Template talk:RMtalk

Split support/oppose sections

I made an evolutionary change[1] to this template to split the survey section into separate "support votes" and "oppose votes" subsections. This change was reverted[2] with the following explanation:

reverting to version w/o subsections (we don't want to put too much emphasis on "voting" without discussion); counting is usually not a problem

First, I want to say that I did not make this change hastily. I've been converting "standard" surveys to this format manually for several weeks (if not months) now, without any problems, complaints or reverts.

As far as the explanation provided, this change puts no more emphasis on "voting" than does the current version. Under the current version, editors are encouraged to add a new line that says either Support or Oppose with a brief explanation, and this is almost universally what is done in practice. Other discussion is encouraged to go into the separate discussion section. There is nothing about the "split format" that puts even an iota more emphasis on "voting" without discussion than does the current version. See the current voting at Talk:Bath for an example of this.

The purpose of this change is not to solve the "problem" of counting (which I agree does not exist to any significant degree). It's to make clear, for everyone, at a glance, for various reasons and purposes, what the count is during a survey (just one example: it is often useful to note, or even point out in a discussion, "after X days the count is now x out of y supporting" - having the votes automatically counted facilitates this). It's also to make clear whether a given entry is to be counted or not, to reduce conflict about such incidents. A few months ago in an RM survey at Talk:Yoghurt an admin made all kinds of subjective judgements about which votes to count or not. In the "split format" where each oppose and support is explicitly numbered, there is less room for ambiguity. If one wants to comment and not vote, he should use the discussion section (a further evolutionary change might be to add "abstain" and/or "not yet" sections to the template).

If there are no other objections, I request that we give it a shot. If indeed there are actual problems with it, then let's revert it. Okay? --Serge 17:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

No objections after almost a week, so I reverted back to it. Let's give it a shot. --Serge 22:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The "V" word

I object. Whether or not the recommendations in a Requested Move are separated into a subsection for "support" and a subsection for "oppose", I object to using the word "vote" to describe the recommendations that people make. In fact, I would disagree that "There is nothing about the split format that puts even an iota more emphasis on "voting" without discussion than does the current version." It's not the split format itself that does it, but the use of the word "vote", two times.

I also don't like the subsections because now all it takes is one move request to force a table of contents to display on a talk page, and I think that looks bad. Also, it upsets the chronological ordering that occurred naturally under the previous format. These reasons are clearly much more trivial than the first, so I'm just going to edit the template to take out the word "vote" for now. I'm open to discussion about how this thing should best be formatted, but I can't agree with any encouragement of the notion that we're holding "votes" over Requested Moves. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

As an afterthought, what exactly is the use of being able to tell at a glance how many people support or oppose a page move? Isn't the only factor being considered the arguments that they make, and not their number? What's the point in using a numbered list at all? -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's been changed; cool. Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 07:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Fix formatting

I fixed some formatting errors. Taric25 (talk) 02:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the pagename should be substituted, so the original location can be seen after the move occurs (otherwise it will look as if the page was moved to its own location. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 14:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. That's why we formatted the template the way it was before. It's an awful pain to close RMs when things aren't substituted. Dekimasuよ! 05:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Reason

Don't we need to document use of the new reason parameter? Jojalozzo 02:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm working towards merging the Wikipedia:Template messages/Moving/Requested templates, and part of that is standardizing the syntax. As {{subst:move-multi}} supports a reason parameter, I've modified {{subst:requested move}} to also support the reason parameter. The reason for moving can be passed to {{subst:requested move}} as either an unnamed second parameter, or named parameters 2= or reason=. The reason parameter I added here is just what's passed to {{subst:requested move}} – {{subst:RMtalk}} itself doesn't support the reason parameter, an unnamed second parameter must still be used. I'd like to deprecate {{subst:RMtalk}} and replace it with {{subst:requested move|new name|reason=why|talk=yes}}. But that's after the next step, which is to make {{subst:requested move}} an auto-signed template, as {{subst:RMtalk}} and {{subst:move-multi}} already are. – Wbm1058 (talk) 18:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Header

People seem to be expecting this to output a header by default, I keep needing to add section headers to correct the error. Should this changed to having a header as default? -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Until this recent edit, RMtalk did have a header by default. Historically, for most of this template's life, the default header was "Requested move". Briefly, an editor changed it to "Suggested move", but there was no consensus for that and it didn't stick. Then the header was removed, I presume, to have the flexibility of allowing any custom header to be created while keeping the additional subsections in {{Requested move/talk}} (which I created and incorporated into {{Requested move}} as |talk=yes). So now, if someone wants a custom header and the talk sections, they could use {{subst:Requested move}} to get that.

