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← ( Archive 3) | Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates (archive) | ( Archive 1) → |
When did the new section Wikipedia:Featured article candidates#New nomination, without feedback as yet get added to the types of articles, and what purpose does it serve. Self nominations go to their own section, nonself nominations go in the without objections (yet) section. Am I missing something? Gentgeen 13:19, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
My objection to the proposal is that it would act to decrease the utility of Featured Pictures. Much better to have the pictures where those few interested can find them easily than to have them lost in amongst the many, many Featured Articles. Tannin 09:58, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't think we've got any formal policy on how to remove a page from FA, so I don't know how to deal with the current nominations for removal. Any ideas? Gentgeen 03:26, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
OK, how long do we list nominations for removal? I don't like five days, as that's a shorter time than anything esle we do around here. How about if it's still objected to after a week it gets tossed? Gentgeen 13:05, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This isn't a voting page, it's a concensus page. For something to be placed on Featured articles the community needs to agree that it is one of the best articles on the site. If an article has 3 supports and 2 outstanding objections it should not go on the featured list. If it has 9 supports and 1 objection it might be good enough, but we should work on fixing the objection anyway. Additionally, as far as I'm concerned, a page that failed to make it up could be relisted 1 hour after the discussion was archived if the page had undergone edits to remedy the outstanding objections, however, if a page has not been improved it should not be relisted even after a year has passed.
Now, I'm not sure what procedure to follow about removing articles, but lean in favor of a concensus needed to keep an article on the FA list, so any unaddressed, specific objection should be enough to remove the listing. Gentgeen 17:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Gentgeen just above. An objectionable article should be removed, and consensus should be needed for an article to be kept. It is also fine to re-nominate the article, or to try to convince them to change their mind. If they are a nut, they will prob get banned and go away, and then the article can again be brilliant prose. But I do not want a BS article on this list, even if the majority thinks it's copacetic. An article which offends a single reasonable editor is sure to offend a goodly number of the public, if and when they read it. This is ment to be our best, and nothing less. The last thing I want is a new reader seeing some grotesquery like libertarian socialism on their first (and surely last) visit. Sam Spade 05:17, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
New subtopic: notification. If an article can be kept on FA only by having enough people endorse it when it's listed here, then there really has to be some kind of notification when it's listed for removal. (Of course, if unanimity is required for retention, this doesn't matter; see above.) Right now it's as if we expected that everybody will monitor this list unless there's no article that he thinks is worthy of FA status; this sort of assumption seems too common at Wikipedia and needs to be thought about. Is it assumed that such a notice will be posted? (It didn't happen for the massive review of old aricles on the list; it seems nobody thought of it.)
In fact, even a notice on the page is not necessarily good enough. What if a person admires a page but doesn't happen to look at it for a week? I don't have a good answer to this problem, but might we not think about it before adopting a procedure? Dandrake 05:32, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Toby Bartels appears to be testing the process by arbitrarily restoring this page. If it requires a concensus to remove an article, I think we should get rid of Wikipedia:Featured articles all together, or at least get them off of the main page, because displaying propoganda/junk pages like this one as "our finest" degrades any sensible readers opinion of the wikipedia. Sam Spade 03:12, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I just wrote this on the main page, about Libertarian socialism, which Sam removed and I replaced:
Sam apparently decided to remove the page, based on HappyDog's original post under this heading. But of course we don't have consensus for that rule yet (^_^). I'd like to argue that the criteria for keeping, whatever they are, must be weaker than the criteria for listing in the first place; otherwise, the listing could be rather unstable. OTOH, instability is probably not a problem, so long as it doesn't entail edit wars (say if Sam removes it again, and I replace it again ... but I don't do edit wars, so that won't happen in this case). Since this list is meta-data, the actual system doesn't matter much, so long as it's clear (this is a big difference between votes here and votes on VfD). Thus, Gentgeen's idea that "any unaddressed, specific objection" necessitates removal will be a problem; it's not very definite. Again with this example, I find no unaddressed, specific objection to Libertarian socialism -- only a few people who object to the idea covered by the article, without any coherent objection to the article and its coverage. Yet I doubt that Sam agrees with this characterisation! Thus, although I've argued against voting systems on many occasions in the past, a strict voting method (such as HappyDog suggested, or another) would probably be best. Then both Sam and I agree could agree how to interpret the results -- even if one of us found the results terribly wrong! ^_^ -- Toby Bartels 03:21, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I assume you have reviewed this? Talk:Libertarian socialism/Featured article removal Sam Spade 03:30, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes, anybody that wants to see a good example of the issue should look at this. The objections to Libertarian socialism have been almost completely groundless, as I'm confident that almost anybody would agree. (If Sam Spade and I disagree completely on the article, but agree that it's a good example -- then it must get to the heart of the issue, no? ^_^) This is as clear an argument as any that featured articles shouldn't be required to constantly maintain unanimous consent.
