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Rollback

Hi, I find that you have reverted my edit on 'Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines' because of the reason 'edit created 50% empty space in the template', I use opera v 9.50 Alpha at 800 x 600 resolution, I have tested the template on IE v 7.0.5xxx.11 and Mozilla v 2.0.0.11 at same resolution and have not faced the problem as mentioned by you. It seems that you use resolution above 800 x 600 as on changing the resolution of my screen to 1024 x 768 I started facing the problem as mentioned by you (However on using the current version of template in 800 x 600 resolution makes half of the template outside horizontal page limit). Recently I have made similar edits [1] , [2] , [3] etc. however my edits were not reverted nor reported (I may add that few of the templates that I edited were used at many different article). It seems to me that the reason for the apparent 'conflict' is due to 'screen resolution' differences between users, I would like to request you to suggest changes so as to find a solution LegalEagle (talk) 14:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have in fact a resolution of 1400x900 widescreen. This is how "my" version looks for me, and this is "yours". From your given similar edits, only the second ([4]) looks good, because of the align=center. My personal preference is to let the screen resolution regulate the look, and not introduce the <br> at all. – sgeureka t•c 14:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your quick reply. Though I am tempted to agree with your suggestion on letting the screen resolution regulate the look of templates, I would like to point out that users having lower resolution would need to unnecessarily drag their pages to be able to properly view the template (if possible pls lower your resolution to 800 x 600 and chk my edit), while if the <br> edit is effected the higher resolution screen would be asthetically harmed (as you have rightly proved) but there is no user discomfiture. So I shall request you to reconsider your decision about the revert. LegalEagle (talk) 15:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
What, do I understand this right that you have to use a vertical horizontal scrollbar to see/use the template properly ("would need to unnecessarily drag their pages")? Because this would suck big time and requires something to be done. – sgeureka t•c 15:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
You have perfectly understood the problem (but it is the horizontal scrollbar that needs to be dragged), and as you have said this is disturbing as after a change to the navbox template source all the templates are geared towards higher resolution screens (if not tempered with <br> edit). I would like to hear what you propose to do now LegalEagle (talk) 15:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I meant horizontal, sorry. We can of course go back to your version in this case. This discussion should be continued at the template talk page; maybe someone can help out with the wiki markup so that everything looks good for low-res wikipedians even without the use of <br>. – sgeureka t•c 15:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for support, I have copied the discussion to the template talkpage, hope the sysops would also come forward and find some meaningful solution so that, as you have put, 'low-res wikipedians' can also use the other templates without much hassle. LegalEagle (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want a pro to review it, take it to Template_talk:Navbox and you should have it resolved rather quickly. Regads.--12 Noon 2¢ 16:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing in navbox itself is causing this problem, and all the revision of this template look fine in both IE6 and Firefox. My guess is that LegalEagle is having a problem with his display settings. There is no assignable cause that should cause the contents of any template not to wrap correctly. — Edokter • Talk • 17:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Im going to have to jump in on this discussion as the creator of this template. I am going to revert back to the original version. When I created this template I actually took it to the WP:Village Pump to get comments about its usage. I would have to say that at least 8 different Wikipedians reviewed it and edited the page, while many many more purely reviewed it. Not one of these people found any problem with the formatting of this template. From the sound of it, it looks like you are having a problem with your computer screen, and although we do value how each Wikipedian views Wikipedia, we cannot make changes that make the template look good on one screen and crappy on many millions of others. I would also advise LegalEagle to not make edits like these on templates anymore as they do not fix any problems rather these cause formatting issues on many other computers. Thanks.
Gonzo fan2007 talk ♦ contribs 19:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


Question

So where does WP:OA belong? 68.39.174.238 (talk) 22:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

This template is used more for the commonly cited and used policies. The policy is rarely used and effects even less users. The policy says it has only been implemented less than 1000 times. That said, I wouldnt be opposed to it being in the template, but IMO it doesnt belong here.
Gonzo fan2007 talk ♦ contribs 23:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:MOS (links)#Context

From MOS (links)#Context: Do not use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. This assists in determining when a significant number of references to redirected links warrant more detailed articles. In using the WikiCleaner disambiguation software, it showed several WP pages that have had their page names changed, for good reason. The navbox should reflect the current full page names (w/o the WP, of course), for those pages. This is according to the MOS and normally would not be a debatable topic. Thank you. Funandtrvl (talk) 15:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation link repair - (You can help!)

