Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 86

I was brought to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicole Seah by another VP posting, where I noticed several socks and SPA accounts all voting keep. Mind you, it's going to get kept anyways, but I wondered if a policy might be in order:

"In cases where any reasonable contributor can tell that comments at an AfD were left by single purpose or sock accounts and/or single purpose or sock IPs, users may move those comments to the talk page of the AfD or to the bottom of the discussion in a {{

This will save us all a bit of time and sanity, as sorting through a long discussion where half the votes are tainted is somewhat maddening.

Thoughts?

Can easily become an excuse to ignore new users and IP adresses completely, definitly a bad idea. If you really have problems with socks contact a checkuser and ask him to clean it up (I have seen that done before). Yoenit (talk) 07:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I could agree about socks, but only if they have been banned already since they made the vote (because how would you know they were socks otherwise?). Actually, I believe it's already common practice to put a strike through votes that have been made by identified socks. Even to nominators of AfDs, if they turn out to be socks. But I definitely don't agree about SPAs, because even if they focus only on a single area, that doesn't mean their vote and reasoning isn't valid. Doing such to SPAs seems like a method of silencing those that may know most about the subject in order to get the AfDs passed as Delete. Silverseren^C 08:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This gives the appearance of invalidating comments made by SPAs, even if they were made in good faith, and furthermore it gives “autoconfirmed” users more “power” over confirmed users and IP editors. The simple SPA tag at the end of the comments is enough to indicate to the closing administrator to discount a few votes or note that it has less weight in a deletion discussion. And some SPAs even make valid points about articles too! C.f.

NaSpVe :|

08:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I can see this working for socks, open proxies, and/or banned users (see

WT:MOSFLAG for an example of the latter), whether sitebanned or topic banned from commenting in that area. Beyond that, it becomes a bit of a slippery slope. But in those three instances, it makes perfect sense to collapse their comments. Just my thoughts, though. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい

) 15:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

(EC)If the SPAs are making ill formed !votes, challenge them to point at the specific Wikipedia policy that justifies their viewpoint. 90% of these SPAs will be unable to do this and it also has the benefit of demonstrating to the closing editor (whether Keep or Delete) that the viewpoint the SPA is trying to advocate is not supported by policy and therefore should be minimized in the final evaluation of consensus. If the same user shows up on multiple AfDs in the same context consider putting a SPA template tag on their comment to draw the attention of the closer to the fact that the viewpoint is made by someone who has a controversial viewpoint Hasteur (talk) 15:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, this is my bad. When I said SPA, I meant that the single purpose of the account was to vote in that one AfD; i.e. that someone posted about the AfD elsewhere and a bunch of people created accounts just to vote keep (meatpuppetry). I did not mean SPA as in a person that works only in politics areas but has a history of working on Wikipedia, I only meant the one shot accounts.

Wha?

01:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Interaction between Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians (SPAs in AFDs) is already one of the more controversial areas, the recent Old Man Murray debacle comes to mind (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-03-07/Deletion controversy). If SPAs are well-meaning and willing to provide sources/expertise to Wikipedia, we should take their opinions into account. Courtesy should be extended to SPAs in IPs first, and some Wikipedia terms - Meatpuppet especially - can sound insulting. Complete ignoring or removing SPA votes might well harm Wikipedia in the long term. MKFI (talk) 12:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You can tag such !votes with {{

spa}}. There is absolutely no need to hide the brand-new account's comments from other editors or from the closing admin. "Assuming good faith" also means assuming that your fellow editors are capable of noticing classic votestacking patterns in deletion discussions, just like we all assume you aren't blind to this behavior. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 16:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Semi-protection has been used for an article on Singapore's elections in light of the fact that polls are in two days but I think this is too drastic. Using pending changes is really really attractive. Is there a reason administrators shouldn't be using this feature in place of a semi-protect? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 06:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately,

NaSpVe :|

06:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with Wikipedia's policy on verifiability, not truth and I think it should be modified. For example, if Wikipedia had been around in the time of Nicolaus Copernicus, the Copernican theory would have been dismissed as "not verified" although it was true. I think Wikipedia should aim to be more truthful than other media and not just follow the herd. Biscuittin (talk) 08:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

~ Facepalm. Pray tell, how would we distinguish this "truth" from "lies"? I know it is true Jimbo is actually an alien who eats old people and can only be defeated by shaving his beard, but keep getting in conflict with heretics who tell me it is false. How would I resolve this dispute? Yoenit (talk) 08:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a better metric of measuring truth than majority opinion?

NaSpVe :|

08:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, why not join the very very long discussion and host of alternative proposals at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Verifiability.2C_NOT_truth.3F.3F.3F.3F....Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This came out of

Talk:2011 Libyan civil war. Honestly Biscuittin, the only way you could actually ensure that you have the truth would be to be omnipotent, have a perfect memory and be able to maintain a constant NPOV with regard to any and all stimuli. That is just my opinion. Also, cool, we can do facepalms? =D Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom!

08:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Even worse is when people agree by consensus on a talk page that something is okay but it is just wrong. Dunno what to do about that because a lot of things in reliable sources really are just wrong. By the way I didn't know that about Jimbo that one could defeat him by cutting his beard, that really should be in his article, it is necessary information and the world should know it.

Dmcq (talk

) 09:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we really should seek to find the

talk

) 11:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Truth, facts, are important to the reader. The reader is looking for facts. Verifiability is important to Wikimedia for legal concerns. The objective should be the searching out and presentation of facts with verifiable resources utilized to cover the legal aspects concerning provision of the information. ...my thoughts. Doc2234 (talk) 12:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

No. Verifiability is important for far more than legal concerns. Indeed for most articles verifiability is irrellevant for legal concerns. The exceptions are articles on persons or corporations where verifiability provides protection against accusations of libel. The main reason for the demand for verifiability is that we have no way to determine truth.

Taemyr (talk

) 12:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I have explained this at the essay Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth, and the opening postulation is correct: if wikipedia existed at the time of Copernicus, by the time he proposed his model Wikipedia would be telling the ptolematic model, which was by then the accepted theory. Afterwards, it would have described the scientific dispute about it, and finally the acceptance of the heliocentric model; but always one step behind the discussions held in the scientific world. That's because Wikipedia would not have then the resources to verify by itself if copernicus was a revolutionary or a mere crook; and neither today: a new and unpublished idea may be factually true, but we require that it is verifiable to make sure that it has been checked. Cambalachero (talk) 13:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the problem is that some Wikipedians are obsessed with "verifiability not truth" and push it to ridiculous extremes, or use it to support their own prejudices. On science and technology, I often find media reports which I, as a scientist, know to be wrong and it would be unethical for me to report them without questioning them. Biscuittin (talk) 13:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

There have been extensive discussions about this. The most common concerns about those particular three words are:

• Why the heck does a core statement about verifiability have to get into "NOT" examples?
• "not truth" is taking an backhanded swipe at the ideal of striving for accuracy. First by using the ambiguous red herring word "truth" which has multiple meanings, some of which are the opposite of accuracy. Second by dissing the concept of accuracy in a lead phrase.

North8000 (talk) 13:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The current discussions are, on the face of it, about possible ambiguity of the word "threshold" before it. IMHO the undercurrent to that discussion is possible "ownership" issues exerted through a variety of mechanisms, e.g. double standards such as requiring a much higher standard for one side's ideas to go in than others. North8000 (talk) 13:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I looked at [4] and the first comment I saw was from User:Sbharris who seems to be saying something similar to what I am saying. I think you will find a lot of the opposition to the current policy comes from scientists who don't like to see rubbish reported as fact just because it appears in a newspaper. Biscuittin (talk) 13:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Why do some people have difficulty with the word "truth"? To me, the word "truth" is completely unambiguous. Biscuittin (talk) 13:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

"Truth" is often used to describe opinions and dogma rather than factual material. North8000 (talk) 13:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

That is a misuse of the word "truth". When used correctly, the word "truth" is completely unambiguous. Biscuittin (talk) 14:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Biscuittin, you might like to read

WP:MEDRS, which includes information about the difficulties that the mainstream media has with scientific work. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 22:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

As I also pointed in the essay, some topics have no "truths", like social sciences, and in others it's the truth itself which is still unknown. Cambalachero (talk) 14:07, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The practical value of verifiability is that it sometimes resolves disputes. You'll never get WP editors to agree on the truth. You can sometimes get them to agree what's verifiable. But by no means always.

WP:DUE are vague enough to be manipulated by cabals of editors in articles where the community isn't sufficiently intereste4d to study the issues carefully. Peter jackson (talk

) 14:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Responding to Biscuittin, IMHO the common meanings of the term are meanings, and common meanings of "truth" often include opinion and dogma. Tell me, if you see a writing titled "The Truth About Evolution" or "The truth about Barack Obama's citizenship" or "the truth about abortion", would you expect factual material to follow? North8000 (talk) 14:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

(jumps up and down, waves arms and wolfwhistles) if anyone has read down past the wall of text, there are a bunch of alternative proposals for rewording the page at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Verifiability.2C_NOT_truth.3F.3F.3F.3F. It would be good to actually get some numbers of folks voting there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:36, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The alternative proposals are too complex. All that is necessary is to delete the words "not truth" because they give the impression that Wikipedia does not care about the truth. Biscuittin (talk) 14:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes indeed. The thing could more usefully say "Wikipedia is a summary of referenceable truths, NOT unreferenceable truths" and be more clear. Alas, the previous policy writers are in love with the word "verifiable" which needs internal definition, and they like the shock value of "not truth" and also the word "threshold" and changing this policy to be more clear by fixing these words, has been about as pleasant as proposing to relocate a graveyard. Still I advise all who are interested to go to Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Verifiability.2C_NOT_truth.3F.3F.3F.3F, read, and vote. If you find it too complex, then the discussion is not for you. Still, we have only about 20 people right now participating, and we need more eyes and brains.SBHarris 17:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I am afraid your pleas will fall on deaf ears. =( Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 18:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The discussion is fouled due to the use of the word truth, when the proper word is fact or factual. The 2 categories of information are Fact and/or Opinion.WFPM (talk) 15:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

"What is truth?" - Denimadept (talk) 15:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It is what most of the people believe at the time. Biscuittin, I am a scientist too (or will be when I get my archaeology degree next year), and believe me, we deal with a lot of

2011 Libyan civil war here) as we quite frankly don't know anything more than what they are telling us. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom!

18:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Truth is not "what most of the people believe at the time". That is "majority opinion". The problem is that some people are using the word "truth" in areas where it is not appropriate. Biscuittin (talk) 18:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I've just looked at the links in Sir William's piece above and I think he has an axe to grind. Biscuittin (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I was using that as an example. =p Every archaeologist dislikes them as they misrepresent archaeology, but you see the point. How do you properly distinguish truth from majority opinion without 20/20 hindsight in some cases and omnipotence in many others? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 18:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

One cannot establish truth if there are no living witnesses. Truth is personal to individuals. Biscuittin (talk) 19:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

So, the very nature of truth is that the idea of "what is true" is unique to every person? So everyone has their own version of it then? That is how I understood what you said. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 19:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. If we want to talk about things outside the realm of the individual, we should use a different word, such as "fact". Biscuittin (talk) 19:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

So you say, "I disagree with Wikipedia's policy on verifiability, not truth and I think it should be modified. For example, if Wikipedia had been around in the time of Nicolaus Copernicus, the Copernican theory would have been dismissed as "not verified" although it was true. I think Wikipedia should aim to be more truthful than other media and not just follow the herd. Biscuittin (talk) 08:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)" You want us to go based on the truth as the individual editor sees it? Their own "truth"? O_O Seems an awful lot like an opinion to me. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 19:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I distinguish between the words "truth" and "true". Truth is what one is supposed to tell in court. True can mean the same as "majority opinion". If I say 2+2=4, true or false? Most people will answer "true", although a few people might disagree. My problem is with the misuse of the word "truth" which, for me, can only be used in a personal sense. I suggest replacing "verifiability, not truth" with "verifiability, not certainty". Biscuittin (talk) 19:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is when people believe that 2+2=5, not everything is as clear cut as 2+2=4. Someone can have a completely different thought process built-in either by upbringing, propaganda, personal opinion, etc. So where you think 2+2=4, others will say it is 5, still others will say it is 22. =p You talk about truth being that which one tells in court. Now while I'm the son of two lawyers (neither of whom are trial lawyers mind you), I don't think any legal knowledge is required to know that what you hear in court is someone's own version of the truth coloured by all manner of things. There is no such thing as truth (except in mathematics at times, as you tried to point), only someone's version of the truth. As another example think of a car crash and the old saying about how when a car crashes, there are three different versions of how it happened. How do we know which is the truth? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 19:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. One can have two witnesses in court who give different versions of the event. Each is telling the truth as he/she sees it but they have different recollections. This is why I say truth is personal and has no meaning outside the personal. The jury has to arrive at a verdict but the verdict is a verdict and not a statement of truth. Biscuittin (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

And we do that as per

WP:DUE. We give the sides of each thing (except the conspiracy theories), whose wait we decide upon based on prevalence (like a jury). In the context of the the Libyan conflict, we have been trying to put the versions of events put forward by the RSs. The only people who can really give a story of what is happening are the reporters. Your objections were that these had a Western bias, and we said go find some from Xinhua and such that do not. We can't really rely on the testimony of the Libyan on the street for the truth, partly because his/her version of the truth has been coloured by propaganda from either side and he/she probably knows nothing of the bigger picture, and our interpretations of what is going on are worthless as we only know what we read in the news, hear on the tele and read on Wikipedia. So our only reliable witnesses are the reporters. The jury that is the editors decided this sort of thing a long while back. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom!

20:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This has become a two-horse race. I think it's time we had input from other people. Biscuittin (talk) 20:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Since "truth" is a word often used to describe opinions and dogma, why don't we simplify this discussion by substituting the word "accuracy".

The cases where objective accuracy exists (whether or not the answer is known) can be identified by when nearly 100% of the people agree on the framework of the question and the answer. The score of yesterday's White Sox game is the score per the rules and decision making process of the governing body for the sport. The age of a burial/grave in years (even if unknown) is the number of times the earth went around the sun since the burial. When the "question" is agreed on, but the answer is unknown, it still exists, but the information is not available. North8000 (talk) 22:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

My biggest gripe with this is its abuse: certain editors will heavy-handedly remove unattributed statements due to the lack of appropriate citable sources, even if they are clearly correct. This borders onto secondary vs primary sources. It is important to read the whole story on the policy pages, which is often much more reasonable (e.g. sources being required for *disputable* facts).

On example where I felt WP fell down was during the Mavi Marmara incident. The Turkish organizers and others quickly asserted that there had been no violent resistance to the boarding Israelis, this was echoed by media, and subsequently presented in WP as "verifiable" facts. Regardless of the fact that a) somebody at his desk in Ankara is very unlikely to know anything about the actual events, and b) video footage and images was available - first from IDF, later from people aboard the vessel - clearly showing the reception committee attacking and beating the boarding party. Thus, WP's criteria for trusted sources includes stuff that is obviously wrong, and excludes stuff that is obviously right - because it is primary sources. In particular, the smuggled out video would be great for establishing the sequence of events, but as far as I can tell, nobody bothered to do it in the press, and on WP it would be "original research" and a "primary source". So we're stuck with a hodge-podge of journalistic speculation and political manipulation. (The article is a bit cleaner now, but still contains things I think must be incorrect, like paintball ammo with glass shards in them).

Another place WP falls down is on some vaguely defined terms, see for instance the article on Type Systems. It conflates a bunch of concepts arbitrarily, and I can't for the life of me see anybody reading that and coming out any wiser. But trying to clean it up is impossible, because there are no usable sources that talks about all the different things that are called type systems, and my edits to try to clear things out were quickly deleted by somebody obsessed with WP:this and WP:that. Currently, we're locked by policy to an article that only serves to confuse, and which WP would be more valuable without.

I agree that using majority opinion as "fact" is preposterous (unless you want to claim that \pi=3.14), but I think a consensus by informed individuals would be a lot better in some cases than the current situation). Ketil (talk) 10:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is a diatribe on

WP:WEIGHT

than someone who might not know what they are actually talking about, but is treated as an expert.

I think we need to revise

2011 Libyan civil war

(idr who said it to me =p) so it could be determined if his opinion of it being a civil war was actually from a credible expert. After the person gave the credentials I was ok with it, but still it should not have been an unusual or inappropriate question.

A prime example of someone who doesn't know what they are talking about being treated as an expert is Cindy Sheehan on the death of Osama bin Laden. I respect her work and all, but quite frankly she has about as much knowledge as we do on this. Probably less given that she hasn't been combing over the article over and over. Yet her reaction is pretty much being put in with other experts.

Now there are some cases like on stuff that has been well-documented for ages, like the history of Ancient Egypt, the mating habits of various animals, Nuclear power plants etc. where common sense says call in the expert as they know will know much better than an editor and convey info better than a video of a steamy reactor. There are other cases, like Mavi Marmara, like Operation Geronimo where you cannot really have the opinion of an expert over that of a primary source because the person branded as an expert can't possibly know what happened better than a participant in said op, unless he/she read all of the after-action reports. It's especially problematic if you keep the testimony in of someone who was not there and whose story contradicts video that you know could not have been doctored and was released by both sides.

Bare in mind that I am very elitist (as stated before, because of working in archaeology and dealing with charletons (though not firsthand yet)) when it comes to picking the expert with a doctorate in the relevant field, but there are certain cases where you really need to ask yourself "is this person really an expert?" "Do they know what they're on about or do they have as much a clue as I do?" "Should I really put what they're saying in if these videos or other evidence completely contradict what they are saying?"

Now one on jargony articles: As for Type Systems, if I get what you're getting at, I am kind of irked by certain articles on scientific concepts that are so full of jargon and so hard to understand that it's almost like reading an in-universe summary of idk, how the engines of that Enterprise ship work. I cannot see anyone, other than someone with a thorough education and bit of experience in the relevant field, reading through many of these articles and actually learning anything. I think those articles should be written in a way that makes more sense to at least 70% of the population and then put the jargony one on some Wikiscience wiki, but it would make it a lot easier to tell if something is wrong other than when someone puts in "hurrrr Amanda Summerss is so hawt!".

Sorry if these are kind of disjointed thoughts, definitely didn't get enough sleep and went back to dif parts. =p Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 15:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

How we define truth on an individual basis doesn't matter, since "truth" is what we're not trying to publish here. We put into articles what is verified by reliable sources. We might hope that giving due weight to information based on what we can find in reliable sources comes close to "truth" but it really doesn't matter. --Onorem♠Dil 17:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia aim is to be "the sum of all human knowledge". When humanity get things wrong, we follow suit. --Damiens.rf 21:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Nobody could ask more of us than that. However, we aren't doing even that well, and bad source-reliability evaluation is the problem. We can at least avoid the problem that popularizations and books written by non-experts are more likely to get things wrong, or "nearly right but not quite right" than books written by acknowledged experts. I have written (for example) about my battles to keep college freshmen physics texts from being used to define "weight" (which they are very sloppy about, far more than NIST or ISO/IEC 80000). But physics texts are in turn better than dictionaries. Nor should we let freshman texts speak on the use of the concept of "relativistic mass," a concept that physicists who specialize in relativity nearly all abhor (it seems to be physics teachers who like it more than people who actualy do relativity research). Sometimes it's quite possible to draw a sort of arc which shows "the more a person knows about A, the more likely they are to believe B," and in that case, it's probably belief B that Wikipedia should write most about, as being presently our best idea of what approximates "truth" (we don't have to say everybody is sure, since of course they never are). But it should be theory B that gets the most attention in Wikipedia, even if it is not as popular among laypeople or even secondary school teachers. Basically, I'm saying that quality of sources must trump quantity. SBHarris 00:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

How about Newton's "Rules of reasoning in Philosophy" Rule No 1, "We are to admit no more causes 0f natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances." And he wasn't talking about majority opinion. Sounds like a good criteria for collecting facts.WFPM (talk) 23:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that many would stick at the problem of what exactly constitutes an "explanation." Newton, for example, thought that a force of gravity was an "explanation." It turns out only to be an explanation in flat space-time, and space-time isn't flat. When it isn't, no gravity force is needed, and what's more, a Newtonian gravity force gives the wrong predictions. Bent space time gives correct predictions with experiment, but now we need an explanation of why mass bends space-time. We still don't have it. At some level, "explanations" always must stop. SBHarris 00:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Science is concerned with the creation of a reasonable set of concepts about a hierarchical set of real physical entities. Before I got into Wikipedia I thought it possible to understand at least a small part of it. ala Newton. Now, the subject matter seems to be extrapolating into a series of infinite discussions, and without much continuity.WFPM (talk) 15:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Peter jackson (talk) 10:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Recently, I made use of the Block Quote following the instructions here. According to the Manual of Style, certain colors are not allowed to be used, yet the instructions use those same colors that are not allowed?

This is/was the exact insertion that was reverted:

On questions about his refusal to release photos[5] of bin Laden at the time of his death..

"..the fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this Earth again"

—

U.S. President, Barack Obama

NOTE: I'm aware that I may have mistakenly used a block-quote given the size of the quote, however this is more about the manual following its own guidelines as relates to text color! ..much respect, Dijcks | ^InOut 16:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The manual of style applies only to encyclopedia articles. There is more leeway in the plumbing of the encyclopedia, such as pages describing policy and guidelines.

Phil Bridger (talk

) 20:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Note, this is simply an observation of conflicting information in the manual that could be easily corrected with another, better color of text. Thanks for the input. Dijcks | ^InOut 21:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Our non-encyclopedic advice pages are specifically exempted from any need to follow the standards we set for actual encyclopedia articles by policy, as documented at Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Not_part_of_the_encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Originally, this came about as a result of my misinterpreting the instructions on how to make Block Quotes. Later, by virtue of another user's reversion, I learned that Green is not acceptable as a color when writing content BECAUSE: Visually Impaired readers have difficulty in reading green text. The MOS has a lot of green text in it instruction areas. I was suggesting that it be changed to a color that is more readable by ALL audiences.

Rather than green, the manual suggests using MAROON or TEAL. My idea was to have the MOS follow its own guidelines when using colors so more readers can comfortably read it.

I would take the task on, but the article is locked. Dijcks | ^InOut 15:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if the MOS page is locked, because that's not where the color is set. If you want to change the color, you need to propose a change at Template talk:Xt. (Personally, I find the green easier to read than the teal, but I've no particular objection to finding a darker and less-pure shade of green.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

None of this is critical, AND, I've just noticed that others have made similar comments about this. For me, after noticing the contradiction of stated use, I simply thought it could be easily corrected with a dark-green/gark-teal color, but it's not the end of the world either way! Dijcks | ^InOut 20:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The

No to your first question, yes to your second one. It expected that you tried to resolve it directly with the deleting admin before you start a DRV though. Yoenit (talk) 07:34, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

That looks like a really awful call by the admins involved. If they don't respond within 24 hours, I'd go to DRV and ask for an expedited process.

Wha?

07:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Dunno if it falls under any CSD, but this is in line with guidelines: "

disregarded. --Cybercobra (talk)

09:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

At the very least this should have been moved to a subpage of the article and transculded like that. The "get rid of it entirely" solution isn't constructive in this situation.

Wha?