HappyDog's voting proposal is a good start, and I'd like to see if people can endorse it or suggest improvements. I would start with adding some notification system, since 5 votes may be required weekly to keep an article; or alternatively (better IMO), switch it to a 5 vote minimum for change either way.
-- Toby Bartels 08:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Voting is fun. I don't see the sense in all these numbers of five however, its a pretty arbitrary number, and will be large or small in accordance with the number of people who are interested. I think it should be concensus. If one person reccomends something, (and is seconded at least, I should hope...) that one vote should be enough to have it be considered as brilliant prose. If someone objects, there is no longer concensus. Sam Spade 05:37, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
5 is an arbitrary number, but I do think a minimum number is required. If something is listed and no-one seems interested in whether it stays a featured article or not then it probably isn't good enough to be featured. If something is listed and no-one seems to be responding then the person who listed it can always post a message on this talk page, the article talk page, the village pump or wherever else they feel might create interest. I chose 5 because 3 seemed too low, and I wanted an odd number. Feel free to suggest otherwise. -- HappyDog 09:05, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It has been proposed that Featured article candidates should be merged with Wikipedia:Featured pictures candidates, as the picture page gets very little attention from the community. As a large, one time listing of articles to this page have been archived, we can now evaluate this idea under "normal operating conditions". Just for information, even after archiving the discussions, the page is 33 kb long.
Lets give this a week, so voting will end at 16:00 (UTC) on March 2, 2004. Voting ends, final tally: 2 in favor, 9 against.
Here is the proposal under discussion:
I forgot to close the poll, but I guess it's fairly obvious, this proposal didn't pass, the pages remain independant. Gentgeen 01:06, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "Recently added to Featured articles" be placed at the bottom of this page? Afterall, the game is over for those items (and they have the most comment text associated with them making it harder to scroll past them to get to the candidates that are currently under consideration). Bevo 18:13, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I propose several changes to this change:
The current structure is messy and hostile to newbies. The intent was obviously to make it easier to find things, but the opposite result has been achieved. I just spent 30 seconds wondering where to add a new nomination. Clearly something needs to be done. If nobody objects to this proposal I will implement it. —Eloquence 06:01, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)
If anybody can remove any listing, then this means that every entry requires unanimous consent. It's ironic that Eloquence is supporting consensus while I support voting (the opposite of usual), but perhaps both of us justify this because FA is less important metacontent. ^_^ Anyway, unanimity does not seem necessary to me, so I still believe that a vote with quorum be required for change in either direction; but I'm not wedded to 50%+ for vote success, nor to 5+ for the quorum. -- Toby Bartels 19:27, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The consensus should be near unanimous. If a single person removes an article but it turns out everyone else disagrees with their rationale then we can re-add it. But I think for FA in particular we should try to please (almost) everyone. If it turns out that some people object just in order to win certain concessions then we can talk again about changing the procedure, but right now it seems to work fairly well. —Eloquence 03:31, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)
Agree with Eloquence. Muriel 07:40, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'd like there to be a decision one way or the other, as there appear to be a small number of rather dubious featured articles, and a particularly slow and uncertain process to remove them. Sam Spade 08:33, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There is so many nominations that I have trouble finding the text for a particular nomination when trying to edit. If each nomination had a unique subheading, then with section-edit preference turned on, it would be so much easier to edit a nomination. - Bevo 19:06, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I read Toby's comment here after I changed the page, so please let me explain a bit why I think there needs to be consensus for an article to be featured.
