Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-26/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. For a fuller listing of discussions on Wikipedia, see Coordination.

No comment
At the Village Pump, User:Fram discussed the way WikiProjects assess articles and how they comment on those assessments: "Many talk page Wikiproject templates have, when an article is unassessed, a pointer to a /comments subpage. Once the page is assessed, the link to the /Comments subpage is no longer available, making this an abandoned orphan. For the vast majority of pages, this subpage is unneeded, since the actual talkpage of the article is very rarely used. Therefore, I propose that all Wikiproject templates no longer point to the /comments subpage but direct discussion of the assessment to the article talk page proper, where the comments will actually be seen".

Many respondents agreed that deprecating the use of a comments sub-page was a good idea. User:PC78 opined: "These things are half baked and poorly implemented, and it's time to get rid. Talk pages are for comments, so a /Comments subpage is highly redundant. No doubt many of them do have valid comments, but in my experience a lot of them are 2-3 years old and bear little or no relation to the article in it's current state." However User:Geometry guy offered a contrasting view:

"This is a matter for individual WikiProjects. Comment subpages provide a way to sign and date WikiProject ratings, and have a permanence and easy accessibility that threaded and/or archived talk page comments do not. Some WikiProjects find them useful. Centralized moves to get rid of them are inappropriate. It is much more in the spirit of Wikipedia to allow WikiProjects to turn the features on or off according to their needs."

User:Titoxd offered some background regarding the creation of such pages: "These pages were created with the intention of adding a small "assessor's note" to pages within WP:1.0/I. Originally, the comment subpages were directly transcluded on pages such as Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Tropical cyclone articles by quality/1 in the listings. Due to technical reasons, they are now being linked instead of being transcluded, but the transclusion capability is slated to be re-enabled with wp10v2." User:Walkerma agreed with the proposed compromise: "If there are projects that find the Comments feature useful, they should be allowed to continue. However, we need to find a way to remove the feature in cases where the WikiProject is not actively using the feature".

On 25 October User:Happy-melon commented "I have removed the "forced comments" functionality from WPBM, so nonexistent comments pages are not redlinked and their creation is not actively encouraged. At some point I will also delete the three groups of pages I listed above (empty, unlinked and ancient). Is there a more general plan to proceed from there?" User:MSGJ suggested "a system of "inline" comments be developed so that, for WikiProjects who wish to use comments, the contents of each /Comments page may be substituted into a comments parameter in their banner".

Categorical division?
In July of 2009 User:SmokeyJoe commented at the talk page of Categories for Discussion that he thought there was "a problem at CfD". His posting was prompted by a number of deletion reviews regarding categories, with User:Good Olfactory ultimately stating "if anyone believes there is a broad "problem" at CfD, then raise it somewhere relevant where it can be dealt with, like Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion".

The debate pointed to a couple of issues regarding the deletion process for categories. It was noted that currently no notice is "displayed in each article where a category appears that the category is up for deletion. As it stands now, even regular editors who have used the category will only see the CfD notice if they happen to look at the category. Every other type of deletion discussion in Wikipedia -- article, image, template, redirect, etc. -- is marked by notification on the articles themselves where they are used." While this was agreed to be a problem, no solution was forthcoming.

Joining the debate, User:Sam commented that "When categories were created there was no consensus on what they should be used for, and over time competing philosophies of categorization have arisen that are incompatible with each other. Categorization is seen as:
 * 1) A tagging system that should be free-form and open to any verifiable way of organizing articles.
 * 2) A way of grouping similar articles together to facilitate browsing.
 * 3) An organized hierarchical system of article classification.
 * 4) An indexing system for topics."

Sam concluded: "If we are going to make any improvements, we would first have to have some consensus about our underlying philosophic goals and our technological limitations and an understanding about how to deal with both."

In an effort to resolve the issue of notifying users that a category was up for deletion, SmokyJoe suggested posting "a note to the talk page of every page that is in the category" when a category is nominated for deletion. Most respondents felt the idea had merit, although Good Olfactory noted "this is going to generate a tremendous amount of "junk-mail"-type notices on article pages". The idea has yet to progress to a bot request.

