Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Archive/Archive 1
![]() | This 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 main page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
This archive contains discussions organised by subject up to May 2009, and with a summary of discussion and possible outcome.
Content issues
Topic | Page | Outcome | Notes | See Also | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Area codes (telephone) | Deletion policy/Area codes | No consensus | The status quo is a large number of stubs, one for each area code; the page title format is Area code ###. Concerns about US-centricity. Concerns about cruft. See history of debate. | Deletion policy/Area codes, List of North American area codes | ||||
Bible verses | Whole bible chapter text, Verses of John 20, 200 verses of Matthew, Bible source text |
Endorsed | Entire chapters of the Bible do not belong on Wikipedia. Any article containing only Bible text should be speedily deleted or redirected. | Don't include copies of primary sources, Wikisource, Verses of 1 Kings 4 and 5 | ||||
Bilateral relations | Bilateral international relations, BR task force | WikiProject task force | After a string of AFDs with varying results, it was decided to agree on a guide to what criteria would make relations between pairs of countries notable subjects | Wikipedia is not a directory | ||||
Biographical Opt Out | Biographical optout | Rejected | Requests have been received in various fora from the subjects of Wikipedia biographies for the biography to be removed. It was proposed that anyone other than a public official or someone who has placed themself at the forefront of public controversies should be able to request the Wikipedia article about them to be deleted without discussion. | BLP subject response | ||||
Brand name products | Deletion policy/Brand name products | Endorsed | Objective information on brand products should be kept. An "iconic" or "universally well known" products deserves its own article. A major product should be added to its company article. Minor products should be merged into a list kept in the company article. | |||||
Categorization | Categorization | Guideline | Article: Michael Jackson Useful category: Category:Pop singers Not useful: Category:Musicians whose first name starts with M |
|||||
Categorization (naming conventions) | Naming conventions | Policy | Categories should have "head" articles. Be specific. Avoid abbreviations. Avoid topical plurals. Avoid descriptive adjectives. Use care in disambiguating and namespacing. | |||||
Categorization (people) | Categorization of people | Guideline | No derogatory cats. WP:V, WP:NOR. Subcats (e.g, African American musicians) only okay if topic itself warrants head article; otherwise list. | Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality | ||||
Comics (copyright) | WikiProject Comics/copyright | Guideline | Covers okay under fair use. Interior art maybe not. Must illustrate the subject. | WikiProject Comics, WikiProject Fair use | ||||
Date delinking | [(dates and numbers)] | Superseded by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking | Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) | |||||
Date formatting | Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Proposal on international date format | No consensus | Where articles clearly concern a North American subject, the North American date format (August 30) should be used. Otherwise, the international format (30 August) should be used. | Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) | ||||
Dictionary definitions | Wikipedia is not a dictionary | Policy | Cent failed to alter status quo. | Dictionary definitions | ||||
Federal Standard 1037C | Federal Standard 1037C terms | Cleanup process | Most technical terms are mere dictionary definitions and don't need individual articles. Copyvio concerns. | Federal Standard 1037C clean up | ||||
Fictional characters | WP:FICT | Guideline | See guideline. Avoid non-notable substubs. Items from video games and Pokémon are included. | Deletion policy/Middle-earth items, Poképrosal, Deletion_policy/Nintendo_items | ||||
Fiction (again) | WP:FICT | No consensus to do anything | Discussion did not accomplish anything as the proposed guideline was too weak for some and too strong for others | Wikipedia:Notability | ||||
File names | Generic image file names | Guideline | Don't upload images or other files with generic, non-specific file names such as Untitled.png. | Image:Pleasedont.gif, Image:Forbidden filename.png | ||||
History (of all subjects) | Historical information | Converted to WikiProject | Wikipedia has a large number of articles about all sorts of things that should include an historical element but do not. (This is not about purely historical topics.) | WikiProject Historical information | ||||
Images (in lists) | Fair use images in lists | No change | Concern that large numbers of fair use images in one place fall outside fair use exceptions. Opposing concern that such images, in some cases, (e.g, List of Simpsons episodes) are essential and cannot be replaced. | Wikipedia:Fair use criteria, Wikipedia:Fair use, Category:Wikipedia copyright, Wikipedia:Copyrights | ||||
