Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-09/Discussion report

The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see last week's edition.

Centralized discussions

 * Discussions on the use of A-Class and the grading scheme
 * Following the creation of an Assessment working group, multiple discussions have ensued covering the use of A-Class and the grading scheme in general. The first discussion revolved around the usefulness and possible restructuring of A-Class. Another discussion emerged regarding the possibility of reorganizing the assessment scale, the discussion has resulted in multiple proposed solutions, none showing strong support. A third section was started with aims to determine if there is consensus that there is a need - or not - for A-Class, if such a need is established, if it requires WikiProject-based peer reviews and what type of review process would be appropriate, and how to get WikiProjects to use A-Class in a way that is useful and productive for the projects and the wider community. Currently there is no clear consensus to abolish A-Class, but there is an impression that A-Class is unsuitable for many smaller projects. It has also been suggested that Peer review may be able to help smaller projects with A-Class review, though reviewers state that they do not issue assessments and only comment on how to improve the article. An extended summary is available here.


 * Proposed WikiProjects
 * Propositions have been brought before the WikiProject Council requesting the ability to create Wikiproject Children, which would focus on articles about minors with biographical articles; Wikiproject United States courts and judges (Proposed page), which would focus on consistency in the type and style of information presented on judges and judicial districts; Wikiproject Wikipedia-Books, which would support the creation, maintenance, and continuity of Books; Wikiproject Ernest Hemingway project, which would improve content related to the life and works of Ernest Hemingway; and Wikiproject File Name Extensions, which would document and expand various file name extensions such as .png, .ogg, and others.


 * Proposal to deprecate GFDL 1.2-only templates
 * It has been proposed that the templates GFDL-1.2 and GFDL-1.2-en be deprecated from further use. It was stated by Kaldari that these templates do not follow the GFDL standardization Wikipedia underwent in 2007, these files cannot be migrated to CC-BY-SA, it would follow a change already made by the German Wikipedia, and that if a photographer still wanted to use GFDL 1.2-only those files could be uploaded on Commons, among other points. While there is general support for the move, it has been suggested to wait to make any changes until the Board of Trustees makes a final decision on relicensing by the end of April; this point has been argued against and argued for by different parties.

Proposals

 * Proposal to reorganize the village pump pages
 * A discussion is underway regarding whether to rename the Village pump pages from Village pump (section) to Village pump/section. Supporters have noted that such a hierarchy would be consistent with common practice on Wikipedia (pointing especially to the Incidents Noticeboard, which is located at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents instead of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (incidents)), while opponents say that there is no compelling reason to undertake the renaming due to the large amount of effort that would be required to move the archives and various subpages to the correct location. The majority of users who have commented are in opposition to the proposal.


 * Proposal to enable double redirects
 * Double redirects, which were recently enabled on the English Wikipedia due to a bug in r17570, are currently being discussed at the Village pump (proposals). There is a consensus at this point to ask the developers to enable double redirects permanently, though opponents have expressed reservations that such a feature would allow more opportunities for subtle forms of vandalism.


 * Proposal to create a namespace for Wikipedia:Books
 * With the activation of the Special:Book function, Cenarium suggested that there should be a Book: namespace created to help track and maintain the creation of books, arguing that such a namespace would allow for easier patrolling using Special:NewPages. Supporters have said that this would make the regulation of books easier, but opponents have stated that such regulation would be just as easy whether the books were in a separate namespace or not. Opinion is evenly divided on this proposal.

Requests for comment

 * Proposal to disallow the uploader of a file to remove a disputed fair use rationale tag
 * Stifle suggested that the disputed fair use rationale template should not be removed by the uploader of the picture, similar to the policy on not removing speedy deletion tags. The uploader would then have to make a case for the image to be kept on the image's talk page. Jheald objected, stating that "the uploader should have the right to consult the wider community at IfD". Little discussion has, as yet, taken place.