Wikipedia talk:Editing policy pages

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Contents 1 How to conduct the poll 2 Poll structure 3 Questions 4 Think of the results for non-admins 5 Extremes, where is the middle ground 6 Second and third choices 7 NO! 8 The Zephram Stark example 9 How would it work? 10 The Perfect Nomic 11 How about this... 12 Does written policy do more harm than good? 13 Why are people voting "oppose"? 14 C'mon 15 Another possibility 16 Policy patrol 17 Does everyone read all the policies and guidelines? 18 Money where the mouth goes

[edit] How to conduct the poll

Does anyone have a view as to whether it's better to say people can vote for more than one option, or should it be restricted to one vote per person? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's probably better to let people vote for more than one option. I personally probably would, as I consider one preferable and another acceptable.

Also, have you given any thought to making it six months AND 1,000 edits? It occurs to me that some of the problems created at NPOV, V etc. were created by an account properly aged 6 months, but not having 1,000 edits. Anybody around for 6 months and reasonably active should easily be able to accumulate 1,000 edits. · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 15:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. I was trying to make it not too strict in case people voted for leaving it open to all just because they felt the bar had been set too high. But you're right: someone could hang around for six months doing nothing but post to talk, which as I recall is more or less what that one account had been doing. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand that concern. Of course some of these accounts that prompted this idea could also have passed the bar by posting incessantly to talk; in that case would 1,000 edits be sufficient? It may be possible to make the "edit count" portion even lower, but stipulate that they should be articlespace edits. Say, 500, but to articles. · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 16:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I actually meant edits to articles when I wrote main namespace, so I've clarified. It's now six months experience and 1,000 edits to articles. Too steep? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, so I have added a middle groud option.Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Given my own experiences with the constant attempts by new editors and sockpuppets to re-write policy to their personal advantage, I can only say that this idea is long overdue. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poll structure

Having administrators or nothing plus one highly specific option is not the best formatting here. "There should be/should not be restrictions" as a first question and then a run-off (assuming "should be" takes the first) with at least two or three options. Put another way, I don't want to vote for any of these. Administrators only—absolutely not. Six months is far too high. No restrictions is isn't working. Marskell 19:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

What about the 1,000 edits, Marskell, without the six months? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

No. I don't and have never done editcount building activities like RC patrol or installing a bot in my monobook. It took me two years to get my first 1000 edits. Are you ready to tell casual editors that have been around for years that they aren't good enough? SchmuckyTheCat 20:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, originally it was six months or 1,000 edits. We could always change it back at some point. Remember this is a poll to find out what people think, not a rigid vote. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Not just casual editors either. Editors who only make significant content changes, and don't do reversions, minor edits, and such, will be unfairly targeted, while WP:CVU members and other such editors will be enfranchised very quickly. --Philosophus ^T 01:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

1. Would people support allowing non-suffraged (for lack of a better word) people to make housekeeping changes to policy pages, i.e. fix grammar, formatting, template coding, stuff that doesn't alter the meaning of the policies? I'd add something like this to the poll page but it's already becoming forked a bit.
2. Could non-suffraged people request changes on the talk pages, in a fashion similar to how non-admins request changes to protected pages now?

Thanks.--W.marsh 19:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this idea. Language and wording on these types of pages can be very important, and sometimes what one person claims to be a "housekeeping change" is anything but. · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 19:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that it either changes the meaning or it doesn't. If it changes the meaning, it can be reverted. But this might be a detail that can be ironed out later. --W.marsh 19:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

My friend, small word changes are often the subject of long-running, vitriolic disputes. Who decides whether it's a minor wording change or not? I don't see the need for language like this, it just opens it up to wikilawyering. · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 19:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Think of the results for non-admins

Problem: Six months excludes some admins. Solution: OK, six months not including admins, or choose admins only. Further problem: I may have a year old account but no adminship. Solution: hey, sorry? Marskell 19:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

There's the 1,000 edits only option. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yah, the "only for admins" option is elitist and a big FU to non-admins. The commentary with some of those votes is almost offensive. Like this is the Catholic Church and I have to go talk to a priest to get my prayers heard by the gods. SchmuckyTheCat 20:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

A month and 1000 I could handle. Perhaps I'll bump that to second choice but I somehow feel uneasy. Remember this: "You can edit this page right now is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred, even if it means someone is editing this principle right now." I see vandalism of policy pages as obviously annoying but not a fearsome danger and I'm absolutely opposed to creeping exclusivity. Even subtle POV attempts will be quashed on policy given the mass of admin watchers so I don't see the need to rush to extreme restriction.