Languages (constructed) | Constructed languages | Poll itself rejected | ||||||
Lists (images) | See Images (in lists). | |||||||
Lists (religion, ethnicity, profession) | Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession | Rejected | Attempt to limit. | Lists in Wikipedia | ||||
Lists (songs) | Lists of songs | Rejected | Attempt to limit. | Category:Lists of songs | ||||
Lists of basic topics | Village pump (proposals) thread | No consensus | Change pages called "List of basic foo topics" to "Topic outline of foo". | |||||
Lists of unusual things | Lists of unusual things | Consensus | Lists of unusual things can be eligible for inclusion; they don't automatically breach policy just by being lists of unusual things | |||||
Location of the main page | Proposal to move the Main Page to Portal:Wikipedia | No consensus, although some discussion is still ongoing | Move the Main Page to the Portal or Wikipedia namespace | |||||
Main Page | Main Page replacement poll | Endorsed | Facelift drifting slightly toward more elaborate. | Main Page, Main Page (old style) | ||||
Moving of US city names | Naming conventions (settlements) (permanent link) | Passed with exceptions | Move city names like Baltimore, Maryland and Minneapolis, Minnesota to Baltimore and Minneapolis respectively. | |||||
Names (personal) | Deletion policy/names and surnames | No Consensus | An attempt was made to draw conclusions from this debate. Names alone are not notable; Wikipedia is not a geneological database. Some names may have encyclopedic value; names may be useful as disambiguation pages and these may carry a bit of geneology or etymology. Beyond this, Wiktionary. | Wiktionary Appendix:First names, Wiktionary Appendix:Surnames, Categories for deletion/Names | ||||
Nobility | Deletion policy/Maltese nobility | Recently reopened; status quo | Genealogy of nobility and royalty encyclopedic. Must be sourced. | |||||
Non-free content criterion 8 | NFCC 8 debate | Edits reversed and no consensus to restore them | A bold edit to WP:NFCC suggested that the eighth criterion have "and its omission would be detrimental to [understanding of the topic of an article]" removed as a requirement for a non-free image. The change was reverted and discussion did not lead to a consensus to restore it. | Non-free content criteria | ||||
Non-free sports logos | Use of Non-free logos of sports teams | No consensus. | No consensus was determined on if sports logos may be used outside of articles on the subject team. | Non-free content criteria | ||||
Notability | Notability (essay) | Beyond scope of Cent | Discussion has expanded to a large number of pages indexed on {{notability guide}}. | Notability/Proposal | ||||
People (biography) | CSD A7 debate | No consensus | Concerns about inconsistent speedies of vanity pages. | CSD Ax | ||||
Places (West Bank) | Political subdivisions of New York | Endorsed | About the preferred usage names as a result of WP:RFAR/West Bank - Judea and Samaria | Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) | ||||
Plot summaries | Plot summaries | Essay | How much of plot summaries would be considered notable enough to be included. | Notability | ||||
Pokémon | Pokeprosal | Endorsed | WP:FICT applies. No "Pokemon:" namespace. Walkthroughs to Wikibooks. Merge stubs to lists. | Pokémon Collaborative Project | ||||
Politicians (candidates) | Legislative candidates | No consensus | Leaning toward exclusion of very minor candidates. | Criteria for inclusion of biographies | ||||
Politicians (local) | Deletion policy/Local politicians | No consensus | ||||||
Postal codes (Zip codes) | Deletion policy/Postal district | Endorsed | Sheer madness to have an individual article for every postal code. Lists okay. | Do lists of postal codes belong on Wikipedia? | ||||
Radio masts | Deletion policy/Masts | Endorsed | Add Location, Coordinates, Purpose, Owner and FCC registration columns to list. Merge stubs to list. Individual articles only if substantial content beyond list. | List of masts | ||||
Roads and streets | Deletion policy/Roads and streets, B roads in UK |
Weakly endorsed | Don't create articles about trivial roads. WP is not an atlas. | |||||
State route naming conventions poll/Old | Rejected | Should a naming convention be decided upon by poll? | ||||||
State route naming conventions poll | Manual of Style | US State Highways are given definitive names for all occasions. | Manual of Style (U.S. state highways) | |||||
Rorschach test | RfC | No action taken yet (discussion going stale; potentially outside {{Cent}}'s scope anyway). | The question is of whether the inclusion of certain images on the Rorschach test may damage readers' ability to respond genuinely to the test in the real world. | Rorschach test, Related request for mediation, Talk:Rorschach test/images, Talk:Rorschach test/2009 consensus review | ||||
