Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion/Archive 7

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Placement of {tfd top}

I noticed some inconsistency in the placement of templates on closed discussions. The instructions were ambiguously worded, so I clarified them and made sure they read:

Add {{subst:tfd top}} '''result''' ~~~~ ... after the template's section header but before all other content. (parenthetical explanation removed for clarity here)

Another editor changed this to:

#Add {{subst:tfd top}} '''result''' ~~~~ ... before the template's section header but after the previous sections content. (same elipsis)

Well, I'd like some discussion of this. It seems clear to me that {tfd-top} belongs after the section header. Otherwise, it falls within the previous section. This is just messy and invites the risk of screwing up another section while editing this one. Please see the example/test screenshots.

While I'm sure we'd all like to think we're smarter than this, I know I'm only human and am liable to make mistakes. Let's keep all markup pertaining to a given section within that section. John Reid 16:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Your way is done for CfD, but it's a tradition here. The current documentation (at both places just merged) was consistent: top before section. I'll support changing the tradition, after a week or so of discussion.

--William Allen Simpson 18:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry; I don't think it's tradition; it's just carelessness. It is something we can fix. John Reid 21:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Deletion process. That's very well documented tradition, since 2005-01-05 16:55:24 Rossami when these were Votes for Deletion. It actually requires extra knowledge and preparation to accomplish. Therefore, not carelessness.

I'm agreeing with you that I'd like it changed for Templates to match Categories. Please don't shoot the messenger.

--William Allen Simpson 23:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the notice before the section. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Would you tell us why? Maybe I'm missing something. I find it disconcerting to find the left shoe of a pair in a shoebox with the right shoe of another. Why is this better? John Reid 00:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, beyond the basic "I like the way it looks", it also fully encloses the section in the "this is a closed discussion" notice (which also includes the section-edit buttons). As unlikely as it might be, I'd like to think that the edit button being in the "don't edit this section" block might do more to deter people from contributing after the debate is closed. Disregarding that though, again, I just prefer the way it looks. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I can create markup that will extend the visible borders of a box over the section header and its edit link, while the markup itself remains entirely within the section marked. Will that satisfy? I'd like everyone to be happy. John Reid 21:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing

Whilst well-intentioned, I think this thesis on how to add two templates to a debate was vastly over-long and regulation-laden. Plus, its also on the self-duplicative Wikipedia:Deletion process page which is where it belongs. TfD is often a long page anyway, and I can't see that we need masses of isntructoins added to it. I don't really understand what was wrong with the brief description we had before that said more than enough for a halfway-competent admin to close a debate. So I massively reduced the section adn would fully support its wholesale abolition and reversion to the previous status. Also, I cannot stand those damned result templates and have never used them. -Splash^talk 12:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing is transcluded into Wikipedia:Deletion process. This makes it simpler for changes to closing to be made (change Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing and you've changed the instructions everywhere). I've reverted you. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Splash, you must not actually read the page, just working from memory. This was previously in Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Header, so it's always been on the page! That was its "previous status"!

• Header version
• Deletion process

So, it was just a status quo. I merely combined them and moved it closer to the Holding Cell (after the debate listings) where it would be closer to the actual work.

Worse, your change deleted all the information in both places, since it is now a transclude....

If you don't like the templates, how do you do the work? Just copy and paste?

--William Allen Simpson 13:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

This is less than half the length of the new essay. The two are not the same; it was not a status quo. I do not see any need to have such lengthy explanations included on this page itself. Just subst: it into the del proc page or somethine. It's not that I work from memory, it's that its the painfully obvious way to delete things, because its the same for every process ever. We're not writing these instructions for newbies, remember, since they shouldn't be closing debates. It needs to be brutally edited down to size, adn subst:ed into the del proc page. Oh, by "result templates" I meant the ones for talk pages, rather than the closure tags. -Splash^talk 13:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I seriously don't see the big deal here. The instructions being longish doesn't hurt you, and just because you understand how to close TFD's like the back of your hand doesn't mean future sysops won't need some guidance on the page to help them along. —Locke Cole • t • c 13:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The big deal is the big page of instructions for something that is very easy to do and was formely a 5 step process. Sysops needing guidance can read Wikipedia:Deletion process which I just rewrote. -Splash^talk 13:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I still didn't see the big deal. So there was some large instructions that went into the details and explained what it looked like. Hardly something to kill with a stick... I preferred William Allen Simpson's instructions. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

User box wars

Where can I read about the outcome of the Great User Box Wars? I see a lot really silly userboxes since coming back from a short break and no user boxes on TfD? --Pjacobi 19:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Most seem to get speedied and then get taken to WP:DRV/U these days. :P —Locke Cole • t • c 01:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• Continue the box wars!

