Basically the template just describes the original way we created guidelines on wikipedia. I think it's important to advertise our original (working!) methodologies a bit more :-) [[User:Kim Bruning|Kim Bruning]] 09:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Basically the template just describes the original way we created guidelines on wikipedia. I think it's important to advertise our original (working!) methodologies a bit more :-) [[User:Kim Bruning|Kim Bruning]] 09:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
==[[Template:Proposed]]==
When reverting two edits simultaneously, it would be nice if you could provide explanations for both reversions. You addressed John254's comments, but you completely ignored mine (and jumped straight back to your wording).
Thank you! And yep, I'm indeed back in action. What did I miss? :) (seriously, do tell; I'll probably read up on a Signpost or two but I'd rather hear it here) >Radiant<20:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Toolserver's been down for the past 3 months. Prod moved to an on-wiki process. (there's a non-toolserver way to revive the prod tracker, but I don't know if there's been any movement towards that yet) If you're curious about wikidrama, User:NoSeptember/Desysop points to some of the stories. --Interiot23:16, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Many folks seem to hang out on IRC, see Wikipedia:IRC channels (I don't). Use of Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser has reached epidemic proportions (various folks are suggesting 5000 edits is a reasonable minimum for RFA, since it's so easy using AWB to make hundreds and hundreds of meaningless edits). There's been a changing of the guard with bot folks - lots of processes got at least momentarily constipated due to reliance on dearly departed botters. It's bigger, currently 6,957,033 articles and counting. Template parser functions have arrived (see m:ParserFunctions) and have let any number of folks go truly nuts with templates that are completely inscrutable. Angela resigned from the board (!). Boothy443 got really pissed off and seems to be gone. user:Bobby Boulders was an annoying pest of a vandal for a while (may be the latest incarnation of WoW). Some sort of stable version feature is apparently actually in the works and will be enabled in the German vesion. No one can gain consensus to change virtually anything. You know, pretty much same old. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome back... I am trying to remember exactly what you were active in before you left... I know that a log page was created to keep track of changes on {{cent}}. There has been changes and updates on WP:CSD, especially under the image/media sections... You left at about the same time that Jimbo established WP:OFFICE, so I do not know if you know about that or not. If I think of more, I let you know. Zzyzx11(Talk)05:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
wb!/me does happy dance. One thing not mentioned so far in the difflist [1] is that the state of javascript automation has advanced quite a bit. Having the toolserver replication DB so lagged means a lot of js based history/count/browse things have been developed, but that's just one facet... check out WP:US, especially if you are going to pick up the admin mantle again... Another thing to note is that IRC is not just for talking, there are channels that are primarily bot traffic speaking of new users and potential edits in need of investigation, with handy links already embedded. WP:1.0 is making great strides, many projects are carrying out article classification (with the help of fairly standard talk page templates to track what's what and display current thinking) and User:Mathbot runs every night to build a vast grand list of all the articles so far classified and how good they are thought to be... For example here is The Beatles summary page... Hope that helps and wow, glad to see you back. ++Lar: t/c 20:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's premature to spend much time in the sourcecode. It seems to me step 1 is to figure out how a user interacts with the feature however it's implemented. It could clearly be either a special: or a namespace. It sounds like you're basically suggesting an enhanced search function (and, or, not, namespace limited, etc.). I have no doubt all of these could be done. The specific function I'd like to see addressed though is intersection, mostly because I'm sick to death of all the "x by y by z" categories and their associated maintenance activities (they have to have naming conventions, they get nominated for deletion because they fit or don't fit someone's POV, somebody has to create the damn things to start with, articles end up in dozens of categories). A little bottom up analysis certainly can't hurt.