Consensus-seeking is the general decision making process for Wikipedia. I initially reacted to this with skepticism, but I have seen it work now in many cases where I did not think it possible. It depends a lot on the ability and desire for civil discussion, which is often amiss. However, consensus is not always possible, and I believe we should in all cases have the option to use voting as a last resort. I believe we should eventually formalize this as a decision making process, with defined periods of consensus-seeking time and different rules for decisions of different gravity.
I believe the rules for voting on minor decisions should be more relaxed than those for major ones, but in all cases consensus should be sought first if it seems at all likely that it can be reached (in a case like the logo contest with hundreds of submissions, that was clearly futile from the start). Is featuring an article a minor or a major decision? I'd say it's a major one. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such, we want our articles to undergo quality control. FA is currently the only approval mechanism we have. It's not a very sophisticated one, but with the new rule of two readers having to approve the article and having to actually read it, it is a quality control mechanism. We will further formalize this mechanism to build areas within Wikipedia which the reader can trust to a higher degree (for example, by flagging a particular revision of the article as the one which has undergone this process).
I think consensus is important here because a lack of it shows that some issues have not been resolved yet. In some cases these may be social issues - a user may be objecting because he was involved in a dispute and still hold a grudge, etc. But this is a good reason not to add the article -- refining the social context is almost as important as refining the article itself. If a user objects for fallacious reasons, it is likely that a nearly unanimous consensus will evolve anyway.
As for the question whether we use the "nearly unanimous" principle elsewhere -- Wikipedia:Deletion policy uses the phrase "rough consensus", I think a similar phrase has also been applied to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Generally consensus on Wikipedia needs not be absolute, but it should be 90% or higher. (The fact that this is not precisely defined is one of the things I want to change as part of a formalized decision making process. Some people have gone so far to interpret it as "2/3", which I think is ridiculous.) —Eloquence 01:43, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)
Eloquence, thanks for your thoughtful comments. You've convinced me (at least as far as this page is concerned; and I'm going to take a close look at your broader proposals too.) -- Toby Bartels 00:25, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I agree strongly with everything Eloquence has said above, with the caveat stated by kingturtle (which I would assume eloquence agree's to anyways?) which is that voting should not be occuring in any normal situation on the FA page, and a single objection should be enough to remove and repair an article. As for the general policy stuff, I am begining to think Eloquence should be officially be named Steward to Jimbo's God-King status ;). Seriously tho, I do feel a power vacuum on the wiki, and I'd like to see people of exceptional talents (such as Eloquence obviously) promoted to exceptional positions. I am deeply annoyed w admins in general based on their naughtiness, and equally pleased w the arbitrators for their striking integrity and wisdom. I guess what I'm saying is I want certain obviously qualified people (like Eloquence) to be encouraged to write policy and make big decisions (particularly in regards to article dispute) in advance of concensus, and only to be over-ruled by clear majority. Sam Spade 00:57, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Fabiform has changed the format of the discussion threads to bullets again. This is the old format using indentation as it is used on talk pages. I would like to do a quick poll as to which version is preferred so I don't have to do the work of converting this again a week later. If it turns out that I'm the only one who prefers indentation then I'll happily accept that.