--Abyab 18:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not a battleground. Stop this silliness. --Cyde Weys 02:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Babel templates

Well, Babel-XX is gone for 21<=XX<=50, but there's still quite a few left for XX<=20. I'm thinking we just substitute them. {{Babel-X}} is a hideously ugly template that can't be substituted. {{Babel-N}} is incompatible with the numbered Babels, unfortunately. I guess the only other alternative is to replace the Babels with {{Userboxtop}} and {{Userboxbottom}}, but that will take a little bit more coding. Your thoughts? --Cyde Weys 06:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Hrrrm? I don't think we should substitute Babel-1 through Babel-20 onto user pages. The whole point of templates is to standardize formats and remove the complicated markup from the page. We could have a bot convert all the calls of Babels 1 - 20 to Babel-X (or Babel-N or Userboxtop/bottom with a bit more work)... but I don't think we can delete them all because of the 'portability' issue. That is, users on sister projects (of all languages) and other language Wikipedias haven't all adopted Babel-X, Babel-N, et cetera. They still have Babel-1, Babel-2, et cetera exclusively and expect those to work when copied over to English Wikipedia. Thus we probably need to keep some form of these templates around for now, if only as redirects to Babel-X. Actively spreading the alternatives to the various sister projects/languages might eventually allow full retirement of the numbered Babel templates. BTW, Babel-X could be made subst'able (any template can), but... why would we want to subst it? --CBDunkerson 12:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Comments Removed

Comments were removed from this project without justification. Please restore them. --24.20.49.179 03:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• If you do delete my template, DON@T even think about restoring those comments.

--Abyab 18:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't you dare!

• Don't delete stuff from MY user account, I'm NOT happy about this. Now you promise to not delete it or ELSE!

--Abyab 18:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

.....uhhh? Homestarmy 00:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Nothing from your "user account" is being deleted, everything being considered for deletion is a template. And by the way, you don't have any right to keep anything on Wikipedia. Make no mistake, this isn't your personal site, and if we decided to delete everything in your userspace, we could, and there'd be nothing you could do to stop us. Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia ... having a userpage is a privilege afforded to editors. --Cyde Weys 02:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

How about UfD (Userboxes for Deletion)?

Recently, the deletion of userboxes has been controverisal, and I'm all for community consensus of deleting them, but all the userboxes for deletion on the page are swamping the real article-based templates. We need a subsection Will (^E_@) T 19:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes are just templates. --Tony Sidaway 19:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I know that, but I think it deserves a subsection at least, so we can divide the two types of templates. I doubt users would want to scroll through 20 userboxes in a row. Will (^E_@) T 20:01, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

One could merely section the TFD page itself, unless that would unnecessarily expand its length. Another option would be to sub-page it, as in Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Userboxes. In retrospect, I think that the subpage option (Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Stub types) would have been better for Stubs than Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion. One argument used for stub types to distinguish them from 'standard' templates also applies to userboxes, that they constitute template—category pairs in most cases. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Closing userbox deletion debates

I don't think these should be closed yet, as discussion is still going on at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#All_userboxes_below, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Yet_more_userboxes, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#All_userboxes_below_2, and Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#All_userboxes_below_3. Can closed discussions be reopened? TheJabberwʘck 01:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

