Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-02-19 Instructional information in Oxy-fuel welding and cutting

Request Information

 * Request made by: Night Gyr 00:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Oxy-fuel welding and cutting, Talk:Oxy-fuel welding and cutting. This discussion continues from discussion in Talk:Oxy-fuel welding and cutting.
 * Talk:Oxy-fuel_welding_and_cutting


 * Who's involved?
 * Myself and User:Anthony Appleyard, mainly


 * What's going on?
 * There's an enormous chunk of information on how to operate an acetylene torch and safety procedures in the article, merged in from Oxyacetylene when that page went up for deletion. Another editor removed the material, Anthony Appleyard readded it, I explained WP:NOT an instruction manual on the talk page and removed it again. He readded it, saying "As far as I am concerned, safety warnings and safety advice ARE encyclopedic, because someone's life or limb may depend on them, since in many countries a member of the public can easily hire or buy an oxy-gas torch to do a bit of cutting or welding."


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * I would like someone with some authority to step in and explain WP:NOT to Anthony Appleyard so it doesn't just turn into a revert war between the two of us.


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?
 * No need, wikipedia's public anyway.

Comments by others

 * The border between instructional matter and other matter is woolly. It seems to me that by the apparent letter of the law, saying that a hazard exists, is allowed, if it is notable; but telling people to avoid that hazard, or how to avoid it, is instructional and therefore not allowed. On the principle of "De minimis non curat lex", how big can a bit of instructional-type text get before Wikipedia's rules insist on deleting it? The 8 rules stated in WP:NOT are a useful rule of thumb to avoid Wikipedia articles getting too full of junk; the matter discouraged in its 8 rules, can largely be covered by the general Wikipedia classification "not notable". Many people look in Wikipedia as a source of practical information, and to many people's mentality, "if a hazard is not described in the source which I am reading now, then there is no such hazard.". I could move the instructional matter to wikibooks:Blowtorch, but many people get impatient at being sent further to find the remainder of something which should be important to them. Could it be decided that "instructions how to use or do something, are notable if they are not too bulky and if they are frequently read, whether by people needing the instructions, or by people who are reading it for interest."? I admit that some instructional matter is not of general noteworthiness, e.g. how to service an army tank or how to play one of many ordinary videogames. The matter sub judice here is about 12000 bytes (ignoring HTML formatting), including some matter which is information rather than instruction; and it is not a separate article How to use an oxy-gas torch but part of a longer article, to complete the general picture of oxy-gas torches. Reading this Wikipedia article is the first time that I ever found much of this important advice about oxy-gas torch use, and likely with many other people.  Anthony Appleyard 06:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Mediator response
Apparently no further need for mediation. --Fasten 13:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)