My argument in favor of indentation is that indentation makes it much easier to have meaningful discussions rather than just one-line comments, because you can actually easily format multiple paragraphs, have whitespace between separate long comments etc. -- the exact same reasons we use indentation, and not bullets, on talk pages. It also looks more friendly both in the wiki source and on the rendered page, and less like some geeky pseudo-discussion page.
I can't speak for Fabiform, but I suspect that he prefers bullets because he thinks the whitespace is "wasteful" and the bullets make threads easier to recognize. I personally think whitespace is a useful layout element -- it is not obnoxious but serves the purpose of separation well.
So, on to the poll.
I like bullets for pages like this and VfD that talk about a whole lot of things at once. The main reason is to make things easier to scan -- whitespace doesn't enter into it. This reason also justifies subheaders for each article. (Each of these aids to scanning makes the other less important -- but I like them both.)
However, Eloquence makes a very good point that long discussions should be encouraged, and long discussion (with comments spanning several paragraphs) are easier with indentation. I agree, but this page is not the place for long discussion. It wont' fit! Rather, when a discussion gets long, move it to the talk page of the article in question (which is also done in VfD). That keeps this page manageable.
And if we do this, then this page is also better (IMO) with bullet points. (That said, I personally see no reason to spend my time changing everything over; I'd happily live with a mix if that's what people happened to write.)
-- Toby Bartels 23:09, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Take a look at this diff. Please don't tell me I have to keep writing paragraphs like this. It hurts me, it really does. Keep in mind that I can't easily move this discussion, exactly because of the nonstandard format. If it was indented I could quickly cut and paste it over and leave a note here. But in this format I have to convert it, or switch format in the middle of the discussion, or keep using the ugly format. ARGH! —Eloquence
I see your point. That's not so much commentary that one should move the discussion yet. Of course, it wouldn't take very much work to convert just that subheading before writing your response, if #3 in the poll wins, would it? I ask because I do think that bullets work better sometimes, even though you've convinced me that indentation also works better sometimes (even for items that ought to remain on this page). -- Toby Bartels 00:25, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
← ( Archive 3) | Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates (archive) | ( Archive 1) → |
When did the new section Wikipedia:Featured article candidates#New nomination, without feedback as yet get added to the types of articles, and what purpose does it serve. Self nominations go to their own section, nonself nominations go in the without objections (yet) section. Am I missing something? Gentgeen 13:19, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)
My objection to the proposal is that it would act to decrease the utility of Featured Pictures. Much better to have the pictures where those few interested can find them easily than to have them lost in amongst the many, many Featured Articles. Tannin 09:58, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't think we've got any formal policy on how to remove a page from FA, so I don't know how to deal with the current nominations for removal. Any ideas? Gentgeen 03:26, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
OK, how long do we list nominations for removal? I don't like five days, as that's a shorter time than anything esle we do around here. How about if it's still objected to after a week it gets tossed? Gentgeen 13:05, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This isn't a voting page, it's a concensus page. For something to be placed on Featured articles the community needs to agree that it is one of the best articles on the site. If an article has 3 supports and 2 outstanding objections it should not go on the featured list. If it has 9 supports and 1 objection it might be good enough, but we should work on fixing the objection anyway. Additionally, as far as I'm concerned, a page that failed to make it up could be relisted 1 hour after the discussion was archived if the page had undergone edits to remedy the outstanding objections, however, if a page has not been improved it should not be relisted even after a year has passed.