School lists | Deletion policy/Lists of schools | Endorsed | Lists of schools should be more informative than equivalent Categories. Deletions should wait consensus on general schools issues. | Schools | ||||
Spoilers (warnings) | Spoiler warning/RfC (talk), Spoiler warning (talk) |
Spoiler guideline accepted: Wikipedia:Spoiler | That spoiler warnings should be deprecated | Spoiler template TfD | ||||
Sports results | Sports results | No consensus | Championship events okay for articles; what about the rest? Concerns about WP:NOR and copyvios. | Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information | ||||
Sports teams | Naming conventions | Policy | (1) In cases where there is no ambiguity whatsoever as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the official name should be used. (2) In cases where there is some ambiguity as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the name most commonly used by the English-language media should be used (as determined using the number of hits at Google News). See history for full policy | History of discussion | ||||
Television episodes | Television episodes | Endorsed | See debate. Avoid large numbers of episode stubs. Start with single article on a given show; expand only as verifiable info permits. Avoid trivia, synopsis, and extensive quotation from scripts. Put the episode in context. | Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information | ||||
Towns (New York) | Political subdivisions of New York | No consensus | State of New York townships are formally called "towns", which is confusing since there are real towns in New York, as elsewhere. Some towns are in "towns" with the same name, some aren't. Not to mention counties, villages, and cities. Historical government madness. | Incomplete table of "towns", towns, and villages | ||||
Word lists | Deletion policy/Lists of words | Endorsed | Article about "Words of <foo>" may be okay. "List of words of <foo>" to Wiktionary. | Wikipedia is not a dictionary | ||||
Process issues
Topic | Page | Outcome | Notes | See Also | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amendments of RFA closures | Proposal | Rejected | Where important information comes to light soon after an RFA closes as successful and bureaucrats believe it would have had a significant effect on the consensus at the RFA, bureaucrats may request the closure to be reversed by stewards. | Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship | ||||
Arbitration committee review | RFC/ARBCOM | Some proposals were to be sent to a vote, but ended up being superseded | Proposal to amend the election and structure of the Arbitration Committee | Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating | ||||
Arbitration case process review | Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Draft policy RfC | No obvious consensus, although ArbCom has taken some suggestions on board | Various amendments on the structure, process, and activities related to Arbitration. | Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating, RFC/ARBCOM | ||||
Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia | RFC: Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia | Rejected | Discussion of a proposal to reduce Jimbo's constitutional power over ArbCom | Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales | ||||
Bots | Discussion over the approval of bots | No consensus | Proposal to replace the Bot Approvals Group | Wikipedia:Bots | ||||
Bot flagging | Giving BAG members the technical ability to grant and revoke the bot flag | Rejected | Members of the Bot Approvals Group would be given a new permission allowing them to add or remove the bot flag from accounts. Rejected as there is no serious delay in bureaucrats manipulating the flag. | Wikipedia:Bots | ||||
Content dispute resolution | Content dispute resolution | No consensus to change anything | As ArbCom does not, by tradition, make content rulings, perhaps there should be some body that does. | Wikipedia:Dispute resolution | ||||
Blatant promotion | Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Blatant Promotion RfC | Policy changes, Twinkle changes | Amend Twinkle to make reporting of blatant promotion to WP:AIV and subtle promotion to WP:COIN easier. Amend username policy to prohibit explicit company names. Amend username policy to avoid coverage of editing behavior, and rather concentrate on the username itself. | Wikipedia:Usernames, Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest | ||||
Criteria for speedy deletion | CSD/Simplify policy RfC | Multiple results | CSD must be kept clear and specific, bright-line and mechanical. See complete summary. | CSD, PROD | ||||
Deletion (categories) | Category deletion policy | Policy | There are criteria for speedy renaming of some categories. | New speedy criteria, Speedy category renaming | ||||
Deletion (process load) | CSD/Proposal | Mixed results | Some new criteria for speedy. | CSD, Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load | ||||
