The result of the debate was No consensus. IFYLOFD (Talk) 04:04, February 19, 2016 (UTC)
WookieeProjects are a major part of our community, with the majority of them featuring a unique template to add to an article's talk page, making it easily to see which project the article in within the scope of. It is common practice among our editors to create talk pages with only the generic talk page template and a WookieeProject template without any messages, making it easier to see which projects an article is part of at a glance. However, this action is frowned upon by point 7 of our official Talk page policy, which states: "All (non-User) Talk pages containing messages should have a {{Talkheader}}. Please do not create a Talk page solely to add {{Talkheader}}." This proposed amendment would add this statement to the end of point 7: "All (non-user) talk pages containing messages should have a {{Talkheader}}. While talk pages should not be created solely to add a {{Talkheader}}, users can create talk pages to add WookieeProject-specific talk page templates along with the generic {{Talkheader}}," giving official support to this helpful action and making it easier to see which WookieeProjects an article may be part of by casual readers. Special thanks to Xd1358 for helping word the amendment. - AV-6R7Crew Pit 01:38, February 1, 2016 (UTC)
Voting
Support
- As proposer - AV-6R7Crew Pit 01:38, February 1, 2016 (UTC)
- <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 01:42, February 1, 2016 (UTC)
- Cwedin(talk) 01:43, February 1, 2016 (UTC)
- Ayrehead02 (talk) 16:18, February 1, 2016 (UTC)
Good idea. ProfessorTofty (talk) 20:34, February 3, 2016 (UTC)Asithol (talk) 00:25, February 4, 2016 (UTC)[I have no opinion on this kerfuffle, so I'm withdrawing my vote and letting those who care about the outcome fight it out]
- Corellian Premier
The Force will be with you always 00:44, February 4, 2016 (UTC) - Cevan
(talk) 20:48, February 7, 2016 (UTC)
Object
- This is a mostly pointless addition that is trying to tell us that we can do something that we're already allowed to do. How bureaucratic do we need to be? And this is coming from a Bureaucrat. On the other side of this, I know there has been some voiced concern about users going out of their way to spam {{Talkheader}}{{WPWHATEVERTALK}} everywhere, and administrators have even deleted these on the grounds that they were unnecessary, which I'm sympathetic to. In light of that, I'm not sure codifying this is the best idea. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 20:14, February 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Cade
Calrayn 20:16, February 5, 2016 (UTC) - This site does not operate on the totalitarian principle of "everything which is not forbidden is compulsory." Ergo, we do not need to amend the rules to "encourage" something that is already allowed. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 01:19, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Like I originally told AV, I find this completely unnecessary. 1358 (Talk) 15:38, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Coruscantfan (Talk) 21:36, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Exiled Jedi (talk) 21:38, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Per the reasons stated in the Discussion section. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 20:49, February 7, 2016 (UTC)
- Per the reasoning below, particularly Brandon. Supreme Emperor (talk) 04:42, February 8, 2016 (UTC)
- After getting the further clarification and in particular reading through Brandon's particular reasoning, I have decided to strike my original vote and vote against this. I agree, there's no particular reason to codify this, and it may do more harm than good. ProfessorTofty (talk) 07:31, February 10, 2016 (UTC)
- Sir Cavalier of One
(Squadron channel) 18:40, February 10, 2016 (UTC)
Discussion
- Okay, Tope, you seem to be saying that you don't think it's necessary. That it's basically just a bureaucratic addition for something that doesn't really need to be codified because it's already allowed anyway. Yet, in the same breath, you seem to be implying that hey, maybe it shouldn't be allowed. Given that, and the fact that up until now nobody else has objected, yet now we have two of the site's most prominent admins expressing that they don't think it's a good idea, I'd really like to hear a bit more about exactly what your concerns are. ProfessorTofty (talk) 00:19, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- My concern is that this entire concept is a colossal waste of time and keystrokes. You couldn't possibly have started a CT over something more insignificant. I'm disappointed in myself that I even care enough to type this response. A) We don't need to create meaningless rules and policies for something we aren't barred from doing in the first place. B) At worst, this policy gives people like AV-6R7 the official green light to keep spamming talk pages with mostly meaningless templates, which is largely unnecessary. C) It's so unnecessary, in fact, that I support any administrator's decision to delete them when they deem it appropriate. The fact that these deletions have happened before makes me believe that we are better off not sanctioning something that is otherwise mostly unnecessary and carries the risk of abuse. Seriously, people, look at what we're debating about. Go find something better to do with your time than worrying about talkpage templates. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:39, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a way to rewrite the uncreated-page message for the Talk: namespace to include the Talkheader, so this is even more unnecessary. Cade Calrayn 00:46, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- This vote isn't about creating talk pages just to put the generic Talkpage template on it, something I am against by the way. This is about effectively connecting articles to their respective WookieeProjects, major driving forces in our community, whose Talkpage templates arn't just "mostly meaningless templates." AV-6R7Crew Pit 00:55, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Right, because our WookieeProjects are just indispensable models of article production. We wouldn't possibly want someone to see a talk page without one of these templates on them. There's a big difference between placing them on select major articles directly connected to specific topics and placing them on every minor and unimportant article you see pop up in the Recent changes. