Wikipedia talk:Editing policy pages

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Poll structure 

message: # 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.
# 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Questions

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Exactly, so why so restrictive? Kim van der Linde at venus 21:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Extremes, where is the middle ground 

message: I believe that that would be confusing. Why not choose just one option? Cheers -- Szvest 20:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second and third choices 

message: 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)
replies: text: Can you give some examples of alternatives? ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 00:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NO!

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  How would it work?

message: ...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)
replies: text: That's not a bad idea. - Taxman Talk 15:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How would it be enforced? It's a fair enough principle. Marskell 21:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

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

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: Jossi, on this point I think I could not agree with you more! :) -- Laura S | talk to me 17:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does written policy do more harm than good? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Talk pages are for discussion, not project pages. Jayjg (talk) 22:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please take a look at  WP:ANI and repeat this with a straight face~ --Stephan Schulz 23:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

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

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Why are people voting "oppose"? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  C'mon 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Another possibility 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  Money where the mouth goes