17:39, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

In past cases single-use templates have not fared well at

substituting the content back into the page that uses it, not just deleting it. And it's definitely not a speedy criterion. --RL0919 (talk

) 18:13, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

That is just downright destructive to delete a page with citations just because it resides in the Template namespace. It is pretty obvious that the deleting admin was more concerned with following the rules that building an encyclopedia. Quite unfortunate. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe I saw someone propose something similar for the (very large) infobox at the top of Earth once. Transcluding from a subpage seems like a sensible intermediate approach, particularly if there were a way to add an 'edit this box' button to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Single-use templates are very acceptable in several cases, but there's no real universal rule. For example {{Infobox hydrogen}} is used on hydrogen, because this cleans up the edit window significantly (likewise for all the other element infoboxes), and just makes everything easier to deal with (infobox maintenance, vandalism monitoring, etc....). But there's no {{Infobox up quark}} for the up quark article, and I think that one would be kinda useless considering it's not a very big infobox. {{Infobox Earth}} would make a lot of sense to me (likewise for the other main bodies of the solar system), but not so much for some random exoplanet or star.

For the PSN outage, I don't see why this needs to be templatified, or even presented like it currently is, that looks really awful to me. A section list seems much better to me.

books

} 16:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Errr I think you guys are forgetting something really important about the article namespace: subpages are not permitted in the article namespace so the subpage-of-article idea won't work. I, for one, support the idea of having the chunk of code turned into a template. Having a large chunk of code at the very top of the edit window would deter many potential new editors. — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 03:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the folks discussing this at

Template talk:Drugbox have gotten around that by making the subpage belong to the template, rather than the article. Also, they seem to have a convenient v•d•e editing button installed in the box, making editing it easier. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 16:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

This may well have come up before (although I couldn't find it). Why isn't tag-team edit warring specifically not included in WP:Edit warring as a breach of that policy? The only thing I could find is WP:Tag team which is an essay not a policy and seems to spend most of its time saying don't accuse people of tag teaming. Should it be made clear that tag team reverts (if determined to be so by an admin) should be treated as reverts by a single editor for the purposes of 3RR etc? I think at the moment it's much vaguer and seems to only be considered some sort of generalized disruptive editing (if dealt with at all, which seems rare.) DeCausa (talk) 09:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm very surprised that tag-teaming is not included in the policy. It definitely should be. I'm sure ArbCom has written multiple motions telling editors not to conduct tag-team edit warring; can't we just insert this into the policy right now? Nanobear (talk) 10:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

First you need to identify/define that it is tag-teaming and not a number of like-minded editors dealing with am awkward editor. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. Pretty much, the idea is that if more people oppose you then are with you, then you lose. "Tag team" reverts most of the time are helpful because it is dealing with only 1 disruptive editor with a few others reverting them. Making them have to be punished for doing that is silly. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 13:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not tag-teaming as it's usually meant. I'm referring to the situation where one does three reverts and the other does the fourth, or they do two each. And they regularly do it to support a particular POV. It's a form of gaming 3RR - but rarely ends up at AN3 as it's not as straightforward to establish "acting in concert". DeCausa (talk) 14:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Situations where multiple editors do the same edit/revert can range from things that are a very good (such as implementing or enforcing a very strong consensus) to very bad things (to edit war while circumventing edit war rules/conditions such as 3RR or 1RR). Even the worst case of them I think is not as serious/ blatant / clear cut cause for action as one editor violating 3RR. But it might be good to try to address this more than we do right now. North8000 (talk) 13:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this, is it would be difficult to distinguish between "gaming" and actual preservation of factual data in a particular article. IMO, a user who "competes" against more than one other user to retain content may need to consider other methods of preserving his/her content, ie., dispute processes such as

WP:RfC. In my limited experience though, these users seem many times, to have an agenda or biased POV. Dijcks | ^InOut

18:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

When that essay written, I was one of several people involved in a long-term dispute with a guy who wanted a Wikipedia article to present his own novel theory about how the body works. He was (finally) indef'd, but, in the meantime, he was trotting out WP:Tag team as proof that he, alone among Wikipedia's editors, should be permitted to choose the content of the page, regardless of the number of editors opposed to it or opposed to him citing his self-published book, and that if it weren't for this vile conspiracy, etc., etc. As as result, I think that the tag-team idea is highly susceptible to abuse, and, in fact, abuse may significantly exceed the legitimate application of the concept. Offhand, I can't think of a single instance in which someone has invoked that essay, and I've agreed that the multiple opponents were the problem, rather than the outnumbered accuser. (Certainly that is true on occasion, but people who are actually lone defenders of the wiki, rather than POV pushers, don't seem to cite the essay.)

Additionally, the point of 3RR is to stop edit warring, with the attendant wasted server resources and database bloat, not to resolve the dispute. You—the lone editor, faced by hordes of tag-teamers—can stop the edit warring cold, any time you choose, simply by stopping your own end of it. They can't revert you, if you don't revert them first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

As someone (Piotrus?) pointed out, if a team of editors are edit warring against a substantially smaller team (e.g. 1 person), either they win most of the time or the smaller group breaks 3RR well before them. Simple arithmetic, and independent of who's right. Peter jackson (talk) 14:44, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Which doesn't appear to be a problem. If you're alone and right, you just need to first stop being alone (e.g., persuasively presenting the right solution on the Talk page) before the article will also become right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Some examples of tag teaming behaviour were documented in the EEML case. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Hunter, if you're alone against a gang of POV pushers when the community isn't interested enough to study things, reach a sensible conclusion and enforce it, what then? Peter jackson (talk) 15:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Why can't the hypothetical topic get community interest? Too esoteric and in need of subject-matter experts, or too borderline on encyclopedic-ness, or ...? -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree with JHunterJ's statement. Using tag teaming to successfully edit war is a common situation. In fact legitimizing the "if they outnumber you, you must be wrong" (not that they said that) thinking adds to this problem. North8000 (talk) 17:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

JHunterJ: In my experience, the community does not show up just because its presence is needed. We're all too busy to help settle the problem, or we think an experienced editor can't "really" need our help, or that since nobody's using profanity yet, it's not "really" a dispute, or whatever.

Deep disputes without egregiously bad behavior are hard to resolve.

They require a lot more time than typical vandal—blocking someone for replacing pages with "I LOVE CHEESEBURGERS!" is the work of a moment, whereas reading and commenting on a dozen sources might take multiple hours—and even when the problem editor is clearly wrong, the community generally does not support banning people who endlessly insist on including absolute garbage, but who are superficially polite about it.

To give an analogy: If someone appeared on your doorstep every morning with an hour-long spiel about how he was going to save the world, you'd be closing the door and calling the police no later than the third day. When the same guy shows up with the same spiel on Wikipedia, it very frequently takes an entire year of repeated and extremely time-consuming dispute resolution procedures to get the community to close the door... and that's assuming that the community agrees to do it at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

What then? Wikipedia:Dispute resolution--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 17:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

North8000, it's not "if they outnumber you", but rather "if you're the only one on your side". WhatamIdoing, I don't see how a tag-team rider on 3RR would address the problem you're describing (which I agree is a problem). -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It wouldn't address the problem in any way, which is why I personally oppose any such rider. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

First, I guess that "tag teaming to avoid 3RR (on a particular item)" is a special, rare case of tag teaming. Mathematically that means at least 5 reversions on one piece of content in 24 hours. = a pretty obvious edit war in progress that may be more easily addressable. I've seldom seen that. But tag teaming to edit war, and to avoid 1RR is more common but harder to pin down. A firmer rule that says more firmly defines multiple reverts on the same content as an edit war, and that nobody gets to get their way via edit warring, take it to talk. Tag teaming exists because IT WORKS in Wikipedia. The flip side is that the resolution process has to be workable and create good results. That's a tough one, it will take fixing the framework. North8000 (talk) 18:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Adding specifics around "tag teaming" to the edit-warring rules would be difficult to do without snaring innocent editors. In theory an editor could do one revert followed by opening a talk page discussion, then be declared part of a "tag team" after other editors engage in additional reverts of the same material, even though the first editor behaved impeccably according to all our standards. I'm sure that cases of coordinated reverts happen, but distinguishing that from two editors who simply happen to agree that an edit was bad isn't easy unless there is some other evidence of collaboration. --RL0919 (talk) 21:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You are right. I just meant wording that says multiple reverts on the same content = go to talk. No bright line like 3RR. North8000 (talk) 22:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That might be the case for a single article. If the same "group" of editors are however engaging in "tag teaming" behaviour across multiple articles, and especially if the articles are only tangentially related, then the "tag teaming" behaviour tends to be very obvious. "Tag teaming" in this case often also goes hand in hand with

Wikihounding and can involve more than one editor being "targeted". --Tothwolf (talk

) 12:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to write an article on an unusual electoral system I've discovered. I've found press coverage and academic comment from the 1920s, when it was being adopted, but the system doesn't particularly seem to have a name. The

If the website is your main source for it (?) wouldn't you have to call it what they call it (which appears to be Bucklin voting (Oklahoma version)) to per

WP:COMMONNAME and to avoid OR/synthesis? DeCausa (talk

) 11:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not my main source, as I said, I also have press coverage and academic comment from the 1920s, when the system was being adopted, but they're not freely available online so it was easier to link just to that site so people here can get the gist. (That page seems to be

self-published and thus ineligible anyway, but it's convenient for this purpose!) ╟─TreasuryTag►Africa, Asia and the UN

─╢ 11:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Just write it. Call it what you think is reasonable and let the wiki way work it's magic. It will get sorted if the article has sources to show it is notable. --Bduke (Discussion) 12:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

How about: "The Bucklin voting system"...given that's what it is. You can elaborate in the article as to when and where it was used. Dijcks | ^InOut 15:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Because that name is already in use, for a somewhat different style.

I'm with Bduke: Pick a name that you believe will help the reader figure out what's on that page, and write the article. If we someday discover the "perfect" name for it, then we can easily

WP:MOVE it at that time. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 17:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed the article later when looking more carefully. It seems that the variant could be listed in that article, unless it can stand on its own as an article I'd think. Dijcks | ^InOut 20:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

As I've repeatedly said (and I'm going to put it in bold this time, because perhaps then people will read it), I have press coverage and academic comment from the 1920s, when the system was being adopted and this confers notability onto the subject. As I also said – though admittedly only once, so you're excused for failing to notice it – the

website I listed calls it a variant of Bucklin voting, but it's just as much a variant of the Borda count. So thanks for your helpful advice [Jesus...] ╟─TreasuryTag►sundries

─╢ 22:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

yw. Killiondude (talk) 02:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

echo Killiondude's comment:) Dijcks | ^InOut 22:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

This is a result of a well-supported decision to split content/non-style advice off of a page that was supposed to be in the Manual of Style. Whether it should be tagged as a {{guideline}} or {{WikiProject content advice}} is unclear to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Nicole Seah is a very prominent Opposition candidate in Singapore that has received widespread press in both pro-government (print media) and pro-Opposition (alternative media) sources, and Tin Pei Ling is a ruling party candidate that has been widely ridiculed in real life and on the street, but is likely to be elected -- er -- appointed into the parliament, despite massive backlash.

Yet, despite such massive evidence (millions of google hits!) that show these two candidates are notable -- and their contests symbolises an entire nations' elections -- such notability fails to convince some editors say that these two fail WP:POLITICIAN because they are candidates that have not been elected yet, and therefore automatically their articles must suffer through rounds of afd against common sense. I find this puzzling. Did Wikipedia change that much in my two years of absence? I don't recall such inflexible use of policy before.

What I primarily do wish to comment is that WP:POLITICIAN's guidelines really are only fit for candidates in liberal democracies. There must be an alternative set of criteria established for candidates who run under less-than-free political systems.

Wouldn't this be covered by point 2: "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage."? It's important to remember that any subject can be notable if the appropriate coverage exists. Ntsimp (talk) 19:53, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The only guideline that really matters is

WP:GNG. Establish that an article meets that, and nothing else should matter. --Jayron32

20:10, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The best solution is for you to provide as many

gone to the trouble

of naming 20 or 30 separate newspaper articles about the subject.