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 01:00, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Perhaps they arn't as effective as they once were, but I really don't see how this change would be to the detriment of our community, only the, while minuscule when compared to more major changes, potential benefits. - AV-6R7Crew Pit 01:05, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- I have no real opinion on this, but I do have to ask—what are the benefits? Why is adding a WookieeProject template important? All they really do is say that an article is part of a project. There's no clear-cut benefit in terms of bringing new people into projects or driving more awareness of projects. The one thing that would've swayed me to voting support on this is that having {{Talkheader}} on talk pages is a good thing for readers and newer contributors, but it seems that Cade has found a solution that achieves that without actually having to add the template to the page. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 01:10, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- My point of contention doesn't even hinge on whether or not there are benefits to adding templates to talkpages. It's about the utter needlessness of creating a rule allowing you to do this. No one has told you you can't, so you don't need a rule authorizing you to do it. But when you or someone gets out of hand with it and these talk pages need to be deleted, we should reserve the right to do so, which becomes unnecessarily complicated by a stupid and unnecessary policy clause. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 01:14, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- The only reason that I created this ammendment is because WookieeProjects encourage users to add these tags to the talk pages of articles involved with their repetitive goals. By deleting these pages, it creates confusion as to wether or not the projects are in error. - AV-6R7Crew Pit 01:20, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Perhaps they arn't as effective as they once were, but I really don't see how this change would be to the detriment of our community, only the, while minuscule when compared to more major changes, potential benefits. - AV-6R7Crew Pit 01:05, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Right, because our WookieeProjects are just indispensable models of article production. We wouldn't possibly want someone to see a talk page without one of these templates on them. There's a big difference between placing them on select major articles directly connected to specific topics and placing them on every minor and unimportant article you see pop up in the Recent changes. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 01:00, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- This vote isn't about creating talk pages just to put the generic Talkpage template on it, something I am against by the way. This is about effectively connecting articles to their respective WookieeProjects, major driving forces in our community, whose Talkpage templates arn't just "mostly meaningless templates." AV-6R7Crew Pit 00:55, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
- In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a way to rewrite the uncreated-page message for the Talk: namespace to include the Talkheader, so this is even more unnecessary. Cade
- My concern is that this entire concept is a colossal waste of time and keystrokes. You couldn't possibly have started a CT over something more insignificant. I'm disappointed in myself that I even care enough to type this response. A) We don't need to create meaningless rules and policies for something we aren't barred from doing in the first place. B) At worst, this policy gives people like AV-6R7 the official green light to keep spamming talk pages with mostly meaningless templates, which is largely unnecessary. C) It's so unnecessary, in fact, that I support any administrator's decision to delete them when they deem it appropriate. The fact that these deletions have happened before makes me believe that we are better off not sanctioning something that is otherwise mostly unnecessary and carries the risk of abuse. Seriously, people, look at what we're debating about. Go find something better to do with your time than worrying about talkpage templates. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:39, February 6, 2016 (UTC)
(reset indent) Here's where I think this may be stemming from, and it's a misreading of what the WookieeProjects say combined with WookieeProjects being vague in what they say. Take WookieeProject Rebels, for instance. It says "Paste {{WSWRtalk}} onto the talk pages of any articles relating to the project so that others may get involved." It does not, however, say "Paste {{WSWRtalk}} onto the talk pages of any articles relating to the subject of the project so that others may get involved." Now, other contributors who have been around longer than I have can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to make what I think is a fairly logical guess in saying that the original intent of the WookieeProject templates was to add those templates to articles that were actually worked on by the project. Which means that, over time, there's been a lot of scope creep to the point that some people want to tag every article every Rebels article with the Rebels project template, every TCW article with the TCW project template, etc. I agree with you that there are no downsides to adding the template, but there's no benefit that I can see to justify adding yet another rule to the labyrinth of rules the site already has. I would rather rely on contributors to use their best judgment to decide whether adding the template to the article is actually worth it (i.e. 'Has the project actually touched this article, or am I just adding it because of topic relevance?'), which also allows admins to use their best judgment to decide whether an addition was actually worthwhile. That gives everyone flexibility, which to me is often better than adding a rule. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 01:24, February 6, 2016 (UTC)