Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:53, 15 October 2005

Archives

• Misplaced Pages talk:Requested moves/Archive 1
• Misplaced Pages talk:Requested moves/Archive 2
• Misplaced Pages talk:Requested moves/Archive 3
• Misplaced Pages talk:Requested moves/Archive 4

For the page history of any text before this time stamp please see the Archives Philip Baird Shearer 16:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Footnote regarding the correct implementation of approval voting

I do not think it is necessary.

• Because if there are only two options by far the most common then the 60% rule is enough.
• I think the wording above is very confusing. This idea that a bank proposal should be added does not make sense to me.
• Details of how approval voting is done is coverd by the link to that page. It does not have to be duplicated possibly incorrectly on this page Philip Baird Shearer 11:48, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course the footnote is necessary, while preventing people to try and steer votes like you did on Talk:William of Orange. No offense intended, I can perfectly see this happened in good faith. Why I'm nonetheless defending correct application of the procedure as it was fixed after long, and not always easy, debate above, is that a wishy-washy application of the procedure will probably (as usual) not be able to come nearer to a solution accepted by many parties over a longer period of time. And is that not what we want most? Or is this really about trying to prove right whatever the cost? I'd really think sorry you'd lose your taste for wikipedia over that in the end, while, indeed, I'd think that the consequence of not trying to solve issues by a consensus type of approach. --Francis Schonken 12:32, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Polling for requested page move

See Misplaced Pages talk:Requested moves/Archive 3#What form should the discussion on the talk page take for the previous discussion on this issue.

Kim Bruning edited WP:RM removing the votes line in the "Create a place for discussion" on the talk page so leaving only one section.I presume under the noble wikipedia idea meta:Don't vote on everything. With only a discussion section recommended one of the first controversial pages formatted this way became confusing. See the history of Talk:William I, Prince of Orange Philip Baird Shearer

Ohkay, if you have to, but people had added a poll that wasn't according to polling guidelines. Actually are you sure you want to normally have a poll there by default? That's kinda broken. Kim Bruning 16:23, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, Support-Oppose is a good guideline, rather than looser guidelines. But the wording could be changed, e.g "vote -> opinion". I'll make such example (and if you are dissatisfied, you of course reverse). 217.140.193.123 16:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

==Requested move==

The reasons for move copied from the entry on the ] page
===Polling===
:''Add *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''' followed by an explanation of your opinion, then sign your opinion with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>''

===Discussion===
:''Add any additional comments''

Almost agree, I changed it above for you. The explanation must not be optional, and preferably should actually be longer than one sentence. :-) Kim Bruning 16:53, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

When we moved from having the votes on the WP:RM page to the talk page as you will see from the archive, I originally proposed a more proscriptive solution but the opinion at the time was that was too much meta:instruction creep. The format we have been using for about 9 months seems to have worked well in the vast majority of cases. Particluarly since the agreement to count the proposer as a vote in favour of the change and a 60% threshold (see Misplaced Pages talk:Requested moves/Archive 3#consensus), so no votes 100% consensus in favour of the move, one oppose 50/50 no consensus, One support and one oppose 2/3 so consensus to move.

The recent change which 217.140.193.123 are IMHO better but I am going to remove the header "===Polling===". The other header "===Cast votes===" had snuck in without me noticing when I cut and pasted back what I thought was the original. Having a header between the proposer and an "opinion/poll" section could re-open the argument that "No one has voted in the poll section for the change, so no change should take place". This would be a pity because many page moves do not attract many votes and keeping it simple has worked well for those moves over the last few months. The idea behind what was as a compromise, to keep instruction creep to a minimum, while making sure that an administrator can easily work out what the result is without opening up a can of worms. (see Talk:Nagasaki which sparked the #consensus section mentioned above). Philip Baird Shearer 17:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I had an edit clash so I will also answer the last comment by kim Bruning. Yes the comment should be optional and yes it should only be one sentence long. Take a look at a vote like Talk:Zürich#Move (Zürich -> Zurich) and compare that with Talk:Eastern Front (World War II)#WP:RM discussion to see why. Philip Baird Shearer 17:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

The subtitle "polling" (or, earlier, "cast votes") should be kept, since it helps the actual editing process. With it, a voter (an "opinionator") needs not take the whole length into the edit window, when writing the vote. The size of edit window is important to many, with lesser net capacity. You have seen that the discussion portion could be somewhat full and long in certain cases. 217.140.193.123 18:06, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

