Forum:CT:Talk page policy

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This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was withdrawn per my comment in the discussion section. The policy will be re-proposed soon, once I've tweaked it and sought out some feedback. —MJ— Council Chambers 23:10, July 12, 2013 (UTC)

Per the discussion at Forum:SH:Let's figure out a policy on removing talk page messages., this is a proposal to adopt the talk page policy at [[User:Master Jonathan/Talk page policy]], as discussed in that SH thread. If adopted, the policy will be located at Wookieepedia:Talk page policy with the shortcut WP:TALK.

As part of that proposal, {{Talkheader}} will be updated to link to the new policy and summarize key points, including at least the rules about not editing others' comments and encouraging users to create a new thread to reply to an old thread. As the talkheader template would merely explain the policy instead of being the policy itself, I am not proposing exact wording and will leave the wording to the discretion of the administrator closing this thread and anyone else he/she wishes to obtain input from or delegate the task to. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers 17:38, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

Support

  1. As proposer. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers 17:38, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
  2. Looks good to me.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 17:59, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
  3. We left messages responding to off-topic posts for a long time before the unwritten procedure changed to "just revert it." Off-topic posts are merely cases where people don't understand our practices. Frankly, I think it's good to have "a tangible reminder to other new users considering posting on that page" beyond the {{Talkheader}} on lots of pages. It hurts nothing and only benefits by spreading that understanding. Even more than that, I would find it utterly ridiculous if "hey GUSSSE I DO UTHINK I WACAN'T WAIT FOR TEH NEW TRILEGY!11111," or some other hyperbolic example, wasn't considered vandalism and thereby revertable under Provision 4. If the entire message is written such that it's incomprehensible without great effort, what else is it? NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 19:17, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
    • This "provision" appears nowhere within Master Jonathan's linked-to talk page proposal. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 19:23, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
      • "4. Under the following limited criteria only, comments may be removed without being archived:..." Bullet 4: "Spam, vandalism, or test edits." NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 19:34, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
        • Of which I would consider none of this to apply to such an off-topic post, particularly if the individual was gifted enough to spell correctly. A random flyby comment by someone saying "I can't wait for the new movies, I hope Luke Skywalker comes back!" is completely irrelevant and off-topic and needs not be archived. But I leave you to your misguided opinions. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 19:39, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
          • And I leave you to your own, honest opinion and habitual skirting of WP:CIVIL. My opinions are my opinions and I'll thank you to not call them "misguided" without giving a serious counterexample that would actually hurt anything if it stayed and wasn't reverted immediately anyway. The example you gave in your post, quoted by me above, would be considered vandalism. The example of the new episodes' talk pages would no doubt be considered a special case, because they would generate endless amounts of that sort of thing because of what they are. People think we know more than we do. That's why {{Tl|SequelTalk}} was created rightly. The example you've just given now, someone making an idle comment, does not damage the integrity of the talk page, and it provides us with an opportunity to post a link to the proper rules (which would actually have if this passed!) somewhere new. I don't deny that keeping all of them would be a bit of a downer since they would pile up eventually (spread out thinly across our hundred thousand potential talk pages), but the upside of spreading the new policy to each and every one of those places would outweigh that, in my view. Heck, we should do an official site announcement if this passes. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 19:50, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
            • Your opinions are misguided. Does it hurt to hear that? Is that why you need to try and sling purported policy violations at me in some apparent sad attempt to damage my standing on the wiki? I'll tell you what is a violation of Civility: "Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another," not to mention the fact that every discussion you engage in devolves into this same disruptive, bitter back-and-forth with people you habitually cannot coexist with. Give it a break for once, Naru. No one wants to read another novel-length CT of your rebuttals. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 19:57, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
              • By invoking WP:CIVIL, I was pointing it out that you're acting uncivily via "Rudeness," by belittling my opinion, so that you might think about stopping talking to me like the spirit of what I'm saying is stupid. The spirit of what I'm saying, that it would be good for us to spread the word of the policy far and wide, is what DigiFluid and MJ are both saying, too. Are they misguided as well, and would you talk to them like that? I thought you could handle a nudge, but I guess I was wrong, and now you can add "Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another" to yourself. I don't care about your standing on the wiki. I would just like to be treated with a modicum of respect like anyone else would be. It is not OK to dismiss the opinion of anyone on this Wiki by blanketly saying their opinions are "misguided." I can coexist with you Tope. I hold no grudge against you, and I've told you that before. I'd just like the respect I pay to your opinion to be reciprocated. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 20:38, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
