Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/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 our previous edition.

Centralized discussions

 * Proposed move of Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion
 * Happy-melon moved Criteria for speedy deletion to Criteria for summary deletion on March 27, citing a previous discussion that had a rough consensus to rename the speedy deletion process. Some users objected to the bold renaming and suggested that further discussion should take place, and Ryan Postlethwaite moved the page back to its original title later that day. The discussion is mostly concerned with whether "speedy" has connotations of "quickly" or "instantly" deleting an article with no application of common sense, and if "summary" brings up summary justice. Fabrictramp noted that the word summary "brings up an image of a posse in the old west, hanging a suspect without any evidence of guilt." Other words to be used in place of "speedy" are currently being discussed.


 * Proposed creation of Wikipedia:Mergers for discussion
 * It has been proposed that a separate process should be created to discuss article mergers, at Mergers for discussion. At Articles for deletion, discussions about whether to merge article content are generally pointed at the article's talk page, where it can take months (and, in extreme cases, years) to effect a merge. According to NickPenguin, the process' main proponent, "MRfD is a process that is concerned primarily with content, not subjects, and it seeks to preserve valuable content in a way that improves the quality and depth of Wikipedia." MRfD aims to centralize merge discussions so that they can receive wider community input. Opponents have noted that Proposed merges already exists and is underutilized, and that an additional process may not yield better results.


 * Date formatting and linking poll
 * A poll was started on March 30 regarding linking dates and the use of autoformatting for logged-in users. A poll in August 2008 led to the deprecation of date linking, but several editors later expressed concerns that it did not reflect wider community consensus. The current poll has several options, including whether to use autoformatting, whether months/days/years should be linked (and if so, if they should only be linked on first occurrence), and if the Manual of Style should provide any guidance on the matter at all. It is scheduled to run for two weeks.

Proposals

 * Proposal to allow autoconfirmation to be manually granted and revoked
 * Cenarium has suggested that autoconfirmed status should be able to be granted and revoked manually (by admins). The status would still be conferred automatically at 10 edits and 4 days, but admins would be given the capability to grant it early. This would decrease certain types of vandalism while allowing certain users who need autoconfirmed status early to be given it. This would require making "autoconfirmed" an explicit usergroup in MediaWiki. Most users who have commented are in favor of allowing autoconfirmed status to be removed and reinstated, while maintaining the automatic granting that is currently in place.

Requests for comment

 * RfC on making Wikipedia:Notability (populated places) a guideline
 * OrangeDog has proposed making Notability (populated places) a guideline. The proposed guideline, as it stands, would govern the inclusion criteria for small villages and hamlets. According to current practices, articles about small villages and other settlements are allowed, and according to Phil Bridger, most AfDs on such articles are closed with a "keep" result, since they are about populated places. Many users have expressed reservations on the talk page that the proposal would cause many articles on places from small towns in rural England to large cities in Africa to be deleted, due to a lack of secondary sources. Consensus is currently against making this a guideline.


 * RfC on blocking random usernames
 * Shawnhath has suggested that user names consisting of random strings of characters should be blocked on sight. The ensuing discussion centered around the question of how random a name must be to be blocked, the potential loss of good contributors, and the probability that a random account is a throwaway vandal account. Opponents to the proposal have stated that there is no way to determine if a username is actually random, or if it means something to the person who registered it. Supporters have said that disallowing random usernames would reduce confusion (resulting from dealing with two users named "klfasdj" and "klfsadj", for example) and vandalism from one-off accounts.


 * RfC on allowing templates in signatures
 * Allstarecho asked for confirmation that the policy of disallowing the use of templates in signatures should continue to exist. Transcluding a template in one's signature has been prohibited since February 2005, but substitution has been allowed (if generally discouraged, since substitution has historically been used to circumvent the 255-character limit on signatures in Special:Preferences). The current wording of the guideline was introduced by xeno on February 18, 2009. Most users commenting in the discussion have expressed the opinion that transclusion should still be disallowed due to increased server load and the possibility of vandalism, but there are differing opinions on allowing substitution.


 * RfC on changing the wording of WP:TERRORIST
 * An RfC has been started on whether to reword Wikipedia:Words to avoid to state that there are some appropriate usages of the word terrorist. Currently, the guideline strongly discourages the use of the words extremist, terrorist, or freedom fighter as they inherently reflect a particular point of view. Some users have expressed the viewpoint that the aforementioned words can be used as "straightforward descriptive terms" in certain cases, such as if an event has been characterized in the media as a "terrorist attack". Others have stated that there are other ways to word such events that are less inflammatory.


 * RfC on the appropriateness of criticism articles
 * Editors are seeking consensus on whether or not "Criticism of..." articles are appropriate forks for article content. Several of these articles exist (for example, Criticism of Microsoft) and some have previously survived attempts to delete them. Another RfC has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Criticism in an attempt to find out if Criticism should be made a guideline. Little discussion has taken place at the latter RfC, but the former is focusing on how much weight a criticism section or article can be given without violating the guidelines on undue weight.

Sister projects

 * Refreshing and standardizing Wiktionary's logo
 * In 2006, a poll was conducted to create a new logo for the Wiktionary projects. While there was a good deal of support for four of the proposals (1, 2, 3, 4), only the first proposal (the "Scrabble tile" logo) has been implemented at all. The English Wiktionary, along with some of the other language projects, has retained the original logo. Several users have expressed reservations about that logo, since it poses significant translation and standardization issues. The "Scrabble tile" logo has been adopted by a number of Wiktionary projects, including French and Italian. Currently, no consensus exists on any of the proposals.