I'll try not to clutter your talk page with another section header, but I'm truly pleased to notice your return. At the time, I thought your departure was a big loss for Wikipedia, and I was dismayed when it appeared to be permanent. Umm, I guess the blocking mechanism has changed a bit and you might want to get used to that, and we've grown a lot more strict on bad (license, source, fair use rationale, etc) images. I'm happy to help if you have any questions getting used to it all again. :-) Dmcdevit·t07:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Muaha! You are a veritable force of clean, sweeping my watchlist with unerring boldness and purpose! Huzzah I say! Huzzah!
(welcome back! I've seen your contributions throughout the talkpages, and like you already ;) The only thing I have to add to the ultra-condensed-Signpost-synopsis above is, there are new people with unrecognizable names everywhere! --Quiddity23:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to check and see what your userpage said back when I gave that to you. I handed those out to the ones who had made the most impact in regard to the "userbox wars" in favor of non-deletion. Coolgamer03:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um, no. Anyone who made a statement, such as when you blanked out your page with a message regarding the feud, that I noticed was given the barnstar. Coolgamer18:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jeez... mellow out a bit. You brought it to my attention an d asked what it was for, so I told you. It's not like I went and reverted your edit to bring back the barnstar. Let's have peace before the dove eats one of us.Coolgamer23:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi - I noticed you tagged Wikipedia:Geographical infoboxes as historical. It's more like waiting for anyone to notice. I'd really like to push this to a guideline, but basically no one responded (not quite sure why not). I'd prefer to keep it as proposed and find a way to drum up interest. If you have any ideas on how to do this, I'd appreciate hearing them. I've done some "bottom up" template changing, so Template:Infobox City and Template:Infobox U.S. state now essentially follow the guidelines I've proposed. The folks are Template:Infobox Country seem to be quite partial to a look that as far as I can tell cannot be done using CSS. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Radiant!. My name is KnowledgeOfSelf on Wikipedia, but you can call me Steve if you'd like. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. I just stopped by to say hi and formally welcome you to Wikipedia.
Here are a few good links for newcomers. I know that they can be boring, but I recommend that you take a look at them:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! You can come to my talk page if you have any questions. If I can help I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or you can go to, Wikipedia:Where to ask a question. Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes this will automatically produce your name and the date. Again, welcome! Have fun! KOS | talk06:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Non-Notability
Why have you tagged it with historical? I thought I should ask you before I reverted it. People are still working on that page. The last edit on talk was under a week ago!
We are getting it into an acceptable state before we show it to people who will take more convincing than its current editors. --cfp22:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about that specific proposal but I endorse your general tagging of old inactive proposals as historical, it seems like a much needed cleanup of clutter to me. Haukur23:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I removed your tag. The proposal may have stabalized, but it is not inactive. Please discuss before doing something like this. You have not even been involved in the discussion. Fresheneesz01:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the tag - Its perfectly clear to me. I realize that the tag does not mean that the issue is closed. However, I disagree that it is inactive. I would consider a proposal like that to be deemed inactive if its been inactive for .. say.. a month or two. It makes more sense to me if the inactive tag is put on after we gather a consensus as to whether the proposal will be accepted by the community. Fresheneesz20:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, I haven't seen that before. I really was just trying a variation of what I saw Radiant! doing, crossed with the "absolute" top-right corner images you see on a lot of pages. :-) Rfrisbietalk03:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And, in case you don't know, Jamie was one of the original developers at Netscape, who (collectively) essentially founded the internet as we now know it. He called in rich shortly after AOL bought Netscape. If you are able to find his commentary about what happened during those days you will be enriched. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe have a look at, for instance Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality#Special subcategories: all I see there is a "notability criteria" description. And a very good one. The only one for categories as far as I know. I think, subconsciously, I've been using it as a notability guideline, not only for categories in general, but also for lists, and as a model for some of the notability criteria guidelines & proposals I was involved in. --Francis Schonken07:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I respect the fact that you know your way around Wikipedia, but to suddenly appear out of the blue after almost 7 months and jump right in the middle of all manner of notability guidelines might not be the best way to do things. A lot of people (not me) have done a lot of work on this stuff since you've been gone. Pages and pages of trying to reach consensus. You've even gone so far as to unilaterally make an essay into an established guideline! Despite your edit summary, there's nothing to indicate acceptance of that on the talk page. See here and here. In countless AfD discussions it has been quite clearly indicated as not being a guideline. One guy's comment at the bottom of the page doesn't negate all of that. When I put it back on the template as an essay (which it was marked as at the time), you could have just said, "Yeah, you're right - it's only an essay. Let's see what we can do about that." Being bold is one thing, and I'm all for bold moves and merges when it comes to articles, but more care should be taken with guidelines. The tag at the top of every guideline even says so.