Had to run WikiCleaner again, to repair link that was reverted and not fixed. Funandtrvl (talk) 15:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Also corrected formating for patent nonsense, according to MOS, the words for WP should not be included in links, but piped instead to the page name. Also matched the piped links to the exact WP page names, should not use abbreviations that may be interpreted differently or may not be immediately understandable.

Funandtrvl (talk) 15:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Well maybe next time don't make five edits in a row making small misc changes? That's what the preview button is for. It makes it very difficult to revert edits when there are a bunch in a row. I also did try to restore the non-controversial edits here. Obviously I just missed one that you fixed. This is a widely used, and widely agreed upon format. When I created this template and implemented its, there was a lot of discussion on talk pages and edit summaries gaining consensus for the format of the template (including a long discussion just on the name i.e. the "Key" part). Obviously, it was well within common practice to ask for consensus for major changes to such a template. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a good template

Just wanted to let you know that this is a good template. Would it be possible to have it set to auto-collapse, instead of collapsed? I think I found one page (naming conventions) that wasn't linked to it, that really should be. Thanks! Funandtrvl (talk) 21:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Gurch's edit

While I disagree with a lot of the other overly BOLD edits that Gurch has been unilaterally making on policy pages, I agree with him that removing the shortcuts from this template makes it much more readable.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 02:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Vilage pump

Since we're obviously not giong to agree ourselves as to what Linking guidelines should be listed here, I've raised it at WP:VPP#Guideline templates. Let's leave both disputed entries there for now as a good compromise, and wait to see what others say.--Kotniski (talk) 10:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge

I propose merging {{Guideline list}} into this template. Please see discussion at Template_talk:Guideline_list#Merge. Rd232 talk 13:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Notability

What do you think about adding the core notability policies to this template? Ocaasi c 00:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean the subject-specific notability guidelines? No, they're linked from WP:N, and this template, which is supposed to be key policies and guidelines, is well big enough. Rd232 talk 01:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Layout

The consensus was to change the layout as implemented in the edit here. Cunard (talk) 06:12, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'd like to change a the layout to make it more user-friendly. It would look like this:

The biggest changes are the added subheadings for policies and guidelines and the removal of the links in the subheadings since almost all link to the same page (the list of policies and guidelines). Overall I believe this improves the navigation of the template. Would anyone object to the change? Atón (talk) 17:00, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't really think this is an improvement. The main problem is the size: it's almost twice the size of the original. Having this size makes it a bit intimidating and unwieldy. I !vote to keep the original. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:50, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
You are right about the size. It's bigger because I added some policies and guidelines that I believe are key (like the enforcement policies or the deletion process guideline). But that's another discussion, and I agree the size should be compact. If we keep only the policies and guidelines that are already in the template it's possible to improve the layout without making it bigger. It could look like this:
To me this layout looks more organized and easier to navigate while mantaining a compact size. What do you think? Atón (talk) 21:08, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
OK I still don't see it as an improvement. It looks more complicated and less "friendly". I can't really see the point of separating policies from guidelines: for example, the content guidelines "flow" from the content policies, and it makes sense to group them together. So the arrangement is less logical, as well as being less streamlined, at least from my point of view. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:19, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
I've taken it a bit further and changed it following your comments:
Note that I've removed the links to the Wikimedia Foundation, just for the sake of the experiment. As for the rest, the headings are less wordy, the 'groups' of policies and guidelines are more easily recognizable and the size is more compact while maintaining all the links to the policies. What's your opinion? Atón (talk) 19:03, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I think this looks better:
I've removed the row of the Wikimedia Foundation and added a row for policies related to enforcement. For the rest, I've maintained all other links. If there are no objections I'll upgrade the template. Atón (talk) 08:19, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Considering there is not really that many watching this page.....I suggest you set up a WP:RFC...Because won't get far in trying to change the banner with only a few people talking about it.--Moxy (talk) 15:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Rfc layout proposal

Should we simplify the template as shown in the proposal? Atón (talk) 16:36, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal

Version B (Wikimedia Foundation row added, contrast in luminosity between two colors increased. Added 9 june 2017)

