Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:01, 16 December 2010

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Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

Village pumps

policy

tech

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FPC "voting period"

Surely it is not right that the standard FPC template refers to a "voting period" ? ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 08:51, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

• Why not? Call it a poll or a shill but it's still a vote. Keep it simple. East of Borschov 10:41, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

  It's not a vote. Try reading WP:VOTE with your eyes open this time. ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 09:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

  Protip: Don't insult people. --Golbez (talk) 22:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

  Protip: if someone links to a a guideline explicitly stating, "Misplaced Pages decisions are not made by popular vote," then it is foolish and borderline disruptive to insist to the contrary. ╟─TreasuryTag►sundries─╢ 23:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Pictures of victims

• Pictures of mutilated bodies are included in articles, which may be read by children. Is there a mechanism to prevent childred from being shocked?
• What is your opinion about pictures included in the Holocaust article and the one in Rape during the occupation of Germany? For me there is a kind of a game running, which crime was the most terrible and the Rape... wins. Is this Misplaced Pages a playground to use victims this way? Xx236 (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

You may want to review Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)/Archive 79#Photos of Executed Persons for a very similar discussion, and Help:Options to not see an image. In short, Misplaced Pages is not censored; when determining whether an image should be included in an article, we consider whether it is encyclopedically appropriate to include in a given article rather than any arbitrary standard of "offensiveness" to any particular group. If you want to raise the question of any particular article, the appropriate place is on that article's talk page, possibly with invitations to the discussion on the relevant WikiProjects' talk pages. Anomie⚔ 16:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Concur; in fact, sometimes (as in a Vietnam example, Phan Thị Kim Phúc), graphic images are the reason the article exists at all. A lot of these sorts of pictures are/were taken precisely to show what sorts of atrocities were occurring, and it's ironic that some people want to remove them precisely because they depict said atrocities. Besides, the text itself should be a pretty good indicator of how graphic an image will be; when reading articles on concentration camps, it's hard to believe people wouldn't expect images of malnourished people watching corpses burn, because that's exactly what's being described in the text. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

As far no comments about "we have more terrible images" championship. Nemmersdorf massacre "documentation" was partially fabricated. Xx236 (talk) 11:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Phan Thị Kim Phúc and many of the type and Wikileaks documents prove - US/European crimes are documented (sometimes produced) and disseminated, the totalitarian ones aren't. If you are against censorship, go to N-Korea and bring some photos.Xx236 (talk) 11:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you know it's not that simple; we have photographic evidence, for instance, of the sorts of torture the Burmese government engages in. And despite the efforts of the Chinese, we have plenty of footage of Tiananmen Square in 1989. I could go on, and if you'd like I will, but it's not that black and white. It's true we have more images of what goes on in the US and Europe, but that's just a result of this being an English-language project; it's not like we don't have any pictures of other totalitarian regimes. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)Lest you think I'm all talk, I've seen a fatal car crash unfold in front of me, and I've seen a Latino drowning victim completely cyanotic. Life and death can be very gory, and no amount of hiding these sorts of images will change that; if anything, they serve as a graphic reminder of what people are capable of, which can be a very powerful message.

We await your photos of the gulags in North Korea. What, you don't have any? And can't obtain any? And don't know where any are on the Internet? Then don't criticize us for lacking them. --Golbez (talk) 16:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I criticise "cheap" freedom. There is a basic difference between fighting against totalitarian censorship and instrumental usage of pictures of victims. BTW the picture in Rape during the occupation of Germany is a Nazi propaganda product, see Nemmersdorf massacre. Xx236 (talk) 14:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Which makes it a perfect tool for showing just how far the Nazis were willing to go to push their propaganda. Would you also like the pictures of Pot Pol's regime taken down, or are those somehow not as gratuitous? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Aviation/Accident article notability has been marked as a guideline

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Aviation/Accident article notability (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Did this gain the kind of outside scrutiny needed for a guideline? Fences&Windows 02:34, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

From the fairly extensive discussions on the talk page, I would think they worked enough scrutiny in there for it. I mean, it's not like the guideline status happened automatically. Silverseren 02:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

No, not exactly automatically: The decision was apparently taken in a discussion involving two editors, and waiting two weeks to see whether anyone noticed. See today's diff. AFAICT, there were not WP:PROPOSAL-like announcements (e.g., a friendly notice to the main WT:N page).

This guideline contains exactly one sentence about WP:Notability. The entire rest of the page is concerned with WP:DUE weight issues. I don't mind it being a "guideline", but I am not really convinced that it should be categorized as a "notability guideline". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I seems like instruction creep to me. Also it's clearly a content guideline and not a notability guideline. Taemyr (talk) 17:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• I must be seeing something different than you. I'm seeing four sections on the page. The top three are all explaining different types of aviation articles and the criteria that they should meet in order to be likely to be considered notable. How is this not a notability guideline? It's written just like other notability guidelines. Take WP:ENT for example. Silverseren 20:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Here's what I see, using the very first words in the ==Airport articles== section as an example: "Accidents and incidents. Accidents or incidents should only be included in airport articles if:"
    This is not a notability guideline; it does not tell you whether the subject should have its own article. It's a due weight guideline: It tells you what kinds of things are important to include in pre-existing articles. "What to include in this type of article" is content. "This should get a completely separate, stand-alone article" is notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

More broadly speaking, there are 22 pages in the category Category:WikiProject Aviation guidelines, and I've been wondering whether or not these pages are claiming to be "guidelines" in the official sense of the word? It appears that most of them were written by a single editor (Trevor MacInnis), and they are often cited as representing consensus (I have recently questioned this point here). Is it okay for them to be using the word "guideline" in this case? Thanks, Mlm42 (talk) 21:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been wondering if we need to create a specific category for "Wikiproject Guidelines" or if being under a Wikiproject label is specific enough. That is, in the general !democratic ways around WP, policy > guidelines > wikiproject guidelines when it comes to resolving issues, and I would think most editors would recognize that. But we could simply create a new class to specifically call out Wikiproject guidelines, so that, for example, this very announcement wouldn't have happened because the scope of the Wikiproject should not affect VPP. --MASEM (t) 21:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason it was considered to be a project guideline was that nearly all the content was copied over from already existing project guidelines. And to answer WhatamIdoing if your read the guideline it clearly discusses the notability of stand alone article in the section Stand-alone articles. The three airport/aircraft/airline sections were to set the scene, basically all the guideline says if it meets the article criteria it may be notable if it also meets some of the general notability guidelines not exactly revolutionary. I know it is not an excuse but I was unaware that this as a forum discussed guidelines at project level it would seem that consensus at project level was all that was required, perhaps Masems suggestion has some merit. MilborneOne (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup, just like I said: It contains one sentence about notability. The entire rest of the page is good advice (IMO) but it is not advice about notability; it is advice about completeness and giving due weight (specifically, avoiding overemphasis of routine and trivial events). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Minimum no of articles in a category