They were all substituted before being deleted, so don't worry about it. All userpages still look exactly the same and we have gotten rid of unencyclopedic templates. Everyone wins. --Cyde Weys 02:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, not everyone agrees with the notion 'everyone wins' that you state here. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of whether I agree with you, that opinion might not be the consensus that emerges from the voting. By that logic, you could go ahead and subst: and delete every user template on this page, ignoring the ongoing voting. TheJabberwʘck 02:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• I do think that putting a moratorium on deletions is a good thing, but it's not bad to let the current debates run their course. I think once a discussion is closed, if the consensus was 'keep' or 'no consensus', the userbox could be revisited later given a good reason, policy change being one such good reason. If the discussion is closed and the consensus was 'delete' and the userbox is subsequently actually deleted, that is what Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates is used for, yes? User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Why should there be a moratorium on deletions? That's exactly what WP:TFD is for, saying which templates can stay and which can go. And I really don't see the point of bringing a template that has already been substituted everywhere it has been used to WP:DRVU. --Cyde Weys 02:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
    • So that the people who had their userbox unwillingly subst:ed can get it back in template form. TheJabberwʘck 02:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Why should people be allowed to put random unencyclopedic crap in the template namespace? The correct direction to go is to get it out of there, not put it back in. --Cyde Weys 02:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
        • To clarify: there are different standards of inclusion for encyclopedic and encyclopedia-related content than for non-encyclopedic content. This is a natural conclusion from the most important policy on Wikipedia, WP:ENC (and its corollary WP:NOT). --Cyde Weys 02:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
          • Oy vey, Cyde, I'm trying not to argue about the userbox issue itself. You could be 100% right and it still wouldn't be OK for you to close a discussion without consensus. The administrative decision to close is independent of the merits of your argument. So can you please clarify why the discussions you closed had reached consensus? TheJabberwʘck 02:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
            • I do believe that a consensus was reached to substitute and delete the template. This makes everyone happy; the user gets to keep their userpage the same, and those of us who care about deleting unencyclopedic templates are satisfied too. Three days have already elapsed; I don't believe things were going to sway to either side in the rest of the window. --Cyde Weys 04:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
            • I agree with Cyde here. Just a cursory look through the ones he's deleted seem to show that they had reached consensus - and that consensus was to Subst and Delete. If he had deleted against an overwhelming "Keep" consensus, that would be somewhat different, but even then, 25 entries with the word "Keep" should be weighed against three good and legitimate arguments. It's not a straight "vote" as suggested by someone above. Nhprman 04:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
              • And why is Cyde, about the most anti-box person on Wikipedia, the one who's interpreting the votes? Shouldn't a neutral admin be doing so? Also, I think you're missing my argument, which is that the closings weren't counting the ongoing discussion at centralized locations on the page. TheJabberwʘck 04:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
• The answer is simple: they didn't, Cyde knows they didn't, and Cyde does not care that they didn't. Process and policy are irrelevent to Cyde: only serving the greater good is of issue. That is, the greater good in his opinion. :) If he thought he could get away with it, he'd delete every template that was ever nominated for deletion, even ones with 99 to 1 consensus for keep. Consensus is of zero concern to him on this issue: if consensus disagrees with his opinion of what's best for Wikipedia, consensus is wrong and should be ignored and supressed.
• This is not meant to be put-down or attack on Cyde: it is merely an honest evaluation, and one he largely agrees with, and there are a number of admins who agree with him. In their view, process is always irrelevant, just an obstacle standing in the way of their wise, inerrant decrees. While most people feel that process is a good idea in any case where it doesn't harm the encyclopedia's interests, the attitude responsible for much of the recent tension and infighting is that process is to be ignored whenever possible (i.e. in ordinary situations, not just extraordinary ones), and should only be drawn on in unusual situations where it's truly vital (i.e. where it serves their interests and agendas). Although this viewpoint, that process shouldn't be adhered to in neutral situations (especially when the admins "know better" than the ignorant rabble), is an interesting one, in practice it is regularly causing major problems and solves few (if any), leading to unneeded squabbling and circuitious deletions and undeletions and redeletions, and exacerbating tensions and factionalizing Wikipedians more than anything else related in this silly conflict. -Silence 04:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • When user after user says "Keep - it's funny" or "Keep - I have the right to express myself with a template" they ARE ignorant. Ignorant of Wikipedia policies, and an admin's comments SHOULD carry more weight. Nhprman 04:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
  • No, if I was God, I certainly wouldn't delete every template that was ever nominated for deletion. I wouldn't even delete every userbox that was ever nominated. --Cyde Weys 04:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Something doesn't seem right here in that a couple of recent templates had overwhelming lists of 'keep' opinions but were deleted anyway, noting that the 'content' had been kept while the 'template' was done away with. That doesn't seem like the the intended outcome of a standard run through TFD. For instance, 'User Sumofpi' and 'User Sumofpi2' at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_May_13; I am not a supporter or user of these templates, but the outcome doesn't seem proper. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. The deletion of these templates was improper (i.e. deletion over clear consensus to keep, closing by involved parties, et cetera). I have restored Template:User sumofpi as an example case and taken this issue to the administrator's noticeboard to seek a resolution. --CBDunkerson 11:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