Survey

Discussion

I've made a new version that addresses the problems mentioned (see Version B above). This version includes all policies and guidelines' links of the current template as well as links to the enforcement policies. More links can be added, nothing in the template prevents it. Further, the contrast in luminosity between the two colors has been increased. This seems to be enough to avoid WP:ACCESS issues (proof). The point is to make the template more clearly organized, more visually attractive and more concise. Atón (talk) 22:03, 9 June 2017 (UTC) PS: I've added the link to WP:MEDRS. Atón (talk) 22:49, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Diff

Because I didn't find it straightforward to immediately compare the two templates visually, perhaps this may also help others evaluate. Here is a diff of the links provided in the new (version B) template, versus the original. Links starting with + are found in the original but not in the new one, links starting with - are in the new template but not in the original. To generate this list, I simply extracted the wikilinks from each to a separate text file, used the unix sort command on each, then the unix diff command to generate a third file which I manually pruned/cleaned-up to save space (and remove overlapping links which were in both but were included because of link naming change).

An interesting point is that the original also provides links to categories which may be useful, although in theory navigation templates and categories may be equivalent in the end (categories are more useful for automated software, but the amount of detail depends if categorization was done properly). 

+[[:Category:Wikipedia administration|Overview]]
+[[:Category:Wikipedia guidelines|Guidelines]]
+[[:Category:Wikipedia policies|Category: Policies]]
+[[:Category:Wikipedia_categories|Classification guidelines]]
-[[Wikipedia:Administrators|Administrators]]
-[[Wikipedia:Banning policy|Banning]]
-[[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|Blocking]]
+[[Wikipedia:Broad-concept article|Broad-concept article]]
+[[Wikipedia:Core content policies|Core content policies]]
-[[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)|medicine]] 
+[[Wikipedia:List of guidelines#Behavioral|Behavioural guidelines]]
+[[Wikipedia:List of guidelines#Content|Content guidelines]]
+[[Wikipedia:List of guidelines#Style|Style conventions]]
+[[Wikipedia:List of policies#Content|content policies]]
+[[Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure|Paid editing disclosure]]
-[[Wikipedia:Plagiarism|Plagiarism]]
+[[Wikipedia:Project namespace|Project namespace]]
+[[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people|Proposed deletion of BLP]]
-[[Wikipedia:Protection policy|Page protection]]

—PaleoNeonate - 05:26, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I've made a table of it:
Removes Adds
The proposal removes the links of the headers because the template already links to Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines, Wikipedia:List of policies and Wikipedia:List of guidelines. It's a bit overkill to also link the categories (or individual sections of the lists) in the headers. I must have forgotten three of the policies, so I've added them to the proposal and striked them out from in table. Again, thanks for pointing them out. More links can be added (or removed) if necessary. But please note that these proposal is about the layout, about grouping the links to the policies and guidelines more clearly under thematic headers. Atón (talk) 12:14, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the additions. Do you think that Wikipedia:Core content policies could be added under content guidelines? I agree with you for the other links and categories. —PaleoNeonate - 18:34, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Hmm actually it would not be a guideline but explanatory notes about policy... —PaleoNeonate - 18:36, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, it's an "explanatory suplement", not really key, and it's linked in Template:Content policy list which appears in all content policies. Atón (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
I see there is consensus so I've made the layout change and removed the Rfc template. Thank you. Atón (talk) 16:51, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
And thank you for working on this and for the excellent interaction during the process. —PaleoNeonate - 23:45, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Template-protected edit request on 20 April 2018

Please change "Do not include copies of primary sources" to "Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources""Do not include copies of lengthy primary sources". Wikipedia:Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources is the correct name of the guideline, and "Do not include copies of primary sources" (specifically insofar as it differs from the actual name of the guideline) does not reflect common practice: copying small portions of primary text is perfectly acceptable, and if the primary source in question is not lengthy then even its full text can be quoted quite constructively. I was actually quite surprised when I looked over the template just now to see that it told me explicitly not to do something that I've been doing for years. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:00, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The problem is its length which would be much longer than any other entry in this template. What about simply "including primary sources"? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
@MSGJ: What about adding "lengthy" then? This would put it over "Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point" to make it the longest, but only by two characters. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:29, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
Sounds okay to me! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:52, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
Cool. Modified my request accordingly. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:10, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 Done (as a side note, I didn't even realize we had this guideline; along with don't put hoaxes and patent nonsense, seem to be form a triumvirate of overtly specific guidelines that should be merged/removed..) Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:08, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 October 2018

