Template talk:Proposal

Relevant discussion at

→ Template talk:Proposed/2005

Shortcut layout

The new simple {{Qif}} code is fine, but I still think that the shortcut should be smaller, more like it was yesterday. Unfortunately Template:Shortcut(edit talk links history) is protected, and just adding <small> has no effect. -- Omniplex 23:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

"This page"

The current wording "This page is a proposed..." doesn't make much sense when the template is transcluded into another page, such as a user page. I suggest changing it to "The following is a proposed...". — Hex (❝?!❞) 11:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Since nobody has objected I went ahead and made the change. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:36, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed policy template

This template is for a proposed policy and such. It automatically puts them into Category:Wikipedia proposals. Articles and templates don't need to be proposed. Just do it. Rfrisbie^talk 18:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

"Consensus" edit war

Radiant!, John254 and David Levy: please stop fighting over whether there should be a link to WP:VIE or not and discuss it here like adults. Incidentally, I agree with John254's take on the issue. — Hex (❝?!❞) 10:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

• It is exceedingly common for novice users to wrongly believe that proposals are to be voted upon. That's why it's a good idea to point it out to them that they're not. >Radiant< 20:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
  • This template isn't intended to be used as a soapbox for disputed contentions as to how policy may be formed. We have enacted policies as a result of votes -- see Wikipedia:Arbitration policy ratification vote and Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement. Instead, this template should inform users of the undisputed principles of policy ratification -- that enacting policies requires consensus, and that the nature of consensus is described in detail in the consensus guideline. Indeed, the WP:VIE essay itself cautions against making blanket single-sentence pronouncements on policy matters:

    when you distill an essay's worth of thought into a single phrase, an oversimplified, divisive statement inevitably results

    While I disagree with most of WP:VIE, this observation appears to be quite accurate. John254 22:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • However, in 95% of the cases this template is used for proposing guidelines, not policy. We do not vote on guidelines. Also, the fact that we have at some point in the past voted on some policy does not mean we vote on policy now - on Wikipedia you can claim precedent for just about anything, but we've learned from some of those not to repeat them. Recent policies (e.g. WP:PROD) have not been voted upon. >Radiant< 22:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The fact that we have adopted many policies without voting, does not imply that we can't adopt policies as a result of votes. If there is a clear consensus to adopt a certain policy, voting on it is simply a repetitive waste of time. We have used votes on policies where the discussions are deadlocked and voting allows resolution of the issues. Furthermore, making a policy requires a higher level of consensus than making a guideline -- consequently, the ability to vote policies into effect necessarily implies the ability to enact guidelines in a similar manner. John254 23:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • False, per WP:NOT a bureaucracy. Educating novice users against a very real problem is far more important than some legalistic interpretation for borderline cases. >Radiant< 23:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Putting a statement to the effect of "You can never make guidelines or policy by voting" on the template is not "educating novice users" -- it's miseducating novice users. Such users would be much better off reading Wikipedia:Consensus than a one-sentence blanket pronouncement that is inaccurate and/or disputed in many respects. This template simply indicates that a policy is proposed -- it isn't intended to be used for propaganda. John254 23:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
• Why did you include me in your list of users "fighting over whether there should be a link to WP:VIE or not"? I personally have no strong opinion regarding the link's presence, and I haven't once removed or inserted it. I've merely reworded the statement for accuracy when it already was there. —David Levy 20:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Doctl

• Doc. John Reid 05:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Pros and cons (formerly Ironic Straw Poll)

Seeing as there has been an edit war, I wish to help in reaching an agreement. To see where the people involved stand, I wish to conduct an ironic straw poll. This is more to summarize the opinions and to have discussion from there than it is to come to a binding conclusion.

Addendum: To make this more of a discussion than a vote, please state your reason why you are commenting where you are. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I have decided to go in another direction with this. Instead, I would like if we were to list why we should and why we shouldn't note that polls/majority don't equate to consensus. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 11:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Why there shouldn't be a note