And I must add this: when admins vote to delegate themselves an extra power or exclude one from non-admins they are necessarily acting as vested contributors rather than regular users. There's no other way to cut it. --Marskell 20:20, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Not just about the extra power to themselves. I've edited policy documents dozens of times. Some of this admin-only commentary tells me that my past contributions are essentially unwanted because I'm not worthy. SchmuckyTheCat 20:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Same here. And I have looked at some of those older edits that I made, and they are still there. The strickter versions are basically a bad faith vote against every editor, not only vandals. Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you try to focus on the positive, please? If you don't like the admin-only option, just ignore it, and suggest something better. Kim's idea of 1,000 edits only, no time, is helpful, and maybe we could develop it into a six months or 1,000 edits option, which deals with Schmucky's point too. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree strongly with what Marskell said. I started at Wikipedia because I (a nobody in Wikipedia terms) was allowed to do what I could do make it better. I agree that it's tempting to want to protect these pages in some way, because as "important" pages they seem more vulnerable. But as the documents forming the core of Wikipedia, I believe that these pages in particular should be left open. It may not be as practical as some may like, but it's a matter of principle. It's not a matter of admin vs. non-admin. We are turning this into grades of editor, which goes against everything I thought Wikipedia was. I agree so strongly with the quote Marskell posted above that I'm going to repeat it: "You can edit this page right now is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred, even if it means someone is editing this principle right now." --Laura S 21:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I try to focus at the positive, and that starts for me with WP:AGF. So, because some vandals try to mess up the system, everybody who is basically not a hard core controbuter should be eliminated from editing policiy pages seems to me to harsh. On the other hand, I see the need for something, as policiy pages should be relative immutable. I could live with 6 months OR 1000 edits for that matter.Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

What's positive about this to focus on? It's assuming bad faith newbie biting. SchmuckyTheCat 20:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it doesn't assume bad faith; it assumes inexperience. It's not just vandals who cause a problem but well-meaning new editors trying to change policies they don't understand, and dealing with them is very time-consuming. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Arguments should be judged on their merits, not by an appeal to authority, least of all one that is grounded in number of edits or time on the wiki. It's a strength of the wiki ideal that this is considered the norm. My view is though that the policies need to be strongly rewritten and then locked down, because the consensual, easygoing make it up as you go along ethos that is fine for 40 editors is rubbish for 4000. But until that happens, I definitely don't favour anything that suggests that editors' views on any issue should be weighted by their longevity or number of edits. Quite simply, there are way too many editors who got things wrong on their first edit and still do ten thousand edits later. Grace Note 00:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Extremes, where is the middle ground

What I see happening here is a black-white discussion, between lots of restrctions and no restrictions. I think the discussion should be on what is reasonable. In that cintext, any rule can be circunvented, and yes, a 1000 name space edits can be done in a few days if you want. But generating some sockpuppets and rack up 1000 edits when it is time to start messing around is done equaly easy. What we want is a workable and for a large group aceptable proposal. Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

There's a way round just about every rule, so we're not trying to make things watertight, just inject a bit of common sense. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, so why so restrictive? Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It isn't restrictive. There are several options: admins only, six months plus 1,000; 1,000 only; we could also introduce six months or 1,000; and sprotect only. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Second and third choices

I believe that that would be confusing. Why not choose just one option? Cheers -- Szvest 20:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

[edit] NO!

Policies, guidelines, and essays are our best practices documents. If someone has a best practice, they should document it, no matter who they are, period.