Remember that reliable sources do not need to be free, online, or in English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The "non-notable until elected" issue is primarily to keep independent candidates of essentially no significance from writing articles about themselves to give themselves undue weight right before an election. It's not meant for someone like

common sense. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい

) 17:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the key here should be whether the candidate got a lot of press in a very short period of time centered around the election rather than a continuing amount of notability. For example, Ralph Nader (disregarding his notability for pre-Green party stuff), is notable despite being non-elected because of the issues he stirred up, his public persona, etc. He has a long and continual record of coverage by notable sources. I think the spirit of the rule is that we want people who are notable rather than people who are associated with possibly notable elections. Jztinfinity (talk) 04:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Precisely,

WP:ONEEVENT also applies here. The OP argues that there should be different notability criteria for Singapore, which is completely unjustifiable. Jezhotwells (talk

) 07:43, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Another possible right that could be decoupled is the ability to change protection settings on templates, which is often helpful, but not a necessary part of this proposal. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

This suggestion is just a band aid. In a reasonable world, any user who needs adminship would be given it. Especially template experts. Of course, some templates should not be edited even by admins unless truly necessary (no idea how much work it would be for the servers to work through changes on the heavily transcluded metatemplates). —Кузьма^討論 20:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

There is no chance I'm going to become an admin given Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Matthew_Hoffman, which, although withdrawn, have left me completely unwilling to engage with the Wikipedia activities which would get me through adminship, because that single arbcom case put me under so much stress I had to drop out of University. I am never again going to do anything but poke around the borders of Wikipedia, in things that suit me.

Something like the ninth-highest search for my real name is an alt-medicine site, WikiSynergy, creating a lying attack page using that case as truth, even though Arbcom withdrew it. Arbcom havce denied any responsibility for the fact that I will now find it that much more difficult to get employment in perpetuity.

No, I decline to help Wikipedia in the extensive way you want me to,a nd if anyone wants to blame me because User:Charles Matthews' power tip has had devastating Real-life consequenses on me, I trust they know what to do to themselves. And if you're going to try to claim I should have withdrawn from the case, note that it was my only chance to avoid having a real-life impact on my employment possibilities for the rest of my life, given my unique surname. It failed, and Arbcom are 100% at fault. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there a case for a lower level of adminship for more editors but with fewer rights? --Bermicourt (talk) 20:39, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

It's come up, regularly, and gotten shot down, loudly. Non-admins blame admins for being 'protective of their little club', however a good number of non-admins, myself included, are against it. I have my reasons, which I won't bore you with, but as a general statement, the issue of trust, or a distinct lack thereof, combined with a lack of a consistently effective method of removing advanced rights, will kill this before it ever gets off the ground every time it comes up.

Wha?

07:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Have you considered a subpage to start the formulation of the template, present it for community review, and then let an admin move the changes over (with your consultation)? It's nice to take credit for our own changes, but if it improves the community why does credit matter? Hasteur (talk) 21:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Hasteur has the correct idea here: There are ways to fix a template without directly editing the currently visible version; copy the template code, paste it as a user subpage, fix it, use {{

editrequest}}, and ask for the new version to be pasted in place. Problem solved. --Jayron32

21:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed solution does not work. Many templates interact with 37 other templates. Have you looked at the backend for, say, Commons' MOTD (which I coded),

editprotected

}} isn't at all appropriate at a level where the next step after making a change is meticulously checking that the dozens of other templates haven't run into any trouble; there's no point making a change if you can't undo it quickly.

If anyone hasn't gathered, I have a very much love-hate relationship with Wikipedia. Love the idea of it, but have no tolerance for all the bullshit that happens anymore. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 21:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

If it's all that complicated, have you considered copying it over to

Test Wikipedia, where you could tweak and test the changes until you were certain that they were perfect, and then use editrequest to get the proven versions pasted in? WhatamIdoing (talk

) 03:19, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support - I've been suggesting this for a while. Some users are not willing to become admins. Some users the community is unwilling to make admins. I feel I fall in both, but I am very talented with template syntax. Editprotected edits work fine and dandy when there are no subtemplates. When you get into multi-level templates, complicated infoboxes, etc, it becomes next to impossible to test out changes. Often the admins that come in to the editprotected call (unless its one of the two or three templating admins) are ignorant of the changes being made, requesting links to discussions for consensus, etc, for minor changes. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support Full protecting templates is to keep them from becoming vandalized or to keep someone who has no idea what they are doing from messing things up. If a person can be shown to be competent with templates I see no reason for them to be left behind. Can I please ask that if this approved that it is not handed out like candy by admins. Unlike the filemover, this could have disastrous consequence in the wrong hands. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:39, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
• Strongest Oppose - I'm sorry, but no. If the templates are so commonly used that they have the potential to break vast swaths of the wiki if malformed, an example MUST be created that demonstrates the change. I'm expected to trust Admins because they've been reviewed by the community and know that edits to fully protected pages are done only for very good reasons. The fact that you are wanting to improve the templates without any sort of community consensus, procedure for testing, or roadmap to completion really worries me. "Make a change and see if stuff broke" is not the right way to make improvements to critical portions of the Wiki. Hasteur (talk) 15:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

You obviously don't know how Template protection is applied. A template used on only a handful of pages is very often protected if it's considered too complicated for average users. Also, some changes are very safe: For instance, if one wants to add an alternative name for a parameter, one can safely change {{{color|}}} to {{{color|{{{colour|}}}}}} and not worry too much about surprises, if one is diligent. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support - The {{
  talk
  ) 18:24, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Go back and read the request. The OP is talking about several templates/edits. I don't expect the Admin to understand fully the template change, I expect them to read the consensus and to understand why the change should be made. Think about it like software development. You don't randomly put changes into a production system. You test it thoroughly and take into account every potential dependancy before putting it into production. If the template can't be demonstrated prior to main space deployment and the change can't be explained to an administrator (via the editprotected template) the person wanting the change hasn't done their job correctly. Hasteur (talk) 19:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Why should they have to be able to fully explain the change to a non-expert? That's just unnecessary work that's a byproduct of the current inefficient system. Yes, in software development, you do test the changes before implementing them, but you also don't prevent the people who know how to do the changes from actually doing them. If testing should be a requirement, then we can have a policy that says so. But there's no reason such a policy needs to be enforced by technical limitations. The OP is not the only person who would potentially get this right. Just because his plans may not be ideal doesn't mean the proposal is a bad idea. But, on re-reading it, I don't see what the problem is there either. He's not asking to do major changes, he's asking to do maintenance work. This is a wiki, every edit is easily reversible. The world will not end if a template is broken for a few minutes.

talk

) 20:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Most admins are clueless about template syntax. I hardly see what qualifies them to perform these edits. If anything, admins should also be limited to editing high-use templates, and only users that have shown competence in the language should be allowed to modify them. None of the other skills pertinant to adminship are relevant to template editing. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

One would assume that most admins have the sense not to mess around with things they don't understand. Dragons flight (talk) 02:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. It's a matter of trust, not expertise. —

David Levy

02:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Such a proposal is based upon the very attitude causing the problem that it's intended to address.
  Adminship, in theory, is "no big deal." It's supposed to be given to any trustworthy user who can demonstrate a legitimate need.
  Some of the sysop permissions carry relatively little potential for harm (and therefore require relatively little trust), so it's sensible to split them out. In my view, the ability to edit protected pages (irrespective of namespace) is not one of them.
  So if someone needs to edit protected pages, it's simply a matter of whether he/she is trustworthy. In this context, that means that we can trust him/her to not use the sysop permissions in a manner harmful to the wiki. Any user who can be trusted to edit protected templates can be trusted to handle the other sysop permissions responsibly (even if that means not editing protected pages in the other namespaces, deleting pages, blocking users, et cetera).
  As noted above, most editors (including administrators) are largely unfamiliar with complex template syntax. Nonetheless, the only thing stopping administrators from fiddling with protected templates that they don't understand is their knowledge that this would be imprudent. We trust them to edit appropriately (and not edit inappropriately), which is why we've made them administrators. Likewise, I cannot envision a scenario in which someone is simultaneously trustworthy enough to edit protected templates and not trustworthy enough to possess the other sysop permissions.
  The real problem (and the issue that needs to be addressed) is the recent trend toward applying arbitrary criteria to prospective administrators (e.g. "wrote x featured articles" and "performed y edits within z process"). The misguided notion that an administrator must demonstrate expertise in every area is making adminship "a big deal" and preventing trustworthy editors from possessing tools that they wouldn't misuse. It's understandable that this would fuel the sentiment that the individual permissions should be separated, but doing so only reinforces the aforementioned belief that an administrator is intended to possess expertise on (and a demonstrable need for) all of them.
  Let's fix the real problem instead of working around it (and exacerbating it in the process). —
  David Levy
  02:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think applying a workaround exacerbates the problem. It provides a stopgap until such time as the community is willing to accept that. I've had issues with my temper, and I'm willing to accept WP:NBD. Generally, that excludes me from being provided the admin tools, regardless of whether or not I can guarantee that I'd never use those tools to leverage my position in any sort of way. This is the same reason provided every time this user right is suggested; nothing has progressed on that front, so this solution is unfortunately needed, at least in the interim. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Applying a workaround exacerbates the problem by seemingly legitimizing the logic behind the aforementioned adminship opposition. Every standalone permission (apart from those truly requiring a lesser degree of trust) will serve to justify this stance. ("You can just become a 'protected template editor' and a 'deleter', so you don't need adminship.") It reinforces the misguided notion that an administrator is something more than a trustworthy editor who sometimes needs to reach into a toolbox. —

David Levy

02:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixing RFA is hardly a viable alternative proposal. That's like saying armies would be unnecessary if we had world peace. It's true and would be great, but short of a concrete proposal it is entirely unrealistic to expect it to happen anytime soon. Mr.Z-man 02:36, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It isn't really an alternative proposal. It's a plea to not make the problem worse.

A solution might not be immediately forthcoming, but I believe that it's realistically attainable unless we head down the proposed path. —

David Levy

02:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Editing highly complex templates is not a problem of trust. We do not have template compilers (as far as I know) so I would say that any change should be performed somewhere else and tested before adding it to the template itself. Even if the user knows the code and has admin rights, he should test the changes first anyway. Cambalachero (talk) 02:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  This is true. I'm an administrator with knowledge in this area, but I never perform major edits to complex templates without first testing the changes (no matter how many sandboxes are required to simulate the transclusions involved). —

  David Levy

  03:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Obviously if we are unsure, we do that. However, many edits are very trivial (in the sense that someone who has learned to read the syntax like english can write it in their head on the drive home) but take place over several templates. Many other major changes are initially sandbox testing, but then require a test through the hundreds of variable transclusions. Problems are then fixed as they are realized. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 03:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  I wasn't referring to trivial edits (which I why I used the term "major edits").
  It's true that unforeseen issues can arise (despite advance testing), and the ability to edit protected templates certainly is useful in such a circumstance, but anyone who can be trusted with this permission can be trusted with all of the sysop permissions. —

  David Levy

  04:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support - The painful truth is the Sysop selection process is all but broken. Kudos to those that have been selected but all too often its as much luck as skill that's gets one through and the process and the Gauntlet frequently frustrates and confounds even the most devoted editor. Even if one does get through the process and after they finish licking their wounds from the ordeal nearly all of them focus on one or 2 things (very few use the whole suite of tools provided to them) so unbundling the various rights that admins perform not only allows editors to focus on the tasks they are interested in and are able to do but it also give users a stepping stone approach rather than unleashing the whole toolbox at once. I do agree however that perhaps some templates (Such as WikiProjectBannerShell) should possibly have a restriction level that limits to only a select few and I also agree that all testing should be done in a sandbox prior to implementation but I think we can assume that just as the previous permissions that have been granted the ones who request it will use it wisely (mostly) and those that don't will have it revoked. --
  talk
  ) 03:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  The fact that "very few use the whole suite of tools provided to them" is not a problem, nor should we treat it as one or reinforce such a perception. When it comes to permissions requiring this level of trust, no "stepping stone approach" is warranted. A user either can or cannot be trusted to use the tools appropriately (which includes not using tools in a manner with which he/she lacks sufficient knowledge). —