We should make a convention to admins that the proposer is counted as supporter (if not explicitly stated otherwise - there are submissions where the original proposer has forgotten to list it, but an opponent or a bystander desires to have a conclusion to a "tagging"). When closing admins know it, it should not be a problem - besides, in difficult cases, proposers themselves also seem often to register a separate vote, just to be sure. 217.140.193.123 18:06, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I am in favor of trying to limit the main explanation - there are always people who write an "Agatha Christie" novel to give their reasons and much more else. It would be good to have main explanation of a couple of sentences, and all the else in commentaries-section. Perhaps it would be good to require at least one sentence, on the other hand. 217.140.193.123 18:06, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

No the sentence should remain be optional (we don't want an arguments over "That vote does not count because you did not comment"). Fair point about the block edit. However I would suggest that it could be retrofitted (like proposals are) if the discussion starts to get large. But if we have a second header as you suggest, then we ought to have a section on WP:RM explaining that in a simple vote (only 2 options) the proposal counts as a vote. Perhaps we should have that section in the article anyway and formalise the talk page. Philip Baird Shearer 18:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't like the polling section myself; I think polling should only happen when discussion is just going around in circles so much you can't gauge consensus by it, and that "support" and "oippose" is useless without explanation. I don't want to read novels for each opinion, myself, but better a novel than nothing at all. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 02:00, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

To be honest it takes long enough to sort these requests, and to have to wade through vast discussions takes even longer. violet/riga (t) 07:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

60%

See Archive 4#consensus for how the number came to be included in the WP:RM page. Philip Baird Shearer

The "rough consensus (60%)" comment is laughably incorrect. I only hope that no-one is applying it. It's such an amazingly vile violation of policy that I'm surprised that I'd not noticed it before, but then I suppose I can't go around expecting people to actually understand policy and word things correctly. :-(

James F. (talk) 14:40, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't have time to really start the discussion now, though I do hope to come back this. However, in the mean time, would you care to list which "policies" it is a violation of? The community has long resisted defining consensus. The closest we have is the "guideline" at Misplaced Pages:Consensus, which says (among other things) that 66% is the typical minimum threshold for consensus in VFD. Dragons flight 14:59, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Which policy? Misplaced Pages:No original research states "Misplaced Pages:No original research is one of three content policies. The other two are "Misplaced Pages:Neutral point" of view and "Misplaced Pages:Verifiability".

See the archive above but the reason for the 60% was to help administrators with a simple rule for all moves so that people could not quibble over what a "rough consensus" is. It was set at 60% because that number works well when there are only a few people (<6), expressing an opinion. Some in the previous discussion (including my self) would have liked a higher %age for larger votes but it was agreed to stick with one %age to keep the instruction creep to a minimum. I still agree with the argument presented by user:Jonathunder during the last discussion:

"Moving a page is not nearly as "big a deal" as setting policy, deleting a page, or promoting an admin - things that do require "rough consensus". Even though the title is the most visible part of the page, changing it isn't much different from changing content - something anyone can do. In fact, most of the time, any logged in user who's not completely new can just move a page. So I don't think we need to require a high threshold for moving pages listed here."

and I agued that "on pages like Zürich to Zurich the WP:RM serves another purpose and I think simple majority voting would not serve the wikipedia community as well consensus voting does by putting those types of debates to bed for a few months."--Philip Baird Shearer 18:14, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

too complicated polling tools

Please see what sort of voting table has been introduced into use at Talk:William I, Prince of Orange. I am quite certain that it is not from here, as RM page proposes much simpler things. I have understood that "instruction creepism" has been deemed bad by you, and you have desired to keep pollings simple. Particularly wrt what participants need to do in order to participate in the polling.

That table itself seems a too complicated thing to me. It presumably drives from taking part in discussion to mechanical voting. (Actually, several Dutch voters in the table have not uttered anything to the discussion, so their reasons remain unclear and are not helpful to build any sort of consensus).

Complications are a bad thing. What next: is someone entitled to demand that participants stood on their heads in order to be eligible to participate in a poll?

I cannot avoid an impression that someone has too much technical interests (perhaps too little interest in actual substance contents), has built an elaborate table, and that results in all others being forced to be guinea pigs to use that tool. I do not oppose if someone wants to maintain an extra table to show polling situation, but tob demand participants themselves to use such goes too far. Arrigo 15:03, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The WP:RM request for that page was done by user:Francis Schonken while a change in the WP:RM guidelines was in place for a day or so (see above: #Polling for requested page move) when the new format made it difficult to see who was supporting what, Francis introduced his own polling table. Since the WP:RM page guidlines reverted back to the previouse guidlines, something made possible to do with little argument thanks to the mess on Talk:William I, Prince of Orange page, Francis has continued to use the guidlines as layed out eg the more recent Talk:William I of England. Philip Baird Shearer 16:38, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

History description

Nitpicking alert: I note that the description of moves in the page history has changed from "PageName moved to NewPageName" to "PageName has been moved to NewPageName." Is this an improvement? I think it reads worse - the previous version was more grammatically neutral, so it made equal sense when viewed in user contributions, recent changes, and page histories; also, the full stop at the end is just wrong. It's in MediaWiki:1movedto2 if anyone feels like looking at it. sjorford #£@%&$?! 09:13, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and have reverted it. violet/riga (t) 19:43, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Sweet. sjorford #£@%&$?! 20:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Possible clarification of instructions?