Is there a guideline or even rule of thumb that states a category should have a minimum no. of articles in order to avoid being deleted for being too small? My searches so far haven't found anything. --Bermicourt (talk) 21:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No but it kinda depends on the category. Do you have an example of the category you are concerned with. --Kumioko (talk) 22:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is any specific threshold, but if there are only two items there is little to be gained with yet another category. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

In many instances, a category with even one entry is tolerated if it's part of a comprehensive system, such as -by country. postdlf (talk) 23:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I would say that three or more would be best. There's no specific policy on it though. If there are too few articles in a category, you should probably take it to CfD and, if the consensus is to delete, upmerge the articles into the next higher category. Silverseren 23:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually 5-10 articles would be a better rule of thumb. But it all depends which is why there is no specific guidance. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, there are some categories that would be fine with only having three or four, if they are, say, the major works of some author or something like that. There are a few situations where that amount would be okay. But I agree, most categories have around 8 or more. Silverseren 00:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think a minimum number is a good idea at all. Lately I've looking at some business categories and thinking about starting a "defunct" subcategory for these cats. Why should I have to have an initial number? Categories which start small often have plenty of room to grow. II | (t - c) 00:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks folks, that's useful. I guess also if there are fewer than say five to eight articles in a category, a key question is whether the category is likely to grow in future. I also understand that numbers are not the only criterion in deciding whether a category should exist or not. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of 500+ images for United States Department of Energy National Laboratories

There are currently 500+ images that I've listed at User:Smallman12q/DOE media which may be non-free, but tagged with a free license. Is it possible that the WMF could send a mass OTRS ticket to the the national laboratories to get permission for the images?Smallman12q (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I glanced at a few and although I don't claim to be an image guru I would say they are all ok because they all appear to be from a government agency on a government site. If you are concerned they are unfree however you could send them an OTRS ticket but I don't think you need too. I will say that there were a couple that I'm not sure meet the notibility requirmements but thats just my opinion. --Kumioko (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

After some quick research I found on both the DOE and State department sites statements to the effect of: "Photographs on this site are in the public domain unless a copyright is indicated. Only public domain photos can be reproduced without permission. Citation of this source is appreciated. Permission to reproduce copyrighted photos must be sought from the original source." This one came from the state department and the one for DOE has slightly different wording but the result is the same. --Kumioko (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

These images are the works of US Nation Laboratories (which are private, corporate entities that can hold copyright). See also Template_talk:PD-USGov-DOE#NOTE_ON_THIS_TEMPLATE.Smallman12q (talk) 23:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Some might be but the 20 or 30 I looked at were either from the State dept or from DOE so their good if they come from one of those 2 sources. --Kumioko (talk) 05:51, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I picked one at random (File:Formalhaut b.jpg) and looked into it. I believe that the copyright is okay, per this. In fact, I think you could safely presume that anything with hubblesite.org as a source is going to be okay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Several of the first few images have been nominated for deletion at Misplaced Pages:Files_for_deletion/2010_December_10#File:Artsy_Parabolic_Trough3.jpg.Smallman12q (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

General Discussion

Offer a General Discussion tab for all topics! Where else would be a better place to have meta-discussions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.171.44.251 (talk) 14:03, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No. We are not here to provide general discussions of a subject, but to build an encyclopedia. — The Hand That Feeds You: 15:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Recommendation to change slightly the policy regarding the edits made by known copyright violators

Background of problem - A recent bot run by User:VWBot to revert hundreds of edits made to articles has, I believe, overstepped the bounds of how we should treat articles that have been edited by copyright violators. In this case, several hundred articles were reverted to a state prior to being edited by Accotink2, a known Sockpuppeteer and who was known to violate copyright on several occassions. The problem with this case, and I suspect others as well, is that this editor also made a lot of good improvements to articles such as adding references or citations. The bot however, based on current policy, assumed that every edit the user ever made was a copyright violation and reverted a lot of articles that didn't need to be reverted. This had/caused several problems:

1. Other editors to have to go through the bots contributions and revert the majority of the 800+ edits that it made
2. It damages the credibility of the CCI and its members
3. It damaged several articles that had passed through FA, A, GA or a peer review process since the offender edited the article.
4. The bot has a known bug that has not yet been fixed
5. When confronted about the issue the bot operator (and other members of the CCI project) dodged comments to fix the bot logic with counter comments like, "if more editors were helping with CCI it woudlnt be necessary", "why don't you help out too then" or "per current policy it can be assumed that all edits made by this editor were a copyright violation."

Its this last point that I want to draw attention too because I think this is the root of the problems we are facing with this bot run and with the overtasked nature of the project in general. I don't think that its necessary to directly assume that all edits are copyvios and I think we can make some logic to filter out some of them out getting to the ones that truly are the problem.

Recommendation - I think if we tweak the wording slightly it will reduce some of the workload of the project, it will reduce the unneeded reversions and will still meet the end result of making sure the Copy violation information has been eliminated. I think there are occasions were we can reasonably assume (although admittedly not 100%) that the violators actions were not harmful or that they have been overcome by events. Here are some things I think we should incorporate into the wording:

1. it can usually be assumed that all edits made by this editor were a copyright violation however if it is obvious that the change was minor or not a copyright violation then it need not be reverted. For example, if the edit added an inline citation, a reference, a link to external links, categories or portal links then there is no need to revert it.
2. Also if the article has gone through a GA, A, FA, FL or peer review process since that editor made the contribution, then the article should be manually reviewed and not edited automatically by a bot or automatically reverted. In fact I would suggest that if it has gone through any of these reviews the article is likely ok but I know there are specific cases where this is not true.
3. Its also likely that if the editor changed a very small number of characters (I'll say 20 for know but it could be a little higher or lower) then there is probably little chance of it being a copyright violation.