I hope none of what's happened so far has pissed you off too much. I'm actually a pretty nice guy. All I'm saying is, what's your hurry? You've been gone since February. Careful moves and a couple of days of conversation won't hurt. Kafziel16:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is no relevant discussion - I simply noticed that the proposal was inactive (as indicated by the lack of recent discussion) and so I marked it as such. We don't decide things to become inactive (that's pretty a contradiction anyway), they become so when people lose interest in them. That said, as {{historical}} says, if you want to continue discussing the matter you are welcome, but it would help if you advertised this e.g. at the village pump to actually raise interest. >Radiant<16:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought this was a well estabilished guideline. Is vote-stacking now ok? Please reply here, I go nuts when I try to read a conversation in two separate pages. Thanks. PizzaMargherita16:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point... no, it is not. Wikipedia:Spam states that "this behavior [if done to excess] will result in warnings and/or sanctions". I think the existence of that page is the reason why debate on Wikipedia:Vote Stacking died out. Since the pages have a very similar purpose, I'd say a merge or redirect would be useful. >Radiant<16:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(2) Afaik, the Policy that comes closest to regulating this currently is Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Advertising and soliciting meatpuppets. As far as I can see from a quick read of Wikipedia:Vote Stacking this elaborates established practice on this issue, of which the node is contained in the sockpuppeteering policy page (but not completely on its place there while "sending out invitations to the like-minded" might lead to meat puppets, but the fault is considered to be in the sender of the invitations (who is technically not a "sock puppet" in that case).
So, I'd certainly not make Wikipedia:Vote Stacking{{historical}} - it might create the impression that votestacking/votestalking/meatpuppeteering *is OK from now on*. If the Wikipedia:Vote Stackingproposal isn't promoted to guideline, it should be made a redirect to Wikipedia:Sock puppetry imho as a minimum solution (but not completely satisfactory because of the offender differing from the sock in this case as described above - another reason why this is of course not such a perfect solution is because it is not possible to redirect to the "meat puppet"-related section header on the sock puppetry policy page, that section being far down on that page). --Francis Schonken14:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedians (on-line or off-line): It is considered highly inappropriate or unacceptable to advertise Wikipedia articles that are being debated in order to attract users with known views and bias, in order to strengthen one side of a debate.
Off-site: It is also considered highly inappropriate to ask friends or family members to create accounts for the purpose of giving additional support.
On-site: On-Wikipedia canvassing should be reverted if possible.
Both are covered, as you can see. And it's already policy, so please keep it on the policy page (*moving* it to a new proposal → guideline → policy page would be no good of course, because of the uncertain outcome to get it back to policy level eventually)
Note that there is some grey area: sending email invitations via email function to established wikipedia users is of course an on-site/off-site mixture but the policy is clear that it isn't allowed (if not carefully formulated the principle could be weakened in this sense). Note that on-site invitations are usually left in place, because then at least everyone can see what happened (see what efforts wikipedians went through to "prove" off-line interference in this sense, and then without even being more than "circumstantial" evidence, here: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Israeli apartheid/Evidence#Voting dynamics - nice graph, but the evidence was not really retained in the final ruling of that ArbCom case). Similarly vote-cabals can be hard to nail down (their common characteristic is that they start shouting There Is No Cabal, and/or compare the allegation to half-witted conspiration theories), but the policy diligently uses the expression "canvassing" which makes this in effect sometimes "workable".