Deletion (reform of AfD) | AfD categories | Policy | AfD is now also sorted into categories, as a mandatory stage of the nomination process. | AfD debates subcategories AfD reform | ||||
Deletion (uncontested) | Proposed deletion | Policy | Pages tagged {{prod}} may be deleted without discussion in 7 days. Anyone can remove the tag. | Deletion reform/Proposals/Uncontested deletions | ||||
Deletion review appeal | Deletion review#RFC | Defer to WP:AN | How do you appeal a DRV? | Deletion review/Archive 14#Where do you appeal a DRV decision? Deletion review#Proposal: DRV no consensus --> relist | ||||
Devolution of Arbitration Committee functions | Devolution | Rejected | Editor review and admin action review would be devolved to other groups subordinate to the Arbitration Committee | |||||
Editorial Council | Editorial Council | Rejected | An elected council of seven editors would arbitrate content disputes when consensus breaks down. | Wikipedia:Dispute resolution | ||||
Good topics | Good topics | Passed | Good topics implemented | Wikipedia talk:Good topics/Straw poll | ||||
Libel | Libel | Policy by fiat of Jimbo | Libelous revisions will be deleted from page history. | WP:OFFICE | ||||
Portals (new) | Portal/Proposals | Rejected | Attempt to create a process through which new portals would have to pass before creation. | Portal, Portal/Guidelines, Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals | ||||
Removal of administrative rights by bureaucrats | Removing administator rights/Proposal | Rejected | After a consensus process, bureaucrats could form a consensus to remove an administrator's rights without reference to ArbCom. | Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship | ||||
Removal of administrative rights by bureaucrats | Removing administator rights/Proposal | Rejected | After a consensus process, bureaucrats could form a consensus to remove an administrator's rights without reference to ArbCom. | Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship | ||||
Sources (archives) | Archives as sources | Rejected | Attempt to weaken NOR to permit unpublished archives as primary sources. | WP:NOR, Requests for comment/Archival materials | ||||
Templates (WikiProject tags) | Avoid using WikiProject talk page templates | Rejected/Essay | Concern about talk pages that contain only tags no longer showing a redlink. | WikiProject banners, WikiProject Council/Guide, {{WikiProjectNotice}} | ||||
Undeletion process | Requests for undeletion | Supported | The creation of a process page to request content be undeleted/moved to userpage | |||||
Social issues
Topic | Page | Outcome | Notes | See Also | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3RR merger | Wikipedia talk:Three-revert rule | Consensus for merger | Community discussion about merging the three revert rule policy page to Wikipedia:Edit war | Edit war | ||||
Automatically grant adminship | AutoconfirmAdmin | Snowball rejected | Automatically grant admin status on request to anyone who fulfilled a minimum edit and experience requirement | Administrators, A user subpage to refine the proposal (author requested deletion) | ||||
Blocking users | Blocking policy proposal | Rejected | Concerns about blocking by IP | Blocking policy | ||||
Bureaucracy | Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not Permanent link | Archived | Is it correct to say Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy? | What Wikipedia is not | ||||
Civility restrictions | Civility restrictions | Archived | To what extent is low-level incivility a problem, and what can be done about it? | Dispute resolution | ||||
Death threats | Death threats | Subsumed | Proposal moved to subpage of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and further discussion directed to the talk page of that policy. | Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks/Death threats | ||||
Equal treatment of editors | Equality | Essay | Discussion petered out without clear consensus emerging. Dispute over actual equality of editors considering higher standards for Admins and our policy of not biting newcomers. | Wikipedia talk:Equality, WP:No vested contributors | ||||
Grant various admin rights separately | Village Pump discussion | No consensus | Rights like semi-protecting, blocking, etc. could be | Wikipedia:Administrators | ||||
IRC Channels | RFC/IRC channels | No consensus to do anything | After a request for arbitration and several separate MFDs, a policy was proposed on making an official policy for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia IRC channels. | IRC | ||||
Ombudsman Committee | Ombudsmen Committee (Village pump discussion) | Rejected | A new committee to investigate disputes on Wikipedia retrospectively and give advice on how to better handle them in future. | Third opinion | ||||
Personal attacks in debate | Deletion policy/Personal attacks | No consensus | Discount/remove comments in debate that contain personal attacks? The reaction may be worse than the action. | Metastasis | ||||
Pranking/April Fool's jokes | Pranking | Rejected | Prohibit or restrict prank articles, main page edits, interface changes (through the MediaWiki namespace), or joke RFAs/AFDs/MFDs/policies | April fools | ||||