All three of the above suggestions could be "filtered and monitored" by a bot but I don't think that the bot should necessarily make changes to the article. I don't know exactly how this should be worded or incorporated but I think this would both cut down on the amount of articles that need to be reviewed and clarify the unnecessarily absolute and heavy handed wording of the currently policy. --Kumioko (talk) 15:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time at the moment to read your whole comment at this time, so I'll just ask that you please not confuse my bot trial with policy and make it clear which you are attempting to discuss here. Re my bot: it had a bug and was stopped as soon as that was noticed, it has now been fixed but the trial has been left uncompleted pending my review of the first ~half of the run. It would also be nice if you would correct some of your apparent misconceptions which have been repeatedly addressed such as "if the editor changed a very small number of characters (I'll say 20 for know but it could be a little higher or lower)"; such edits were not acted upon and it was never contemplated that they would be. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I also don't really have time to invest here but I feel I need too. I brought up the bot only to clarify the background of the situation and that the current policy is too absolute. The bot did revert a couple articles that I saw that had very few characters changed although Im not sure how many. My point was that the current policy dictates that any change by an editor found guilty of Copyvio is subject to immediate reversion without hesitation or deliberation and this to me is part of the problem that needs to be changed. --Kumioko (talk) 15:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Which policy states that? I have the strong suspicion you don't even know which policy you are proposing to change. Yoenit (talk) 16:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Copyright violations states "If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately." VernoWhitney (talk) 17:25, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

May is not the same as must or should. Dmcq (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That's part of my point. That was exactly how it was treated. --Kumioko (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so we've established that you take issue with the way my bot was run. Since your list of recommendations reads (to me at least) like a list of things to change about my bot before it could even be considered for another run rather than general recommendations, let me see if we can focus the conversation: What specific change do you propose to make to the policy? VernoWhitney (talk) 18:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

We have over 40 open CCIs with tens of thousands (or more) articles pending review; if this was treated as "must", it would be a simple matter to clean them, and WP:CCI would be empty. Instead, those of us who work in this area painstakingly review edits for problems. This particular case is exceptional. The policy is specific that this applies only to those with "a history of extensive copyright violation" (emphasis added), and although I have worked copyright almost exclusively for years on Misplaced Pages, I have seen it applied only a handful of times--generally in cases such as this one, where we are dealing with a prolific sockpuppeting serial copyright infringer. This is a sound policy, and necessary to protect the project. --Moonriddengirl 20:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree that Copyviolations are extremely important and my problem isn't with the bot alone or the disasterous way it was implemented although that is what brought the issue into my line of sight. It is in the absolute manner in which the policy is written. Additionally this policy change would also benefit you and your team based on your comments MRG. You stated that there were tens of thousands of articles pending review. For example, A bot could be run against that group to identify and possibly flag the articles based on the level (maybe something like High, mid, low or Likely, possible, unlikely) of likelihood that they contain Copyvio. Certainly in your experience you have seen some qualifyers that indicate that an article likely has a copyvio and some that would say its unlikley, then you could work the more likely ones first. I would, in my limited experience on the subject say that some of the qualifyers I identifed above, as well as the ones you know, along with the VWbot, could perform this. I believe this would significantly reduce the amount of time and effort required by you and your team by focusing on the ones that are more likely to be a problem. Another possibility would be to group the problem articles by WikiProject and then notify those projects, via a bot, on the ones that affect them, via the projects talk pages. Then hopefully they could take at least some of them for action. This could also be done if the article talk page contained the Maintained template or determining who the major contributors are to the article and notifying them. These all are surely better than unleashing a bot and sending a dozen or more angry editors running to the talk pages of you, your project, the bot and the bot operators. In the end though the policy seems to be way way too absolute and needs to be refined IMO. --Kumioko (talk) 20:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think the wording of the policy is fine. There are circumstances where we must and do assume that all major contributions are a copyright violation--most recently with User:Darius Dhlomo, whose CCI alone encompassed over 13,000 articles. (I'm happy to say, there's been good community support with that one, although there was dismay when a different bot blanked his articles.) We do routinely notify WikiProjects of CCIs; so far, this hasn't done much to elicit additional assistance, although two stand-out exceptions that occur are the gastropod project and the military history wikiproject. We have had some individuals from other projects pitch in, but no kind of concerted activities. We presume that people who are maintaining articles will be watching them, and the bot's talk page message was intended to invite those contributors to review the edits and help determine whether a valid problem exists. In other words, it trusts to the good faith of the community. As to the bot refinements, I have to leave that question up to people who understand bots (plus, I'm afraid, I'm a bit medicated at the moment--pretty much editing while intoxicated). FWIW, it is never my intention to "dodge comments." I understand the phenomenon of "bystander dismay". Even when there are verifiable copyright issues, I've encountered this. My goal is to educate the community about what we're doing and why and hopefully to get more people involved in fixing these problems so that we don't have lingering cases. I'm sorry to say that our oldest CCI has been languishing for nearly a year and a half. I think if I want to continue functioning, I'd better get off the computer now. :) --Moonriddengirl 20:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thank you for your comments about the CCI process. Can I ask what your suggestion is for refining the policy? VernoWhitney (talk) 21:00, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually I might have a proposed change for the policy. Currently it says major contributions. I would suggest changing this to creative contributions. Major appears to refer to the size of a contribution, but as you are well aware copyvio's have been found in edits of slightly more than 100 bytes. Also edits such as creating tables, http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)infoboxes and reference addition can be massive in size, but are not creative work and can't be copyvios. Yoenit (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for providing a constructive suggestion (I was beginning to think I had misread the page title). I think that "creative contributions" is probably an improvement on the current phrasing, since it is more precise and that's what we're really concerned about. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. Do you think people would understand that "creative contributions" includes images? I wouldn't want there to be any confusion that it meant only what they had created. By the way, now that my medication is beginning to clear, I do have to question some of the presentation here. If it damages the credibility of CCI and those who address it that the community is asked to review content, then there's a disconnect between how the community approaches copyright problems and how it should approach copyright problems. In reverting, the bot leaves a note inviting review, with the expectation that the community at large understands and agrees that copyright review (with a known serial copyright infringer) is worthwhile. I also would really encourage you to reconsider your view of earlier conversations, or at least your characterization of them. I think it is grossly unfair to describe Verno's response as dodging comments. He seems to have been fully open to discussion of the bot's activities, and we don't want to fall into the trap of blaming the messenger. --Moonriddengirl 23:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