On 6 October, SmokyJoe created Category:Wikipedians who say CfD is broken with the stated intention of "facilitat[ing] communication amongst Wikipedians", receiving a barnstar from User:Stifle for their effort. Within seven days the category was nominated for deletion or renaming by User:VegaDark on the basis that the category "[d]oesn't support collaboration." The debate was closed as Delete by User:Xdamr on 23 October, a close contested by User:Alansohn who asked "how did you come to the conclusion that consensus was for deletion, not renaming or no consensus." Xdamr replied to requests to amend the decision with a pointer to deletion review: "As with all closures that I (or others) perform, all are subject to scrutiny at DRV. I am perfectly content that this should be so. If DRV were to reverse any closure then that would be one thing, but after giving a full and voluminous explanation it would be a little odd for me to completely backtrack on myself and recreate the category only a few hours later. I am content that the closure was done with sufficient rigour as to bear scrutiny."

The deletion review was subsequently opened on the 25 October by Alansohn: "The closing administrator seems to have cast his own vote, without any relevance to the discussion at hand." The discussions regarding perceived problems with the CFD process were userfied to User:SmokeyJoe/Cfd discussion, but have failed to receive as much attention as the deletion review at this point.

Simple log-in
At the Village Pump, it was suggested by User:Dodoïste that "[the account creation] message is so large, that the newbie may not notice there is a registration form under it". Writer of the current message, User:Rd232 said he was addressing a previous version: "I was focussed on making that clearer. And now, in response to the point that the form isn't visible, I've added "scroll down..." near the top." However User:Aude suggested "drastically shortening and simplifying the message, to just advise people about the captcha?" After discussion the form is being amended to a more succinct version, with Aude making short-term code changes to build checks into the form submission process, and allow removal of more text. In the longer-term, it should be possible to provide form validation using Ajax to check username availability, provide feedback on password strength, and other such checks. This functionality is dependent on user login code refactoring that is being done by Happy-melon. During the discussion Rd232 also revamped the related Request an account commenting that "[s]econd opinion on it would be welcome."

New proposals

 * Contributor copyright investigations. Proposed by User:Moonriddengirl to "provide a place where contributors can bring such multiple point infringers to the attention of the community. The process proposed is that an administrator or clerk will confirm the problem if it exists and, if it is sufficiently widespread, open a cleanup subpage with instructions for handling."
 * Deletion of newly created pages has been marked as a proposal by User:Sebwite. The page proposes that Wikipedians "[d]o not rush to mark pages bearing the newpage template for deletion unless they appear to have been abandoned by their creator"

Deletion round-up
''Your writer has trawled the deletion debates opened and closed in the last week and presents these debates for your edification. Either they generated larger than average response, centred on policy in an illuminating way, or otherwise just jumped out as of interest. Feel free to suggest interesting deletion debates for future editions here.''

Outlining a reason for deletion
The deletion of Outline of Texas history after debate has seen fifty-two similar articles nominated by User:Karanacs at Articles for deletion/Outline of Louisiana history. Karanacs states in the nomination: "I don't believe these articles can be salvaged into anything approaching a comprehensive, useful, neutral, article that is not a content fork, and as such I think they should be deleted."

The articles are within the remit of WikiProject Outline of Knowledge, a project which describes an outline article as being one "intended to help the reader become familiar with the subject it presents, and also serves as a table of contents". While User:Til Eulenspiegel felt a mass nomination was inappropriate, User:Mandsford responded "a mass nomination is appropriate, because a random sampling suggests that these [articles] have been created in the same manner".

User:Hipocrite argued to delete, given that 'the entirety of the "Outline" section lacks a strong justification for inclusion in Mainspace. There is no criteria that informs editors what should be included in the Outline, and how the outline should be grouped. To the extent the article becomes a valid use of mainspace, it is little more than History of Louisiana. As it stands, Outlines are not compliant with How We Do Things Here.' User:Highfields instead suggested a "Merge to respective parent outlines", a view supported by a number of commentators, while User:Abductive suggested deletion because "History overviews are done by Timeline of.... These do not aid in navigation." User:DGG felt the articles should be kept, believing that "every possible organizational device that people are willing to support in Wikipedia should be encouraged".