The "Values" link leads to a notice that the page has been relocated to here. Could you please directly relink the page to the new page? Upjav (talk) 17:59, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux Talk 18:05, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Simplify sentence

"Lists of attempts in creating fundamental principles" at the bottom can be simplified to "List of fundamental principles," which better reflects the title and subject of the linked article. May this be changed? Aonus (talk) 05:50, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

More contrast for the check marks

It's quite hard to distinguish between the greenish-blue and green check marks at a glance. Colors like #06c and #070 might work better. – XYZt (talk  |  contribs) – 02:40, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Have always though that the check marks cause an accessibility concern for colorblind people and should be dropped altogether if Wikipedia want to looks like we care about accessibility for the colorblind. But yes a better choice is good.--Moxy (talk) 03:20, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Good point. Maybe instead of checkmarks, P for policy and G for guideline. – XYZt (talk  |  contribs) – 06:02, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Anything that makes it looks like we're not discriminate against colorblind people wold be better. As a pillar of the internet Community we should follow basic accessibility protocols. --Moxy (talk) 06:05, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Just a note, but any change to this template will need to be applied wherever else the checks are used to distinguish a policy or guideline. As an example: {{Subcat guideline}}. I think the easiest solution would be to use different characters for policies and guidelines. Something like could work. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:10, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 September 2019

Hi! Can you give me any advice for improving this article?--Marvins-island (talk) 23:00, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Marvins-island, this isn't an article, it is a template. Is there another article you want to improve? If you actually want to improve this template, please explain what improvements you would like to see. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 23:09, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

WP:POG isn't a guideline nor is it policy

This is per the top template on the page:

"This is an information page
"It describes the editing community's established practice on some aspect or aspects of Wikipedia's norms and customs. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community"

Can someone link to the discussion where WP:POG was established as a Wikipedia guideline? If not, then it should be removed from this template under "Portal namespace" as misleading. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Knowledgekid87, agree. It has been removed. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 December 2019

Hello, as you can see here Category:Wikipedia guideline templates, the page Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines is sorted "[[Category:Wikipedia guideline templates| ". IMO it would be better to add "wikipedia" directly after the vertical bar, instead of the space punctuation. This way this page would be sorted like the other pages in this category. --Dutchy45 (talk) 07:16, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: {{edit template-protected}} is usually not required for edits to the documentation, categories, or interlanguage links of templates using a documentation subpage. Use the 'edit' link at the top of the green "Template documentation" box to edit the documentation subpage. Cabayi (talk) 11:28, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

WMF policies

The WMF's internal "Values" document for employees is not a policy, and does not have any practical relevance to Wikipedia. Same for the WMF's donor FAQ. Both of these should be removed from the template, in my opinion. The "Friendly space policy" for in-person conferences and events also does not really fit among Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and should be removed.

(It might also make sense to add the wmf:Terms of Use, which are binding on Wikipedia users.) --Yair rand (talk) 21:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Yair rand, I agree with you on the Values, FAQ, and Terms of Use. I have made the necessary changes. I don't agree about the Friendly Space Policy. Some of the current policies on this template regard off-wiki conduct (threats of harm, paid editing, etc). That said, happy to hear what others have to say. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Colors

I have (as far as I know) a normal human color perception ability. The colors used for the policies (#118811) and that used for guidelines (#0077A4) are almost indistinguishable from each other. I'd suggest (#008000) (#00FF00) for policies and (#000000) for guidelines. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 21:23, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe some other symbol for guidelines, like ? —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 17:59, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Hi AlanM1. One of the problems with making the changes you recommend is {{Policy}} (and its various sub-templates) and {{Guideline}} (and its various sub-templates) use the green and blue checks. Thus, making a change here may necessitate a larger change to those family of templates to maintain consistency. I generally agree with you and actually recommended an alternative when it was last brought up a few years ago here. It may just need to be discussed at a larger venue, such as the WP:VP, to gain some consensus. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:01, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
@Gonzo fan2007: Thanks. I posted a link to this section earlier today at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Icons. I'll follow your suggestion and do the same for WP:VP. I recognize there may be (hopefully a few) other templates that would be (easily) changed. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 22:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Just a suggestion regarding the blue checkbox

