The specific month-long dispute at WP:TITLE is about whether the Recognizability criterion should be restricted to those familiar with articles topic or not. This specific dispute at WP:TITLE is really part of a larger one that extends to WP:D/ WT:D, and many RM discussion in which Noetica, Tony1 and Dicklyon are involved, because they hold a view contrary to long-held community consensus about titles. In particular, they would like to see more descriptive information in many titles in situations where the relevant policies, guidelines and conventions indicate otherwise, primarily because of our convention to add more descriptive information to titles only when needed to disambiguate the titles from others uses in Wikipedia.
It has been suggested that I should note at the outset here that the reason this particular wording is controversial is because these three editors (and there may be more, like Ohconfucious and Kwami) wish to have article titles with more description in them than just their names than most people think would be beneficial to the encyclopedia or its readers. Some examples of the expression of this view:
The specific month-long dispute at WP:TITLE is about whether the Recognizability criterion should be restricted to those familiar with articles topic or not. This specific dispute at WP:TITLE is really part of a larger one that extends to WP:D/ WT:D, and many RM discussion in which Noetica, Tony1 and Dicklyon are involved, because they hold a view contrary to long-held community consensus about titles. In particular, they would like to see more descriptive information in many titles in situations where the relevant policies, guidelines and conventions indicate otherwise, primarily because of our convention to add more descriptive information to titles only when needed to disambiguate the titles from others uses in Wikipedia.
The insistence to discuss, while simultaneously refusing and/or avoiding actual substantive discussion has continued by Tony, Dicklyon and Noetica for over a month now, as today is already January 26, 2012, and not one of them has said anything substantive in objection to the edit, or in support of the wording without the edit.
The problem is that nobody can figure out a coherent way to incorporate this wish into our conventions, guidelines and policies. They seek to tweak policy here and there, as in this case, presumably to allow them to add more description in some cases, but the big issue of how to deal with this properly is never addressed. From the moment Tony first reverted an edit that I first made on Dec 21, which I accompanied with a clear and reasonable explanation on the talk page, they have never put forward a substantive statement or argument explaining why that edit should not be accepted.
In the mean time thirteen separate experienced editors (it was 11 yesterday) -- Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Born2cycle, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, Enric Naval, Eraserhead, Greg L, Jenks24, Bkonrad -- have all clearly explained why it should be in there.
Instead of addressing the issues substantively, they have used so many stonewalling techniques to maintain the status quo, I wrote an essay about it. The first excuse was that we needed to have talk-page consensus "first" (never mind that there was nothing to talk about, which was clear to most of us then, but now, 5 weeks later, with still no substantive talk from them, there can be no question about that for anyone). If you unhide the hidden sections of that initial discussion, Wikipedia_talk:AT#Clarification_of_recognizability_lost, you'll see that all these three were willing to talk about was how inappropriate it was for me to make that change, not the change itself. Dicklyon even went so far as to admit, "I haven't even looked at what you're proposing or what it's implications are ". That was on Dec 21. Today is Jan 24, and, as far as I can tell, he still hasn't even looked at the proposal or what its implications are. If he has, he certainly hasn't written anything about doing that. But despite all their diversions, a few people did contribute substantively to the discussion: In particular:
Not liking the way that discussion was going, less than 24 hours later Dicklyon started a new discussion at Wikipedia_talk:AT#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording, ostensibly because we supposedly need to have "a thoughtful discussion of the wording of the title guideline at Wikipedia:AT#Deciding_on_an_article_title concerning recognizability." I note that that too was written on Dec 21, and we are still waiting for him to say a single thoughtful thing about "the wording ... concerning recognizability" over a month later. No, I'm not exaggerating. Please note how easy it would be to refute that assertion if I was wrong, by quoting something thoughtful that he said about that wording since then. The statements in favor of my edit continued to roll in:
I note these are all substantive statements in favor of my edit, not made under duress or in a moment of passion, and again, there were no substantive statements made in opposition to my edit. Of course, those opposed to the edit (for reasons they were and are unable to articulate) were unhappy about this, and, instead of engaging substantively in the discussion, threw a hissy-fit. That was still on Dec 22.