Now, I'm not sure what procedure to follow about removing articles, but lean in favor of a concensus needed to keep an article on the FA list, so any unaddressed, specific objection should be enough to remove the listing. Gentgeen 17:27, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Gentgeen just above. An objectionable article should be removed, and consensus should be needed for an article to be kept. It is also fine to re-nominate the article, or to try to convince them to change their mind. If they are a nut, they will prob get banned and go away, and then the article can again be brilliant prose. But I do not want a BS article on this list, even if the majority thinks it's copacetic. An article which offends a single reasonable editor is sure to offend a goodly number of the public, if and when they read it. This is ment to be our best, and nothing less. The last thing I want is a new reader seeing some grotesquery like libertarian socialism on their first (and surely last) visit. Sam Spade 05:17, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
New subtopic: notification. If an article can be kept on FA only by having enough people endorse it when it's listed here, then there really has to be some kind of notification when it's listed for removal. (Of course, if unanimity is required for retention, this doesn't matter; see above.) Right now it's as if we expected that everybody will monitor this list unless there's no article that he thinks is worthy of FA status; this sort of assumption seems too common at Wikipedia and needs to be thought about. Is it assumed that such a notice will be posted? (It didn't happen for the massive review of old aricles on the list; it seems nobody thought of it.)
In fact, even a notice on the page is not necessarily good enough. What if a person admires a page but doesn't happen to look at it for a week? I don't have a good answer to this problem, but might we not think about it before adopting a procedure? Dandrake 05:32, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Toby Bartels appears to be testing the process by arbitrarily restoring this page. If it requires a concensus to remove an article, I think we should get rid of Wikipedia:Featured articles all together, or at least get them off of the main page, because displaying propoganda/junk pages like this one as "our finest" degrades any sensible readers opinion of the wikipedia. Sam Spade 03:12, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I just wrote this on the main page, about Libertarian socialism, which Sam removed and I replaced:
Sam apparently decided to remove the page, based on HappyDog's original post under this heading. But of course we don't have consensus for that rule yet (^_^). I'd like to argue that the criteria for keeping, whatever they are, must be weaker than the criteria for listing in the first place; otherwise, the listing could be rather unstable. OTOH, instability is probably not a problem, so long as it doesn't entail edit wars (say if Sam removes it again, and I replace it again ... but I don't do edit wars, so that won't happen in this case). Since this list is meta-data, the actual system doesn't matter much, so long as it's clear (this is a big difference between votes here and votes on VfD). Thus, Gentgeen's idea that "any unaddressed, specific objection" necessitates removal will be a problem; it's not very definite. Again with this example, I find no unaddressed, specific objection to Libertarian socialism -- only a few people who object to the idea covered by the article, without any coherent objection to the article and its coverage. Yet I doubt that Sam agrees with this characterisation! Thus, although I've argued against voting systems on many occasions in the past, a strict voting method (such as HappyDog suggested, or another) would probably be best. Then both Sam and I agree could agree how to interpret the results -- even if one of us found the results terribly wrong! ^_^ -- Toby Bartels 03:21, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I assume you have reviewed this? Talk:Libertarian socialism/Featured article removal Sam Spade 03:30, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes, anybody that wants to see a good example of the issue should look at this. The objections to Libertarian socialism have been almost completely groundless, as I'm confident that almost anybody would agree. (If Sam Spade and I disagree completely on the article, but agree that it's a good example -- then it must get to the heart of the issue, no? ^_^) This is as clear an argument as any that featured articles shouldn't be required to constantly maintain unanimous consent.
HappyDog's voting proposal is a good start, and I'd like to see if people can endorse it or suggest improvements. I would start with adding some notification system, since 5 votes may be required weekly to keep an article; or alternatively (better IMO), switch it to a 5 vote minimum for change either way.
-- Toby Bartels 08:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Voting is fun. I don't see the sense in all these numbers of five however, its a pretty arbitrary number, and will be large or small in accordance with the number of people who are interested. I think it should be concensus. If one person reccomends something, (and is seconded at least, I should hope...) that one vote should be enough to have it be considered as brilliant prose. If someone objects, there is no longer concensus. Sam Spade 05:37, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
5 is an arbitrary number, but I do think a minimum number is required. If something is listed and no-one seems interested in whether it stays a featured article or not then it probably isn't good enough to be featured. If something is listed and no-one seems to be responding then the person who listed it can always post a message on this talk page, the article talk page, the village pump or wherever else they feel might create interest. I chose 5 because 3 seemed too low, and I wanted an odd number. Feel free to suggest otherwise. -- HappyDog 09:05, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It has been proposed that Featured article candidates should be merged with Wikipedia:Featured pictures candidates, as the picture page gets very little attention from the community. As a large, one time listing of articles to this page have been archived, we can now evaluate this idea under "normal operating conditions". Just for information, even after archiving the discussions, the page is 33 kb long.
