Template talk:Wikipedia essays

Pointers
This template was created during this discussion (old diff linked) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Essays. It draws together the 4 existing templates (Essays on building Wikipedia, Civility, Essays on notability, Humorous essays), solves much of the overlap and inconsistency, and creates a more central area for discussion. Hopefully it helps. –Quiddity (talk) 06:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Essays for explanation & queries, and please watchlist this template. Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 20:18, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Calling a spade a spade
I've looked at the template, and I noticed it gives conflicting advice - it gives us advice to call a spade a spade, but also gives advice to not call a spade a spade. I'm confused as to which advice to take on this subject. I urge a bit of cleanup in that regard, and I'm siding with the "not spade" option to avoid incivility. Aerospeed (Talk) 18:09, 9 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I think you've got a point. But very often both essays are valuable because they are both are right in their own ways, and show the two sides of an argument.


 * But I think a better solution might be to merge these pages. You could have a page, e.g. When to call a spade a spade, which gives both sides of the argument. In this case the two pages don't really contradict each other, they basically say don't call a spade a spade unless you have strong evidence of vandalism or disruptive editing, and even then to be civil about it, and perhaps avoid those particular words, e.g. I need to go to an admin about your questionable behaviour.


 * If you decided to do this it would be best to follow out Proposed_mergers. I may be up for it at some point I guess. --Mrjulesd (talk)  16:47, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Essays are not policy and do not necessary represent consensus on Wikipedia.  Opposition essays can be valuable and Wikipedians deserve to know that there may be disagreement on any given topic.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

propose to re-add essay on sham consensus
I propose to restore the link to the essay on sham consensus, which was deleted from this template as part of "cull[ing] tangents". No other essay listed in the template appears to overlap the essay's scope. While three other essays are related (on false consensus, wrongful consensus, and procedurally flawed consensus), they're not listed in this template but are linked to from within the sham consensus essay, which is the more comprehensive essay. The Don't drink the consensus Kool-Aid essay (linked to in the template) is quite different. I'll wait a week for any response. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:21, 17 July 2014 (UTC) (After earlier title correction, corrected punctuation: 02:34, 17 July 2014 (UTC))
 * Done. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:30, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Unblock Emails
I don't really think Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Unblock Emails is an essay. CamelCase (MyTalk &#124; ConTribs) 01:01, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * IMHO that page should be Xfd'ed. Debresser (talk) 09:37, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Why do you think that? CamelCase (MyTalk &#124; ConTribs) 21:27, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * It's worthless. Just a collection of 8 emails that were sent with unblock requests of the most ignorant or confused kind. 1. Has no value for anyone. Nobody will look there to see what arguments to avoid. 2. These emails are more sad than humorous. Debresser (talk) 21:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Sausages for tasting
Please discuss if Sausages for tasting, a humorous essay concerning Articles for deletion, should or should not be included on this template. -- 1Wiki8 ........................... (talk) 07:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose- IMO this essay is poorly written, confusing, and not very funny. Reyk  YO!  07:56, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And I note that my previous interactions with the above user show they are strongly against the methodology proposed by the essay.  Smells like WP:IDONTLIKEIT.   --  1Wiki8 ........................... (talk) 10:44, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:NPA Reyk  YO!  10:55, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose Well I don't think it's a particularly bad essay, it's more that it doesn't really make any particular points. Most humourous editors make points about how you should or shouldn't edit Wikipedia, such as Lamest edit wars. I can't see one in this essay; I also can't see it having much impact The main problem is that there is 74 essays in the humor category, and to include them all might clutter the template, and hide the more accepted essays. So I'll !vote weak oppose for now, at least until it becomes more accepted. By the way perhaps 1Wiki8 should read BOLD, revert, revert, revert and try to see the irony.  --Jules  (Mrjulesd) 10:59, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I softly giggled and smiled as I read WP:BRRR, thanks for the pointer. WP:SFT is intended as a humorous metaphor that encourages concentrating on notability at AFD, not on WP:SURMOUNTABLE issues.   Perhaps other editors will find interest in editing the essay.  --  1Wiki8 ........................... (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Oppose listing in template and directory .....essay has no meaning or point. Cant list all the crap.--Moxy (talk) 16:26, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Another discussion
A discussion about WP:BEANS and this template: please see Wikipedia talk:Don't stuff beans up your nose. Thank you. CamelCase (Talk &#124; Contribs) 05:07, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Suggested essays to add
Hello, I (not so) humbly suggest the following essays for addition to the template: Naturally, I find them to be quite profound!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:51, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Confusing arguments mean nothing Be clear and state your point.
 * Counting and sorting are not original research
 * Pocket Consensus An essay about specialist topic consensus
 * Read the Source Be sure to read the source first before discussing it.
 * Oh, Well Sometimes you should just shrug and move on.
 * What is and is not routine coverage Make sure you understand the meaning of WP:ROUTINE before applying it to everything.
 * Unopposed AFD discussion An unopposed AFD discussion should never be closed as "keep"
 * Wikipedia does or does not need that article Wikipedia doesn't "need" any article...
 * Do not confuse stub status with non-notability Stub articles are okay.
 * looks good to me.....add to Essay directory aswell.--Moxy (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I just added WP:SENIORITY to the list.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Competence is required
 * Principle of Some Astonishment JustinTime55 (talk) 15:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Those are both excellent. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:54, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