Basing the editing of best practices documents (NOTA BENE!) on arbitrary flags or arbitrary numbers of edits is not logical

Kim Bruning 22:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I second that. This is a disgraceful suggestion. Some admins, who should know better, want to rewrite policy pages to match their personal views on the wiki, and would like this restriction to prevent others from contesting that. I understand that sockpuppet armies make it difficult but let's find other, more creative ways to fix that. Grace Note 00:01, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of alternatives? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say something along the same lines as Kim, but mine was going to have lots of swear words. Instead, I'll just endorse his comment. Noisy | Talk 16:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Zephram Stark example

While Zephram Stark's editing of WP:SOCK was certainly bad, and caused considerable damage, none of these proposals would have prevented the situation. Zephram used two sock puppet accounts, User:Dragon's Blood and User:Team Shocker (Dragon's Blood was never conclusively linked, I believe, but he also has apparently not contacted anyone with any meaningful refutation). Dragon's Blood made the most well planned attack, waiting for a while and making main namespace contributions starting to participate in AfDs. He then waited until an admin (User:Dijxtra made a somewhat minor mistake in answering a question about sock puppets, and started a dialogue with that admin about rewriting WP:SOCK. He was able to convince Dijxtra to make a rewrite, and apparently was able to form Dijxtra's views on the way the policy would be written so that it was mostly written in a way beneficial to Zephram. After these changes had been discussed for a week or two on the talk page WP:SOCK, which was not well watched, Dijxtra applied them, and only then did Dragon's Blood begin to make changes. At first, these changes were cosmetic (adding a table), and only started having significant effects on policy later. Team Shocker then came in and also started editing around this time. It was not until weeks afterward, when WP:SUSPSOCK had already started running, and editors had started applying the new policy, that it was noticed by admins who realized that something was wrong.

Semiprotection obviously won't help against this sort of vandalism (though it could help with clueless newbies and simple vandals). Since most of the changes were made indirectly through social engineering, restricting to high edit count users or admins wouldn't help either. In fact, I believe that such tight restrictions would make this sort of attack worse - policy pages will not be watched nearly as much if only selected users can edit them, and subtly making major policy changes is made much easier when few people are watching, as can be seen by this example of WP:SOCK. How long do you think a rewrite of WP:CSD, for example, would have lasted in the event of a similar attack? We don't need such tight restrictions, we just need more watchers, and possibly semiprotection. --Philosophus ^T 22:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Philosophus, this proposal would have stopped Zephram's accounts from editing that page, but this proposal isn't aimed at Zephram. He's only one of the number of problems we've had on policy pages recently. It's aimed at preventing people who have no experience of Wikipedia trying to change, after only a couple of hundred edits, the project's key structural pages, although they'd still be welcome to contribute via talk, of course. So what you say is true that, if an inexperienced account can persuade someone else to make the changes for him, this policy won't help, but it's not intended as a fix-all. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

So Zephram was what instigated writing this, but this wouldn't have solved that problem. Can you show any actual and specific problems that this would solve that our current openness fails to adequately address? SchmuckyTheCat 21:58, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would have solved the Stark problem, because it would have meant he couldn't make edits and would therefore have been less likely to get involved in the page. As for other examples, I don't want to point the finger at particular users. Suffice to say there have been problems on a number of policy pages with new editors trying to change policy so they can make edits, or behave in certain ways, that the policies don't allow; and in particular changing policy pages so that they end up contradicting each other, because the editors have no knowledge of them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

To re-present words I've used on the project page, this time to SlimVirgin: while accepting there is a troublesome element to having new or anon accounts edit policy pages, what is the "real and present danger" this editing represents? While in no way to insult your time spent here (which is enormous) is this just a problem of "this costs us time"? Is there instead an actual danger that anon or newbie editing can hoodwink people to the point that it affects actual mainspace presentation? Put more simply, can you point to examples of people following a bogus policy line that shouldn't have been inserted and causing problems to articles?