There have been problems with the most commonly used, standard header Requested move being used multiple times on the same talk page, necessitating section title edits to make unique section titles such as Requested move 1 and Requested move 2. See prior discussions about this:

• #Request Move Section titles
• #Add section title for adding automatically

which I was thinking of when I thanked you for blessing me with the new dated—and thus unique—section titles. You obviously have some good template-writing skills. So why not flip the default and instead of |header=yes just use |header=custom header, e.g., |header=Suggested move to conform to the naming convention to override your default dated header. I'd like to make this standard across {{Requested move}} and {{Move-multi}} as well, but here would be a good place to start the ball rolling on the change. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:33, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I have a demo version up in the sandbox now. It takes "header=" and if yes, generates the current "header=yes", if no, it will not, if blank, it will, if "header=somethingelse" it will print "somethingelse" -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 13:13, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant! Works for me. Thanks. Wbm1058 (talk) 12:17, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

So, go live with this? -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Let's go live with the autogenerated datestamped version as default header, and create a header as default. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

OK,  Done Wbm1058 (talk) 16:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Time stamp

I am not sure how we got from month and year to adding the minute that the header was created, but just to be consistent with the documentation, I would recommend removing ~~<noinclude/>~<noinclude/>~~ to remove the time stamp, and leave "Requested move" as the default header. Apteva (talk) 17:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The timestamp was added to make sure a unique header was autogenerated so that the link page would always link to the correct discussion. (some pages have multiple discussions in the same month of the same year, some even have it on the same day) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Apteva, please be sure to read the above section, which relates to this, if you haven't already. Apteva makes a good point regarding timestamps. As my bot currently doesn't support multiple simultaneous active RM discussions, and discussions generally must be open for at least seven days, timestamping is unnecessary. As a more incremental first step, I've changed the sandbox template to just datestamp headers, see this talk page for a sandbox template test demonstrating the date-stamped header. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

That would work in most cases (only rarely failing the odd time multiple requests are opened and closed on the same day, or multiple consolidated requests are on the same centralized discussion page that are opened on the same day) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

FYI, see mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##time for documentation on how to use the #time parser function to format time stamps. Different format options are possible. We can always add times later if the RM systems and procedures are enhanced to support multiple simultaneous discussions on the same talk page. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move works for me, but cutting it back to month and year should cover most discussions. It is pretty rare to re-open an RM right away, and is pretty much discouraged. Situations like Deadmau5 and Hillary Rodham Clinton are pretty rare, and even if only Requested move is offered, it can always be clarified to remove a dup by adding a number – Requested move 17, Requested move 18, if there are that many on the same talk page. We do occasionally find multiple simultaneous RM discussions on the same talk page, but right now we just close all but one of them to consolidate the discussion. Apteva (talk) 03:19, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

That goes back to the reason the time was added, to make sure a unique header was present, all the time, without need for someone to fix, so that people would not be confused by arriving at the wrong discussion and commenting on a closed one. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 08:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Here is an example why it is helpful to me if all of the headers use a small number of headings, such as Move, Move?, Requested move, Requested move 2, and so forth. I do a lot of maintenance fixes, like this edit[3] which does not look like it does anything, but it allows the heading to be picked up by the bot and used on WP:RM. Since the section heading is the same as one I have done a correction on before, I only have to get as far as typing an f when I am presented with the edit summaries to choose from of /* Requested move */ fix for bot and /* Requested move */ fix sig for bot. When Requested move July 2013 is used as the heading, I can only choose from the edit summaries that I have already used for any other headings that said "Requested move July 2013", or next to none. The chances of someone commenting on the wrong or a closed discussion are next to none even if there were four on a page with an identical section heading. It would though, take editors a few seconds longer to find the open discussion. What hopefully happens in fact if someone comments on a closed move discussion is their response gets moved to the right section and they are notified on their talk page of the fact that their comment was moved to the right section. I can not remember the last time if ever that I have seen this happen. Apteva (talk) 04:33, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I've seen editors comment on closed discussions, so it would not surprise me to find it happening in the future. I've even seen them comment into the talk archives. I've seen editors delete old discussion sections (not archive, delete) because the discussion link wasn't linking to the proper discussion, or because they had opened a new discussion with the same header and wanted to have it show up "properly" (I've actually asked them why they did it), so I think it's a rather good thing to have distinct headers autogenerated. The thing is, you'd have to know how Wikipedia prcesses work to know that a new discussion in a new section is happening, and not that an addendum to an old discussion is going on by reopening a discussion there. (and people do reopen move discussions, by adding a new move template on an old discussion section as well) We cannot assume that people know how requested moves work, because not everyone has been on Wikipedia forever and participated in everything. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:47, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Apteva, you are very good at rooting out these non-obvious problems and fixing them, and I appreciate that. There are many such unanticipated "curveballs" that editors throw at bot programmers, in this case that non-blank (because it has a space) blank line in between the header and the Requested move/dated template. Your diligence in tracking down that space, which wasn't obvious from the diff that added it deserves a kudos. Right after your edit, which shouldn't have been necessary if the bot were coded to perfection, the bot fixed its error of leaving out the section header. It can take months, or years, to find and fix all of the "curveball errors" in a program. (And just about the time you have, and your program is "perfect", some new disruptive technology comes along and makes it "obsolete", replacing it with a new whiz-bang program that comes along with its own new set of "curveballs". But, I digress.) The solution proposed here would eliminate the possibility of such curveballs, as it would ensure no unexpected text occurred between the auto-generated section header and the /dated template. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Updating the Requested moves template to use the "RMtalk" default section header

Per the consensus here, I am updating this template. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:30, 8 December 2014 (UTC)