new essay added: What_to_include
added new essay What_to_include. feel free to look it over, and to comment on the talk page. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 02:00, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Syncing this list with sub-lists
It's too much to ask that editors adding an essay to this main template also add it to the sub-template to keep them synced. Instead, one should transclude or be excerpted into the other. Sdkb (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes. This should be automated as much as possible. Use of sectional transclusion, and and, can make that work pretty well.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:48, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Time to trim the fat
It's been a fee years but I think it's time we go over this again and remove the junk. Getting bloated with useless essays again. WI'll take a look this weekend.-- Moxy 🍁 20:51, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * What criteria are you using to determine what makes an essay important enough to list here? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 23:32, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Last time we did top 150 and supplementals.-- Moxy 🍁 23:42, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Top 150 by what metric? I'm not sure the impact rating is sufficiently precise to warrant cutting all the essays that fall outside of it. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 20:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh god no ....not impact rating....simply top 150 by views.-- Moxy 🍁 22:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * "Impact rating" is a joke, since it is not done systematically, and WikiProject Essays is virtually a dead stick. However, "top 150 by views" is also poor, because very old essays will have more views, even if relatively disused, than recent essays which are actually referred to frequently.  I would suggest top 150 (or whatever) by views (or by links to them, or a mixture of these criteria) within a particular period, like the last 3 years or 1 year, or whatever.  And we could also be more flexible, e.g. by setting numeric limits per section (some sections are way more bloated than others).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:51, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Merged templates
Following the merge discussion, do you think it's better to have e.g. Template:Civility redirect here or wrap civility so that the civility section will be expanded? I don't have a strong preference either way — the redirects are a cleaner consolidation but the wrappers would better keep what the essays that used the more specialized templates had. Thank you Primefac for carrying out the merge. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 00:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Doesn't really bother me either way. Might be worth getting some other opinions first to determine the general consensus. Primefac (talk) 23:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Sectional breadth (civility → behavior)
I propose renaming the segment presently called "Essays on civility" to "Essays on civility and behavior" or just "Essays on behavior". That would help us include essays that are mostly behavioral but not about civility in particular, without trying to shoehorn them into other sections that are only quasi-relevant (e.g. mostly about content or about editing philosophy). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:46, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

When to add essays to the this template
Hi, I came across Presentism, and I found it interesting. I don't see it listed in the Essays template and I think it could be a good addition. However, before I try to add it, I wanted to ask here: is there a selection criteria for when to add or not add an essay to the template (beyond fulfilling the basic requirements of being an acceptable essay in the first place)? Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 01:37, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Short answer: not really, so if you think it's a good essay, go ahead and add it. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 04:48, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your kind response. I have added it. If more people would like to deliberate further here, I'm happy to engage and listen. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 07:24, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Semiprotected edit request
Please remove * There is such a thing as banana ketchup from the "humorous essays" section of the template, as it is a deleted page created by blocked user. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:DC52:32D7:10ED:939F (talk) 03:44, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 04:58, 2 March 2022 (UTC)