We could make it something like creative contributions (including images) and just hope we don't get a serial copyviolater uploading sound files. Related to MRGs comment, I have just read User talk:VernoWhitney#Article tagging and applaud your ability to stay polite were any sane human would have resorted to screaming. Yoenit (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Glad your starting to feel better and and the Medicinal fog is beginning to clear. To be honest the actions done by the bot aren't what I was trying to get into here. I was trying to get some input on changing the policy so the next time we look before we leap instead of using the currently written terminology as a bludgeon. When Verno was initially confronted by myself and several other editors about the actions of the bot we got a mixed response of I welcome the input and "if you don't like it why don't you help out so we won't have to do this bot" (not an exact quote, just paraphrasing in quotes). This was followed by quotes from "the policy" that what the bot was doing was perfectly ok because it is allowed to assume that if an editor is found guilty of copyright violation then it can be assumed that all their edits are copyvio. Clearly in this case not everything was a copyvio and that is what started all this. If the policy is going to be held in that high of regard then we need to clarify when and how the hammer of Copyvio justice can fall. Since it was brought up though I believe, the actions (in this occassion and when it deleted 500 or so articles) did damage the credibility of the CCI project somewhat and I have gotten the impression that there is an err of Copyvio trumps everything else so we are above reproach when it comes to the determination to revert or delete and article. If it was just a message as you say it would have been fine but the result was much more than a message and caused (and continues to) a lot of work for a dozen or so editors. Since its clear that I am alone in the desire to clarify the instructions though I guess I'll just let it go. BTW just because you do not like the suggestions I am giving doesn't mean they are not constructive. --Kumioko (talk) 00:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The work is always there and was not caused by the bot but by the copyright violator. If the bot had not run those edits would have been added to the CCI backlog and would have been dealt with in probably 2-3 years time, but the workload remains the same. Yoenit (talk) 00:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Its true that the violator is the one who created the original problem but this problem is because we didn't bother to take the time to properly format the bot. Thereby pushing the work on others rather than doing it right the first time. You can justify the end result anyway you want but the fact remains if the bot hadn't reverted these articles incorrectly we wouldn't even be having this conversation. If the bot can't be programmed to revert the article within reason then it shouldn't be used. Its actions like this that make editors dislike the use of bots and if it continues its actions like this that will get bot use banned completely. Again though we are distracting from the original discussion. --Kumioko (talk) 00:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

So far as I know, the bot hasn't deleted any articles, although I deleted several hundred articles contributed by this blocked serial infringer...manually, as I am not a bot operator. Aside from the recent few that fit within Special:Nuke, I checked every one of them first to make sure that they met the criteria of WP:CSD#G5. That said, there is no policy that says that "if an editor is found guilty of copyright violation then it can be assumed that all their edits are copyvio." Policy is quite clear, as quoted above, that this is a measure to be applied only when contributors "have a history of extensive copyright violation" (emphasis added). I realize it may be inconvenient, having to verify that content is free of copyright concerns, but when there is an extensive and documentable history of copyright violation on the part of a specific contributor, I would hope that others could overlook that, since presumably we share an interest in meeting the goal of disseminating free content. The bot's performance can be improved, and its maiden run in this task is a good opportunity to constructively note thatroom for improvement, but the essential function of the bot has already met consensus. There is now on table a tangible proposal to clarify policy. Does this meet your approval? --Moonriddengirl 04:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In response to the latest suggestion: how about tweaking it to "creative contributions (including files)"? That should head off the possibility of overlooking sound file/video/etc. copyvios. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this change to "creative contributions" is going to work for me. We'd have to make up a new wikidefinition of the word "creative". If the contribution is actually creative, then that contribution is not actually a copyright infringement. Copyvio = non-creative duplication of someone else's work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. I think what we're trying to get across is that it may be presumed copyvio if they include any creative content, because it could very well be someone else's creativity they're including. Does that make sense? VernoWhitney (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Something very off-topic

Boring admin collapses rather silly discussion

Is Scientology boring? And should we make this policy? As yet another debate about the CoS kicks off at AN/I, can I propose that Misplaced Pages declares as a matter of policy that such topics are unequivocally boring. Personally, I find religion in general an interesting topic, as I do many social constructs, but frankly, the sort of debate that centres around Scientology seems so utterly vacuous, and doomed to sink into tit-for-tat Wikilawyering and half-baked sock-puppetry, that it isn't worth the attention. Can I therefore propose that a new template be created to warn the unwary that they are about to be suckered into reading tabloid theology and prepubescent conspiracy theories (from all participants - the CoS at least attempts to pretend to be serious), and that such debates are only of interest to the terminally obsessive? This might allow the uninvolved reader to read something of more use, like disputes over the translation of Manga characters' names into Swahili, or whether the North Pole moves around while you run in circles around it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC) Concur. We should totally make a template something like this: {{notice|The discussion below consists entirely of ] fodder, and should be avoided at all costs. Please do not enter this discussion if you have anything resembling a '''''life''''', and don't want your brain to melt from '''''sheer fucking boredom'''''.}} The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)It should be noted that I truly respect those who go into the trenches and are willing to sacrifice their time to keep such kookery out; I don't know how you do it, but I really do appreciate it. I have to say that Scientology is just about the most boring cult/denomination/religion/scifi I've ever come across. DuncanHill (talk) 17:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC) NO NO NO - Manga character names should never be translated into Swahili, they need transliteration instead. Unless they're produced in a Swahili-speaking nation, of course (where it is one of the top 3 official languages {as ratified in the Great Manga Debate #90210 subclause 42}). Or is it subclause 43? Shall we start an RfC, or just go straight for arb?  Chzz  ►  18:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC) That's premature. We need first to create and then populate Category:Manga created for consumption in Swahili-speaking nations and/or by Swahili-speaking creators regardless of where situated, after holding three RFCs regarding whether the word "consumption" is offensive to those with tuberculosis. postdlf (talk) 18:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC) Nonsense! I once called Scientology the greatest show on the Internet, based on books like "A Piece of Blue Sky". Snakes in mailboxes. A woman trying to give birth to the Antichrist in a creepy old mansion. Dissidents locked up in the "chain locker" of a ship so that if anchor would accidentally get raised they'd be ground up, in weird non-national gulags in international waters. People breaking into the FBI and IRS to get their cases dropped - and succeeding! If this seems boring to you, Misplaced Pages must not be covering the topic well. Wnt (talk) 21:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Page load time as argument in discussion