Since the blue checkbox:
is very much indistinguishable from the Green Check:
why not swap it with:
This other blue checkbox: .
This stands out much better. I have an example of this at the bottom of my user page. W.K.W.W.K...Toss a coin to the witcher, ye valley of plenty 19:40, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Wekeepwhatwekill, there was no consensus at the WP:VP to change the colors of the checkmarks. At this point, I think it best to stick with the "G" and "P", which per WP:ACCESS allows for anyone to see and understand the sybmol. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:55, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request 8 September 2020

The P and G characters should have alt text. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 14:46, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

An example of the code that results in those letters is:
  |group1 = '''<span style="color:#118811;">{{Large|P}}</span>'''
So those letters are not images and instead are just text letters that are enlarged and color-coded. Since they are not images and do not allow for "alt text", this is a  Not done. Both letters are explained in the |below= parameter at the bottom of the template. Thank you for your suggestion! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 17:20, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
If there is a way to convert those letters to images, then add alt text, that would be preferred. But that technical expertise is out of my wheelhouse. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:01, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
To editors LaundryPizza03 and Gonzo fan2007:  done, and thank you for focusing on accessibility issues! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 09:40, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth, Gonzo fan2007, and LaundryPizza03: I've restored the actual letters and added {{abbr}} tags, for accessibility. Aside from looking much better in my view, it retains the traditional colors, and still has the mouseover text. See Special:Diff/977521605/982357958 for the differences. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:07, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi L235, although I appreciate what you were trying to do with restoring the colors, there was already a general consensus to go in a certain direction above. And per the {{Abbr}}, Using it to generate tooltips elsewhere is a misuse of the underlying HTML and causes accessibility problems. What ideally should happen is for the P and G to be colorized pictures with alt text. If you are ale to do this, I think that would be a helpful change. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:27, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
@Gonzo fan2007: "P" and "G" are indeed proper uses of {{abbr}}. The documentation for that template says that it should be used for "abbreviation, acronym, or initialism"; "P" and "G" are indeed abbreviations for "Policies" and "Guidelines" – otherwise, what do they represent? Using images to represent text is less accessible, isn't it? Further, the images of the letters leave jarring spacing and don't look like they're even of the same font. Additionally, on this very template the {{abbr}} template is used to generate numerous tooltips (see the "(?)" symbols with tooltips), none of which are abbreviations for anything, unlike the "P" and "G" which do properly stand for "Policies" and "Guidelines". If you are worried about the use of {{abbr}}, I think those are a significantly bigger concern than the "P" and "G". Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:35, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
To editor « Gonzo fan2007: I agree with Kevin on this, and I disagree with your revert back to my rendition. I tried to find letters on Commons (they have to be free of copyright concerns) that were the right colors and fonts, but I couldn't and so had to try to get the black letters in similar, but not the same, fonts. I've been working with accessibility issues for many years, and the {{abbr}} template is a small issue compared with most accessibility issues on Wikipedia. It would take a single Wikignome several lifetimes to add all the |alt= parameters that are needed in image files just here on Wikipedia, let alone all the Wikipedias. And Kevin's correct about the use of the abbr template being a non-issue since P and G are indeed abbreviations. So please, I think we should return this template back to Kevin's version. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 09:18, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
After a little pondering, you guys are right. This works better. I have self-reverted. Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:27, 8 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much, « Gonzo fan2007, and there is the added benefit of the colors used for accessibility contrast! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 18:24, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 13 May 2021

Add Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary as a bracketed to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 04:23, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:55, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: What do you reckon about this change? Shouldn't be a problem, since that is an official policy. But whether that "not dictionary" policy is a key policy, I would like to assume so, because I assume other policies on Wikipedia are likely marked as key policies. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 05:09, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I have no opinion. I have not familiarized myself enough with the array of policies and how they relate to one another to have enough understanding of the issue. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:10, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Qwertyxp2000, you received an answer (discuss, consensus, THEN request). The fact that you don't like the answer (which is correct by the way) is no reason to re-open the request, wasting everybody's time. Cabayi (talk) 06:41, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 7 November 2021