To give you an example that I did agree with: on the George Bush talk page while debating semi-protection, another editor and I worked out 45 minutes per 24 hours the page would appear vandalized (assuming one minute reversion time). For (I would guess) our most frequented mainspace article, this struck me as unacceptable. Better to violate "anyone can edit" and introduce semi-protection than have "George Walker 'he screwed Joe's mom' Bush" 45 minutes a day. That is, it was an option of last resort. But I haven't seen that argument here. No one has put forward the serious danger that requires the strict measures suggested. Marskell 23:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed - these pages aren't usually ever seen by the general public, who would be most affected by vandalism, and the changes these policies can prevent don't make any difference anyway, since the admins enforcing the policies will either not know about the changes, or will revert them. Besides, most stupid or malevolent changes I have seen are subtle, and are primarily used as a defense by vandals and other abusive editors who excel in wikilawyering. --Philosophus ^T 01:43, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How would it work?

As SV's introduction pointed out, aside from the admin-only and sprotect options, the various time and edit qualifications have no mechanism to actually prevent edits. If an edit was made a manual check would have to be performed to establish if it was by a non-qualifying user? The proposal doesn't seem to address what would happen in this case - would an immediate rollback be envisioned, discretion based on the content of the edit, etc? Unless having this policy is intended mainly to provide a firm basis for undoing troublesome rewrites (albeit one which would only apply to a subset of potentially harmful edits), I'm not sure how the middle options are significantly different from the current situation. The admin-only option would be a tighter net, but it seems somewhat un-wikipedish - I'd personally support it if it was shown to be necessary, or even potentially necessary, but I'm not sure if that is the case so far. The Zephram Stark incident is obviously disturbing, but as someone mentioned above it isn't obvious that any of the proposals would necessarily have prevented it. I can sympathize with admins not wanting the basis for their actions turning to quicksand beneath their feet - is the amount of historical policy-page revision sufficient to require this measure, as opposed to watchfulness over the policy pages?

A suggestion - would it be difficult to create a variant of the Special:Recentchanges page which dumped just the changes to pages in Category:Wikipedia_official_policy (or whatever set of pages was deemed appropriate) to ease monitoring by admins and others? David Oberst 00:23, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

A page like that can be made with Related changes, if I recall - see WikiProject Pseudoscience for an example. I don't understand how the edit count/time options would work either - SV says that it would be up to regular editors to enforce this. Does that mean that edits by newer users will be reverted and the users punished, regardless of merit? What would be the point - it would be no different for harmful edits, which would still need to be reverted, but would criminalize useful edits. --Philosophus ^T 00:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

All these details can be worked out if people agree that some change is needed. This is just a poll to find out where people feel the emphasis should lie. A restriction on new accounts changing policy would allow other editors to remove those edits if they were harmful, but they might agree that they're not harmful and decide to incorporate them. I don't envisage anything too rigid. The only rigid proposal was the admins-only one. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The wiki software isn't going physically enforce the 6 month/1000 edit rules and prevent the edits - a hypothetical nogoodnik or disgruntled editor (call him Jimbo Doe) who has 3 months and 500 edits can still change a policy page. The same watchfulness and analysis of the changes is going to be required to deal with user Doe as would be currently. The 6/1000 options seem mainly intended to provide those doing the monitoring a firm basis for stepping in, and policy authorization to back up their actions? Wouldn't it be possible to simply write this proposal explicitly providing wide discretion to admins to revert changes to policy pages that seem premature, harmful, do not reflect a community consensus, etc? I'd rather authorize admin discretion with whatever wording is deemed necessary as opposed to the extremely warty 6/1000 types of guidelines, which, as I mentioned, are at best going to cover most, not all, of the potential problems. Note there are no real differences in what actually happens after a problematic edit (warnings, reversions, blocks, etc). If it is felt that this isn't sufficient to prevent the potential problems, I'd prefer to go straight to the admin-only option, and work out consensus for changes on a draft subpage. The 6/1000 stuff seems to have too high a cost in divisiveness for the limited benefit it provides. David Oberst 01:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Perfect Nomic

I just realised that this page was a perfect example of a nomic indeed. I've added an option along the lines of nomic-ness. <scratches head> On second thought, it is *very* close to WP:POINT, as, well, I have a point, and I'm illustrating it. I just hope I'm not being too disruptive. (if anyone complains I'll remove it)

In the mean time, basically you're having people vote on who gets power, and are playing with the wording. And don't pretend this page isn't supposed to have consequences neither :-P

This is probably the most obvious nomic so far. I wonder if some people are playing more subtly as well?