You reverted my edit at Wikipedia:Vanity_guidelines, because you thought notability is criteria for deletion. Can you please point to a policy or guideline that says something to that effect? In looking through the pages you named as contradicting WP:NNOT, I found a couple errors in guidelines that refered to other guidelines - and misrepresented them. For example, on the WP:AFD page, it implies that non-notability is a criteria for speedy deletion, whereas CSD specifically says otherwise. Also note that while AFD suggests looking at notability essays and proposals, and mentions that it has precedent, it doesn't actually say that non-notability is a *criterion* for deletion. This is in contrast to things that are criterion, like WP:V and WP:OR. Fresheneesz18:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What if a policy refers to a guideline, but misrepresents what that guideline said?
Also, I've never before heard the phrase "asserting notability". It has always been "asserting importance", which is why i changed it. Have you noticed that Wikipedia:Notability does not point to the essay anymore? In any case, could you please show me where "asserting notability" is criteria for deletion? Fresheneesz19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you look up "current" in the thesaurus, you'll find "river". That doesn't mean that they're the same thing - those words can mean vastly different things, as i'm sure you know. The "semantics" i'm arguing are for the purpose of improving people's discussion on wikipedia, and to make things run more smoothly. Notability might mean something discrete to you, but I have seen people use the word "notability" to describe each one of those synonyms a countless number of times. This is not a small point, language is a very important part of efficient progress. Fresheneesz19:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There can only be a clear distinction between importance and notability in specific usages of the words. People might say something like "the article isn't notable enough because it isn't sourced" - this sentence wouldn't make sense if you replaced "notability" with "importance". People simply use notability when they mean verifiability, or when they mean any number of things. I would be happy if every occurance of notability was replaced with a narrower term that describes the intent of whatever sentence its used in. Fresheneesz19:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, i've demonstrated to you that notability does not mean importance to all people. If you mean importance, say importance. It doesn't matter how "used" notability is, using it to mean importance is not nearly as useful as using the word "importance" itself. Also, "asserting importance" is also a well used term in wikipedia.
I can't believe I failed to notice! Well, after what has seemed like a very rough few days this has cheered me right up! the wub"?!"19:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC) (wow, so excited I forgot to sign the first time)[reply]
Radiant, I am especially pleased to see you back. I don't think you really want to get into the drama of things that have been unfolding here, but you did ask "what did i miss?" YOu might consider having a look at the recent Netoholic arbitrations. He's mostly not around anymore.
Hello hello hello! I just saw you show up on my watchlist. What a sight for sore eyes. You're one of the people I've missed most. Welcome back, welcome back! :-)
I have to remember why I liked you, which is that you keep everyone on their toes, which includes me ;-). I noticed you've semiprotected certain pages. It's certainly tempting to do so, but you should only really do this if there is vandalism. If only because I'm lazy and forget to log in from time to time, but also because we've got some other sane anons on board too. :-) Kim Bruning20:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hey! I saw your name scroll by on WP:CSD's talk... it's always nice to see you back. :) On the brief summary of everything that has happened, we also have more than 1,000 featured articles now (currently at 1,103)... Titoxd(?!?)02:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever the name of the page, please keep the linking from the WP:NPOV page intact! Or if the system of linking is changed, make it consistent/clear/operational in whatever way you think most fit.
In short: I'm quite sure improvements are possible, on condition that the idea that the subpage is in fact an integral part of one of Wikipedia's most fundamental policies is rather strenghtened than weakened (at least, that's how I think about it). --Francis Schonken13:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Lulu & Jossi would defend it as if their life depended on it. And "as if" is maybe too soft an expression... Personally I think trying to run it through WP:MfD would maybe be the next most logical step. I didn't start an MfD yet maybe because I'm averse to voting procedures if things might be settled otherwise. But that eventuality seems less and less likely in the end. I tried to tread lightly in the issue, but surely haven't done always.