userbox nightmare

This page is becoming a nightmare. With so many userboxes being proposed for deletion (many of them seemingly for no reason other than WP:POINT), it is very difficult to wade through them to find the templates that really need debating. Yesterday there were 73 templates nominated, and of them only five were ones in article space, which surely are the ones that should have priority. Swamping the page with userboxes, the vast majority of which, though unencyclopedic, don't do any actual harm, is doing harm to the processes on this page. I wonder just how many WP editors who would normally snd some time weighing up all the tfd debates here are currently taking one look at the daily list and simply not bothering. Something needs doing, and quickly - before this page is totally unusable. Grutness...wha? 04:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• If they are uncyclopedic, they ARE doing harm to the encyclopedia. Deleting them from Template space and Userfying them puts them in User space, where these deletions will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I think that's worth considering, but many, many people ARE weighing in, but just by saying "Keep" and that does nothing to end the cycle of deletions and re-creation of Templated Userboxes. Nhprman 04:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• You guys got tired of the speedy deletions, so you told me to go to TfD. Now that I am at TfD, you're telling me to just knock it off. I'm beginning to think you didn't want me to go to TfD in the first place; you just wanted your userboxes totally left alone with no oversight whatsoever. And please review WP:POINT (as well as WP:NPA I suppose). It's only making a point if you are doing something you disagree with in order to try to make people realize how silly the opposing viewpoint is. I don't think anyone can claim with a straight face that I am disagreeing with the deletion of userboxes. I would only be making a point if I disagreed with these deletions and spuriously nominated a bunch of them. --Cyde Weys 08:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• You do seem to make a WP:POINT by nominating bunches of userboxes for reasons which are IMHO random and frivolous while your previously stated objective is to remove all of them. Why don't you do it the proper way, that is by a change of policy? Friendly Neighbour 08:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• You've entirely discredited yourself in these matters with your constant bad-faith accusations of other people's intentions as well as your "votes" consisting entirely of non-policy-related justifications and disruptiveness (i.e. "Oh but it's funny"). I don't need to say anything in response to you; you've said it all already. --Cyde Weys 08:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• It seems you are an user who can freely assume bad faith and get away with it. This is exactly what you did above. I do assume good faith and think your anti-userbox crusade is caused entirely by your sense of humour which seems tangential to mine. I also assume good faith and deeply believe that your bad-faith accusation against me is not a first step to blocking me permanently. Friendly Neighbour 11:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
• So the complaint is essentially that almost every userbox is: "Unencyclopedic template, simply not funny, no point in having around.". They are certainly not encyclopeadic - but they are user boxes - intended for use on user pages. They are not supposed to appear anywhere in articles - so it doesn't matter if they are unencylopeadic. If you see one in an actual mainspace article - delete the thing from the article with extreme predjudice. (Unless of course it's an article about userboxes in Wikipedia.) Are they unfunny? Well, people's senses of humor differ greatly - some I find funny - some I do not. You cannot say how I feel about them. If I find it funny - then that is simply a true statement that you may not deny. So what you mean is that they aren't funny to you. So does something have to be funny to absolutely every human being on the planet in order to count as funny or do you think that somehow you were elected Judge Of What Is Funny? If so then there is no humor left in the world and we are all doomed. However, if you take the view that so long as a few people find it funny - then it is in fact funny - then we must assume that both the author of the template and all of it's users find it funny - so we know for sure it's funny to someone - and it's just sad that you don't like it. OK - so we're just left with "no point in having it around" - well, some people find it worthy of keeping around - so why should it be removed? Are we concerned about the few hundred bytes of disk space? I don't think so. I personally donated $100 to Wikipedia this year and I'd like to make it clear that my contribution is to be spend entirely on disk space for storing userbox templates. With disk space running at about $1 per gigabyte right now - I think I personally funded the entire userbox storage space for all eternity, Are we worried that these are an evil force that is corrupting the youth of today? Look - you expect people to come here and write an encyclopedia for NOTHING - no payment - no reward - not even a by-line for chrissakes. The very least you can do is leave them one tiny corner of this dry tome into which they can inject a little fun and frivolity - blow off a little steam - have FUN. User pages are precisely that - and the meme of collecting little templates is hurting absolutely nobody - and helping just a teeny-tiny bit to encourage people to stay here and contribute. So please stop being Mr Grumpy and let's get back to some real work. It never ceases to amaze me how people who hang out here will spend so much of their time and effort on some microscopic crusade when they could be using that energy to write another article or bring an existing one up to featured status. Please - give up this crusade - it's just annoying everyone. SteveBaker 03:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

