols are a cross and check mark (as can be seen in the Japanese AFD template I linked to from the beginning of the request) rather than a plus and minus.--New questions? 16:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It's you who I quoted "I believe I addressed all of the points raised in previous discussions" - that is rearguing the original debate, it is not adding new arguments. The nature of the graphics is unimportant, and you are missing the point, a check or cross is ambiguous without the context of the comment. I'll give up here since we are quite clearly largely at odds that you can understand most of the important parts of a comment in a discussion without being able to summarise the overall sentiment - that is not my definition of understanding. --62.254.139.60 (talk) 22:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I am getting a feeling that I am getting trolled here, but in any case, addressing all points in previous discussions does not mean that I am "not adding new arguments." Also, a check or cross is pretty unambiguous in deletion discussions―check means keep, cross means delete. Also, it is one thing to logically understand what is being stated, and another to understand the intent of the argument, and "support" or "oppose" is there to make it unambiguous. Moreover, even if it could be worked out from the comment that it is in support or in opposition to something, having "support" or "oppose" makes it easier to understand the rest of the comment more quickly since you understand the intent of the comment beforehand.--New questions? 00:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted - I see no reason to revive a long-dead practice such as vote icons. I'll quote DGG (that's certainly not something I say every day) from the 2008 DRV; "The argument was that they impeded rational discussion, and that holds for any substitute also." The simple matter is that not everyone will make use of these things if they were available, which will make it even more difficult for closing admins to scan a discussion, picking out the text amidst the tacky icon forest. Leave the decadent, outmoded concepts to the Commons, it suits them. Not us. Tarc (talk) 16:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- When it comes to evaluating whether they impede rational discussions or not, I think it would be better to base it off of whether they actually did or not when they were used (i. e. let us be empirical about this). In the Japanese and French Wikipedias, they have not. I also stated previously that even if they are not used in deletion discussions or requests for adminship or things like that, they can still be useful for ordinary purposes in article talk pages, where they don't have to be used by everyone to be useful.--New questions? 17:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It would be an even worse idea to use in article talk pages. Editors barely register sensical opinions on such matters as it is, I'd rather not reintroduce a shortcut. Tarc (talk) 18:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I am not sure what you mean by that, if you mean to say that "sensible opinions" is something most editors already do not have much of and therefore editors shouldn't try emphasize their opinions that much, or if you think a shortcut would make it easier to express nonsensical opinions that are otherwise unexpressed. Using this template is no more or less difficult than simply bolding "support" or "oppose." Also, even if nonsensical opinions can be expressed, that does not mean that sensible opinions are not also able to be expressed.
- Also, again, it is better to be empirical about judging its merits on its usage on talk pages. On the talk page at ja:ノート:東方Projectの登場人物, for example, I do not see the templates being used to "register nonsensical opinions," but to clarify their positions―sensible opinions at that. To the contrary, I would say that using such templates encourages people to give good rationales for their support or oppose when it is used on talk pages since they are highlighting that they support or oppose something, which would of course create the expectation that there should be a good reason for it.--New questions? 19:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Additionally, I would like to note that as an empirical and practical example, on this page, not everybody uses the icons, and it has not made it more difficult for closing admins to scan a discussion at all. (Also, this is probably the reason why Tarc found out aobut this DRV request).--New questions? 18:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Additional comment As for an additional reason why these icons are useful, it is because they are useful for visual organization. These icons have different colors, which makes them easier to tell apart than simply text like "support" or "oppose" even if they are bolded. It is not so much about voting as it is a way to let the reader know, in a color-coordinated way, "this is where a support comment is" and "this is where an opposition comment is" etc., as can be seen in the Japanese talk page that I linked to. When talk pages get long, colors are a good way of identifying which comments are which, and lets the reader more easily re-find a comment that they read earlier since it is a distinctive visual cue.
- Moreover, based on the examples of its practical usage on the Japanese Wikipedia, I think that those examples demonstrate that it can be of practical usage even if not everyone uses it. Therefore, I think the usage of these should be left to individual choice―I do not think there is a need to impose on everyone, the command "thou shalt not use commentary icons."--New questions? 19:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep Deleted as it encourages vague and confusing votes. For example, in a deletion discussion, does "support" mean they support the article or support deletion. Support and oppose are inherently confusing in most discussions, and the votes should take the form of what the user wants to do (thus the "keep" and "delete" used at AfD, or the "move" and "don't move" used in move discussions. ]
- Comment As noted from the beginning of the request, that is why in AFD discussions, different templates are used, as in ja:Template:AFD, not "support" and "oppose."--New questions? 15:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted Using Tarc and I, two people who frequently engage at AfD, as an example: it is good to continue the process we have of dealing with disagreements there (and elsewhere) by discussing the issues. As he indicates, that the two of us frequently disagree, doesn't mean discussions are useless; rather, by presenting different views, as many people as are interested can be encouraged to give their own, and the decision can be closed as it usually is, on a rational basis. If all he and I did was place symbols or bolded deletes/keeps, we could make life easier by simply getting a bot to place the pair of them on every discussion and cancel each other out, thus turning afds into a sort of popularity contest, or more exactly, an increased and probably irresistible temptation to canvass for votes. It was mentioned above that the symbols are no more useless than bolded keeps or deletes, but such keeps and deletes without giving a reason at least encourage someone to go on and make a sentence out of it by saying why. And, by themselves, they are close to useless--it's been proposed from time to time to require a reason. Now, that would be progress. Restoring the symbols would be the opposite. DGG ( talk ) 17:02, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I think you are basing this opinion off the idea that everyone needs to use them if it were restored, whereas it is more of a personal preference. I additionally think that having the symbols encourages people more, not less, to give reasons for them.--New questions? 20:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That's not the point, no. If we have some using it and some that do not, the "not" entries will tend to get overshadowed by this big, ugly icons.
- As a side note, will you please stop using them in current discussions? I already tried reverting your usage of it in the Muhammad discussions to no avail and would hate to have to start up an
WP:POINTy behavior on your part. Tarc ( talk) 20:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC) [reply ]
- No, it is not pointy behavior. It is simply my preference to use them. (Of course, even if this template does not exist, they can still be used since they are mere images.) I do not see how usage of these images, nor any other small images for that matter, should be an issue.--New questions? 22:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- It's a pity these patronizing icons have gotten so entrenched in the WP:RFCU bureaucracy; they should have been locally salted with blank images years ago. 74.74.150.139 (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Very Weak Keep Deleted. On the one hand, the length of time since the last full TfD discussion means that the current consensus is not well tested and the nominator makes a cogent argument. In such cases relisting for a new debate is generally best. On the other hand, no one but the nominator has argued in favor of the templates and I, personally, remain strongly opposed to their use on en.wiki. Unless there is some sign that a new TfD has a chance of showing a new consensus the prior one can be endorsed, but given the amount of time the bar to a new listing should be low. Eluchil404 (talk) 03:43, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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