A guideline states how (and why) people think something should be done, and should generally be followed; it is actionable and consensual. A how-to, on the other hand, merely lists possible ways of doing something, and it doesn't matter if people want to do things in some other way; it is instructive. I think the difference is important, and there's enough confusion about guidelines as it is :)
Excuse me that I call these theories "novel". I never heard them before. And let me say you from the start I don't think the distinctions you're trying to make via these theories all that important:
No guideline is purely "content" or "style" or "how-to" or whatever of the guideline category subdivisions. I tend to look for the dominant issue: for footnotes that is e.g. "how-to", but it has some purely "style" issues (e.g. whether to put a footnote number before or after a period, described on that page, is a "style" issue – but it is not a dominant issue of the page, the focus is on "how to" use the Cite.php feature). Similarly the "style" guide about references (WP:CITE) has some detail on "how to" write references. But its main issue is style, as opposed to also content: the WP:CITE style guideline also contains some info on why references should be given in articles (which is in fact discussing/summarizing the content issue of the WP:V policy). Then the WP:V policy, which is of course basicly a content issue, treats marginally "how to" discern reliable from unreliable sources. etc... So, what I say is that usually guidelines/policies have a focus point in one of the available categories. And these categories are primarily a navigational aid (at least for the guidelines, but also for example for policies on Wikipedia:List of policies), when you're looking for how to tackle an issue you've encountered, not something to go *dogmatic* about while the borderlines between the major subdivisions can't be drawn in a manner as if the one type of guidelines/policies would have nothing to do with another type of guidelines/policies.
There has been a wave of attempts, some months ago, to merge all "how-to" related guidance to the Help: namespace. For 90% percent of what formerly were guidelines, this worked very well. But for some of them this didn't work at all. Apart from the footnotes guidance (where there was some ferocious difference of opinion whether or not to merge with "help:footnotes"), I think primarily about the Categorisation guidance: for instance the section Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting is primarily how-to but it is so linked with style (that is: specific for collation styles in the English language combined with words of foreign origin), that this is definitely guideline open for interpretation and discussion (which couldn't be done in the help: namespace where the system is to overwrite the content of the pages with an import of the updated content of the related page at meta: - not English-language specific: basicly only explaining how the MediaWiki software reacts, not about the collation preferences agreed upon in English Wikipedia). So, yes that is "guideline" stuff, even according to your novel definition. But the basics, I mean the focus of Wikipedia:Categorization is "how-to" more than that related style issue, which is only one of the sub-points of that guideline. I think it is good that the guideline about "Categorization" groups all guidance about categorisation, cutting this into pieces according "how-to", "content" (which is also a part of that guideline currently) etc, is not good. Finding guidance in the wikipedia: namespace is already a maze as it is, not grouping the essential guidance on categorisation would be simply mischievous imho. --Francis Schonken12:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
--
No, I didn't see in your paraphrasing *exactly* what was in WP:POL. Regarding guidelines it just says they need to be "(1) actionable and (2) authorized by consensus." Not as you said: "A guideline states how (and why) people think something should be done [...]" That's nowhere on the WP:POL page.
For instance, sometimes the major function of a style guideline is to say that multiple styles are allowed, while wikipedians "agree they don't agree" on what is preferable. A user got blocked some time ago for a month for not understanding that, that is: that user was firing a bot to harmonize where the guideline allowed multiple styles. So that's a meaning of "actionable" too: users trying to impose a single style get stopped. Note that the guideline in question was basicly saying: these are the methods you can choose from. So what theoretically would belong to "help" or "how to" (if you say that "explaining how the different options work" is how-to level).