• Kudos to Steve's words. I second (and third) them completely. Deleting templates that aren't hurting anybody (seriously, "the server"? ... c'mon man) and that are actually fun shouldn't be a priority. Creating and improving articles should. Let's go do that and let the userboxes be. They're cute as they are now. --many Revolutions 08:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Template deletion

I just noticed that Fake User and Cyde Weys is the same person so his vote shouldn't count being the nominator. 132.204.207.108 18:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

What an odd accusation. I'm hardly administrator material. In short, no. Fake User 21:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I vote no. This whole deletion war is pointless There is nothing wrong with them you bitching liberals.

I think that we should allow all user boxes no matter what. MegaloManiac 17:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Eep, WP:NPA..... Homestarmy 17:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Concur. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Formatting Problem

The headers for closed debates (i.e. the part with the text "The following discussion is..." and the closer's comments) are somehow part of the previous section. The section headers should come before

<div class="boilerplate metadata vfd" style= [...]

Ardric47 20:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Excessive userboxes for deletion

Moved here because it's related to TfD and clearly isn't anything requiring administrator attention. --Tony Sidaway 01:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

A Mediation Cabal case here was recently filed by Ssbohio, concerning the deletion of userboxes by Cyde Weys, Fake User, and others. The user has asked me to bring the issue to the administrator's noticeboard on his behalf. Here is a copy of the request:

Cyde & Fake User, as well as a few others are nominating many userboxes for deletion, which has led myself & others to question whether that is a good kthing to do while the community is struggling toward consensus at the same time. It skates along the ragged edge of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. The nonuserbox TfD's are drowning in a sea of userboxes. Further, Cyde is going to userpages & userfying the userbox templates that have been placed there, such that without looking carefully at the code & the behavior, one could miss the removal of his userbox template(s) from his userpage entirely. He's also requested to create a bot that will automate his substituting of userpage code for userbox templates. I believe the acts by all involved are well-intentioned, and I assume good faith in their actions, but using TfD for a campaign against userboxes (in any degree) further stokes the fires. The userbox dispute needs to be resolved on a meta basis, once & for all, rather than by the death of a thousand small cuts. Fighting over userboxes one by one seems an unproductive way to go about achieving consensus.

I'd like to be able to dialogue with Cyde & Fake User toward achieving a voluntary moratorium on TfD'ing userboxes one by one. I oppose the removal of userbox templates, but, that said, I'm concerned here about the process, not the outcome. If userboxes end up being deleted by consensus, then so be it. I doubt anyone comes here for the userboxes. I just want these pointless userbox TfD battles to be held in abeyance until there is consensus on what to do with userboxes as a class. Before anything else, though, I'd like to talk with a mediator and explore what I could do to better achieve compromise with Cyde, Fake, etc.

I bring this issue here because the scope of the userbox debate is far past the power of the Mediation Cabal. From my understanding, the jist of what is being requested is that userbox deletion is kept to smaller proportions while the debate is still being underwent. The consensus of administrators is also necesary, however, to determine whether a reasonable course of action would be to slow down on the mass removals of userboxes as well. Cowman109^Talk 01:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the mass TfD flooding constitues WP:POINT. Not really a very good way of making it, either, just makes everyone mad. —BorgHunter ^ubx (talk) 01:42, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

The argument I've seen in a number of discussions around this matter is that the large number of userboxes were brought to TfD as a courtesy, as an attempt to allay the concerns of people around the implementation of Criteria for Speedy Deletion of Templates, which appears to have been at one time interpreted as meaning that several hundreds of userboxes could be speedy deleted without a formal trip to TfD. This section of the policy seems to be in flux and has moved from 'not having consensus' to 'this is policy' to 'proposed' depending upon the particular time at which you look at it. I'm not sure if this indicates that a policy change took place counter to consensus (unlikely) or that an interpretation of policy took place that was not intended by its formulators (more likely). Regards, User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ceyockey that bringing these boxes to TfD instead of speedy deleting was in fact a courtesy, and thanks to Cyde for doing so. But I would suggest that userbox deletions be postponed (in most cases) until consensus is reached. I would like to bring to everyone's attention WP:MACK, Wikipedia:Userbox policy, and the other proposals, which are actively moving towards consensus. Examining the continuing loss of editors frustrated over the deletion of userboxes, I strongly recommend letting these proposals come to fruition before engaging in further deletion. TheJabberwʘck 02:32, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I made the original informal mediation request. If the choice is TfD vs. speedy, then using TfD is a courtesy, indeed. My worry is pretty much what Jabberwock said. TfDing all these userboxes has the net effect of undercutting the attempts at consensus going on elsewhere. It's as if we were debating whether to harvest a forest for timber, with someone chopping down many trees from that forest even as we discuss what to do. There's got to be a better way than fighting the same fights hundreds of times over in TfD.--Ssbohio 02:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

