User:Shanes/Why tags are evil

This was written some years ago. It is outdated in its specific examples as some of the tags mentioned have changed or are gone now. But, sadly, the tagging of articles with big off topic and distracting boxes meant for editors, has not gone. It is more frequent than ever. Shanes (talk) 09:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

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Most boxlike templates (commonly called "tags") that are placed at the top of articles in Wikipedia should be removed or made into small icons. The tags are self referential, distracting, off topic and ugly. They make the articles look less professional and weaken the impression of readers that they are reading an encyclopedia.

As with many things and customs on Wikipedia, the use of tags is contagious; they are now being added more frequently, and in places where they originally weren't intended to be used. We should reverse this trend.

The vandalism protection tags

Say someone wants to learn about George W. Bush and turns to our encyclopedia to read about him. Now, what is the first thing this reader will see when she opens the George W. Bush article? It's the following note, all framed, with a gif, and looking very important:

As a result of recent vandalism, or to stop blocked editors from editing, editing of this page by new or unregistered users is temporarily disabled. Changes can be discussed on the talk page, or you can request unprotection.

This is how the article on the American president begins. With a screaming, obstructive note that has nothing to do with the president whatsoever. It's completely irrelevant and wastes the reader's time and moves his attention over to things he didn't come here to learn about.

"As a result of recent vandalism, or to stop blocked editors from editing", it begins. What the hell has that got to do with George Bush? And the vandalism word is even linked up to an internal project page about vandalism on Wikipedia. As if we ask the reader to click on it and learn more, as if we want the reader to stop reading what she really came here to learn about. Or, rather, not even begin reading about it. That she should learn about vandalism on Wikipedia first. Then it continues, in bold this time to really get the reader's attention: "editing of this page by new or unregistered users is temporarily disabled". Another irrelevant fact, and yet another link to something completely unrelated to the topic the reader wants to learn about. Why the hell should the reader care?! She came to read about the president. She didn't come here to edit. Very, very few people actually do. We are here for the readers, not for ourselves. The oh-so-important note ends with instructions on how to discuss changes and how and where unprotections are requested on Wikipedia, again linked to some internal Wikipedia page I absolutely wouldn't care about if I just wanted to learn about George W. Bush.

I won't even go into how we are actually lying to the reader here by using the words "temporarily" and "recent vandalism", as it's beside the point.

We have to stop being this self-centered. We have to stop assuming that people are so interested in Wikipedia process that we can continue to pollute articles with these tags, forcing readers to learn stuff they don't and shouldn't care about. The top of the page is the most important place of any article. We shouldn't put stuff there lightly.

As I write this, there are 86 articles that begin with this evil note, and then some who have the equally evil full protection box on top. Many of them very prominent and much read articles. And the number is increasing. We should remove them all. In my opinion a small icon, like the FA status star, should be enough to flag something being protected.

We don't tag Featured Articles with a big wordy box exactly because wise people have realized that it would be distracting. But informing the readers that the article they read has passed peer review and is considered good would defend some reader distraction much more than the vandalism protection tags do. It would tell the reader something quite important about the article content. But the star is enough for FA's, and a small icon, a lock or something, should be more than enough to inform Wikipedia editors about any protection being in place. Of course, people will find out about the protection if they try to edit anyway, so even an icon is slightly redundant.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the Germans have understood this. On the excellent German Wikipedia the protection note is put on the talk page and kept away from polluting article space.

As an administrator I protect pages from time to time because of vandalism. I usually try to make protections short lived, but even if they last for several hours, you will never see me add any sprotect or vprotect box on top of them. I refuse to ruin articles with them and to contribute to the spreading tagging disease on Wikipedia.

The current tag

The current tag is also a spreading infection. It's now all over Wikipedia, including hundreds of living people bios, and even some dead ones. The box looks like this:

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

It was originally made and first used when the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings happened and news about bombs, terrorists and victims came in by the minute. This was a reasonable article to have such a template on top of. It really was a progressing event, information changed all the time and flagging it with this tag was worthy of some reader distraction.

But now people tend to add it to everything and everyone that is remotely "in the news". And they put in on top of all these articles. My biggest beef is with the latter. Sure, information about living people or existing countries or whatever might change. They are after all alive and do and experience new stuff all the time. But, first of all, that's a given, and second it's usually minor parts of the article that stand the risk of being changed due to new events the next hours. If we really need to tag articles with this "might change rapidly" tag, we should limit it to the sections where it is relevant using the current section template instead. If we have to use it at all. Readers aren't stupid. They know that information on living people might change.

And adding it to people who recently died is just bad taste and really silly. I have lost count of how many times I have removed it from recently deceased people's bios just to see it being added back a short time later by well meaning but often very new editors who believe the tag should be there since they heard about the death of this old man in the news. The tagging infection has reached even the deceased. But the old man is dead. He isn't "current" anymore. And he certainly isn't an "event".

The current tag is not as evil as the protection tags, as it is not self referential and it does tell something about the article content. But we report this (often very obvious) fact too prominently by starting the article with this flashy box. So it's a tag that should be the exception, rather than the rule for topics in the news. Finally, we should use the "current" word with caution in articles. It gets old fast. What was current to the editor, is not necessarily so to the reader (think print, forks, off line copies). Instead of writing "Mr X is currently awaiting trial", we can be more precise by writing "As of April 2006, Mr X is awaiting trial". The latter will always be a true statement, while the first will be outdated and wrong the moment the trial begins. Even if most articles are timely updated on Wikipedia, we should be cautious when using words and tags that depend on it for the content to be factual.

The spoiler tag

The spoiler tag is, simply put, unencyclopedic. It is thankfully not put on top of many articles, but is used way too much to "warn" readers that some section will actually contain information about what the section title says it has information on. What are we—some Usenet group or movie blog? If readers want to get information about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, they don't need to have this spoiler tag tell them that the plot section will actually be about the plot. On articles about classical topics like this, they look especially silly. Yeah, both Romeo and Juliet die. Now I've told you. But I believe you knew that. And you'll still enjoy the play.

We are an encyclopedia. We offer people information. If someone wants to remain ignorant about something, then they shouldn't read the part of an article that tells them these things. Like the plot section on a movie or a book. I doubt there are many spoiler warnings in Encyclopædia Britannica. I haven't checked, but would be very surprised if there are any at all.

Checking a few book and movie articles on the German Wikipedia, I can't find a single spoiler warning there. I wouldn't be surprised if the Germans have got this right as well.

Note

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Shanes 01:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)