Somewhere along the way Noetica was apparently able to dupe Kwami into believing there was an ongoing substantive dispute about the edit and that there was no consensus in favor of the edit. So Kwami reverted the wording to the problematic "status quo" version, and locked the page. And that's where we've been since then, more or less, with a few edit skirmishes/relocks along the way. The rest of the talk page is mostly talking about talking about it. I've tried staying away for days at a time, and I've tried engaging them in substantive discussion about it. Kotniski, Greg L, I and others have tried to get those opposed to my edit to explain why. For example, Greg L wrote just yesterday: "So I invite anyone from the other side of The Force to clearly refute what [Born2cycle] just wrote and explain why there isn’t a consensus to add “to readers familiar...”.". Such requests for the opposers of my edit to explain their position are sprinkled throughout the page since Dec 21 (I won't take up even more room by listing them all, but a bunch are easy to find just by searching for Kotniski), all remaining unanswered.
Nothing has worked, except outside opinions keep rolling in in favor of my edit:
The three of them, or maybe four if you include Oh Confucious, have had ample opportunity to make whatever case they want to make, but they haven't made a single substantive statement in favor of leaving out the "familiar with" clause, or replacing it with anything else. Yet they keep insisting that there is no consensus and more discussion is needed. Just how much of this kind of obstinacy is the community supposed to endure?
Their behavior here takes tenatious editing to new heights, especially the WP:IDHT variety. I mean, let's just look at the edit summaries from yesterday:
Now, isn't a month long enough for them to provide a substantive explanation for their objection to my edit, especially since we've clearly shown that consensus supports this edit? Born2cycle ( talk) 18:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
The specific month-long dispute at WP:TITLE is about whether the Recognizability criterion should be restricted to those familiar with articles topic or not. This specific dispute at WP:TITLE is really part of a larger one that extends to WP:D/ WT:D, and many RM discussion in which Noetica, Tony1 and Dicklyon are involved, because they hold a view contrary to long-held community consensus about titles. In particular, they would like to see more descriptive information in many titles in situations where the relevant policies, guidelines and conventions indicate otherwise, primarily because of our convention to add more descriptive information to titles only when needed to disambiguate the titles from others uses in Wikipedia.
It has been suggested that I should note at the outset here that the reason this particular wording is controversial is because these three editors (and there may be more, like Ohconfucious and Kwami) wish to have article titles with more description in them than just their names than most people think would be beneficial to the encyclopedia or its readers. Some examples of the expression of this view:
The specific month-long dispute at WP:TITLE is about whether the Recognizability criterion should be restricted to those familiar with articles topic or not. This specific dispute at WP:TITLE is really part of a larger one that extends to WP:D/ WT:D, and many RM discussion in which Noetica, Tony1 and Dicklyon are involved, because they hold a view contrary to long-held community consensus about titles. In particular, they would like to see more descriptive information in many titles in situations where the relevant policies, guidelines and conventions indicate otherwise, primarily because of our convention to add more descriptive information to titles only when needed to disambiguate the titles from others uses in Wikipedia.
The insistence to discuss, while simultaneously refusing and/or avoiding actual substantive discussion has continued by Tony, Dicklyon and Noetica for over a month now, as today is already January 26, 2012, and not one of them has said anything substantive in objection to the edit, or in support of the wording without the edit.
The problem is that nobody can figure out a coherent way to incorporate this wish into our conventions, guidelines and policies. They seek to tweak policy here and there, as in this case, presumably to allow them to add more description in some cases, but the big issue of how to deal with this properly is never addressed. From the moment Tony first reverted an edit that I first made on Dec 21, which I accompanied with a clear and reasonable explanation on the talk page, they have never put forward a substantive statement or argument explaining why that edit should not be accepted.
