Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-02-06/Discussion report

TfD buzzing
Several prominent templates have made waves this week in appearances at Templates for Discussion, setting the process abuzz with activity. On January 30, Persondata was put up for discussion by Fram. The template keeps a hidden set of metadata on biographical articles on Wikipedia, and has over 947,000 uses as of press, making it one of the most heavily used templates on Wikipedia and one of the few to have its own WikiProject designated to its use. Fram points out three things: that despite its widespread use its only application so far has been DBpedia (and dubiously at that), that there is little reason that the template should be on the article page as opposed to the talk page (as it displays no content), and that it lacks a gender category. As of writing, there is much discussion of its implementation and implications.

On February 1, TenPoundHammer nominated Cleanup for deletion, listing six reasons: its use as drive-by-tagging; the rare use of the rationale parameter; the false dichotomy of usefulness for new editors; its vagueness; its similarity to the deprecated Expand; and the existence of more specific templates for such purposes. Used on more than 27,000 pages, the template is a major part of the cleanup process, and has gone through three previous TfDs, one by HJ Mitchell and two by TenPoundHammer; as of press, 39 editors have supported keeping it, narrowly outnumbered by 41 in favour of its deletion. Similarly, on the same date Mkativerata nominated Lead too short for deletion, citing that "this template is an absurd example of wikipedia [sic] annoying its readers...issues with the length of a lead can be raised on an article's talk page, where they can be discussed by editors without annoying our readers." The template is used more than 4,600 times, and at the time of writing the verdict stands at 57 "keeps" and just under 25 "deletes".

Requests for comment
The community is asked to voice their opinions on the following issues:
 * RfC on making conciliation a part of Wikipedia's dispute resolution practices
 * RfC about whether "new messages" banner hoaxes should be prohibited
 * RfC on how files from non-copyright states should be treated and used on WP
 * RfC on aspects of the leadership of the featured article process
 * Discussion about improving WP:PORNBIO
 * Large discussion about whether WP should exhaustively list rights of LGBT persons in various nations.

Discussions of interest
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 * A long discussion about whether an editor blocked over five years ago should be unblocked. The user in question claims to run the controversial Wikipedia Review website (recently briefly off line for non payment of domain fees). After a long discussion the account was unblocked.
 * An ANI report and Arbcom talkpage discussion on sockpuppetry by supposedly vanished editor (and former arbitrator) Rlevse. Rlevse has admitted that PumpkinSky is a sock account and that BarkingMoon, while not his account, is related to him. There are allegations that this has affected a recent RfC on the leadership of the Featured articles committee. The Arbitration committee has also been grilled over what, if anything, it knew about Rlevse's sockpuppetry. Fresh allegations of ArbCom impropriety have been tendered by users Raul654 and SandyGeorgia. Arbitrators Risker and Kirill Lokshin have denied any impropriety on the part of ArbCom.