Kim Bruning 13:10, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Nomic or not, the fact is that in past months we had a large number of situations in which editors with little or no understanding on how WP works, have attempted obsessively to change the few core policies we have. Comments may be welcome, but edits to policies that have served the community remarkable well so far (depite their problems), I am not so sure should be welcome. Let these new contributors learn about the project and become useful contributora, then they may gain the respect of fellow editors as it pertains to policy changes. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

This has been going on since at least 2003. It's a great opportunity to find and recruit people who will do well in helping with maintaining wikipedia, and it's also a great opportunity to educate people in how wikipedia works and why. We *WANT* new people to come in and look at things. We *don't* want to officially rename wiki-pedia to nu-nomic :-P Kim Bruning 15:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

So your theory is make people put up with a bunch of crap and the ones that can/are willing to are the ones we want? We want new people to look at things, but that's not a sufficient requirement for them needing to be able to edit the policy page themself. What is the justification for not looking at ways to reduce the problems. Actually, per arguments fleshed out on my user and talk pages, I think a best of both worlds procedure is to have the open wiki and a stable version that is trusted editor only. The former attracts people that like that, the latter attracts the people that are talented but aren't willing to put up with the vandalism, trolls, and revert warring. As for being a nomic, this whole project is one as is almost every proposal, like your alternate discussions for adminship is. Then what's your point? - Taxman ^Talk 15:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually wikipedia is not a nomic. Nomic is a game, you can play it in your own time thanks. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.

This page is very nomic, since there will be winners and losers, and clever editing of the page can cause you to win or lose. I don't think that's what we really want. Kim Bruning 20:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The scary thing is that NOBODY has yet come and told me that I have violated WP:POINT. This scares me more than anything else. Kim Bruning 00:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How about this...

...something more behavior-focused. Such as, Editors who have been censured for violating a certain Wikipedia policy should avoid editing that policy page, except to remove vandalism. What do folks think? · Katefan0 ^(scribble)/poll 15:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. - Taxman ^Talk 15:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

How would it be enforced? It's a fair enough principle. Marskell 21:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

In the same manner as other policies, I would think. When it becomes a problem, the policy is referenced and problem users censured. If somebody fixes a typo in a policy page nobody is going to give them the boot. But in the situations that I and other editors experienced recently, you can bet I would be checking to see whether or not they had been sanctioned in the past for similar violations, and if something like this had been in force I would've insisted on it applying. · Katefan0 ^(scribble) 21:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

That may work, Katefan0, but what do we do about these newbies that have not disrupted Wikipedia, but do all their edits in the policy namespace, with the intention to disrupt? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not perfect, I admit. And it's not my first choice, but it's better than nothing. · Katefan0 ^(scribble) 23:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

How many newbies have you encountered that "do all their edits in the policy namespace, with the intention to disrupt" that are not identifiable socks? Marskell 21:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Look through the pages I referenced on the project page and you'll find several. · Katefan0 ^(scribble) 23:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found one. And what I found much more of is what I've noticed through experience: practically across-the-board reversion of change to the "low hanging fruit." At times, I've thought this comes close to WP:OWN with certain admins, but it is needed and you could argue our filtration process is actually working quite well. Start a realistic sock (actually don't ;), go to NPOV make an "intensitive" change or a change in meaning and see how long it lasts. Of course you'll be wasting someone else's seconds reverting you, but again if it's just a matter of saving time it's not a good enough reason to take such obviously exclusionary measures. And the vandal reverting I think pales in comparison to the time wasted amongst admins themselves (CSD and "divisive and inflammatory" comes to mind) Marskell 17:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does written policy do more harm than good?