  David Levy

  04:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose Two reasons. First, I think there is a tremendous danger here. Core templates are protected for a reason, they keep a whole lot of stuff afloat. If anything, I'd restrict template edit access to an even smaller group, MediaWiki devs and other people who demonstrate a high level of aptitude with the weird-ass system Wikipedia runs on. Most admins stay away from high level templates, but it's not perfect. Second, I can gaurentee that people that are not qualified or deserving of the right will get it. There is a small but seemingly dedicated group of administrators that give userrights to people that clearly have no use for those rights, or even worse, have a demonstrated history of screwing up in areas where those userrights were related. Simply put, I don't trust anything short of a 'crat chat in a public forum to determine who would get something this powerful.
  Wha?
  03:53, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  This proposal is just to decouple the right, there isn't anything explicit yet about how it should be handed out. Mr.Z-man 03:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  I also agree that it should be handed out sparingly and I also agree that there are some templates that should be tightly restricted. --

  talk

  ) 04:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  • I won't name names, but when filemover became a right, one admin went and gave it to several people that had 0 edits to the file namespace, while another gave it to a user who applied, got rejected, hastily changed usernames, then posted a request on the admin's talk page. Had this admin done any homework, he would have seen that the user a) had been rejected for having almost no experiance, and b) had a history of getting things totally wrong, especially in the file namespace. I forget why, but the user who got the right was later indef blocked. However that does not make any better the fact that one admin gave the right out to friends who didn't qualify for and had no use for the right, while another gave it out blindly to a clearly bad candidate. That's why I don't trust this becoming a right.
    Wha?
    07:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    • It sounds like those admins have truly earned the trust of the community..... - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 10:27, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The {{
  NaSpVe :|
  07:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Several very talented template compilers (can you edit that ugly code?) are telling you that is just not the case, and that it does not work for complicated or multi-level templates. Editprotected places a burden on the system. Even code tested a million times is almost certain to find some issues somewhere, and not being able to tinker and fix those essentially means either taking an extreme length of time to iron out any creases, or finding an admin who will stand by for an hour or two. That my friend, is a broken system. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 10:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Any "very talented template compiler" sufficiently trustworthy to edit the templates in question should be an administrator.
  When someone is hired to clean a restaurant, a lock isn't placed on the oven to ensure that he/she won't be tempted to do some experimental baking. If someone can't be trusted to mop the kitchen floor without starting a fire, I don't want him/her anywhere near my food. —

  David Levy

  11:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose by the reasons indicated in Wikipedia_talk:Protected_editing_rights, which I shall not repeat here. Nothing has changed since then. Ruslik_Zero 08:04, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support As someone who has been highly active in the template namespace in the past, [6] I discovered first hand that the {{
  not supposed to be a big deal, however with the current political climate, more often than not the exact opposite seems to be true.

  Just so others can understand my background, I've previously contributed to quite a number of heavily used/high profile templates such as {{Citation/core}}, {{Infobox software}}, etc. I also created the original {{Wikipedia-Books}} template and wrote {{Cite IETF}} after discovering we had no unified way to cite these complex documents. Here is some of the work I did on {{Citation/core}}: [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

  Would those making opposes to the proposal here be opposed to me editing these templates? --Tothwolf (talk

  ) 13:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Even if you were granted 'editprotected' userright, you would still be unable to edit {{Citation/core}} because it is cascade-protected. Ruslik_Zero 15:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Let's go over the list. Is Tothwolf a Admin? No. Does Tothwolf have a history of well founded Template space edits? Yes. Should edit requests from Tothwolf recieve the Spanish Inquisition treatment for changes to templates? No. Should Tothwolf be given the same privilages to edit through full protection as Administrators/Bureaucrats? No. The verdict: While you don't have the authority, an admin who is familiar with the template space should be able to rubber stamp your proposed changes into final work. The delay on implementation is small enough to not be a deadline worthy concern. Hasteur (talk) 16:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Rubber stamping doesn't help when there are 1000s of templates which have been protected like this [12] when they need a minor tweak to fix something. Both {{

  editprotected}} requests sit there for hours or days before someone is willing to make the edit. The more complex the template, the more this happens. For example, see this edit request for {{Citation/core}} which I also linked above. That code had already been heavily tested in the sandbox/testcases and was ready for use. --Tothwolf (talk

  ) 16:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Among templates you mentioned above {{

  File Mover topicon}}, {{Reviewer topicon}} and {{Cite IETF}} are not protected, {{Wikipedia-Books}} is semi-protected and, as I said above, you would not be able to edit {{Citation/core}}, even if you had 'editprotected' userright. Ruslik_Zero

  18:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  The protection status of those specific templates isn't the issue being raised here though. The issue is the {{

  editprotected}} system we have in place isn't working very well and hasn't been for quite some time. (Did it ever?) The current system was never intended to prevent the improvement of Wikipedia, but that is exactly what has begun to happen when those of us who are able to work with template code end up giving up because it tends to be too much trouble to get something done. --Tothwolf (talk

  ) 19:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Would those making opposes to the proposal here be opposed to me editing these templates?
  That depends. Can you be trusted to possess such a tool without misusing it? —

  David Levy

  17:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  That depends how the community defines trust. Wikipedia is currently not defining trustworthy (if that is the lone requirement to be given access to these tools) as "the ability to do what you say you are going to". Right now Wikipedia defines trustworthy as not swearing, NEVER getting into confrontations, and remaining completely civil when douchebags run you ragged. In my eyes, thats being a receiver for a reaming rod. I've never once shown any kind of deceit, just a lack of willingness to cooperate with people who are uncooperative. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 21:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  The community's definition of "trust," whatever that may be, is as applicable to the tool in question as it is to the other sysop permissions. Technical expertise simply doesn't suffice.
  Templates, like pages in other namespaces, are subject to good-faith disputes. If someone has a tendency to not get along well with fellow editors, there's reason for concern that he/she might abuse the tool to gain an advantage over users lacking it (by disregarding their concerns and editing templates in accordance with his/her personal preferences).
  I don't know you well, and I don't mean to imply that this describes you. That would be for the community to decide. And if the community were to determine that you were sufficiently trustworthy, this would apply to all of the sysop permissions.
  You've noted that some RfA respondents apply unreasonable criteria, and I agree. However, I must say that I would be reluctant to support the administrative candidacy of someone who refers to fellow editors as "douchebags." The language doesn't offend me, and I know how frustrating it can be to deal with "people who are uncooperative." Nonetheless, an administrator must exhibit thick skin and considerable patience in order to cope with and avoid escalating the over-the-top conflicts that inevitably arise. It isn't easy, fun or even fair, but it's absolutely essential.
  The same is true of a hypothetical "protected template editor" (for whom "You don't know what you're talking about. Go away." would not be an appropriate response to a good-faith objection, irrespective of its validity or lack thereof), so an identical level of trust would be needed. And if it exists, that individual should simply be an administrator. —

  David Levy

  22:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  I don't think minor formatting and cosmetic changes to a few protected templates are all that great an issue. Proposed changes that have gained significant consensus or some deep template coding should be made in batches and tested in /sandbox and /testcases, which are then implemented by a template coder with administrator status (and I'm sure we have a few of those around). Editprotected requests only have to wait a few days (

  NaSpVe :|

  05:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Perhaps ideally, this needn't be decoupled, but RFA involves much too much politics now, shutting out template maintainers with technical expertise. Contrary to what has been suggested, I don't imagine many situations where you can abuse template editing rights all that much. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 01:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  Expertise simply isn't the relevant criterion. As noted above, most editors with permission to edit protected templates lack sufficient knowledge to modify complex syntax. Nonetheless, we trust them to act within their capabilities and not harm the wiki. Someone lacking said trust shouldn't be editing protected pages, irrespective of his/her expertise.
  Are you suggesting that good-faith disputes regarding template contents don't arise? —

  David Levy

  02:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  While you are correct in that many editors aren't familiar with complex markup and functions, I can't agree with the second part of your statement. In effect what you are saying is we can't trust anyone who does not have the full admin toolkit not to get involved in a content dispute. I don't think any of us can state that everyone with the admin bit has never gotten involved in a content dispute. Your statement also has has the effect of putting those with the admin bit up on a pedestal which is contrary to

  WP:DWAP). In a given day we probably have far more cached pages invalidated site-wide by people making minor updates to navigational templates than would be invalidated by updating a commonly transcluded infobox template.

  The second reason, to help prevent disruption across a large number of pages due to template vandalism, does still apply, but it still comes at a collateral cost of preventing editors familiar with template markup from being able to quickly and efficiently update templates to help improve Wikipedia.

  We also currently have the situation where the editing and maintenance of editnotices has been assigned to the accountcreators group because we don't currently have a way to protect these templates while still allowing non-administrators to edit them. This too could be addressed by re-assessing either how we protect templates (perhaps a different level of page protection?) or by unbundling the ability to edit protected templates from the admin toolkit.

  One final note in reply to another comment above, changes I made to templates such as {{Citation/core}} are not exactly "minor formatting and cosmetic changes". When you edit a template such as {{Citation/core}}, you generally try to bundle as many bug fixes and changes into a single update as possible because of how widely the template is transcluded (i.e. make all your incremental changes in a sandbox and test the finished product before updating the real template). You may have a cosmetic fix or two included in the final update, but when I made changes to {{Citation/core}}, I was mainly dealing with bugs which were manifesting while using the various Cite x templates which themselves use {{Citation/core}}. While I agree that such changes must be tested with sandbox/testcases (I even do regression testing for highly complex cases; Template:Cite IETF/regression tests) it really is not appropriate to brush off changes such as those I made to {{Citation/core}} with a statement such as "I don't think minor formatting and cosmetic changes to a few protected templates are all that great an issue." --Tothwolf (talk

  ) 12:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  In effect what you are saying is we can't trust anyone who does not have the full admin toolkit not to get involved in a content dispute.
  No, that isn't even close to what I'm saying.
  I don't think any of us can state that everyone with the admin bit has never gotten involved in a content dispute.
  Content disputes are a normal, everyday occurrence. I'm sure that most (if not all) Wikipedia administrators have taken part. I certainly have.
  The "content dispute" argument really isn't the point here anyway, there will always be content disputes everywhere on Wikipedia, irrespective of who holds what permission bits.
  Of course there will. That's why we strive to ensure that certain participants aren't placed at an unfair disadvantage by opponents who abuse their permissions.
  What's important is how the individuals with whatever permission bits handle potential content disputes.
  Exactly. That's what I was saying above. That's why a particular level of trust is needed; we must be reasonably confident that the tools won't be misused (either intentionally, e.g. in a content dispute, or otherwise). I don't know why you thought that I was claiming that administrators never dispute content with other users.
  Your statement also has has the effect of putting those with the admin bit up on a pedestal which is contrary to

  David Levy

  18:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Full locking pages that are the frequent target of deliberate vandalism makes sense. Fully locking templates because someone might make a genuine mistake doesn't. If they get it wrong they, or anyone else, can revert it easily and quickly enough. I have found it very irritating that I cannot make simple and sensible changes to a template in my area of expertise because it's locked. I then have to find an admin, who may not understand the subject or template formatting, to make the changes for me. I can see exceptions for some basic and widely used templates that rarely change being locked, but in general full protection should be used sparingly. And, as an aside, whilst "being an admin" is supposed to be "no big deal", "becoming an admin" looks to me like a pretty difficult and bureaucratic process! --Bermicourt (talk) 19:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  You appear to have presented an argument against the application of full protection to the templates in question. I don't see how this relates to the proposal at hand. —

  David Levy

  20:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  I can understand how it's related. See this AN/I discussion from September 2010. --Tothwolf (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Unsure. How often is this a problem? For the simple templates, I'm able to make the change. But these days we are getting templates that are incomprehensible and as such, unless you are an expert, making changes without introducing errors can be difficult. While testing in a sand box may find some errors, it may not find all of the errors introduced by a change. The effect is that for some templates you could wind up flushing the cache for 10s of thousands of articles 3 times if you make an error. So having experts in template programming make these changes is justified. Now the question is, does the current system really make getting changes made problematic? I don't know. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  There's no question that it's helpful to have experts in template programming make these changes, but they must also be sufficiently trustworthy to edit protected pages. Such users should be administrators. —

  David Levy

  21:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  Code becoming incomprehensible is a symptom of two issues, one, limited or no background in how to structure code so that it is readable and maintainable, two, a simple case of too many cooks spoil the broth. Both of these can be mitigated by sticking to a well structured code style, but the majority of Wikipedia's editors aren't going to be familiar with how to structure code.