Lets give this a week, so voting will end at 16:00 (UTC) on March 2, 2004. Voting ends, final tally: 2 in favor, 9 against.
Here is the proposal under discussion:
I forgot to close the poll, but I guess it's fairly obvious, this proposal didn't pass, the pages remain independant. Gentgeen 01:06, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "Recently added to Featured articles" be placed at the bottom of this page? Afterall, the game is over for those items (and they have the most comment text associated with them making it harder to scroll past them to get to the candidates that are currently under consideration). Bevo 18:13, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I propose several changes to this change:
The current structure is messy and hostile to newbies. The intent was obviously to make it easier to find things, but the opposite result has been achieved. I just spent 30 seconds wondering where to add a new nomination. Clearly something needs to be done. If nobody objects to this proposal I will implement it. —Eloquence 06:01, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)
If anybody can remove any listing, then this means that every entry requires unanimous consent. It's ironic that Eloquence is supporting consensus while I support voting (the opposite of usual), but perhaps both of us justify this because FA is less important metacontent. ^_^ Anyway, unanimity does not seem necessary to me, so I still believe that a vote with quorum be required for change in either direction; but I'm not wedded to 50%+ for vote success, nor to 5+ for the quorum. -- Toby Bartels 19:27, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The consensus should be near unanimous. If a single person removes an article but it turns out everyone else disagrees with their rationale then we can re-add it. But I think for FA in particular we should try to please (almost) everyone. If it turns out that some people object just in order to win certain concessions then we can talk again about changing the procedure, but right now it seems to work fairly well. —Eloquence 03:31, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)
Agree with Eloquence. Muriel 07:40, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'd like there to be a decision one way or the other, as there appear to be a small number of rather dubious featured articles, and a particularly slow and uncertain process to remove them. Sam Spade 08:33, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
There is so many nominations that I have trouble finding the text for a particular nomination when trying to edit. If each nomination had a unique subheading, then with section-edit preference turned on, it would be so much easier to edit a nomination. - Bevo 19:06, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I read Toby's comment here after I changed the page, so please let me explain a bit why I think there needs to be consensus for an article to be featured.
Consensus-seeking is the general decision making process for Wikipedia. I initially reacted to this with skepticism, but I have seen it work now in many cases where I did not think it possible. It depends a lot on the ability and desire for civil discussion, which is often amiss. However, consensus is not always possible, and I believe we should in all cases have the option to use voting as a last resort. I believe we should eventually formalize this as a decision making process, with defined periods of consensus-seeking time and different rules for decisions of different gravity.
I believe the rules for voting on minor decisions should be more relaxed than those for major ones, but in all cases consensus should be sought first if it seems at all likely that it can be reached (in a case like the logo contest with hundreds of submissions, that was clearly futile from the start). Is featuring an article a minor or a major decision? I'd say it's a major one. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such, we want our articles to undergo quality control. FA is currently the only approval mechanism we have. It's not a very sophisticated one, but with the new rule of two readers having to approve the article and having to actually read it, it is a quality control mechanism. We will further formalize this mechanism to build areas within Wikipedia which the reader can trust to a higher degree (for example, by flagging a particular revision of the article as the one which has undergone this process).
I think consensus is important here because a lack of it shows that some issues have not been resolved yet. In some cases these may be social issues - a user may be objecting because he was involved in a dispute and still hold a grudge, etc. But this is a good reason not to add the article -- refining the social context is almost as important as refining the article itself. If a user objects for fallacious reasons, it is likely that a nearly unanimous consensus will evolve anyway.