I remember when I was new here, and I thought that what was written on the policy pages was policy. I suspect most experienced editors have, like me, concluded that this is not the case at all. Policy is what actually gets done and doesn't lead to serious objections. I think newbies frequently get the wrong idea, due to the number and sizes of policy pages. Now, I suppose it's not practical to get rid of written policy entirely, but what about vastly reducing the size of it? Make it more managable, and changes will stand out better. Less reliance on the exact wording of certain pages would be a good thing, right? Personally, I hate it when there's a controversial action and people argue about what the policy means exactly- shouldn't we argue about what's best for the project instead? Maybe seriously cutting down on the sizes of the policies, perhaps even merging V, NPOV, and NOR into one, would help. Friday (talk) 15:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Jolly good. We need a policy cabal (closer to the original backbone cabal). But I didn't say that, and no such cabal exists, of course. Kim Bruning 15:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

For the size and scope of this project, I would argue that having a core set of content policies, is not only needed, but is essential for the project's future. We have three main content policies WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR. Let's look at the facts: based on these three content policies we have managed in the span of a few years to create a community and an encyclopedia of such scope that makes it unique in size, content and community building and collaboration. So before we throw the baby with the bath water, let us for a second appreciate what has been accomplished so far. We do not need more or less policy, we need to instruct and help newbies in appreciating the policies' strength, while accepting that these are not perfect and that polices can be fine tuned as the project evolve. We need an environment that welcome newbies, not by allowing them to disrupt Wikipedia, but by encouraging to become useful contributors to it. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Jossi, on this point I think I could not agree with you more! :) -- Laura S | talk to me 17:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why are people voting "oppose"?

There's no possible way of tallying who wants what if people keep randomly voting "support" and "oppose" in every section. This vote needs to be re-constituted, with each individual voting once, for the proposal they most prefer, which should be few in number. I suggest these should be "No change", "6 months or 1000 article edits", and "Admins only". Jayjg ^(talk) 22:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. The page does say only to vote support, so I'm going to remove the oppose votes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:41, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Please don't. People are voting oppose because as a statement of the strength of their convictions. Move them to a new section, but please don't delete what people have to say. SchmuckyTheCat 22:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd consider that at least disruptive, if not vandalism. By offering a limited set of options you present a false dichotomy (well, n-chotomy). Voting "oppose" is the only way to express dissatisfaction with certain options. Moreover, tallying is irrelevant, as we do not create policy by voting. We go by consensus. Looking at the current state of the poll, it is clear that there is no consensus. But I'm quite ready to change the page to say "vote support or oppose as appropriate" ... ;-) --Stephan Schulz 22:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed the opposes, so we can actually count the supports. Once we see what the acceptable range of options is, we can reformulate with fewer proposals and with each individual making just one choice. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

They aren't votes. It's a discussion. If you need to count, then move them to a different section. Otherwise, It will appear as if you just whitewashed the page to remove what doesn't agree with you. SchmuckyTheCat 22:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages are for discussion, not project pages. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at WP:ANI and repeat this with a straight face~ --Stephan Schulz 23:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. Point stands, it appears as a whitewashing. SchmuckyTheCat 22:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Schmucky, the proposal page said very clearly that people should vote for the proposals they support. You seem to be out to cause trouble, particularly with your "people should be ashamed of themselves" comment. This is a serious proposal intended to alleviate a serious problem. Please try to contribute constructively and calmly. Nothing on the proposal page is written in stone, and this page is for a discussion of it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

And I have reverted it and reinstated the oppose votes. I did it as soon as I noticed, so that no significant other edits are lost or will be lost. It's just as easy to count them this way (just count only "support" for the same numbers you get when you remove the "oppose" votes). Or make a cleaned-up copy for tallying. But please leave this as the current set of opinions. --Stephan Schulz 23:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