In the mean time thirteen separate experienced editors (it was 11 yesterday) -- Kotniski, EdChem, PBS, Kai445, Born2cycle, Powers, WhatamIdoing, JCScaliger, Enric Naval, Eraserhead, Greg L, Jenks24, Bkonrad -- have all clearly explained why it should be in there.
Instead of addressing the issues substantively, they have used so many stonewalling techniques to maintain the status quo, I wrote an essay about it. The first excuse was that we needed to have talk-page consensus "first" (never mind that there was nothing to talk about, which was clear to most of us then, but now, 5 weeks later, with still no substantive talk from them, there can be no question about that for anyone). If you unhide the hidden sections of that initial discussion, Wikipedia_talk:AT#Clarification_of_recognizability_lost, you'll see that all these three were willing to talk about was how inappropriate it was for me to make that change, not the change itself. Dicklyon even went so far as to admit, "I haven't even looked at what you're proposing or what it's implications are ". That was on Dec 21. Today is Jan 24, and, as far as I can tell, he still hasn't even looked at the proposal or what its implications are. If he has, he certainly hasn't written anything about doing that. But despite all their diversions, a few people did contribute substantively to the discussion: In particular:
Not liking the way that discussion was going, less than 24 hours later Dicklyon started a new discussion at Wikipedia_talk:AT#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording, ostensibly because we supposedly need to have "a thoughtful discussion of the wording of the title guideline at Wikipedia:AT#Deciding_on_an_article_title concerning recognizability." I note that that too was written on Dec 21, and we are still waiting for him to say a single thoughtful thing about "the wording ... concerning recognizability" over a month later. No, I'm not exaggerating. Please note how easy it would be to refute that assertion if I was wrong, by quoting something thoughtful that he said about that wording since then. The statements in favor of my edit continued to roll in:
I note these are all substantive statements in favor of my edit, not made under duress or in a moment of passion, and again, there were no substantive statements made in opposition to my edit. Of course, those opposed to the edit (for reasons they were and are unable to articulate) were unhappy about this, and, instead of engaging substantively in the discussion, threw a hissy-fit. That was still on Dec 22.
Somewhere along the way Noetica was apparently able to dupe Kwami into believing there was an ongoing substantive dispute about the edit and that there was no consensus in favor of the edit. So Kwami reverted the wording to the problematic "status quo" version, and locked the page. And that's where we've been since then, more or less, with a few edit skirmishes/relocks along the way. The rest of the talk page is mostly talking about talking about it. I've tried staying away for days at a time, and I've tried engaging them in substantive discussion about it. Kotniski, Greg L, I and others have tried to get those opposed to my edit to explain why. For example, Greg L wrote just yesterday: "So I invite anyone from the other side of The Force to clearly refute what [Born2cycle] just wrote and explain why there isn’t a consensus to add “to readers familiar...”.". Such requests for the opposers of my edit to explain their position are sprinkled throughout the page since Dec 21 (I won't take up even more room by listing them all, but a bunch are easy to find just by searching for Kotniski), all remaining unanswered.
Nothing has worked, except outside opinions keep rolling in in favor of my edit:
The three of them, or maybe four if you include Oh Confucious, have had ample opportunity to make whatever case they want to make, but they haven't made a single substantive statement in favor of leaving out the "familiar with" clause, or replacing it with anything else. Yet they keep insisting that there is no consensus and more discussion is needed. Just how much of this kind of obstinacy is the community supposed to endure?
Their behavior here takes tenatious editing to new heights, especially the WP:IDHT variety. I mean, let's just look at the edit summaries from yesterday:
Now, isn't a month long enough for them to provide a substantive explanation for their objection to my edit, especially since we've clearly shown that consensus supports this edit? Born2cycle ( talk) 18:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)