  It doesn't help that MediaWiki's template markup itself is also pretty much unlike anything else one will find out there. It lacks a lot of the functionality one will find in even some of the smallest programming languages, so it can sometimes require extremely complex code just to accomplish a very simple task. Even indenting and formatting can be difficult because breaking and inserting whitespace in the wrong places will completely break the code.

  I've come to the conclusion that The Practice of Programming really should be prerequisite reading for anyone who is getting serious about programming and code design. The majority of the book is language agnostic with the core of it focusing more on how to write maintainable, well structured code. While the book is easiest applied by someone with at least a limited background in C, the material in the book can be applied to most any programming language, including the template markup used by MediaWiki. --Tothwolf (talk) 12:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose at presented, as this is one fine grained right being carved out. I would support a bid to create a new group ('technical boffin'?) which allows the group members to perform the tasks which are primarily technical, such as edit filter manager, edit protected templates, edit interface pages, etc. Scope that out and propose that. There are many people who are technically competent/brilliant but not socially astute and/or don't care to bother with the vague requirements of an RFA. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  Edit filters can't be oversighted normally like revisions and logs can. "Technical boffin" might have to be held to an even higher standard than adminship.

  NaSpVe :|

  08:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  'Junior developer'? ;P "even higher standard than adminship" Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing if this is something which is not bundled as part of the admin toolkit (that is, as long as it didn't turn become yet another bureaucratic political mess). The

  edit filter permission flag isn't included in the admin group of permissions, but any admin can still add/remove it as needed. --Tothwolf (talk

  ) 13:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  As Tothwolf has pointed out, we already give 'edit filter' to people who arn't admins. Its a different level of trust, and since any admin can remove the 'edit filter' permission, it is much less permanent that sysop. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Comment — This could be useful, as some large proportion of admins do not understand much about templates, and I would hope that most of them mostly stay away from them except mebbe to fulfill editprotected requests. This leaves very few who are both admins and able to edit the high-use templates, and this results in a lot of needful work going undone. This proposed 'bit' certainly should not be one handed out by any mere admin. While we could have a huge bureaucracy about it, a small group (→Plastikspork, Thumperward, && a few others) will know who is right for the task. I've not read all of the above, but get the drift of David Levy's posts; this should be something that any qualified editor can get via RfA, but as is well-known, RfA is a zoo of anybodies and adminship is a Very-Big-Deal. John's boffin-bit would be moar useful to the clueful, of course ;) Barong 07:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Creating new user rights is something we should only do if there is a large scale problem that would be rectified by the new right. This looks like a fairly minor problem and one can always use the talk page and/or {{
  talk
  ) 08:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support (I'll try to make this as
  tl;dr
  -frendly as possible and I'll bullet-point it)  —
  • Like Barong said, large amounts of admins don't know a lot about templates. I've seen the same handful of admins fulfilling my editprotected requests for things like putting a TfD notice on a template or a small tweak of a template's code when they could be actually doing something more useful for the template namespace.
  • A lot of people who would benefit from being allowed to edit fully protected templates wouldn't pass RfA simply because they do not have enough work in content creation, myself included (although I wouldn't request this right right away as I still have a bit more to learn about the intricacies of template coding before the community should trust me with the right).
  • I can see the request for the permission going two ways: either a simple thing like
    WP:PERM
    but would involve more than one admin (or an admin + an editor with the editprotectedtemplate right) supporting/opposing the user getting the rights.
  • Since abuse of the ability to be able to edit protected templates can create mass problems and greatly impact server load, the user's contributions as a whole must be taken into account before granting them the permission. Both experience with templates and the likelihood of the user vandalising must be taken into account.
• Sorry for the long comment :) — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 18:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

Are users allowed to curse at other users?

talk

) 17:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Not really. Cursing at other users violates

WP:CIVIL, and WP:Etiquette. _Blake ^(Talk·Edits

) 17:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Warning, LightHearted Answer: Technically, you can curse another user but you cannot do, is put your feelings to Wikipedia "paper", per

WP:FUN Cheers:) Dijcks | ^InOut

23:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC).

What about cursing a user? (unrelated to post directly above) Like getting a witch to put a curse on them? =p As for cursing at other users, Blake is correct, it's very much frowned upon at gets you a rather stern warning if you do it.. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 23:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

This came up a year or two ago. A user

talk

) 17:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, its just that two users cursed at me and I wanted to know if they violate wp policy.

talk

) 19:43, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

HaHa, good one Sir William! I never thought of that! That just may be a new arrow in my quiver!

But, seriously, if someone does insult you, Shakinglord, you can offer up a friendly warning to keep arguments or debates focused on the content of articles, and not personal attacks. If it keeps happening, you can seek assistance from others using certain dispute processes found at

WP:CIVIL as well, and cannot/should-not provoke insult either! Dijcks | ^InOut

23:17, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

How do you merge two lists into an entirely new list?

The proposal was made, not using a template, that because

List of Sirius Satellite Radio channels. on Talk:List of XM Satellite Radio channels

, the proposal was made that the XM list be revised and the separate Sirius information (which, other than historical background, wouldn't be much) be combined with the XM list. I formalized that plan as a proposed move. Someone else came along and removed my move template from the talk page and replaced it with a merge template. But the wording of the merge template is totally illogical, making it look more like a split, suggesting that someone messed up in creating it or messed up in using it. I didn't bother to look at the template but put it in a separate section.

I think I am correct in calling the proposal a move, since the resulting list will be called List of Sirius XM Radio channels. That's a name someone else proposed before my formal proposal. However, it does involve a merge in content, since any separate information from the Sirius list would go in the new one. And yet the person who removed my move template is trying to say this isn't a move at all, but a merge.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Generally, move the older of the two pages to the new target name:

List of Sirius Satellite Radio stations into List of Sirius XM Radio channels using the correct edit summaries for both pages. --Tothwolf (talk

) 00:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Tothwolf's instructions. The move keeps two page histories, without creating an extra one for the merged page. {{merge}} is an article template, so its wording is confusing when placed on a talk page. I have watchlisted both pages and will be available to assist with merging. Flatscan (talk) 04:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

This situation is a little different in that nearly all the content in both lists is the same. I was hoping no one would update the Sirius list, but someone has, which complicates things. It means someone has done a lot of work for nothing.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you can history merge two active articles about different subjects. Then the history of the page would jump from on to the other randomly, and it wouldn't seem right. Just decide which one you want to have the main history, and redirect the other to preserve it. Some things just can't co-exist. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 19:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

These are lists, and they're not different. XM and Sirius have realigned their channel numbers so that in most cases, the channel numbers are the same. That's why there only needs to be one merged list.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, they were different. I just mean you can't merge their history together because the revisions from article A and B would interlock and look like "ABBABABBAABBABABAABB", whereas if you merge similar subjects from an old and new article,(history merge of an old redirect or something) it would be "AAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBB".

I am not sure if that is the problem here though, and whether you were actually planning on history merging it. If not, just move the bigger, more prominent subject, and then redirect the smaller, less important one. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 20:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As Blake explained above, the histories of the two pages cannot be merged. One page will be turned into a redirect and the history of that page will be preserved behind the redirect. I generally then use {{

Wikipedia:How to fix cut-and-paste moves#Parallel versions. --Tothwolf (talk

) 20:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I confused things with my mention of "page history", but I think we're all describing a normal (non-history) merge. I'll take care of {{Copied}} tags. Flatscan (talk) 04:05, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The proposal wasn't a formal one but it was on the Talk:List of XM Satellite Radio channels page, and I just formalized it. I didn't say anything about page history here (I misread what Blake said) but someone was trying to change this into a merger of two pages into a totally different one. I think this person wanted both pages to redirect with {{R from merge}} as content and {{Copied}} tags on the destination page. I just wanted to make sure one page had all the content at the end. Tothwolf and Flatscan have interpreted my desire correctly.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 16:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Just in case others are experiencing it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNNMoney.com, from 208.80.152.75 via sq63.wikimedia.org (squid/2.7.STABLE7) to () Error: ERR_CANNOT_FORWARD, errno [No Error] at Tue, 10 May 2011 17:55:56 GMT Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible to deal with biography problems in articles that are not biographies?

The Taringa! article states that Hernán and Matías Botbol were found guilty of assistance to copyright infringement. Enza a manif (talk) 22:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Biographies of living people policy applies everywhere. It doesn't have to be in what is considered a biographical article. I have removed the whole legal issues section because the one source did not mention the Botbol's at all as far as I could tell. GB fan (talk

) 22:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I relooked and the source does confirm the information in the article, I reverted myself and put the paragraph back in. GB fan (talk) 23:01, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is losing its freedom and policy of "Anyone can Edit" mantra

Over the past few years, the freedom awarded to Wikipedia contributors has been slowly eroded. We now see multiple threats and warnings displayed on discussion pages, and there are the self-righteous veterans who have made it their duty to enhance their own causes by deleting others' work.

Articles are now often locked up; often, people find very few articles where they can even make their writing heard because of the intense fireball of criticism and non-openness projected by veteran Wikipedians. The sheer mass of threats and anger projected at new users has been discouraging new ones from joining; they are bombarded with messages, angry responses from other users, etc....pushing them to leave.

I believe we should eliminate the hosh-posh that has contaminated this encyclopedia and return it to the past policy of openness maintained before people began trying to lock articles and better their own online reputations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nbarile18 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide an example regarding the loss of openness? SMP0328. (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Articles are locked only when experienced users believe that many new users do nothing but degrade the article. Usually, locking only happens on huge articles which most of the time are GA or FA already, and do not need much editing. Chances are, if a new user wants to edit a Good Article, it's for the wrong reasons. They are "bombarded with messages" only when they don't listen to reason, and continue to edit articles incorrectly. If the edits are in

giving them angry responses. _Blake ^(Talk·Edits

) 19:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the most obvious examples are

Death of Osama bin Laden. Admittedly, these are controversial articles but what annoys me is that there have even been attempts to discourage discussion on the talk pages. Biscuittin (talk

) 19:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, because

wikipedia is not a forum. Apparently you have been told this several times [13] already, so I am not sure why it needs to be repeated yet again. Nbarile18 also doesn't seem to understand we are not a forum to vent his opinions. Yoenit (talk

) 22:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of a talk page is to discuss information, and get other people's views on it, before it is put into the article. This information will often include personal opinions but these will be filtered out before the information goes into the article. If you rigidly exclude personal opinions from the talk page then there is no point in having a talk page - you might as well put the information straight in the article without any prior discussion. Biscuittin (talk) 23:27, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

People have been making this charge for years now, but the OP was still somehow able to start an account just three weeks ago, and has contributed to nine unique pages so far, so it can't be completely locked down.