On Talk:Pain, Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs) defends the non-use of citation templates with the observation that apparently adding these can increase page load time by 50%. I know the use of citation templates is not mandatory, but I have never seen this as an argument not to use a particular feature. I was wondering if there was a policy about this somewhere, and what others thought about this line of reasoning. JFW | T@lk 08:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• WP:PERFORMANCE would seem relevant. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Hopefully with a second data center and more staff to improve software delays the slowdown caused by the cite template will be less of a concern. I would prefer to see the cite template used and will definitely keep using it myself.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
    • JFW and I are discussing this at Talk:Pain#Cite_ref. Anthony (talk) 16:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'd have thought the obvious way to deal with this type problem is to have a cache of wikipedia pages with all the templates that aren't dynamic in some way expanded in them. It should be easy enough to figure out automatically which templates are safe like that and just churn the cache redoing the pages every day or so to cope with templates changing. Probably save quite a bit of compute power compared to expanding every time. With this it would be irrelevant to performance if cite templates were used or not. Dmcq (talk) 18:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Or, alternately, we could just make citation templates that don't melt the servers. This issue comes up probably once every other month, but no one seems interested in one of the easiest solutions that still allows us to use templates for citation formatting. Template:cite journal for example, supports, AFAICT, 92 parameters, including 9 authors and 4 editors, though some are mutually exclusive. From just a quick glance at the documentation, I can see at least 17 that are probably almost never used in practice, not including things like last9 and editor4-last. Mr.Z-man 21:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't quite see the benefit of splitting the author names into so many parameters. I find author= sufficient to put all author names in. JFW | T@lk 21:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
      • You've clearly not used {{harv}} and {{sfn}} and the ref=harv mechanism. The first=/last= system is necessary for that. And of course {{harv}}, {{sfn}}, et al. are beneficial for articles where multiple pages of the same single source are used. Not least because they reduce the number of times that one has to employ the same citation template over and over! There's a huge helping of irony, here, more on which below. Uncle G (talk) 00:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• outside opinion - The cite templates are ugly and cumbersome so I wouldn't begrudge someone wanting to write out their own refs, just as I wouldn't begrudge someone wanting to come later and convert it to the ugly templates. I would just hope that anyone who converts does the extra formatting work so that the cites don't look so cumbersome and take up half the view screen. Agne/ 22:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Citation templates shouldn't be added without consensus where a different ref format is already in use:

• Misplaced Pages:Citing sources "... templates should not be added without consensus to an article that already uses a consistent referencing style." And "Because templates can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus. Where no agreement can be reached, defer to the style used by the first major contributor."

• Misplaced Pages:Citation templates: "Because templates can be contentious, editors should not add citation templates, or change an article with a consistent citation format to another, without gaining consensus."

The reason is that they add a lot of clutter in edit mode, which can make the text hard to edit, and they slow down load time. See this discussion for an explanation of the latter. When there are lots of them, articles can become hard to open. SlimVirgin 22:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I looked through the history of the article, and it appears that the article Pain has an established style that uses cite templates. In any case, the established style should be preserved and whoever tried to change it should be handed a trout for starting the same conversation again. The general rule, as SlimVirgin says, is that the established style should be kept. There is no consensus wiki-wide about whether template citations, or non-template citations, are superior. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:25, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

While I honor SV's automatic defense of the virtues of manual citations, this article has been using citation templates since early 2006. Perhaps we need to change the guidance to say "editors should not add or remove citation templates...".

For myself, I don't think it's important one way or the other. I furthermore don't see any problems at all with having an article that uses both templates and manually formatted citations. What matters to me is what the reader sees, not what the editor typed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This conversation is happening at two locations, here and Talk:Pain#Cite_ref. I am the editor arguing for handwritten citations on the article Pain and - for ease of following and to avoid duplication - I'm restricting my comments to that venue. Anthony (talk) 04:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless we are talking about post-expand include size limit, which causes transclusions to break after it's exceeded, WP:PERFORMANCE issues should not be used as an argument for or assistants using citation templates. Exceeding the post-expand include size limit happens rarely because most articles get spun-out before the limit is reached. And in cases where the post-expand include size is exceeded, the preferred method to deal with the problem is by optimizing the template instead of removing it from articles. —Farix (t | c) 20:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The irony of the discussion here, especially what Jfdwolff writes above about not using first=/last=, is that looking at Pain#References I see at least one source cited multiple times just to employ different page numbers and several other sources cited with ranges of pages encompassing the entire source work, where the exact page number(s) supporting the content are not given. The irony is that instead actually using first=/last=, in conjunction with either {{sfn}} or {{harvnb}} (neither of which employ meta-templates and lots of parameters, note), would for starters reduce the number of citations of one of the sources from six instances of {{cite book}} to just one, and allow the provision of the specific page numbers for several others. Uncle G (talk) 00:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I was going to try to keep my comments to one venue (the article talk page) but it seems this is where the discussion of that article is happening. With regard to WP:PERFORMANCE, that policy seems to say, don't limit what you do on Misplaced Pages out of concern you'll slow down or break the wiki: I'm not worried that citation templates will overload or break the wiki. This is not a WP:PERFORMANCE issue. I handwrote the citations at Pain because, whether I'm signed in as an editor, or signed out like a typical reader, on my laptop at home, in an internet cafe or at university, the page opens 50% faster with handwritten citations. This is an accessibility and usability issue, not a WP:PERFORMANCE issue.

Also, you can worry about performance if you can tell the difference yourself. If you find that a page takes ten seconds to load, and takes only one second to load if you remove a particular template, and you can reliably reproduce this and other editors confirm they can too, then obviously the template is slowing down that page. If you would like the page to load faster, then by all means remove or simplify the template. (Bold in original.)

I didn't handwrite those citations because I love to type, because I hate templates, because I like to upset people, because I give a twopence what code I use, to make a point or for any reason other than to improve the reader's experience. Handwritten citations improve the reader's experience.

Re your observations about page numbers, Uncle G, can you please explain to me, perhaps on the article talk page, how I could have cited those so that the reader's experience would have been improved? (I habitually cite the entire page range for journal articles, and specific page numbers for textbooks.) I'd appreciate your advice on that. Updated Anthony (talk) 09:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Definition of consensus

Can someone please point me to the definition of consensus, as it is used here at Misplaced Pages? Anthony (talk) 16:44, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:CONSENSUS. postdlf (talk) 18:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers! Anthony (talk) 02:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That policy is not really a definition, but guidance towards finding consensus. See Misplaced Pages:What is consensus? for an attempt at definitions, but which fails to get away from "not"s. Consensus decision-making should be read. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, SmokeyJoe. Anthony (talk) 01:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Criminal–Crime-noted-for

Notice: I've posted a discussion on the wp:MERGE page's discussion page asking about how to determine when to create separate articles about both a criminal and the crime for which s/he is noted and when to combine them.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 18:05, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Outline articles

I was under the impression that WP:ROOT was rejected. However, WP:OUTLINE looks to be exactly the same thing and there is a veritable forest of "Outline of" articles in this encyclopedia. Was there discussion about this that allows outline pages but not root pages? (this confusing discussion is the closest I could find.) If not, should some or all of these outline pages be deleted? A great deal of them look like synthetic amalgams better suited to something like DMOZ.

jps (talk) 04:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

See also: Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Contents/Outlines

This deletion nomination refers to wanting to be rid of all Outlines, yet it is only nominating the Portal. No valid debate can be had with such a confused nomination. Fences&Windows 02:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines has been marked as a guideline

Misplaced Pages:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

NOBOOMERANG

Based on what I've encountered in WP:ANI and other noticeboards, I'd like to suggest the following policy under the name WP:NOBOOMERANG:

1) Posting to a noticeboard to report another editor opens you up to inquiry regarding any of your actions that are directly related. There is no immunity for reporters.