1. The nature of consensus is disputed, and ill suited to summary treatment in one sentence. Therefore, we should not use this template as a forum for disputes as to what does or does not constitute consensus. A link to Wikipedia:Consensus is quite sufficient. A dispute over the nature of consensus is indicated by the recent edit war over the status of Wikipedia:Discuss, don't vote, and by the discussions on Wikipedia_talk:Discuss, don't vote, amongst other events. There's clearly a dispute as to the degree to which supermajority opinion may be used as an indication of consensus, and the extent to which voting is, or should be, used on Wikipedia. While this revision of the template claimed that a majority does not constitute consensus, the term "majority" could be taken to indicate "supermajority" unless we specifically state that a "simple majority" does not constitute consensus. This, while true, might imply an endorsement of "supermajority consensus". There's really no way to avoid stating a disputed position on the template if we try to define what consensus is not in one sentence. The content of Wikipedia:Consensus isn't disputed, of course, but only because it is describes various competing theories as to what consensus is without endorsing any of them. For instance, consider the following sentence: "While consensus-building is still the preferred method, some contributors have also come to use a supermajority as one of the determinations." Does that mean that a supermajority can indicate a consensus? Perhaps, or perhaps not. Similarly, even if we are to use supermajority opinion as an indicator of consensus, we don't really know what the numerical thresholds are. John254 03:04, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
2. I oppose discouragement of polls. I think that they can be one of several tools to help resolve conflicts. I am also certain that they validate consensus by any reasonable definition of consensus. I think putting such a statement in the warning is an effort to enforce contra-consensus bias on wikipedia. But... even if all those objections went away, I would still be opposed because I think its better for templates to be kept simpler. I especially support the current version because it is very simple and does not place assumptions on other wikipedians. --Blue Tie 05:09, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Further irony

The issue is not about how polls or majority equate to consensus. The issue is that people frequently think that a proposal cannot be adopted without being voted upon. That is incorrect, per WP:POL, and to educate people it would be useful to have a statement on that. (Radiant) 09:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

What happened to your pretty signature? I never really liked the poll to begin with, but I hadn't thought of anything else. Luckily I just did -- instead of voting, we can list why we should note it and why we shouldn't. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 11:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• I don't particularly care whether we note that polls/majority don't equate to consensus. I believe it important to educate users that, per WP:POL, proposals are not decided upon by vote counting. And, by your request: >Radiant< 13:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

While it is true that consensus to adopt a proposal can be ascertained either with or without a formal vote, this revision of the template is not conducive to conveying this precise message. Moreover, favoring this particular aspect of consensus in the language of the template would give it undue prominence with respect to all other aspects of consensus of which new users should be informed. Since attempting to summarize Wikipedia:Consensus in the language of this template would make it unacceptably large, a link to Wikipedia:Consensus should suffice to inform new users of the nature of consensus on Wikipedia. John254 00:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

By the looks of it, the reason not to include a reference to how polls don't equate to consensus is because linking to Wikipedia:Consensus is good enough. Perhaps one settlement is making the link to Consensus more conspicuous? Also, feel free to add more choices to the strawpoll. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Ironically, John254 was the one who proposed the wording that he now objects to. The previously agreed-upon wording was David Levy's version that "[consensus] is not determined by counting votes" [1]. That is the precise thing we should educate people about. (Radiant) 12:42, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• The claim that I "proposed the wording that... [I] now [object] to" is factually incorrect. The version I proposed stated that "A simple (>50%) majority in favor of a proposal does not constitute consensus", while the version to which Radiant! reverted stated that "A majority in favor of a proposal does not constitute consensus." The former version is quite clear in its statement of the fact that a simple majority does not amount to a consensus, while the latter version could be construed to imply that a supermajority wouldn't constitute a consensus either -- despite the fact that supermajority opinion is frequently employed as an indicator of consensus in various Wikipedia processes and that some policy proposals have been enacted as a result of voting, as I explained at length on Wikipedia talk:Discuss, don't vote. Moreover, Radiant! first added language concerning the nature of consensus to the template; I created my version in an attempt to resolve a content dispute over the removal of this language. Since the disagreement over what constitutes consensus will inevitably produce a dispute over the language of this template if it includes a single sentence about what consensus is not, I submit that the template should not attempt to define consensus, but should merely contain a link to Wikipedia:Consensus, a guideline which treats both sides of this issue in a somewhat fair and balanced manner. John254 01:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

TEMPLATE:PROPOSED - FAIR AND BALANCED (Sorry, I had to). Anyways, ass I've said, a settlement between a simple link and specifically wording the situation is putting something along the lines of "See Also: Wikipedia:Consensus". However, I have not received any opinions about this proposed plan. Any thoughts? ★MESSEDROCKER★ 01:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It's an excellent idea. I strongly endorse making the link to Wikipedia:Consensus more prominent. John254 01:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

More appropriate links would be Wikipedia:How to create policy and Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Once more, the issue is not whether this template should define consensus; that's a red herring. The issue is that people frequently mistakenly think that a formal vote is required to adopt a proposal. (Radiant) 12:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the optimal solution is to drop the final sentence entirely, and instead make use of our lovely redundancy avoider the wikilink. By linking the word "proposed" in the first sentence to Wikipedia:How to create policy, we would not only get across the point the policy discussions are not elections (especially since WP:HCP already states in large bold letters that they are not decided on by majority votes) but also link the users to a variety of other helpful information. It would also have the benefit of decluttering the template. If I may extend a principle here, I would hold that feature creeping the policy templates (specifically, turning them into WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY reduxes) is a bad thing for the same reasons instruction creeping the policy pages themselves is. --tjstrf talk 11:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• That would assume that people read all links from a page, even if the linked word doesn't necessarily say a lot about what it links to. People have recently been arguing that HCP doesn't apply to guidelines, and that supermajority in an eight-hour vote is equivalent to consensus. Apparently the bold letters aren't enough. (Radiant) 12:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Removal of "Proposals on Wikipedia are not enacted through a majority vote."