Looking at the contributions, I'd guess that the semi-protection on Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories is another sore point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

So basically, back when anyone was free to post that

John Siegenthaler conspired to kill Kennedy? –MuZemike

16:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Always wondered why that was suddenly put in place. That is a great story though and my night is now complete, lol. It's nice to have some anarchy, but not too much. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 00:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I've also noticed that today it is has become harder to successfully contribute to Wikipedia today than it was in 7 years ago, when I started. Today, quite often my contributions are reverted, blocked, or warning messages are attached to them by other overzealous (?) editors, enforcing more and more beaurocracy in the editing process. Some examples include:

1. Images which I've uploaded as "fair use", or even with permission of owner, have often been deleted because I wasn't vigilant enough to "defend" them when somebody brought a complaint that they may not be free use.
2. An article I wrote about a company was labeled "advertising", despite not being that at all.
3. In text I wrote, other people added "warnings" like "citation needed" and "by who?", even when this doesn't make sense (e.g., "citation needed" where I say something a book, in the article about the book itself).
4. The whole concept of citation, which is relatively new to Wikipedia (didn't exist when I started editing), makes creating a new article much more difficult, and goes against the original concept of Wikipedia (which was that user A does his best to collect all the facts he finds into an article, and user B can correct some facts if he finds them to be incorrect).

Perhaps it makes sense that as Wikipedia ages, it becomes harder and harder to add new content - after all, today, much of the content that is worthy appearing is already in Wikipedia - this is completely different from the situation 7 years ago. Perhaps today Wikipedia should indeed make it harder to edit, and not anyone should be allowed to edit. But maybe this decision should be made de-jure, not just a de-facto. Nyh (talk) 11:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The whole issue can be summarized easily that WP has moved from an open Eternal September newcomer model, where at the time it was tolerated when users popped in and contributed despite their contributions not being to the same up-to-snuff speed as experienced editors, to a model where we encourage new editors to lurk and understand the machinations of WP before making significant contributions. Nearly every complaint in this thread is the type of issue that could have been avoided by reading policy and guidelines to understand today's expected interaction from new users. It doesn't prevent anyone from editing the work, just that they either need to spend the 15 minutes to understand this, or expect that their contributions will be challenged if its not to the current community standards. --MASEM (t) 12:58, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

WP has become a mean place, particularly for newer editors, and more than necessary to protect the integrity of the content and articles. The Wikimedia board has recognized that, and set the direction that we make progress in that area. It can be done. North8000 (talk) 13:26, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not just hard for new users. I gave as an example myself, who is by no means a new user - I've made around 2,000 edits since October 2003. Even I find it hard to keep up with all the policies and procedures that have appeared in Wikipedia over time. Also, even when I do adhere to all the rules and policies (or so I think), every once in a while somebody "declares" things I have done as advertising, worthy of deletion, and worse - which is a seriously putting me off from contributing to Wikipedia. Today it seems that editors are just as busy trying to delete things - images which they suspect of maybe not being free (even when I say I took the picture myself), articles which they suspect "non-notable" (even when we're talking about a known singer, with many mentions on the web and books, and CDs being sold), or of being "advertising" (just because an article is about a company, doesn't mean it looks like advertising). Nyh (talk) 06:48, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Images are a unique case, because the Foundation has required us to maintain strong requirements for images and remove those that fail those; like BLP, it is the closest thing we have to a "law" on WP. But this still comes down to the fact that we expect editors to keep up to speed on current policies and guidelines, erring on the side of removing contributions if they don't met the bare minimum requirements. Again, it is not saying you can't edit WP even if you are an infrequent contributor, but if you find one of your additions removed, you should try to read up and ask questions to understand why it was removed before adding it again or similar additions elsewhere. --MASEM (t) 13:07, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Responding to Nyh, I've run across people who delete a lot who are truly protecting/improving Wikipedia, and other deletionists who are sociopaths who have found heaven here, where everybody is given a badge and a gun, and policies which are written so sloppily that they must be often violated, so sociopath can victimize anyone that they care to with immunity. Like my suppressed other half User:TheParasite Plus, of course, cases that are in between. It IS a mean place. North8000 (talk) 13:24, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC on archiving citations

There has been a recent growth in dead external links, which led to a citation archiving proposal. It proposes implementing link archiving using the tools that the French Wikipedia currently uses. This would start with a single article and category as a test, after which broader input would be requested on whether and how to proceed with a wiki-wide implementation. Comments and suggestions are welcome. – SJ + 23:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Useful for the project, but I don't know much about the finances behind it. Personally, I'd say it would help reduce the number of AfDs and other problems related to

link rot

. The main problems behind it would be:

• The cost for hosts and servers.
• Possible
  copyright
  concerns.
• The ability to actually back everything up. That would bots / editors galore, I think.

These would have to be dealt with before such a policy could be implemented. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:32, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

All of these issues have already been dealt with. Wikiwix already provides this service to the French Wikipedia and is volunteering to provide it to us. The hosting is not done by the WMF, so the community does not have to deal with copyright complaints. Websites that opt out of archiving from other services (Internet archive) won't be archived. The people behind Wikiwix have said that it would take a few weeks to archive all the existing links, then it would add links by following recentchanges. The infrastructure already exists from the French Wikipedia. Mr.Z-man 16:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

If these have been dealt with to the community's satisfaction, then I say "Two stars to the right and straight on 'til morning." (Let's go for it.) Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the graph provided is quite misleading. It is not representative of an increase in dead links, but an increase in the labeling of dead links using {{dead link}}. It is certainly true that current archiving tools (WebCitation.org and Archive.org) are not fully adequate, but I do not think that WikiMedia creating a cache mirror of the slice of the internet that we reference is the proper solution. Rather, we should work with existing tools to improve and/or revise their coverage and functionality. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:08, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikiwix is not operated by Wikimedia. It is an existing tool, just not one that we currently use. Mr.Z-man 16:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Didn't we have a bot tagging dead links, right about the time that the number of tagged links in the graph spiked? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Notability of local level elections

Could there possibly be a clearer policy on the notability of local elections? As of now, there are

notable for elections? Should we have clearer standards for notability, perhaps a policy? To quote User:PWilkinson

, who explained it much more clearly:

". . . there doesn't appear to be a notability criterion for elections at the moment but, if and when one is drawn up, most English local authority elections might well be deemed too

local for general notability, at least at this level of detail. However, Wikipedia has hundreds, possibly thousands, of these articles and, for elections even three or four years back, they are often the only publicly-available source of the information that I know of - the trouble is that detailed results are usually easy to source reliably at the time from the website of the relevant local authority or from local newspapers, but both suffer from link-rot and/or lack of reliable searchable long-term archives. And I seem to be far from the only person who finds the information occasionally useful, for as far back (and further than) Wikipedia has it and for local authorities all over Britain (and sometimes the world). So the points that need to be sorted are, firstly, what the notability guidelines should be and, secondly, what can be done, preferably in an orderly and reasonably uniform manner, towards preserving any information determined to be too local for them and free access to it, presumably off Wikipedia, and preferably with semi-standardised links from here (something like happens with IMDB?). But this is the kind of thing that is not going to be sortable in the single week of an AfD discussion. PWilkinson

"

(Please note that I am quoting PWilkinson because of how well he explained it. I do not intend to claim to represent him or his views).

I believe this merits further discussion, as any results of a policy change would have far-reaching repercussions. Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• All the English local election pages at least are verifiable and the overwhelming number have significant coverage in reliable sources available. I don't see any reason why wikipedia should not have articles for them - we already have over a thousand - check the subcategories of
  Gateshead Council election, 2003
  .
• Given this I am firmly of the opinion that if a guideline is needed (and we certainly don't want a policy) the presumption should be that such articles as above should be allowed/kept. I don't think a guideline is necessary but given the usual AFD ends as keep, perhaps a note should be just added to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes saying this. Davewild (talk) 16:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. The problem is that such elections have a couple problems (in my opinion). First,

WP:LISTN but not be notable enough for a stand-alone article. Crisco 1492 (talk

) 23:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree so - Firstly there are no local election articles in England which do not at least have some coverage of the results on a national level. Secondly these elections almost always elect people to 4 year terms giving a lasting impact on the area. Thirdly the elections are discussed with the impact that local election results have nationally (so and so party did well here so could pick up the parliamentary seat, will win/lose the next national election, etc). When WP:EVENT was being written supporters of the guideline assured an opponent that

WP:N says articles with significant coverage are presumed to be notable, previous AFDs have accepted this such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kettering Council election, 2007, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Birmingham Council election, 2008 and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stevenage Council election, 2003 showing there is definitely no consensus that the presumption that they are notable should be ignored. As seen by comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom editors in relevant wikiprojects discuss these articles without any argument they should be deleted (indeed there was a proposal back a while at a wikiproject that parish elections were ok to cover which I think goes too far). Apologies for the length of comment but I do not see why these articles should be deleted. (Others seem to agree, just in the last day another 2 articles have been started on English local elections - not by me). Davewild (talk

) 07:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem about the length, this is too important to

length suggestions. Crisco 1492 (talk

) 08:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As a general rule, I'd put information about local elections in the article about the local area. That is, Smallville#Elections or even Elections in Smallville, covering the entire history of elections in that local area, are better options than individual articles on each and every election date (Smallville elections in Spring 2009, Smallville elections in Fall 2009, Smallville elections in Spring 2010, Smallville special election (June 2010), Smallville elections in Fall 2010, Smallville elections in Spring 2011). (And, yes, people in my town have been at the polls an average of three times a year for the last decade.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

That's only because the council members keep quitting instead of dealing with cleaning up after all those supervillain attacks. oknazevad (talk) 03:59, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Are conspiracy theory articles "encyclopedic"?

Recently when editing articles at Osama bin Laden and perusing "Death of Osama bin Ladin", I came across [Death of Osama bin Laden Conspiracy Theories]. Are these types of articles considered factual encyclopedic content? Or are they editorial embellishment? IMO, these articles represent theories (not scientific), that usually represent a very small cross section of individuals who seek notoriety, or seek to create sensationalism. It seems to me that actual conspiracy theories have a place, such as "The conspiracy to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln" for example, but weakly sourced limited exposure-type of conspiracy theories may not have a valid place. Dijcks | ^InOut 22:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The existance of things which are themselves not true doesn't mean that Wikipedia doesn't have articles on them. Wikipedia has articles about

notable. Wikipedia should not report noted falsehoods as though they were true, but it can (and should) report on their existence, insofar as there is enough source material. --Jayron32

04:06, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to split hairs a bit, one cannot say the UFOs don't exist. That people have seen things in the sky that they can't identify is a basic fact. That they can be explained as extraterrestrial phenomenon is the part that's got no proof. oknazevad (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Let me try to splice the hair before some folk spiral this out ... Wikipedia does not take a stand as an encyclopedia on the truth or falsehood of something like Bigfoot, God or Reality. As an encyclopedia, it presents our present understanding and our present suppositions as reported in reliable sources; this is the very core of the notion of 'neutral point of view' and distinguishes verifiability from 'truthiness'. Individual editors need never abandon their beliefs, but must collaborate with other editors who sometimes hold diametrically opposed beliefs or beliefs which make the 'truth' of opposing beliefs to be impossible as a tenet of their existence. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:09, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

And don't forget, you need to also deal with all the various hypothesis according to

WP:WEIGHT according to how prominent they are, etc. Say Shalom!

04:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all, for the input. There's some good advice here, particularly in regard to Wikipedia's policies of what can exist (which I'm learning as I go along), such as notability, neutral POV, and importantly, proper weight of certain content. Of concern in my OP, weight regarding the theory in the main-article "Osama bin Laden, but does have its place. The theory article seems to be holding its own however, at AfD. Dijcks | ^InOut 15:04, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

What is the diff for a newly created article?