For example, if you report someone for incivility, it is entirely relevant whether you were also uncivil or baited them. In the same way, if you report someone for WP:3RR violation, any edit-warring you are currently engaging in on that article is relevant.

The end result is that bringing up a problem that you are part of may result in you being sanctioned, perhaps even to the exclusion of the other parties, as your actions may have created mitigating circumstances for them.

2) The initial complaint defines and limits the scope of the report. A report is not an opportunity to bring up unrelated matters, although if such a matter is not stale, it may still be reported elsewhere. However, that additional report must be made separately and placed in the appropriate forum, where it will be resolved independently.

For example, if you report someone for incivility, it is not relevant whether you were yourself uncivil to someone else in a different article or at a different time. If you report someone for WP:3RR violation on one article, it is irrelevant whether you edit-warred on this article in the past or are edit-warring right now on some other article. Of course, the latter case would be a reasonable basis to file a separate report.

The goal is to prevent reporting editors from having unrelated matters piled on top of the report to distract from its goals and to penalize participants. Counter-reporting unrelated incidents is permitted but strongly discouraged, as such reports will be viewed more skeptically with regard to motive.

3) While any editor is free to comment on a report, extreme discretion should be used with regard to speaking against an editor when there is a conflict of interest or history of disputes. You must identify any of these factors and be especially careful with regard to keeping comments within the scope of the report. Third-party comments that violate this must not be deleted, but but must not be replied to, and may be hatted or otherwise minimized if they prove to be distracting.

For example, if an editor with whom you are engaged in an content dispute files a complaint about someone else's behavior and you wish to participate in the discussion, you must state that you are in conflict with them and avoid making undue generalizations. If, after you report an editor for edit-warring, someone who you've had a conflict with comes in and starts posting complaints about your prior behavior, it is be considered out of scope.

The goal is to prevent outside editors from ganging up and importing drama.

I would appreciate any comments, particularly constructive ones. Dylan Flaherty 19:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What is this supposed to add to our existing policies? Seems like wp:instruction creep. I don't understand the name either. Yoenit (talk) 20:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for raising these clear concerns. I will do my best to briefly explain.

The suggested policy's name and purpose is related to WP:BOOMERANG, which is an essay warning about the risk of unwanted consequences from reporting incidents. While I strongly agree with the general premise that reporting an incident does not grant you immunity for your role in it, I have repeatedly found that attempts to report on a very specific item can quickly turn into a free-for-all, as third parties pile on unrelated claims, old grudges and sweeping generalizations. As such, I believe that this policy, or something substantively similar to it, fills a need and would improve the editing process. The primary benefit is that it would impose enough structure for reports to be resolved without distraction.

I hope this answers your questions. Please feel free to ask follow-up questions or make other suggestions. Dylan Flaherty 20:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I can see a problem with number 2, and that's that it doesn't let you establish that some behavior is part of a pattern unless you're the one starting the discussion. For example, if user A reports user B for edit warring, its certainly relevant if user B was also edit warring last week, even if that instance is now "stale." But if user A doesn't mention a pattern of edit warring in the initial complaint, is user C allowed to bring it up later? Also, if bringing up behavior of the other party in the discussion they start is prohibited, and starting a separate discussion is "strongly discouraged," you're creating a major disincentive to try to work things out, as the first person to file a report essentially "wins" and the other person is kind of screwed.

Telling people not to reply to comments without consideration for the content of the comment is just ridiculous. Either the comment is unhelpful, in which case it should be ignored, or its relevant, in which case the person making the comment isn't that important. I agree with Yoenit, except for the first one, which is just a codification of common practice, this seems like instruction creep. Mr.Z-man 21:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting analysis. I agree that item 1 is just a restatement of the status quo, except for the addition of "directly related". However, I'm not sure that item 2 leads to the situation you've described by example. I think that this hinges very much on the notion of relevance.

To go with something much like your example, imagine that A and B edit war in the first week of the month. This is reported and the page is protected for a week. In the second week, the protection is removed and the two editors continue to work on the article. However, A has learned their lesson and has sworn off edit-warring but B has not. As a result, A reports B.

I would think it's quite relevant that B is continuing to edit war after having done so previously, so it's perfectly fine if C brings it up. But if D comes in and argues that A is equally guilty due to having edit-warred, this would be exactly the sort of intentional distraction that WP:NOBOOMERANG seeks to limit. And then if E comes in and says A is being uncivil right this moment on yet another article, even more so.

Under my understanding, E would be asked to file a complaint in the proper venue, presumably WP:WQA or WP:ANI and D would simply be ignored. Additions such as C's would be allowed, unless they were made less relevant by factors such as age. For example, if B had edit-warred on the article a few years ago, I'm not sure that this is significant.

Putting aside, for the moment, the question of whether WP:NOBOOMERANG correctly codifies the rules, what would you think of the scenario I just outlined? In specific, do you believe that allowing C, ignoring D and sidelining E is the right way to go? If not, I'm especially interested in what you believe the right way would be. Dylan Flaherty 21:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

When any editor comments on ANI, it's possible that that posting is itself an incident worthy of being posted about on ANI, and there's no point in bureaucratic dissection of where the posting should be discussed - it should be discussed right there. Even without the other bureaucratic issues in your proposal, the fact that it would interfere with this sort of discussion is a big flaw. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think you're bringing up a situation that's not accounted for in the trio above. Let me see if I understand:

In this scenario, A reports B for edit-warring and B responds by using a vulgarity. This response is itself something that needs to be dealt with, and ideally not by launching yet another report.

