Wikipedia talk:Readability/proposal discussion

message: I have proposed a policy proposal on Wikipedia:Readability that contains two provisions. The proposal is here. Feel free to discuss them on this page. 
The policy proposal is also posted on Village pump. Wooyi 22:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't really like the first provision. Some articles/sections need a lot of work. I would support it if the number was higher, like no more than 3. If an article needs 4 cleanup templates, it could just use . As for the second provision, I can't think of many examples of this. Most articles that have really long lists are lists and most articles with a ton of external links can usually have most of them removed as spam. If most of the article consists of external links, the whole article could probably be PROD-ed or taken to AfD as its probably all spam. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 22:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The second seems sensible (with the obvious exception of "List of ...").  The first, however, is totally unworkable.  You're essentially saying that if I come across an article with two cleanup tags on it, and it happens to fail NPOV, I can't tag it as such.  Chris cheese whine 23:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, he is saying that, if there are many problems in a page, they should be merged in only one box. Just to make the whole thing more readable. --189.12.139.198 10:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that too many boxes are distracting, but I think that 3 is probably a better limit than 2.  I would suggest that if more are needed that they should be directed to the talk page of the article.  One other thing to think about is the use of these on stubs vs. more established articles.  Often stubs have many boxes early on that are placed by new page patrollers, so if the goal is to impact this behavior, the NPP community should probably be involved in this discussion. --After Midnight 0001 00:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Introductory comments

message: A haven't seen any evidence of the assumed premise that multiple cleanup tags are so bothersome they would drive people away from the article; tags that render the article "inconvenient to read." I imagine if the person is at a particular article for encyclopedic information and the article has many tags, then they would leave not because a few tags can't be scrolled past but because they read those tags (unreferenced; not factually accurate; hoax; poor tone; not written in formal tone...); and come to the very likely correct conclusion that the article is not a reliable source of information—that is the proper result. A person on a hunt for reliable encyclopedic information is well warned that a multi-tagged article does not fit the bill. If, on the other hand, the person is a user, or someone who understands the purpose of the site and is of a mindset to become a user, then the tags serve the purpose of marking the article's problems for what we do as users or soon to become users. In either case, the tags tell us, here be demons, and it should be no other way. So, if the intent of the reader is to edit, I can't see how the tags will make them lose interest, and if the intent of the reader is to read an proper encyclopedia article, they shouldn't read that article; we should want them to lose interest and move on for real content. 
I also think not having the tags could be actively harmful for our imaginary "encyclopedic reader." Let's imagine a person who has never heard of Wikipedia and has just come across one of the numerous online articles trashing Wikipedia for its unreliable content. So they make it here for the first time, hit random page, and land on one of the hundreds of thousands of unsourced, poorly-written, stubby articles that haunt this site and which happens to have no cleanup tags. If no tags are present, they might take that untagged article as a perfect confirmation that Wikipedia is as a whole as they read it described— unreliable, unsourced, etc. However, with the tags in place the natural conclusion is "oh, this is an unfinished article in development" and that reader moving on to look at other articles (maybe finding an FA or other great content thereafter) is more likely. Accordingly, I disagree with the basic assumptions underlying this essay.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand the problem. I did not say cleanup template are not needed. I only propose that their numbers should be limited within reasonable scope, and a numerical restriction would be reasonable (I proposed 2, but some advised to change to 3, which I am still considering). And there is one editor below suggesting a similar approach like  to contain multiple boxes, I like that idea too, just need a template for that. :-) Wooyi 21:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Proposing that their number be limited is proposing a limitation on the number of flaws that can be adequately identified in the article, in effect.  See my reply comments above in "my" section for existing ways of reducing template clutter.  We don't need a Rule about this, just common sense. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tags telling people an article is a problem is a good thing

message: Apart from the fact that making policy proposals in an essay is not all that suitable, both of your proposals are worded prescriptively, overly legalistic, impose arbitrary limits, and do not solve an actual problem but rather an alleged problem. This is almost a textbook example of m:instruction creep. >Radiant< 12:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not all arbitrary limits are instruction creep. Sometimes numerical restriction with leeways (like in extreme cases you can use WP:IAR) can be conducive to Wikipedia by mandatorilly making the encyclopedia article actually look like an encyclopedia article, instead of just a bunch of useless words combined. Wooyi 21:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

text: *Er, no. All arbitrary limits are instruction creep. If you don't want creep, propose limits that aren't arbitrary. >Radiant< 08:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 3RR is arbitrary and isn't instruction creep. --189.12.139.198 10:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not such a good idea 

message: Now I have put the new template  for trial in articles below for trial:
*Parapsychology WooyiTalk, Editor review 22:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Clinical trials"

message: I think the main readability issue is that articles are too technical for general audiences.  Can you understand this article?  69.140.152.55 (talk) 20:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  readability