Please remove WP:Five pillars, which does not have formal status as a policy or guideline. –dlthewave ☎ 21:02, 7 November 2021 (UTC) –dlthewave ☎ 21:02, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:14, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Remove Wikipedia:Five pillars

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I propose removing Wikipedia:Five pillars from Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines because it is not a policy or guideline. –dlthewave ☎ 22:36, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Oppose—The pillars are an expression of the policies and guidelines, central to our purpose and our relationships. —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose, the Five Pillars are the heart and soul of Wikipedia. They stand as the foundation of all Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose These are guiding principals. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 11:30, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Being neither a policy nor a guideline, it does not belong in the body of the navbox. However, as a principle, it is a closely related topic and merits its helpful link in the surrounding decoration. Certes (talk) 12:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment - personally I don't think the five principles really are the principles that hold this place up (or at least anymore). I think the "true principles" are different than what's laid out on that page. I'd probably oppose an RFC to promote it to policy. I don't really care if it's listed in this template, though, because as others have pointed out, it is commonly viewed as a page that documents global consensus (I personally don't think that's entirely true, but a lot of other people do think that's true). Dl, I think the problem you're trying to tackle here could be better tackled by confirming that any changes to 5P need to follow WP:PGCHANGE even though 5P isn't officially a P or G. Levivich 15:32, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Levivich, that's what I've gathered as well after looking into it further. I'll leave some time before proposing changes to 5P. –dlthewave ☎ 16:01, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


RfC: Add Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Not added: consensus is that just listing Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is sufficient. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 20:33, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I propose adding Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary to Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines because it is a policy. –dlthewave ☎ 22:33, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Support'—It is not a dictionary, we say so, and we have one; and sometimes it takes work. —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose—per argument by Levivich—¿philoserf? (talk) 15:57, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose, already covered on this template under Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose because WP:NOT is already listed and I don't see the reason to be listing separate individual sections of NOT. And if we did that, I'm not sure NOTDICT is the most important section, or even important enough to be listed separately. NOTFORUM is probably violated much more often, for example. Levivich 15:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Although it's summarized at WP:NOT, Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary is a standalone policy page. –dlthewave ☎ 15:48, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Heh, didn't even notice that. Why is that one a separate policy page? This to me is an example of how we have way too many PAGs. That shouldn't be a stand-alone policy, it should be at most an information page to NOT. (Wow and it has 16 pages of talk page archives. Jesus Christ, Wikipedia.) Levivich 15:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. Technically it's its own policy and to be consistent we might bracket it after WP:NOT. But we don't list every single PAG in this template because it would clutter up the template. WP:NOTDICT is an unimportant policy. I cannot remember the last time someone invoked it in a discussion besides now. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:46, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Neutral I would rather propose to put the WP:NOT, rather than this one. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:36, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Trimming this template

Looking at this template, it seems to me that it has way too many links, and they're the wrong links. The template isn't for the purpose of listing all WP:PAGs, it's for key PAGs, and I question whether all of the PAGs listed are "key". Examples of what I think should go:

  • WP:AUTOBIO - not relevant to 99% of editors; this is more relevant to non-editors who try to edit their own pages
  • WP:PLAGIARISM - WP:COPY and WP:COPYVIO are key and already listed; I don't think WP:Plagiarism is a commonly-used PAG; generally-speaking, plagiarism problems are usually dealt with as either copyvio and/or unsourced content. It's rare that something would comply with WP:V and WP:COPY but is nevertheless plagiarism.
  • WP:HOAX - When we think of the policies and guidelines that new editors need to know, or that editors will want to refer to often, such that it should be in this template, is "don't make up complete BS" one of those? WP:V and WP:NOR are the "key" policies about accuracy, and they're already listed
  • WP:NONSENSE - same as HOAX above
  • WP:FRINGE - I submit 99% of editors never edit anything having to do with fringe theories. An important policy, but extremely narrow in its applicability.
  • WP:EL - Minutiae
  • WP:IAR is listed twice, it should be listed once
  • WP:POINT - we already list WP:DISRUPT
  • WP:ETIQUETTE - we already list WP:CIV and WP:NPA, do we really need a third on this topic? Also, does anyone ever refer to this guideline?
  • WP:GAMING - not a "key" PAG by any stretch, like POINT, it's just another variation of DISRUPT
  • WP:ATTACK - like AUTOBIO, HOAX, NONSENSE, and FRINGE... not really applicable to 99% of editors, who will not be making attack pages
  • WP:HATNOTES - minutiae, like WP:EL
  • WP:BROAD - not applicable to 99% of editors, as broad-concept articles are tiny, tiny minority of all articles
  • WP:TECHNICAL - minutiae
  • MOS:NUM, MOS:LIST, MOS:LINK - we list the MOS, which has a zillion subpages. These three MOS pages aren't the most important MOS pages, and aren't important enough to be listed separately on the "key PAGs" template
  • WP:CLN - minutiae. We already list WP:CAT and WP:TMP
  • WP:SHORT and WP:SUB - technical minutiae
  • "List of policies" appears twice; we should specify "List of WMF policies" and "List of English Wikipedia policies"