I misunderstood part of the instructions under "copying the following is suggested". Instead of putting this text in:

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

I did what it said: that is, I added Support, and signed my vote. SoM kindly informed me that you can't vote for your own move request, which I suppose makes sense; only, it doesn't say that anywhere in the instructions. Perhaps someone could reword the instructions slightly so that other folks don't make the mistake I did? —Josiah Rowe 18:42, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe just template the thing, with instructions to type {{subst:Reqmove|Reasons for moving - ~~~~}} with a couple of variants for multiple page moves or a move with multiple options? - SoM 18:56, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

lots of confusion over redirect policies

Dear Wikipedians: Please note, that a similar question arose for NBC, as arose for Public Broadcasting Service. At NBC, it was suggested that it be moved to National Broadcasting Company. At Public Broadcasting Service, it was suggested that it be moved to PBS. IN EACH CASE, THE SAME JUSTIFICATION WAS GIVEN FOR COMPLETELY OPPOSITE DECISION. Namely, with PBS, because "Public Broadcasting Service" is "clearly predominant", that most people "know what it stands for", this is used as justification that it STAY at Public Broadcasting Service, and that PBS redirect to the full name. Yet, at the discussion at NBC, the article title "NBC" is kept because "about 99,999 people out of 100,000 will be looking for the National Broadcasting Company, not the Newfoundland Barbering Commission or the National Bowling Congress.", and "it will be the name most people are likely looking for". I believe this is evidence of one of 2 things:

• The redirect and renaming policies are unclear or confusing.
• The policies are clear, but people ignore them and just invoke them to support whatever they think is best.

Which is it? Revolver 21:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

How are noncontroversial moves made?

I'm sorry, but Wik is still a horrible chaos for normal users. I have been unable to find any-thing on normal moves (Misplaced Pages:moves gets re-directed hither). This article should have a link (Wik articles are usually way overloaded with links) to a straight-forward explanation of how noncontroversial moves are made. Kdammers 04:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Normal moves are made using the tab at the top of every page, between the tab and the (or ) tab. Guettarda 04:43, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank You. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kdammers (talk • contribs) 05:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Probably the instructions at the top of this page ought to mention this; I'll add it (and a link to Misplaced Pages:How to rename (move) a page) if they don't already. (I know, I know, "Instruction creep", but if we're getting questions...) Noel (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Repairing cut-and-paste moves

I've gotten a number of requests recently to help repair cut-and-paste moves, something I have some experience with. Since cut-and-paste moves (a big no-no, they separate the Misplaced Pages:Page history from the content, which we want to avoid for copyright reasons) seems to be something that happens a fair amount, I'm going to try and rejuventate the Misplaced Pages:Cut and paste move repair holding pen to deal with them; I have signed up on Misplaced Pages:Cleaning department to maintain it. I'm going to add a brief note to WP:RM mentioning it; hope that's OK. Noel (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Backlog

I did my best to delete those requests from the list which had already been fulfilled, but that doesn't change anything about the fact that there's still a backlog of moves to be done. File:Austria flag large.png ナイトスタリオン ✉ 11:06, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Backlog redux

There's still a horrendous backlog here. Can I propose a couple of mechanisms that might help cut it down?

1. Make improper formulation of a request (current examples: Bast and Styria, Slovenia, which are lacking the talk-page boilerplate) grounds for flagging {notmoved} after a week or so (combined with a polite note on the talk page inviting its correct relisting).
2. Place the onus on fixing "what links here" redirects, etc. on the person proposing the move, rather than on the poor overworked admin who makes the move. There are a couple of current listings with clear consensuses in favour, but a daunting amount of incoming links and redirects. Plus, the requester should be better acquainted with the subject matter and better qualified to make correct decisions on what goes where.