Is that what you mean? Dylan Flaherty 21:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean the regrettably common situation where Alice posts on ANI something like "Please go interfere with what Bob is doing, because he's a big poopyhead", and there's plainly nothing actionable about Bob's edits even if he really is a big poopyhead. The fact that Alice is attempting to use ANI to interfere with Bob is itself worthy of immediate consideration on ANI, and rightly so. Any bureaucratic verbiage about how to "properly" consider Alice's actions is harmful nonsense. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Let me try to accommodate your points:

Version 2:

1) Posting to a noticeboard to report another editor opens you up to inquiry regarding any of your actions that are significantly related. There is no immunity for reporters, nor any immunity for statements made by anyone in the context of the report.

For example, if you report someone for incivility, it is entirely relevant whether you were also uncivil or baited them. In the same way, if you report someone for WP:3RR violation, any edit-warring you are currently engaging in on that article is relevant. If someone launches a false or baseless report, they may be sanctioned for it.

The end result is that bringing up a problem that you are part of may result in you being sanctioned, perhaps even to the exclusion of the other parties, as your actions may have created mitigating circumstances for them.

2) The initial complaint defines and limits the scope of the report. A report is not an opportunity to bring up unrelated matters, although if such a matter is not stale, it may still be reported elsewhere. However, that additional report must be made separately and placed in the appropriate forum, where it will be resolved independently. Note that a matter caused by a comment made in the report itself is handled as part of the report.

For example, if you report someone for incivility, it is not relevant whether you were yourself uncivil to someone else in a different article or at a different time. If you report someone for WP:3RR violation on one article, it is irrelevant whether you edit-warred on this article in the past or are edit-warring right now on some other article. Of course, the latter case would be a reasonable basis to file a separate report. If one of the participants were to hurl vulgarities, this would be dealt with right then and there, without a need to file anything separately.

The goal is to prevent reporting editors from having unrelated matters piled on top of the report to distract from its goals and to penalize participants. Counter-reporting unrelated incidents is permitted but strongly discouraged, as such reports will be viewed more skeptically with regard to motive.

3) While any editor is free to comment on a report, extreme discretion should be used with regard to speaking against an editor when there is a conflict of interest or history of disputes. You must identify any of these factors and be especially careful with regard to keeping comments within the scope of the report. Third-party comments that violate this must not be deleted, but but must not be replied to, and may be hatted or otherwise minimized if they prove to be distracting.

For example, if an editor with whom you are engaged in an content dispute files a complaint about someone else's behavior and you wish to participate in the discussion, you must state that you are in conflict with them and avoid making undue generalizations. If, after you report an editor for edit-warring, someone who you've had a conflict with comes in and starts posting complaints about your prior behavior, it is be considered out of scope.

The goal is to prevent outside editors from ganging up and importing drama.

For your convenience, here's the diff. Please let me know if this resolves your concerns. Dylan Flaherty 21:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

If the above was addressed to me, the answer is that your point 2, "The initial complaint defines and limits the scope of the report", is always going to be a concern, because it will frequently be the wrong way to discuss real issues. As far as I can tell, your proposal is all about that point 2, and so that issue will always be there. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that any one of the three is the most important, because I don't see how they could work independently of each other. But, putting aside the items and speaking of the goal, my concern is with the case of A reporting B and then B or C raising issues that have nothing to do with B's behavior. Note that if what B or C mention is relevant, then there's nothing stopping them.

Do we want irrelevant accusations brought up? Dylan Flaherty 22:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Point one seems to be entirely frivolous and should generally be left to common sense. Point two I honestly don't see the reason for. As has been mentioned, an initial report may not give the whole picture about the behavior of the user being reported. By only allowing discussion to be about what was initially reported will allow certain editors to game the system. Point three is completely unenforceable, in part because of problems with Point 2. None of these are worthy of making a policy, much less a guideline out of. —Farix (t | c) 23:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any way to game the system under these rules. Let me give you an example.

Imagine that A wants to game the system, so they report on B, limiting the scope to some things B did, out of context. Nothing stops B or anyone else from bringing up significantly relevant things that A did, preventing any gaming. However, if B decides to game the system by bringing up irrelevant things, they are stopped.

Which part of this is wrong? Dylan Flaherty 00:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Apart from hopeless instruction-creep? What is wrong is that questions of what is and is not relevant are nuanced, not black and white. Trying to legislate against "irrelevant things" is Canute-like in its conception. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally, Canute was a good friend of mine. He taught he many lessons about legislating beyond our power. One of them is that you don't need to legislate common sense, you just need to legislate the opportunity to apply it.

In the case of relevance, we cannot and should not even try to legislate it in black and white. We can and should offer a few clear-cut examples, as above, but then we have to count on people to use that stuff between their ears.

The key is that, as soon as someone brings up a new issue, the first question will be "Is this relevant?" and if no relevance is found, then this can be dismissed as a distraction. To put it another way, if I had to cut down the full text of NOBOOMERANG to a slogan, it would be: "Don't get distracted." Dylan Flaherty 03:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

If the majority of the admin corps is incapable of doing that without being explicitly told to do it, then we have serious problems that no amount of telling people not to get distracted will solve. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to pointedly avoid that topic, but I'm thinking that maybe my entire approach is wrong. I went about this procedurally, coming up with a system that solves the problem. The reception has been uniformly negative, with a large does of what's-the-point. Perhaps I need to recast this in terms of goals. Dylan Flaherty 04:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

You'll find that the Misplaced Pages community is very reluctant to create new rules, when general consensus will do. We're more interested in results than formal procedure, only creating procedure when we find that people are reluctant to cooperate. — The Hand That Feeds You: 18:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm personally not a fan of formal procedures and would not be suggesting these if there weren't a serious problem in the system. I'm therefore not particularly concerned one way or the other whether NOBOOMERANG gets traction. My concern is in finding a solution to a very serious problem. Any ideas you might have in that direction would be valued. Dylan Flaherty 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The serious problem is that people do not always agree on stuff. The community is relatively well settled in its belief that it has in place the necessary policies; and fairly well established procedures. The bar to the addition of new policy or procedure in the areas of dispute minimisation is enormously high. Your boomerang solution, to me, seemed to rely on people agreeing to stuff (e.g. what was relevant and what was irrelevant) in the course of a disagreement. That is to say, your solution to the problems arising out of disagreement is that everyone should agree. I trust you can see for yourself the obvious flaw in your expectations. Oh. And the name sucked. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I make no attempt to defend the marketing. :-) The current dispute resolution process also depends on people agreeing. For example, agreeing that someone violated a rule. My core suggestion is that we make it standard to at least ask whether a new topic is relevant. Right now, this seemingly obvious question doesn't come up, and attempts to bring it up are taken as hostile. That's the deep problem here. Dylan Flaherty 19:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I see plenty of instances of people questioning the relevance of strands of arguments; I don't think we lack the asking of the question. We lack, in some cases, the ability to come to a consensus about the answer, Mandating that discussions must be on topic only works to the extent that you can get consensus as to what is & what is not on topic. In an adversarial dispute, no assistance is lent by the proposed policy. At best, the playing field is tilted a little, in that there's one more policy stone to be lobbed by one side or the other. The dispute resolution procedures do not depend on complete consensus; few of those blocked agreed to that conclusion. So. Where are we going with this. I complain about you, there's a rule preventing you bringing off topic stuff into the discussion ... except you don't think it is off topic. All sounds like more fuel for the fire. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