All the news that's new and approved?
Articles for deletion/2009 Fox News – White House controversy discusses whether an important news event is the basis for an encyclopedic article, referencing both Wikipedia articles are not news reports and the notion of coatrack articles. The debate also looked at appropriate etiquette, with User:Adambro refactoring the discussion. However, after an objection from User:Cirt, a better format was found to display relevant information. Debate currently stands at 68kb.

Articles

 * User:Cunard has copy-edited Shawn Baldwin, garnering the thanks of respondents to Articles for deletion/Shawn Baldwin
 * A fourth nomination for List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming reaches 51kb in less than three days, drawing one hundred and eighty-five edits from fifty-nine editors in that time
 * Should List of sea captains be deleted simply because List of naval commanders was? See lengthy debate
 * A mass deletion nomination of forty-three articles at Articles for deletion/H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds (2005 film) was withdrawn by nominator User:Tim1357 after objections that each film should be considered separately
 * After five related deletion debates, the article Joel Warady has been moved to the Article Incubator at Article Incubator/Joel Warady
 * Is List of giant animals in fiction original research or not? Debate
 * Opinion over how to apply our policy on living people is split at the third deletion debate regarding the Amanda Marcotte article.
 * This week's too long didn't read award goes to Articles for deletion/Misuse of antisemitic accusations
 * Bad smell award: Articles for deletion/Mr Gorgeous, needed a second re-listing to garner any worthwhile opinion
 * And the beat goes on award: Articles for deletion/Colorado balloon incident (2nd nomination), re-nominated three days after the last debate, speedily closed twice within the hour
 * The notability of articles on Allied Artists International, Euclid D. Farnham, Armin Shams, Brandy Howard, Wilkes v Jessop, Saltine cracker challenge, Empyria, Plantpot, Tony Santiago and 2 is contested in the relevant debates.
 * Themes:
 * Theme of the week seems to have been fictional planets: Articles for deletion/Moth (fictional planet), Articles for deletion/New Riveria (fictional planet), Articles for deletion/Pitar (fictional planet) and so on;
 * Theme for October 22 was comparisons;
 * The 23 was notable for one event day
 * Have you played Thumb war?

Administrative notices
''A round up of the administrators' noticeboards as viewed by your writer. You can suggest a notice for inclusion, either on the tip line or by directly editing the next issue.''
 * has been indefinitely blocked by for persistent recreation of Timonia.  See notice
 * After a lengthy thread, User: is placed on probation, such that if the user "makes any edits deemed to be tendentious, point of view pushing, addition of original research, or disruptive by an uninvolved administrator, Likebox may be blocked. After three incidents the block length may increase to one year."
 * has been blocked for making a legal threat, with and  blocked as sock puppets created to evade the ban

Jeff V Merkey accounts blocked

 * The ip address has been blocked for a month, while  and  have been blocked indefinitely as being sock puppet accounts of Jeff V Merkey. See here, here and here for related discussion

Briefly

 * Housekeeping by User:Kotniski has seen Naming conventions (categories)/Usage of American re-categorised as a proposal. The proposal dates from 2005, and while it is possible the convention has been adopted, it has never been rewritten to show that adoption as a guideline.
 * Deletion of articles on living persons has been marked by User:Dank as a supplemental essay "intended to summarize policies relating to the deletion of articles on living persons"
 * WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall outlines a number of proposals regarding processes by which the community may remove an administrator's priveleges

This weeks requests
Fifteen Requests for comment have been made in the week of 19-25 October:


 * Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations 25 October 2009
 * Talk:People skills 25 October 2009
 * Wikipedia talk:Copying within Wikipedia 25 October 2009
 * Template talk:Italic title 24 October 2009
 * Talk:Scandinavia 23 October 2009
 * Talk:War of 1812 23 October 2009
 * Talk:Vaccine controversy 22 October 2009
 * Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication 22 October 2009
 * Talk:Barack Obama 22 October 2009
 * Talk:Huang Xianfan 21 October 2009
 * Talk:Gone Missing (play) 21 October 2009
 * Talk:Pacific War 20 October 2009
 * Wikipedia talk:Paid editing (guideline) 20 October 2009
 * Talk:Directed Edge (company) 19 October 2009
 * Talk:Earl of Clare 19 October 2009