If the {{copied}} template asks for a diff, there obviously isn't one if the split content is the only content in the article.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:46, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this what you are talking about? _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 18:54, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

When you go into the history, hit the date for the first (and only) entry. Like this one:[14] 86.146.22.108 (talk) 18:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the number at the end is what the template requires.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

That permanent link is correct. &diff=prev can be added, e.g. [15], which adds a hint that it is the first revision. Flatscan (talk) 04:32, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixing non-broken redirects

Hi, I'm looking some advice on the precise application of

WP:NOTBROKEN 'violations' be reverted? Or isn't it that sort of guideline? ╟─TreasuryTag►estoppel

─╢ 14:46, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I think you may have missed the point of NOTBROKEN. It's trying to talk you out of doing what you did. Redirects are particularly useful in the case of variant spellings. Assuming that Henry Avery was the spelling given by the sources for the article you were editing, it should be linked as

Henry Avery rather than Henry Avery. That kind of change is never positive, and sometimes (as in this case) slightly negative. I would have reverted too. Ntsimp (talk

) 15:11, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I only did it the second time. The first time it was someone

BITEy and pointless. I won't say disruptive, but it certainly had no conceivable benefit to Wikipedia. ╟─TreasuryTag►Regional Counting Officer

─╢ 15:18, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Since the first reversion also did no harm and linked to the guideline, why would you undo it in the first (second) place with no conceivable benefit to Wikipedia, and with an edit summary that you were "fixing" it when it's not broken? That seems more pointlessly

warry. -- JHunterJ (talk

) 15:28, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Then report me to

WP:NOTBROKEN does literally no harm, does policy say that it should be reverted? ╟─TreasuryTag►ballotbox

─╢ 15:31, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Curious. Why are you here instead of at

WP:AN3 then, if you think Xeworlebi is warry? You asked here, I responded here. That I didn't agree with you is not a good reason to broaden your targets. Ntsimp and I did give you a policy-based answer: you shouldn't have reverted the Xeworlebi's edit. -- JHunterJ (talk

) 15:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

In some cases, such as subjects merged to a list, I have seen many times where instead of [[Subject]], the redirect was bypassed and sent directly to [[List of Subject#Subject|Subject]]. Then, when the subject gets split back off the list, all redirect "fixes" have to be changed back to "[[Subject]]". This causes more work then necessary. Also, there are problems where a list changes format, or a section title gets renamed. Then instead of just fixing "[[Subject]]"'s redirect, which fixes all links to it, you have to change ALL INSTANCES of "[[List of Subject#Subject|Subject]]" to "[[List of Subject#Other Subject|Subject]]"... Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 15:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You say you know this should not be done, you even bolded that part in your comment on my talk page, so what possible reason did your revert have? Just to spite me?

WP:NOTBROKEN says links should not be piped just to avoid redirects, and lists several reasons why. The only way to do that is by reverting when someone does. I see this guideline for its end-result, links not being piped to avoid redirects, not that users should avoid doing it but that it shouldn't be. _Xeworlebi ^(talk

) 15:41, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The point is, the initial 'fix' did no harm whatsoever so reverting it was pointless. So why was it reverted? ╟─TreasuryTag►belonger─╢ 15:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

So that more editors can learn

WP:R#NOTBROKEN. -- JHunterJ (talk

) 15:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

IMO the edit did do (slight) harm. As I said, the link should be to the spelling the sources give, even if that's not the title of our article. Ntsimp (talk) 16:15, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that [[Franklin Roosevelt]] is preferable to [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]]. It keeps the article text shorter and easier to scan and edit. I might go so far to simplify a piped link (i.e. to revert a change such as the one you made) if there are several links in a paragraph that were long and confusing when piped. Having said that, I think I disagree with

Henry Avery might well be replaced with a disambig page, whereupon the redirect would break. — PhilHibbs | talk

15:54, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Future ambiguity will break things every time, whether

WP:R#NOTBROKEN is observed or not. Henry Every might one day be a disambiguation page, in which case the links would break but links to the redirect would only need to have the redirect updated, not all of the links to the redirect. We can't avoid all fixes to future Wikipedia. -- JHunterJ (talk

) 15:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Nonetheless, there is a reason to make the change in this instance, which there is not for Franklin Roosevelt. I would say that in this case it is a justifiable change. Ah, I see now that this is not just a for-example, it is in fact the very case that sparked this discussion. Tricky! I thought I was arguing against the OP, now I appear to be on his side. That was unexpected. — PhilHibbs | talk 16:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I should clarify that whilst I disagree in this instance, I accept the consensus in

WP:R#NOTBROKEN. Sorry, User:TreasuryTag, I recommend that you just accept it as well. — PhilHibbs | talk

16:34, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I accept the consensus in

WP:R#NOTBROKEN – so do I, but my point is, that guideline merely says that these fixes shouldn't really ideally be done in the first place, not that they should be reverted on sight even if harmless. ╟─TreasuryTag►Acting Returning Officer

─╢ 16:46, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

(

WP:NOTBROKEN says it shouldn't be done. _Xeworlebi ^(talk

) 16:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

This isn't relevant to the particular dispute in hand, but I occasionally see "helpful" people bypassing redirects from shortcuts in advice pages, which I think is generally a bad idea.

Specifically, shortcuts to sub-sections of advice pages should be left alone, because section headings change fairly often, but the shortcuts are always and promptly updated to point to the new section heading. I don't object to someone turning WP:V into "Wikipedia:Verifiability", but something like

WP:MINREF should not be expanded to "Wikipedia:Inline citation#When you must use inline citations". WhatamIdoing (talk

) 16:45, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. This is what I stated above. Directly linking to articles may be ok, but directly linking to sections is not ok, because if a section changes, then it breaks. Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 17:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Blake is correct that redirects are greatly helpful for linking to sections since you only have to update the redirect if the section if moved or spun out to another article. Additionally, redirect pages contain information about the redirect, so other editors can (now) see that

Henry Avery is a misspelling. —Ost (talk

) 20:52, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, in this particular case it's not a question of misspelling as much as an example of spelling not being standardized in the 17th century. But that's splitting hairs.

As for TreasuryTag's original question: I think that there are several related points which could be unpacked here.

1. I think everyone is in agreement on the main point of
   WP:NOTBROKEN
   , which is that if an article has a link to a redirect, there's no need to "fix" it by changing the link to a piped link.
2. The next question is what the proper response is when an editor who is ignorant of
   WP:NOTBROKEN
   does give some examples of why a redirect might be better than a piped link in some circumstances, I think the added utility is vanishingly small. Basically, it's not worth an editor's time to make the change in either direction.
3. Taking this to the next level, I think we all can agree that edit warring over whether a link should be a redirect or a piped link is particularly pointless and counter-productive.

If we all agree on these three points (and please correct me if we don't), the next question is whether the wording at

WP:REDIRECT needs to be changed or clarified in order to avoid mini-conflicts like this in the future. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs

) 16:45, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with these three points, and think that something to that effect should be added into

WP:NOTBROKEN because I for one do not think it is clear as it stands. ╟─TreasuryTag►Africa, Asia and the UN

─╢ 16:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

One more point (which I was going to add as an afterthought, but had an edit conflict with TreasuryTag):

• We can ask whether a piped link or link to redirect is preferred in the first place. Personally, I think the question is value-neutral, like whether it's better to format dates as "13 May 2011" or "May 13, 2011" — either is fine, as long as the article is consistent, and you shouldn't "fix" one to the other. In short, if you see a piped link or a redirect, as long as what's displayed to the reader is correct and the link goes where it's supposed to, then leave it alone.

Please consider that as point 4 in my list above. Thanks! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:55, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

An article needn't be consistent. Some redirects are better linked than their targets ("(disambiguation)" redirects, redirects with possibilities, redirects that target sections, etc.). Some targets as better linked than some of their redirects (R from misspelling, for instance, when the misspelling is not in a quotation). Neither should be changed to the other out of a desire for consistency. Adding: and so I disagree that the guidelines should make any prohibition against reverting edits counter to

WP:BRD for that; (1) "fix" not-broken redirect (2) another editor reverts (3) discuss if there is continued claim for benefit of "fixing" it. -- JHunterJ (talk

) 17:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Good point — I didn't mean to suggest that an article needed to be consistent in its use of piped links vs. redirects, just trying to be accurate in my representation of the date format question. The point I was trying to make was that just as you shouldn't change one date format to the other, you shouldn't change a piped link to a redirect or vice-versa; either way, it's pointless and a waste of time. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:24, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

And I still differ slightly. "Fixing" a redirect with a piped link to the target article without any change to how the text is displayed is pointless and a waste of time. Replacing a piped link with the redirect is sometimes useful, even if it doesn't change the displayed text (e.g., for "(disambiguation)" redirects, redirects with possibilities, redirects that target sections, etc.) and so is not pointless or a waste of time. And pointing other editors to

WP:NOTBROKEN in the edit summary is useful in hleping editors learn about the guideline (or should be, as long as they don't then turn around and immediately revert the reversion on sight). -- JHunterJ (talk

) 17:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

My opinion is simple: we have the "not broken" thing, but we can also infer a "not(not(not broken))". If the redirect works, there's no need to fix it, but... if someone actually fix it, and the result works equally well, it would even less advisable to revert or even edit war about it. By the way, remember to check first: links to redirects don't need to be fixed, but links to disambiguations do. [[Franklin Roosevelt]] may be an acceptable link when mentioning the US president, but [[Roosevelt]] is not. And a redirect may had been turned into a disambiguation (for example, if there was an article only about FDR, and someone else creates the others listed at "Roosevelt"), and then the links that used to be acceptable are no longer OK and have to be fixed Cambalachero (talk) 17:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

And remember why is there such a "not broken" rule in the first place. The idea is that an edit that "fixes" redirects, without further edits, is an edit that doesn't really change anything and consumes resources pointlessly. But the same can be said about a reversion of such an edit. An edit that doesn't change anything, and its reversion, is not zero edits, it's two edits. Changing

Franklin Roosevelt is equally pointless Cambalachero (talk

) 18:03, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Unless the "fix" had an actual reduction of utility (e.g., for "(disambiguation)" redirects, redirects with possibilities, redirects that target sections, etc.). Changing [[Demographics of Baker Island]] to [[Baker Island|Demographics of Baker Island]] should be undone, so that when or if

Demographics of Baker Island becomes an article instead of the redirect, it will be properly linked. And every edit that replaces [[X (disambiguation)]] with [[X|X (disambiguation)]] should be undone, because the editors repairing links to disambiguation pages can immediately tell that the former is an intentional link to a disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk

) 18:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I completely disagree that that's the reason (or at least the best reason). In fact, redirects are better than pipes in almost all circumstances. Replacing a pipe by a redirect is an improvement. The reasons are various but basically boil down to the

principle of least surprise. --Trovatore (talk

) 20:22, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates— anchors

I have been working on User:Gadget850/Citation templates— anchors. Should this be moved into Wikipedia space somewhere so it can be used and updated? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

{{Cite IETF}} also supports anchors. It supports both CITEREF for harv type shortened footnotes as well as |ref=ietf for a system specifically for these documents. There are many live examples on the template's documentation page. --Tothwolf (talk) 00:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I have only included the general templates. {{Cite IETF}} is one of hundreds of specific-source templates, many of which have no commonality in style or use. {{Cite IETF}} is also documented as "for testing purposes only". ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:26, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I marked it as "for testing purposes only" back when I wrote it. I still need to fix a couple of minor things before I'd really consider it ready for wide-scale use, although there is nothing wrong with using it as-is for now either. --Tothwolf (talk) 01:59, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I mistakenly posted this to Policy— moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Citation templates— anchors. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Should passing

WP:RFA

be a prerequisite for being granted CU or OS rights ?

Addendum (March 2013) : As per this declaration, the WMF requires a RFA or RFA-identical process for being granted rights with access to deleted revisions, including explicitly OS and implicitly CU (which has viewdeleted rights since

not applicable

as is.