The distinctions are really not that important. I see only three guidance levels that are important to distinghuish: "Policy" | "Guideline" | "Essay". Technical stuff is usually "guideline" level. It could be described as "Policy" level as well, while it are usually just the limits of what the software does. For example, one can't use the pipe trick in Cite.php footnotes (see Help:Pipe trick#Cite.php footnotes and the pipe trick). Whether you call that something of "policy" or "guideline" level is not so relevant, while it enforces itself. The habit of calling it guideline level is something I support very much of course. Don't crowd the number of Policies: these should stand out as more important than the pipe trick/cite.php incompatibility (which is basicly not even "guideline" but "bug").
As said, the "merging" of all "how-to" to "help:" namespace was unsuccessful. There's this other one that couldn't be merged to help: namespace: Wikipedia:namespace. The reason was that it listed the names of the en:wikipedia namespaces, which for a few of them are not the same as the generic ones mentioned on the related meta: page. I had to get it back. Then, there's also the pseudo-namespace issue explained on that en:wikipedia page. That aspect has been enforced pretty ruthless the last few months. NPOV is no longer a redirect to wikipedia:neutral point of view. Jimbo's User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles had to be adapted (it contained [[NPOV]]). In fact that's policy-level, the way the content of that page is enforced now: unorthodox cross-namespace redirects (that is, not following the limited "pseudo-namespace" exceptions) are RfD-ed without pardon. Then someone comes up asking whether Wikipedia:namespace is "policy" or "guideline". I tagged it "Policy". Really important page I think, I have been explaining the importance of that page numerous times (for instance, it's so important to understand *that not every rule applies likewise to all namespaces* – it's so basic-fundamental to get a grasp of the namespace concept: not grasping it means heading for trouble as has been demonstrated, alas, so many times). There's no escape, namespace guidance is "absolutely" enforceable, it's so enforceable that you don't need to be a sysop to enforce it. If someone writes a guideline proposal in article namespace, for instance, you move it to "Wikipedia:" namespace (and re-redirect the cross-namespace redirect). If the user doesn't understand, you point to the "namespace" guidance. You always win, namespace guidance is "absolutely" enforceable. Well, anyway, some time later someone else came by at the Wikipedia:Namespace page and says "policy" level too high for that guidance page. No problem for me, the page is "guideline" now. If you think of it, wikipedia:namespace could as well be considered a how-to guideline. Just a technical explanation of how namespace technology works (not saying which namespace "should be used and why"), and that "WP:" and "Transwiki:" are "pseudo", not real namespaces. --Francis Schonken21:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
FAQ
I think one of the steps in tidying up is to create FAQ pages for each guideline, where entries in the FAQ are made based on discussion on talk pages.
This saves a lot of time when replying to the same suggestion/question for the 1000s time :-)
In any case, I intend to start making FAQ pages anytime I get a question I know I've answered before. Please join in! :-)
I think over time we can try to find commonalities between FAQs.
Radient. The talk page I moved was discussion about the ESSAY Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments which USED to be at the address Wikipedia:Notability - but is no longer. *I* do not need to take baby-steps to learn more about how wikipedia works. I find that my recent actions relating to the subcategory tag you mentioned have surfaced some interesting developments - it seems I'm not the only one who was confused about that tag.
I find your comments to me to be very insulting, I am *not* a new and clueless editor, and frankly your implications that I am are not appropriate. Please take the time to look at the history of Wikipedia:Notability and the essay that was previously there. Then *you* tell me if my edits are misguided. Fresheneesz20:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your patient response to my harsh words. I would very much like to see the history split so that discussion that was originally essay-realted, stays with the essay. People already have looked at the proposal and seen a huge amount of discussion (of course not reading it), and have assumed that the very new proposal has a large base of support - when this is simply not the case.. yet.
I realize we are both trying to push our own sides of the issue - and thus I think it would be wise to come to an agreement. You have been trying to push WP:NNOT off as a proposal with no consensus and no support, this is obviously not true. However, we would very much like to have your constructive criticism of our proposal, so that we can hone it down to a workable nature. Please keep in mind that while you might think the proposal is a ridiculous opponent to much current policy and guidelines, many people disagree. Therefore trying to convey that to us is a lost cause.