As you said, consensus does not mean complete agreement, but the difference is in the default. Right now, the burden is on the party pointing out that the new topic is irrelevant, and this is often an insurmountable burden. I'm saying that the burden must be on the other side. If someone brings up a new point and can't make a strong argument for why it matters, out it goes. Dylan Flaherty 23:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

My proposed wording for NOBOOMERANG. Do not act in a manner that will give other users opportunity to use an unrelated retaliatory argument against you if you have reason to bring a situation to WP:ANI or other noticeboards. Seriously... --Onorem♠Dil 00:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I oppose this on all grounds. I find a total and complete lack of need to define the scope of discussions in this manner. --Jayron32 00:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Even if we defined the scope and prohibited introduction of any tangential topics, it wouldn't stop the undesirable behavior: Aggrieved editors would then just open "completely unrelated" discussions about the out-of-scope problems. We've got enough of that going on now, and we don't need to formalize that as the only possible approach to having your whole story heard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup. This proposal wouldn't prevent editors from doing what it's meant to prevent; it would just move the discussions around a bit. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

• Instruction creep? More like Instruction Gallop. Collect (talk) 01:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If a relative noob can butt in here with a comment, doesn't this really just come down to 'keep discussions at AN/I on topic', and 'deal with the issue in hand, and don't rehash old conflicts'? And aren't these the same principles that should be applied anywhere? Not only does this proposed policy appear to me to add little new that might actually improve discussions, it looks fertile ground for further arguments itself. Disputes are best solved by clear and consistent application of core principles, not by formulating complex rules that can themselves generate tangential debates about what exactly is permissible. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You might be a noob, but that's not a noob question. The reality is that those two quotes are not currently rules, and in practice, they are more the exception than the rule. If NOBOOMERANG comes down to "Stick to the topic and deal with the issue at hand instead of unrelated matters", then that would be a major improvement over the status quo. I urge you to take a look for yourself, to confirm what I've said. Dylan Flaherty 05:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been watching AN/I etc for some time (mostly on the basis that if you want to understand how something works, take a good look at when it doesn't), and can see the problems you refer to, Dylan. I'm just not at all convinced you can legislate away disputes by increasingly-complex rules about how they should be conducted. The whole system encourages a bureaucratic/legalistic approach over what is often nothing more than a difference of opinion. This isn't a court of law, and perhaps we need reminding that fighting battles as if it is, rather than just agreeing to differ and accepting that a flawed Misplaced Pages is better than no Misplaced Pages, is getting our priorities all wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm convinced that the procedural approach I initially took is a lost cause here. Perhaps, instead of a bureaucratic/legal cure, the best solution is the rule I made by combining your two quotes. Dylan Flaherty 07:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Guidelines vs. Guidelines

This was discussed briefly above, but I'd like to start a new section because my concern is more broad than the specific guideline which was being discussed. Many WikiProjects have their own guidelines and style guides, created to ensure consistency across a large class of articles. I think this is a good idea. But there is a problem: A WikiProject guideline could be written by a single editor with no prior discussion, and possibly without consensus. Existing tags, such as {{essay}}, or {{Draft proposal}} seem inappropriate (and, indeed, are rarely on such guidelines).. and with no tags, editors may come across a WikiProject guideline page and think there is wide consensus on its contents (as is the case for real guidelines).. not realizing it was written by some guy four years ago with no prior discussion!

So I'd like to propose the use of a yet-to-be-created tag (maybe called {{WikiProject Guideline}}) which lets readers know the guideline may only be supported in it's entirety by a small number of editors, and possibly encourages further discussions. Of course, some specific issues in WikiProject guidelines have, no doubt, been discussed at length; so I think it would be nice if WikiProject guidelines were to include in-line citations of these discussions, to emphasize which points in fact do have broad consensus.. maybe in-line references to discussions could also be encouraged in such a tag. Does that sound like a good idea? Mlm42 (talk) 00:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As one that suggested a similar idea above, I support this, even if it is obvious that WProject-level guidelines should be considered less binding than normal policy and guideline. When tag soup starts flying and I see some new letters that refer to a project level guideline, it would be a good helpful reminder that such are not necessary consensus of the broader editor population. --MASEM (t) 00:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

We have Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects. (See also Category:WikiProject resources.)

On the one hand, I think this is a fine idea: If the advice enjoys support largely from "WikiProject Tiny Minority" rather than the whole community, then "WikiProject guideline" is a much more appropriate tag than "(Official) guideline"

On the other hand:

• I'm not sure what's wrong with tagging these advice pages as essays (ideally in some appropriate sub-category, e.g., by using {{Wikiproject notability essay}} rather than plain {{Essay}}).
• I'm concerned about people writing "WikiProject 'guidelines'" that directly contradict the community's consensus, and then imposing their views on articles within their scope (see WP:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advice_pages, which exists because of repeated prior problems).
• I'm concerned about other people saying "Well, that guideline has had widespread support from the community for years, but it really only applies to a single subject area, so it's "just" a WikiProject guideline, not a Real™ guideline." (This could be said of the overwhelming majority of the naming conventions, for example.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I actually wasn't aware of the {{Wikiproject notability essay}} tag, but that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, but one that addresses article content rather than notability. I think it's beneficial to have something different from an "essay" tag, because I doubt many WikiProject editors would be happy with their style guidelines being tagged with {{essay}} - that tag really says: "You don't have to follow this guideline". But for the sake of consistency among articles, something stronger is desirable - like a tag suggesting "WikiProject consensus".

I think there are many editors who don't realise the "obvious" fact that WikiProject consensus is considerably weaker than Misplaced Pages-wide consensus.. I have only become aware of the difference recently, for example. It appears that the concept of "WikiProject consensus" is recognized by many experienced editors anyway, so it makes sense to tag these guidelines with something that alerts other editors, who not familiar with the concept, of what's going on. Mlm42 (talk) 06:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

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