                • No, Naru, despite your defensiveness and your patented attempt to lawyer yourself into a position of being the victim, it will never be "rude" or "belittling" for me to tell you or anyone that your opinion is WRONG and MISGUIDED. And yes, in this instance, I think MJ's, DigiFluid's, and the opinion of anyone else who votes on this side of the fence is WRONG as well. If you think that's being "rude" or "disrespectful," that's your problem. The difference is that I have a good, working relationship with most if not all of these other people, so we don't take it personally when our opinions don't sync up. You're going to get the same level of respect you show other people. Keep that in mind. This irrelevant and disruptive discussion on this forum is over. If you feel the need to continue trying to justify yourself to me or the rest of the community, you know how to reach me on my talk page, IRC, or e-mail. Do not respond to this post again, or I will consider you to be deliberately perpetuating disruption. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 21:06, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
  4. Makes sense to me, in at least one key area: prospective new contributors. Kindly pointing someone to the rules goes a lot further to a good first impression than does leaving them wondering why their comment has simply vanished. — DigiFluid(Whine here) 19:31, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
  5. We already have rules regarding the archiving of talk page messages, which can be found at {{W}} ("Do not remove talk page and forum comments, including your own, as they are part of the public record.") and at {{Msg-talkr}} "Please do not remove messages from talk pages or other discussion pages. All messages are part of the public record and must remain visible. Thank you for your cooperation." This CT is actually aiming to make the existing rules looser --- if it results in a no-consensus, we'll be stuck with the currently existing "Don't remove any talk page messages" rule." With that said, I whole-heartedly support this proposal, for all of the reasons I espoused here. Reminding someone of the talkheader is fine, but outright removing their comment is just overkill. Menkooroo (talk) 23:17, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
  6. Personally, I'm just happy to see our talk page policy become an actual policy. Though, I feel that some instances would be approached on a case-by-case basis. If the message in question is clearly irrelevant commentary on the article subject matter, or is completely unrelated to anything, I personally see absolutely no harm in removing that comment. As was heavily discussed above and below, approaching such comments with a blanket rule may not be entirely possible, depending on the nature of the comment. If it's something that's to the effect of "i cant wait 4 teh next trilogee :D" then it should be removed. It's an irrelevant commentary on the article subject matter and not related to changes made to the article, which is in direct violation of the {{Talkheader}} rules. Other than that little bit, which I, myself, will determine a course of action with each case, should anything similar to those examples arise, I support the policy. We need something that is set in stone. We need something to direct people to in regards to removing talk page messages. Having a policy to back up our unwritten rule serves to further validate it. Trak Nar Ramble on 07:35, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  7. --Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 20:08, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. I find it utterly ridiculous that you're trying to force us to archive every off-topic post, which we currently and justifiably revert out of hand as nonsense. This is a singular great example for why we should not be archiving off-topic posts. I have no problem with informing people why their comments are being removed and how to proceed correctly, but we don't need to be saving every "hey GUSSSE I DO UTHINK I WACAN'T WAIT FOR TEH NEW TRILEGY!11111" Remove that item from the mandatory must-be-archived list, and I'll support this endeavor. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 19:01, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
    • DigiFluid's comment above is why that is in there. Simply pointing someone to the rules in a polite fashion leaves a better first impression than simply removing the comment, and I often see users remove comments and never tell a user what they did wrong. When that happens, a new user is unlikely to understand that they did anything wrong, leading them to think that their edit didn't take, and they just post the comment again, only to have it removed again without a warning, and so they make it a third time, wondering why their edit is not sticking (and probably having no clue how to look at the history to see any notes left in edit summaries). Eventually they get a big obnoxious red warning for "edit warring"; at that point they either give up and don't come back because they think we're all rude, or they try again, get blocked, and then give up and don't come back because they think we're all rude. Either way, we've lost a potential contributor. It's far better to leave the comment in place and leave the off-topic note where a new user would expect to find a reply: under their comment on the same page. That gives a far better first impression and is far less likely to lose potential contributors. —MJ— Comlink 19:42, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
      • I think you're really over sensationalizing what goes on on talk pages. Very rarely does it ever devolve to the point that someone tries re-adding their comment as many as three times. In such a case someone usually does leave them a talk page message encouraging them to adhere to the Talkheader template, and it usually ends there. I can't remember once that someone was so overbearing as to issue an edit-warring warning for re-adding off-topic posts to talk pages. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 19:46, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
      • Removing off topic posts and then warning the user with {{Msg-talk}} is not hard. JangFett (Talk) 14:34, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  2. Gotta agree with Tope here. IFYLOFD (Enter the Floydome) 22:34, July 7, 2013 (UTC)
  3. Tope is absolutely correct. It is ridiculous to be archiving stupid posts just so we can say that it's on record. Why does it deserve to be on record? And the argument that it's public property doesn't work here; we're not a forum. If something is disregarding policy (no posting off-topic of article), why should we encourage it by archiving?