Now, I don't know if others agree that any of these should be removed from the template, but I thought it was worth raising. I think the template would be way more useful if it had about half as many links on it. Levivich 16:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Levivich, I would generally support tightening this template up a bit. Back when I created this template, there were 36 links (see original version). Now there is over 90! This template has definitely fallen prey to scope creep over the last 14 years. I think the biggest challenge will be determining consensus on what to remove and what to keep, as many people have personal preferences. Maybe as a first step, you can implement all your changes above in the template's sandbox, so people can see the intended outcome, then we can start working on consensus for the change? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:14, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Good idea, Gonzo. Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines/sandbox has the links listed above removed, as well as WP:NPS, WP:UBX, and WP:PRINCIPLES. Levivich 19:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
I think the most obvious outcome is a cleaner, more concise template. Looking through your list and then at the sandbox, I don't see any that I have issue with and would support this proposed change Levivich. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
A pretty good layout. Would keep IAR as a subsection in 'above' though. Randy Kryn (talk) 06:05, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
Right now, I'll go out and support the changes currently proposed at the sandbox. I agree that listing IAR twice is necessary; the five pillars appear at first glance to be less concrete policies and more foundational principles of Wikipedia. Generally, in other contexts founding principles and vague statements of purpose don't have the full weight of "policy". Even though this is a Wikipedia context and the 5P do have the weight of policy, given this is a template targeted as new users I think it's a good idea to make it clear that IAR is both a policy and a pillar. Sure, we're really overemphasizing IAR compared to other policies, but that's kind of the point. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:37, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to go a bit further, because I think this template was so much more useful in its original form than what it's become. Another thing I think should go is the division of links into "policies" and "guideline". This is a distinction that is useless to the template reader. Nobody is thinking, "I'm looking for the guideline on civility, not the policy", because we don't have duplication like that (we don't have a policy on X and a guideline on X; rather we have a policy on X and a guideline on Y). If people are looking on the template for N, CIV, or RS, it won't matter to them if those pages are policies or guidelines. I doubt anyone thinks, "N is a guideline, I'll look it up under guideline". So I don't see the utility in separating out policies and guidelines on the template and will happily sandbox something that combines them if anyone reading this thinks that's worth doing. Levivich 14:41, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

The distinction more or less emphasizes "policies" as being more important (& therefore relevant) than "guidelines". I don't think that's the right message to be sending here; in all honesty the listed guideline pages are in some cases more important to be read than some of the policies. I'd rather a new user read WP:AGF and WP:BOLD than WP:CSD or WP:Page Protection Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 July 2022

Please change * [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)|Reliable sources (medicine)]] to ** [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)|Medicine]] for consistency with the rest of the template (matching ** [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people|Biographies]] and ** [[Wikipedia:Signatures|Signatures]]) HouseBlastertalk 00:49, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 03:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Addition of Essays

Moxy, I undid your addition of the "essay" links here. Based on the history of this template, I think this should be more of a consensus-driven change. I also would note that your edit summary of "ce" wasn't extraordinarily accurate, assuming "ce" stood for "copyedit". « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:03, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  • I oppose the addition of the "essays" to this template as outside the specific scope of this template. They are nice, but so were the other links that used to be on this template before it was decluttered. I think the "short and sweet" nature of the template serves the best purpose for covering Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
    Sounds good..... just though adding another essay (a few essays already here) about the difference between essays policies and guidelines would be beneficial but oh well.....it's linked in the 5 main policy pages. data Moxy- 15:25, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
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