Well? Are you going to move the talk page content? I moved it before by placing a delete tag on it with a reason - some nice admin thought that reason was sufficient to delete it, so that I could move the content. I'd very much appreciate if you would move the content that relates to the essay to its rightful place. Fresheneesz01:18, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I don't exactly know what you have in mind then. I was thinking of moving the talk page (all of it) to preserve the large amount of essay related history, then copy back the comments that are proposal-related. There isn't that much history with the proposal, so i figure it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But if you want to do it your way... Fresheneesz19:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I recall from my time as a newbie that navigating the Byzantine pathways of WikiPolicy was profoundly confusing. The Village Pump was particularly challenging in this regard. And that was despite being an experienced Internet professional who had, by that time, spent 10 years in the ISP industry, designing and enforcing online policies.
So I'm not wholly convinced of the utility of putting a link to the Village Pump on the login page, with an encouragement to ask questions there. It seems that the most likely result will be a slew of newbie Help Desk and Reference Desk type questions cluttering up the Village Pump.
I am not entirely certain what your goal is with these changes, so I'm afraid I can't offer anything in the way of a more constructive suggestion. In the meantime, in order to spare the Pump, I am going to change the link on the login page to the Help Desk. I found that page more newbie-friendly when I was a newbie, and policy questions asked there can always be directed at the Village Pump (or other pages as appropriate) in any case.
Ah, yes, cfd. It's become something of a ghetto, I think a few old players stopped taking an interest and now, with no outside input and it's hard to get much past the regulars, who don't seem inclined to discuss overly much. There's been a few disputed decisions there recently. What's the fix? Steve blockTalk19:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll agree with the sentiment that it has gone crazy. I haven't taken part of any discussions since my wikibreak (I have enough grey hairs as it is), but I'm back to closing them, so I see the stuff that comes through. You can also take a look at WP:CFD/WU. They had to break out the wikipedian user categories because there were so many of them, and most bots were choking on them. Personally, if I were to be in on the discussions, I'd be pushed far into the deletionist camp. I'm not one to rely on WP:SNOW, or WP:IAR, or WP:DENY, but the more time I spend at CFD, the more I think they make sense. It's not only the sheer number of unneeded categories out there, but the sheer number of people who want to keep them. The Dolphin user category is one that leaps to mind. --Kbdank7120:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like the deletedcategory idea, but that doesn't stop people from tagging articles with the category anyway. Is there something the devs can do to stop that, like the spam blocker? If the category has that template, don't allow an article save with it, something like that? --Kbdank7102:14, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What a Great Month!
You're really back! Welcome Radiant! one! Have a token of my esteem!
Have a field of them please! Whatever color you like, forever fresh and refreshing! Yeah! You're back! Let's have a Parade! Let's get drunk an Party! Yippeee-ee-eee!
I just did a quick skim (snooping after you and RB) on technical bits and the above. There is a tool on Template:W2 that I believe displays the intersection of categories of interest. I don't think it does three at once though. I'm afraid I just played with it for a few moments, and went on one day, so I need to refresh the graying ole gray-matter on the whole thing. I need to back out and finish some stuff pending since nine or so this morning over on Meta, but I'll look into that and drop a link back. If you're in a hurry, Brianna ought to be awake (Australia) and active over there at this hour... Try a message to Template:Ute, for directions. // FrankB21:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, just a small suggestion. I've found that the way you write comments is a little cumbersome to me. It'd be easier for me (and I would guess for others as well) if you indented past the last comment (unless it gets too far), and only use bulleting sparingly. However, feel free to disregard my needs - just a suggestion. Fresheneesz01:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Basically the template just describes the original way we created guidelines on wikipedia. I think it's important to advertise our original (working!) methodologies a bit more :-) Kim Bruning09:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When reverting two edits simultaneously, it would be nice if you could provide explanations for both reversions. You addressed John254's comments, but you completely ignored mine (and jumped straight back to your wording).
Rfrisbietalk 01:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