    And by the way, I'm sick and tired of hearing the age-old argument that "we're just too mean, so we need to bend over backwards and dilute our rules to make everyone feel hunky-dory and all happy inside." We're an encyclopedia. We're not a social club. If people want to feel good, go to TFN or some place where they can have fun. I'm not saying we have to be all serious and not have a good time. On the contrary, I think we should enjoy our work and welcome new help. But not at the expense of harming the wiki by letting up on our rules.—Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 13:25, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  4. I'm sorry, but the majority of the purposed talk page policy is fluffy and a little too extreme, MJ. It should be more simple. I would start repeating what Tope said above, but there's another issue I have: "Archives may be placed somewhere other than a subpage if an administrator feels that would be best" Do we have any precedent to this? If not, then please remove. I would like to know why we should place an archive elsewhere if we feel that it's necessary. And as for: "Some users prefer to retain personal attacks and the like on their user talk pages." I, I don't know what to say about that... JangFett (Talk) 14:07, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  5. Entirely per Tope. Remove that from the policy, and I'll support. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 14:13, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  6. Tope has a compelling argument. Besides, the presence of off-topic comments and other nonsense might give the impression to new users that this is acceptable in talk pages, and maybe even tempt them into replying with even more nonsense. Stake black msg 14:21, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  7. As everyone said above pretty much. But just to reiterate: If it goes against the talkheader, and does not pertain to something being changed in the article itself (and not delete the Clone Wars stuff, it's horrible), there is no reason for it to be on the talk page. And I came across this lovely addition last night for example; is there a reason this should stay on the talk page, and later be archived? To anyone who thinks people may be turned off because they couldn't follow this: if they can't follow that very simple direction, it makes me wonder what else can't they follow? Trip391 (talk) 15:13, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  8. As Tope said, if it wasn't for the mandatory archiving of every nonsense edit posted to a talk page, I would support the proposal. The edit is still in the history, so perhaps modifying {{Msg-talk}} to include a link to the reverted edit when explaining to a user why it was removed would be an idea. - Sir Cavalier of OneFarStar(Squadron channel) 15:22, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  9. I essentially agree with Trak Nar above, except I don't see the need to keep off-topic posts. Cavalier One's idea of modifying {{Msg-talk}} also seems helpful. —Silly Dan (talk) 15:34, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  10. Guess i'm late to this party. Archiving off topic posts seems unnecessary, off topic comments should be removed and a message should be left on the users talk page explaining why. Supreme Emperor (talk) 21:33, July 10, 2013 (UTC)
  11. Per above. Archiving off-topic posts is just plain stupid, if I may be so blunt. Grand Moff Tranner Imperial Department of Military Research (Comlink) 23:31, July 10, 2013 (UTC)
  12. I like what Cav said.—Tommy 9281 Wednesday, July 10, 2013, 23:37 UTC
  13. What Silly Dan says down in the comments is true: we really probably should have either separate policies for article and user talk pages, or separate sections of the policy addressing each's idiosyncrasies. Also, I noticed an issue in the wording with Item 5 that I hadn't noticed before - as currently written, it allows a user to keep HIS OWN personal attacks towards others on his or her user talk page, so long as they don't warrant a RevisionDelete. A rewording of this section may also be in order. jSarek (talk) 04:33, July 11, 2013 (UTC)
  14. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 16:22, July 11, 2013 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. I can't vote against this because I think there should be an official talk page policy. Especially since I was told repeatedly that was something of the sort, but obviously there is not. The reason I did not argue it back then was because of overwhelming opposition. I thought it was an established, unspoken, and undisputed policy on Wookieepedia. However, it apparently is not. There should definitely be a talk page policy. So that when someone does ask a Disney question or something about the new trilogy or something about Ahsoka or if they say something like this or like this then you can actually have grounds to remove the comment/question and not just refer to a talkheader which has "supposedly" a undisputed policy backing it up. But this is also the reason why I can't vote for this CT. It does not call for the removal of junk and instead calls for the archiving of every single post to a talk page. Like Jang said in the comments, don't make me go find some junk on Ahsoka talk and try to argue why we should keep it. If you want to give a warning to the author of said junk, revert the edit and give them a warning on their talk page. This propsed policy also gives administrators unnecessary power that is based solely on speculation. And finally, it allows someone to revert edits made to another users talk page. Only the user of whom the talk page belongs to should decided it edits should be removed. Fe Nite (talk) 18:58, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to voice them here. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers 17:38, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