To illustrate the point: "Do you want to a) kill all the whales or b) bomb the Dalai Lama. Please vote only for the option you support." This is probably not your intention, but this is how it appears to some. --Stephan Schulz 23:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

They can't be counted easily at all this way, and voting "no change needed" obviously means "I oppose all other options". Your example is a strawman: The full spectrum of choices, from "no change" to "admins only" and all sorts of options in between, are presented. There's even a "votes are evil" option. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Keeps and Deletes and Merges and blah, are all counted easily on XfD pages, what's the problem? SchmuckyTheCat 23:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree. Just go through them and count them. Less work than going through them and deleting them. As for the strawman: No, the full spectrum is not represented, just some options. Also, I note that people vote "First choice", "second choice". What if my first choice is "keep it as is", but my second one is "admins only" (that at least is technically doable). Will you count me as for or against the status quo? Or as both? This poll can at best be that: A poll to find out the opinions of people. In that case the exact tally is a lot less valuable than the comments that go with the votes. --Stephan Schulz 23:40, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Please leave the page alone, Stephan. Adding oppose votes (especially with insulting comments) is just an effort to be divisive. When people vote to support the "no change needed" proposal, they are by definition voting to oppose the others, so to keep on adding "oppose" is completely unnecessary. Remember: this isn't a formal vote. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I reverted it too. You've deleted opinions that disagree with you. Don't run a poll that way. SchmuckyTheCat 23:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Why does everything with you have to be so aggressive and confrontational? I have asked for people who support an option to say so. That is all. Please leave the page alone, and if you want to discuss the proposals constructively, do so on this page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I went through all the oppose votes. Maybe I'm thick-skinned, but the "insulting" ones did not stick out. At best, there are some borderline cases which could be more polite, but most are reasonable and, in fact, well-reasoned.--Stephan Schulz 23:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I think some people are taking this poll itself as aggressive and confrontational (after all, it is basically suggesting that many of us who consider ourselves "good" Wikipedians are not up to par based on what is essentially an arbitrary measure), and responding in kind. Not that that's a good thing, but it's easy to see how some people are becoming defensive on this one. That said, my 2 cents: I have seen all sorts of votes on every poll I've looked at. Endorse and Oppose, with varying degrees of both, plus comments, notes, every which thing. And yet I can usually glance at the page and determine whether there is a consensus and what it is. I agree with the people who are saying that simply removing Oppose votes not only does a great disservice to those who have taken the time to add their voice, but also appears as an attempt to silence those who have contrary opinions. -- Laura S | talk to me 13:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

What the proposals are saying is that it's best to know something about Wikipedia before you start editing its policies. To me, that's common sense, and I'd guess to most of the world too. It's only within this fevered community that some people think anyone should be allowed to make any change anywhere they want, even if they know nothing. I've just created a template. It doesn't look very nice because I haven't made many templates so I don't know how to make them look good, and it meant someone had to tidy up after me. If there was a proposal that editors not be allowed to create templates until they'd been here for a few months, or until they'd made a certain number of edits to a template sandbox, why would I have grounds to feel insulted? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

What about an editor, for example, who supports option 1 but would be okay with option 2, or who supports option 1 but disagrees with option 2? Admittedly, most oppose votes are from opposite sides, but the problem still exists. For example, I am okay with semi-protection only or no change, am opposed to all other restrictions, and am opposed to the manner policy-making seen here. --Philosophus ^T 23:15, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Then add your name to the semi-protection and no-change options. This is a straw poll. We're not electing the president of the next European parliament. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 13:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] C'mon

Jesus, can someone put back in the comments that have been made and removed. You can't start it and bar entry. And to state the very obvious: no 64-36, 22-78, 51-49 on this page is going to determine anything. Wikipedia isn't a democracy (I'm too tired to link that) and this was an out-of-the-blue poll so procedural reverting or removing is just stupid. Leave the opposes and then we can all have fun talking about percentages in two weeks. The two most entrenched positions (predictably) are competing for a plurality anyway, and nothing will have a consensus as it stands.