As for the question whether we use the "nearly unanimous" principle elsewhere -- Wikipedia:Deletion policy uses the phrase "rough consensus", I think a similar phrase has also been applied to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Generally consensus on Wikipedia needs not be absolute, but it should be 90% or higher. (The fact that this is not precisely defined is one of the things I want to change as part of a formalized decision making process. Some people have gone so far to interpret it as "2/3", which I think is ridiculous.) —Eloquence 01:43, Mar 8, 2004 (UTC)
Eloquence, thanks for your thoughtful comments. You've convinced me (at least as far as this page is concerned; and I'm going to take a close look at your broader proposals too.) -- Toby Bartels 00:25, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I agree strongly with everything Eloquence has said above, with the caveat stated by kingturtle (which I would assume eloquence agree's to anyways?) which is that voting should not be occuring in any normal situation on the FA page, and a single objection should be enough to remove and repair an article. As for the general policy stuff, I am begining to think Eloquence should be officially be named Steward to Jimbo's God-King status ;). Seriously tho, I do feel a power vacuum on the wiki, and I'd like to see people of exceptional talents (such as Eloquence obviously) promoted to exceptional positions. I am deeply annoyed w admins in general based on their naughtiness, and equally pleased w the arbitrators for their striking integrity and wisdom. I guess what I'm saying is I want certain obviously qualified people (like Eloquence) to be encouraged to write policy and make big decisions (particularly in regards to article dispute) in advance of concensus, and only to be over-ruled by clear majority. Sam Spade 00:57, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Fabiform has changed the format of the discussion threads to bullets again. This is the old format using indentation as it is used on talk pages. I would like to do a quick poll as to which version is preferred so I don't have to do the work of converting this again a week later. If it turns out that I'm the only one who prefers indentation then I'll happily accept that.
My argument in favor of indentation is that indentation makes it much easier to have meaningful discussions rather than just one-line comments, because you can actually easily format multiple paragraphs, have whitespace between separate long comments etc. -- the exact same reasons we use indentation, and not bullets, on talk pages. It also looks more friendly both in the wiki source and on the rendered page, and less like some geeky pseudo-discussion page.
I can't speak for Fabiform, but I suspect that he prefers bullets because he thinks the whitespace is "wasteful" and the bullets make threads easier to recognize. I personally think whitespace is a useful layout element -- it is not obnoxious but serves the purpose of separation well.
So, on to the poll.
I like bullets for pages like this and VfD that talk about a whole lot of things at once. The main reason is to make things easier to scan -- whitespace doesn't enter into it. This reason also justifies subheaders for each article. (Each of these aids to scanning makes the other less important -- but I like them both.)
However, Eloquence makes a very good point that long discussions should be encouraged, and long discussion (with comments spanning several paragraphs) are easier with indentation. I agree, but this page is not the place for long discussion. It wont' fit! Rather, when a discussion gets long, move it to the talk page of the article in question (which is also done in VfD). That keeps this page manageable.
And if we do this, then this page is also better (IMO) with bullet points. (That said, I personally see no reason to spend my time changing everything over; I'd happily live with a mix if that's what people happened to write.)
-- Toby Bartels 23:09, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Take a look at this diff. Please don't tell me I have to keep writing paragraphs like this. It hurts me, it really does. Keep in mind that I can't easily move this discussion, exactly because of the nonstandard format. If it was indented I could quickly cut and paste it over and leave a note here. But in this format I have to convert it, or switch format in the middle of the discussion, or keep using the ugly format. ARGH! —Eloquence
I see your point. That's not so much commentary that one should move the discussion yet. Of course, it wouldn't take very much work to convert just that subheading before writing your response, if #3 in the poll wins, would it? I ask because I do think that bullets work better sometimes, even though you've convinced me that indentation also works better sometimes (even for items that ought to remain on this page). -- Toby Bartels 00:25, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)