  • I just want to echo what I mentioned above: The passage of this CT would actually make the existing rules (found at {{W}} and {{Msg-talkr}}) looser. In the event of a no-consensus, we'll be stuck with the currently-existing "Do not remove any talk page messages" rule that can be found in the welcome template --- since said rule can't be discarded willy-nilly, a separate CT would be required if we wanted to allow for any talk page messages to be removed at all. We need to get something set in stone so that we can have a looser and less strict rule than the currently existing one, but until we do, we should follow it and enforce {{Msg-talkr}}. Menkooroo (talk) 14:00, July 8, 2013 (UTC)
  • I definitely want to point out this talk page: [1]. I shouldn't have to explain what goes on in there :| JangFett (Talk) 15:14, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Given the direction the votes are going, it's pretty clear that this is going to fail as-is. I'm going to be gone for the next three days, and I need to get to bed within the next hour as I need to be up at 5:30 am tomorrow (ugh), so I'm not in a position to do anything about it right now. I'm going to let this thread continue to run while I'm gone, and if it's still clearly failing when I get back (which it probably will be), I'll withdraw this specific proposal, move off-topic posts to the "can be removed without archiving" section, and re-propose it. But that will have to wait until I'm back. —MJ— War Room 00:16, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

  • I think the masses would be satisfied if you made it "nonsense" rather than "off-topic." Granted, what classifies as nonsensical is subjective, but there's still no reason for harmless questions that are asked in good faith to be reverted --- the user should instead be redirected to the Knowledge Bank, with said redirect remaining on the talk page as a tangible reminder to future editors who might be tempted to do the same thing. The distinction between "OMG I love Mandoz!!" and "Why aren't there any Mandalorians in the New Republic era?" is an important one --- the former is clearly off-topic nonsense, whereas outright reverting the latter is just overkill. My suggestion is that you add "nonsensical off-topic posts" to the ok-to-remove list, but keep "questions about the subject itself" in the not-ok-to-remove list. Telling someone to ask such a question in the Knowledge Bank goes much further than does deleting their question outright. Menkooroo (talk) 00:41, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
    • This watered-down attempt at appeasing the opposition is sorely insufficient to satisfy their stated concerns, if I may speak for myself. You are completely missing, or perhaps refusing to recognize, the point that a) article talk pages are not general discussion forums, and thus there is no need or purpose for archiving irrelevant, off-topic posts simply for the sake of maintaining a public record, as has been repeated by just about everyone above; and b) how simple it is for someone to leave {{Msg-talk}} on someone's user talk page efficiently explaining to them their error and ideally directing them to the correct forum for such a question (which would be the KB, SH, or IRC -- it would be a good idea in the interest of this discussion to amend that template as such). Jonathan, I think it's pretty clear that the opposition is willing to support this proposal if you are similarly willing to compromise, and I commend your desire to do so. I would urge you, however, to amend your proposal in such a way that actually satisfies the opposition, as I've discussed in this post, rather than the superficial compromise suggested above. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 18:32, July 9, 2013 (UTC)
      • If you think I'm advocating archiving these posts simply for the sake of maintaining a public record, then I can only assume that you didn't read the Senate Hall thread. As long as we're on the subject of refusing to recognize others' points, I'll once again bring up what MJ and I have mentioned several times in both the SH thread and here: "Actively replying to off-topic posts on a talk page and saying "This is not what a talk page is for" would leave a tangible notice for future talk-page editors to not do the same, but simply reverting off-topic posts leaves no such notice." The fact that there are already so many off-topic posts on talk pages is proof enough that the Talkheader isn't sufficient. The presence of further reminders on a talk page can only be a good thing, whereas outright reverting off-topic posts leaves said talk page with only the insufficient Talkheader. It's regressive rather than progressive, and it's self-defeating. Leaving the off-topic post there and replying to it is proactive and actually beneficial to the idea of preventing further off-topic posts, whereas reverting it is detrimental. Menkooroo (talk) 00:40, July 10, 2013 (UTC)

So long as we're talking reproposing with changes, I just had a thought about things we could potentially add. Talking about {{Tl|SequelTalk}} made me think that such a contingency—the possibility that a subject would draw so much irrelevant chatter that it needs an extraordinary template saying "NO."—probably has a place for mentioning in the Talk page policy itself. The second thing was considering the times when a talk page for an article is the one creating the talk page. In those cases, what is the benefit of keeping the page for the single post that could never generate anything? Could they not simply be deleted in that case? NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 19:28, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

  • Yes on both. (See also {{Exiletalk}} and {{AhsokaTalk}} -- violation of the former has led to blocks in the past, and the talk page policy needs to allow for that.) I'm also wondering if the rules for user talk pages and article/Wookieepedia talk pages should be listed separately, since the rules on archiving and off-topic messages might be slightly different. —Silly Dan (talk) 16:48, July 10, 2013 (UTC)