This statement, while technically true, is implicitly disparaging towards the enactment of proposals through supermajority voting since many users will conflate majority voting and supermajority voting, unless we specifically state that "Proposals on Wikipedia are not enacted through a simple majority vote." Such a statement, however, would likely prove controversial in its own right, since it would implicitly endorse supermajority voting. Simply put, this template is not the proper forum for disputes as to the extent to which voting is, can, and should be employed on Wikipedia. Consequently, this template should neither endorse nor condemn voting in any way. Furthermore, a prominent announcement that "Proposals on Wikipedia are not enacted through a majority vote" in this template gives undue weight to this particular aspect of consensus, since other aspects of consensus are not similarly described in this template itself. As attempting to summarize Wikipedia:Consensus in the language of this template would make it unacceptably large, a link to Wikipedia:Consensus should suffice to inform new users of the nature of consensus on Wikipedia. John254 19:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• You're missing the point. Proposals are not enacted through supermajority vote either (nor, for that matter "non-simple" or "complex" majority vote). This addition is useful because many novice users treat proposals as motions to be voted on parliamentary-style. (Radiant) 20:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Agree with Radiant here. It doesn't hurt anything for experienced editors, and it might help keep newbies from getting the wrong idea. Friday (talk) 20:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

As described on extensively wikipedia talk:discuss, don't vote, many policy and other proposals have been enacted through supermajority votes. Here, incidentally, is yet another such proposal: Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal. This template isn't the proper forum for anti-voting polemics. John254 20:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Since you're using it as part of your arguments, I take it then that you support WP:DDV? (Radiant) 21:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, we don't need language that says "nothing resembling voting is allowed ever". But IMO it's alright to explain that discussing is preferred over voting. Friday (talk) 20:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Why does this template need a detailed description of one particular aspect of the policy making process? If we attempted to accurately describe when voting on proposals should, and should not be employed, the template would become unacceptably large. Consequently, the template should merely state that a page is a proposal, allowing a complete description of the process for the enactment of a proposal in policies and guidelines. John254 21:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Because frequently, new users treat a proposal as a "motion" to be voted on, and that is incorrect. You have been very keen in pointing out the exceptions, but the plain fact is that very few policies and guidelines have been voted upon, and neither is that preferable for future proposals. (Radiant) 21:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

If there's a conflict between reflecting the subtle understanding that experienced editors have about policy, and keeping newbies off the wrong track, I strongly favor language that keeps the newbies on track. Experienced editors aren't getting their notions of what to do from this template anyway. Friday (talk) 21:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Radiant. New users (and even some with a fair amount of experience) commonly believe that proposals are passed via sheer numbers (with no discussion required), and this simply isn't true. While voting can and does occur, nothing at Wikipedia ever becomes a guideline or policy simply because a certain number or percentage of people vote in favor of it. Even when a numerical tally plays a role, it must be backed by sound logic. In other words, we never enact a guideline or policy via discussion-free vote-counting.

I understand the objection to Radiant's specific wording, so I've reverted to the wording previously added for this purpose. —David Levy 22:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately "(A majority in favor of a proposal does not constitute consensus.)" is even worse, as it implies that somehow a a majority against does demonstrate consensus. What about, "(which is not achieved through simple majority voting)"? -- nae'blis 20:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've switched to your suggested wording. —David Levy 22:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it to a separate sentence because it's clearer than using parentheses, is that ok with you? I should note that I have met some people who would argue from the present wording that consensus is determined by supermajority voting rather than "simple" majority voting; but changing the wording to account for that would probably make the template overly verbose. (Radiant) 10:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The separate sentence is fine. To address the "simple majority"/"supermajority" issue, I've switched to wording that references vote-counting instead of any type of majority. —David Levy 15:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a (terrible) parenthetical addiction; thanks (Radiant) for moving it to a new sentence. -- nae'blis 20:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ha, parenthetical. Great word. I'm going to try and work that into conversation somehow. Thanks (sorry for the off-topic comment).

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

17:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Icon change

Can we change to icon to something other than a question mark? kilbad (talk) 15:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

What do you suggest, and why? —David Levy 15:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)