I just did (again). Regardless of wether we count them in the end, they should stay in now as they are part of the overall opinion. Removing them mid-vote is a bad idea. If they need removing (which I don't think), they can be removed after the poll closes.--Stephan Schulz 23:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

As an addendum: this should be posted on Jimbo's page given the sturm und drang. I can't imagine that any of the serious restrictions (1 and 2) will go through without his tipping the hat, so you might as well get notification over with to begin. Marskell 23:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another possibility

Here is an idea which depends only on the merit of the changes. Why don't we make the rules for policy changes like the rules for proposed deletion? Any editor may make changes to policy, but any other editor may revert them, and the editor who made the changes may not add the changes again, until consensus has been reached. Barring technical solutions to the edit count/time restriction options, this would be similar in practice, but would not create a class system in Wikipedia. --Philosophus ^T 01:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

That's the situation we have now: any editor may make changes and any editor may revert them. If you say that editor can't add them again, you could end up with a situation where the bad edits get to stick. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy patrol

Kim has set up a new page at Wikipedia:Policy patrol, intended to be similar to recent changes patrol, where a small group of dedicated editors who are familiar with the policies and guidelines will patrol to check out any recent changes, revert inappropriate ones, and generally engage any confused new users on the talk pages. Anyone wanting to sign for it should speak to Kim or myself first, because the idea is that patrollers should have a good grasp of the rules. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:17, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a very good idea to me. If the root of the problem is that we need more eyeballs on policy pages, providing those eyeballs is probably better than trying to restrict who can edit the pages. Friday (talk) 02:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah! A victim volunteer! :-) Please do join. We'd appreciate your help. Kim Bruning 02:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does everyone read all the policies and guidelines?

I've read through parts of this discussion, and noted the comment by someone who said that they have obsessively read all the policies and guidelines they could find. I once started doing this, but was discouraged by the slight but noticeable inconsistencies across guidelines (though that is probably part of the wiki-way).

How about proposing that in order to edit policy documents, you have to demonstrate a wide understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines? This might sound like something that an admin already should be able to demonstrate, and definitely something a bureaucrat should be able to demonstrate, but I'm not so sure.

Experience is one thing, but sometimes it can be experience in a very narrow area or speciality. What I would welcome is a much better organisation of the policies and guidelines (sometimes it seems that there is a new one every month), and semi-protection of the key policies and guidelines. I even believe that there is a category for those policies.

Oh, and hands up who has read all the policy and guideline documents. Carcharoth 12:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I know a couple of people who seem to know them all by heart. One such person can also rattle off the first 60 digits of Pi straight from memory, so go figure. Unlike such monsters of human intelligence and memory, I generally have to refer back from time to time. Kim Bruning 13:18, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Mainly what I'm thinking of is that even well-intentioned people can edit a set of policies and, slowly, without realising, make those policies out of synch with another set of policies they were unaware of. In general, I am sometimes wary of spending the time to understand the detailed nuances of some guidelines, when those nuances could be edited out or changed a few months later, or may even just plain contradict another guideline. As an example, I recently carried out this edit, based on this text further down the page:

Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so destroys the edit history. (The GFDL requires acknowledgement of all contributors, and editors continue to hold copyright on their contributions unless they specifically give up this right. Hence it is required that edit histories be preserved for all major contributions until the normal copyright expires.) If you come across a cut-and-paste move that should be fixed by merging the page histories, please follow the instructions here to have an administrator repair it.'

Now that applied to moving pages, but it was unclear whether it also applied to merging pages, which is why I added something that I hoped would clarify things. SO many policy pages are badly written (seriously) that I often want to do this. But I also understand that jumping in and changing things may make things worse. I think it would help if there were a central place to draw attention to wording changes, so that more discussion can take place.

I was recently discussing something similar here (the relevant bits are a few posts down). Carcharoth 19:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Money where the mouth goes

To those who said Wikipedia's policy pages don't need experience restrictions, but simply should be more closely-watched (and others too =) ): I invite you to come join in the current disruption over pseudoscience at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. · Katefan0 ^(scribble) 19:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)