It's policy because it's what administrators have been doing for months without any significant problems. Just because some people go in and dick around with the page doesn't change that. --Tony Sidaway 02:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

What is policy? TheJabberwʘck 02:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a very philosophical question :). ~MDD4696 03:05, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Lol, yeah, I should have emphasized the what. Λυδαcιτγ^{(TheJabberwock)} 04:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

"No significant problems?" Lol, yes I really did laugh out loud. Seriously, I thougt the userbox debates would be over by now. There are more important things in life to argue about than these petty userboxes. Yet every day there is something new here.--God Ω War 04:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

So ... should I just skip Tfd altogether then and go straight for deletion? I'm not sure what you guys want. --Cyde↔Weys 10:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

While I'm sure that was a joke, I'll play the straight man: Excessive nomination for deletion are disruption. Excessive deletions are disruption. Having some patience is a good thing. If you can't sleep at night because of the existance of userboxes, find another hobby and give wikipedia a rest. If you want to actually work towards a solution that is stable maybe nominate a one or two a week, but work on talking to new users and drawing them into the fold. In general, work on using cogent arguments more and force (or what passes for it here) a bit less. - brenneman^{L} 11:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Nominating only one or two a week is totally unacceptable, as that lets the MySpacers win, because they are creating them at a rate much faster than merely one or two a week. If there was, you know, an actual moratorium on the creation of new ones then I could understand calling for a moratorium on deletions, but just calling for a moratorium on deletions is totally one-sided. --Cyde↔Weys 11:48, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I object to being called a MySpacer. I'll aboid personal attacks in response, but I consirder that to be a thinly veiled one. Jay Maynard 01:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

From my original mediation request, here's what I'd like to see happen: achieving a voluntary moratorium on TfD'ing userboxes one by one. I oppose the removal of userbox templates, but, that said, I'm concerned here about the process, not the outcome. If userboxes end up being deleted by consensus, then so be it. I doubt anyone comes here for the userboxes. I just want these pointless userbox TfD battles to be held in abeyance until there is consensus on what to do with userboxes as a class.

To me, the deletion process Cyde uses is much less important than the fact that these deletions are happening while the question of userboxes is unsettled. Going over the same arguments a bunch of times in TfD makes less sense (and seems more prone to dissention & disruption) than waiting for consensus to emerge. I'd love nothing more than never to hear another argument about userboxes, and TfD'ing them one by one doesn't seem likely to reduce the number or intensity of arguments about them, but rather to do the opposite.--Ssbohio 11:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this 'TfD as a courtesy rather than speedy deleting' argument is patently false. There is no speedy deletion criteria which remotely authorizes the deletion of Template:User sumofpi and dozens of similar userboxes involved in this latest purge. Anyone claiming that the value of pi is 'divisive and inflammatory' has gone way past the bounds of common sense... somehow I doubt we are likely to see 'vote stacking' or protests over the 'offensive nature' of pi any time soon.

Mass listing of userboxes which violate no existing policy or guideline. Userbox deletion debates routinely being closed by the nominator. Templates being deleted even over an obvious super-majority consensus to keep. Such actions are clearly disruptive and even abusive of administrator powers and need to stop. If it is really so vital that we 'cleanse' the Template: namespace of all references to the value of the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter, boxes providing a link to the person's blog, boxes indicating the person lives in the UK, et cetera then we discuss it and agree on a policy to that effect. Trampling over people and deleting regardless of the outcome of the TfD discussion isn't the way we do things and must not be tolerated. --CBDunkerson 13:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thinks to himself: The wiki-prophets: which keep quiting/breaking away from Wikipedia told us this is how Wikipedia would end. *sighs* CaribDigita 01:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)