Remedies | Requests for remedies | No consensus/rejected | A new dispute resolution mechanism to sit between RFM and RFAR, where a small committee would discuss disputes before presenting proposed remedies for community consensus. | Wikipedia:Dispute resolution | ||||
Responding to suicidal individuals | Wikipedia:Responding to suicidal individuals | Rejected | Consensus agrees that Wikipedia is not a counseling service. | Wikipedia_talk:Responding to suicidal individuals#Time to reject | ||||
Review (editor) | Editor review | Process | Voluntary peer review process. | Guide to requests for adminship, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards | ||||
Review Board | Review Board | Rejected | A panel to be elected or appointed to monitor the use of checkuser and oversight and investigate abuses of same. | m:Ombudsman commission | ||||
Review of the RFA process | RFA Review | Essay | A multi-stage review of the current requests for adminship process. Still in progress. | Requests for adminship | ||||
RFC (enforcement) | Requests for comment/Enforcement | Rejected | Attempt to put teeth into RFC. | Requests for comment | ||||
Rollback | Requests for rollback privileges, Requests for rollback privileges/Poll |
Active | Attempt to create a new class of users privileged between Registered Editor and Admin/Sysop. | Bugzilla 3801 | ||||
School projects | School and university projects, Centralized discussion/Method Engineering Encyclopedia |
Guideline de facto | Instructors are encouraged to assign WP editing as a class or student project but all such must conform to our extensive policies and guidelines. | Deletion policy/Teletraffic Engineering, WikiProject Method engineering | ||||
School threats | Wikipedia:School threats | No consensus/rejected | Threats of violence made against a specific school/students to be reported to the Administrators' Noticeboard. | |||||
Userboxes | Wikipedia:Userbox migration | A technical solution | Migrate your userboxes to user space. Keep them compliant with Wikipedia:User page | |||||
Userpages (removing warnings) | Removing warnings | Rejected | Attempt to class as vandals users who remove warning templates from their own user or user talk pages. | Talk page etiquette, Vandalism | ||||
Userpages (vandalism/protection) | Protected Userpage | Rejected | Attempt to prevent anons from vandalizing user pages. | WP:UP#Ownership | ||||
Userpages (hosting deleted content) | Deletion review regarding indefinite hosting clause permanent link | No consensus | A limit should be placed on the duration of hosting deleted pages in userspace. | Wikipedia:User page | ||||
Vandalism | Deny recognition | Essay | Ignore fame-seeking vandals. | WP:BEANS, Herostratus, Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels, Deletion review/Willy on Wheels | ||||
Voting (boxes) | Tally boxes, Criterion boxes |
Endorsed heavily | Don't use (colored) boxes on debate pages to register or summarize votes. | Example vote boxes | ||||
Warning templates | Removing warnings, Removing warnings poll, Cent/Removing warnings |
Rejected twice; reopened | When a user removes a warning template from his talk page, he is committing vandalism. | Vandalism | ||||
Wheel warring | Wheel war policy | Guideline | Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. | Wheel war | ||||
Technical issues
Topic | Page | Outcome | Notes | See Also | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Enabling indexing of the User talk namespace | VPP discussion | Rejected | Indexing by search engines should be re-enabled for the User talk namespace. | |||||
Allow moves to be marked as major edits | Straw poll | Supported | Allow users to mark page moves as major edits. | |||||
Templates (conditional) | MfD/qif | Keep and deprecate | Don't use {{qif}} to create conditional templates. Superceded by ParserFunctions. | ParserFunctions, Templates using ParserFunctions | ||||
Bot to auto-archive all web pages used as references | WebCiteBOT | Approved | Unclear if all URLs should be submitted to WebCite to prevent link rot. | |||||
Displaying time delta since last modification to article | VPP discussion & straw polls | Approved | Placing the time delta or "last modified" timestamp in a more prominent position failed to gain consensus. | Bug #19276 | ||||
Miscellaneous
Topic | Page | Outcome | Notes | See Also | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Transition from GFDL to CC-BY-SA-3.0 | Transition to CC-BY-SA | Approved & Implemented | Use Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license in addition to the GFDL for text content on Wikimedia projects | Meta:Licensing update, Wikipedia:Copyrights | ||||
Discussion regarding the "Wikipedia Forever" fundraising banner | Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia Forever | Mixed | Widespread disapproval of foundation actions. Many of the objectionable banners were pulled anyway after foundation claimed they had poor fundraising performance. | |||||