Comments? –Hajor 02:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Yep - I made a template for #1 - {{Notmovedmalformed}} which produces:

Consensus could not be determined in this requested move because the proper procedure for listing was not followed. If there is still a desire for the page to be moved, please request a move again using the procedure outlined at WP:RM#Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves. ~~~~

Ryan Norton 08:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

About #2 - I added a bit about that. It may be a bit too much though... remove it if it is :). Ryan Norton 08:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Approval voting is not consensus building

I question the current recommendations of this page. The idea that approval voting is a good way to build consensus is completely flawed, especially when it's set at a measly 60%. Misplaced Pages is not a democracy.

I also question the status of this page as anything other than a user tool and a way to contact admins to help move articles that can't be moved by normal users. This page is not an arbitrator of official policy, does not hold sway over consensus achieved in pages such as WikiProjects and especially not if it works by the idea that majority decisions can decide article titles on Misplaced Pages.

Peter 22:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

So... what do you propose? There are plenty of complaints already, and meanwhile the backlog keeps growing :\. Ryan Norton 23:15, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

A page is blocked from being moved a person proposes a move. Two others express an opinion. One for one against. You are the administrator after five days do you move it or not?

Next day a page is blocked from being moved a person proposes a move. Two others express an opinion. Both disagree with the move. You are the administrator after five days do you move it or not?

This is a decision that the overworked administrators who look at this page have to make all the time. The 60% or more rule is simple to follow and reduces conflict for the adminstrators by giving them some protection from them being accused of acting in an abitary manner. See the history of the WP:RM talk pages for examples. It also makes WP:RM moves sticky in that a 20% change in the rough consensus has to take place before a new WP:RM request can overturn a previous one.

Peter also look at the bottom of the WP:RM page. WP:RM activly suggests informing WikiProjects of page moves which effect pages in their domain to try to stop WP:RM being used as an underhand way to get around project guidelines. If you think that a particular WikiProject is missing which you think should be added to the list then why not add it? --Philip Baird Shearer 23:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

If an administrator is unsure whether there is consensus or not, and all the appropriate guidelines have been weighed in, the answer is very self-evident; don't move the page. This is the standard practice in all other similar situations concerning article content or article status. The solution is not to set unacceptably low standards for what consensus actually is.

I've made amendments to the guidelines that actually follow the recommendations of Misplaced Pages:How to hold a consensus vote and hard policies such as WP:NOT. If you look at the rewording, you'll notice that the idea that people should give proper time for discussion and consensus to build up would discourage the current system of first plopping a full-fledged vote on unsuspeciting talkpages (with a horrendously low percentage for approval). If people don't make proper attempts to discuss before requesting moves, I think admins should simply remove the request (and any attempts of voting) until this is actually done. Just demand that people actually take time to ask around, start discussions and check the proper guidelines and policies before dumping the request here to simmer Admins should not be forced to make the kind of decisions they're currently making.

I've also removed the 60% figure, because it has no support in the practices of Misplaced Pages in general and has nothing to do with genuine consensus building. If people demand set percentages, then they should be informed that this is not the place to enforce such standards. And, btw, I don't think that individual WikiProjects should be linked to. There's just way too many of them.

Peter 13:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

guidence requested

OK - I took care of quite a few days, but I ran into some distintly difficult cases:

1. There was no notice/template on the talk page but there was in entry here. In this case I turned down the request

   did you leave a comment explaining why?

   • There was another one like the above only this time with more approval on talk page - in this case I moved

   Yep I guess.

2. Another one where there was notification on the talk page, but the only comment/vote was from an anon not to move. In this case I didn't move it.

   I think you should have moved it. But as the administrator who delt with it I support your decision.

3. One where an anon nominated but a logged in user with a comment from several months ago disagreed

   I would not have moved it. Philip Baird Shearer 09:17, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Some of the above has drawn strong complaints. What would you do :)? Ryan Norton 02:52, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

For the first one I made the template outlined above (but on the requests in question just gave an explanation). Thanks a million for your thoughts/opinions! Ryan Norton 09:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

ch-ch-changes

How big should the introduction be

See previous debates on this talk page about this. I am in favour of keeping the introduction as short a possible otherwise the trees get lost in the wood. Philip Baird Shearer 14:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

At any rate, I think its superflous that we have all the "PLEASE NOTE" stuff on the bottom as well as the top....

Ryan Norton 14:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Should Current notices be in a sub page

I am of a mind that they should remain on this page otherwise this page does not get monitored like it should and probably does not get read. It has the effect of removing the instructions form the action. Philip Baird Shearer 14:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm.... I was going for an AfD-style layout. Someone suggested a subpage for content too on WP:AN. Ryan Norton 14:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that AFD has anything to reccomend it. Philip Baird Shearer 14:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)