Forum:SH:Merging Neutral point of view and Avoid self-references to MOS

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders AnilSerifoglu (talk) 20:46, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Merging Neutral point of view and Avoid self-references to MOS

Hello all again! I want us to take a look at our so-called "Guidelines," which are listed in the {{Policies}} box that's included on every policy page. The linked category is Category:Guidelines on Wookieepedia, which is not to be confused with Category:Wookieepedia guide and help pages, which is another issue. The problem with the "Guidelines on Wookieepedia" is that these were largely lifted from Wikipedia and created without much community consensus; some were freely edited by users before being protected to admin-only editing in 2021. The wiki code is also formatted poorly. We therefore must ask: what's the distinction between these guidelines and the formal policies that are listed side-by-side?

We're already sending a couple of these Guidelines away to be merged and rewritten as part of the new User conduct policy. Let's take a look at Avoid self-references (WP:ASR). It addresses the writing style that Wookieepedia should be using, which makes it a great fit for the Manual of Style WP:MOS. The Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) policy page is similarly very much written as a writing advice guide rather than as a policy page with a list of rules, so I think these two can be merged together and then placed under the fittingly named "Perspective" section in the Manual of Style—it already has a NPOV subsection that links to the larger NPOV page. The "Perspective" section could also use some rewriting to keep things neat and tidy, including trimming much of ASR and NPOV. To that end, I have consulted similar guidelines on Wikipedia as well to ensure we have everything we need.

Permalink of my draft!

A run-down of the proposed changes:

  • Delete most of WP:ASR because it is not applicable to Wookieepedia and/or frankly just waffling about very simple procedural matters and then tries to shrug off its incomprehensive list by quoting Mark Twain (?!). I personally don't want to see a policy attempting to govern the typically very little volume of text on templates and categories and try to make everything seem explicitly profound; that's just not worth the trouble and can be considered instruction creep (also a problematic guidance page, but that's for another day).
  • Alright, the serious stuff—the Manual of Style leads with the "Perspective" section, which is currently structured with a section on in-universe perspective, followed by tense, and finally out-of-universe. The tense information can easily be merged to each section and have the "fate is unknown" paragraph brought under a new "Neutral point of view" section, since ambiguous wording ties in with the issue of editorial bias.
  • The NPOV page has six paragraphs, all trying to explain what NPOV means. I've tried to make things clearer by trimming it significantly and bring in the example of the "evil" Galactic Empire.
  • The one thing relevant to avoiding self-references on the Wook is when articles note in the "Behind the scenes" section about any assumptions taken about what is canon and what is non-canon or in error, usually when we have source material that contradict each other. It would be good to codify the standard wording "This article assumes," and this fits under NPOV given that they are related in the key point that articles should be presented in a neutral, non–Wookieepedia-centric perspective.
  • This would also be a good place to address "trivia" sections, which are commonly found on other wikis. We had a dedicated Wookieepedia:Trivia guideline page that was merged to the Layout Guide under the section "Trivia sections," but that information makes a better fit here. Its third point about removing speculative/incorrect information is redundant to the attribution policy and can just be omitted.
  • I also think it would be good to codify the unspoken rule that: "For a more precise encyclopedic tone, article prose should likewise avoid introducing euphemisms, idioms, and metaphors." (Edit: see below)

Discuss away! OOM 224 (he/him) 17:42, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

  • [EDIT: Forum:CT:MOS merge: Avoid self-references and Neutral point of view is now live! OOM 224 (he/him) 16:46, 2 June 2024 (UTC)]
  • Well, how about we use this perfect opportunity to also codify that care must be taken when referring to Wookieepedia itself on Wookieepedia articles? And also, personally I think it would be neat to use that first paragraph of the "In-universe" section to also briefly clarify that this also applies to the information in infobox fields sans the name field. Imperators II(Talk) 17:56, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Aha, excellent! OOM 224 (he/him) 18:06, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
      • I would add that Dreadnaught cruiser should be added as an example for "the free-to-edit, unofficial online encyclopedia named Wookieepedia". Also, I don't know why Imp didn't keep Star Wars within the phrase-type as within the Dreadnaught example ([…] unofficial online Star Wars encyclopedia […]), but I think it should be kept. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 16:09, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
        • To be fair there's been some complaints on the context length we give to Wookieepedia so at least imo its important to provide it context but also keep it comparatively concise.—spookywillowwtalk 16:16, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
          • My bad, Nano, that was an oversight on my part; though also per Spooky, I guess... Imperators II(Talk) 16:45, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
            • Yeah, I think it's better to keep it as short as possible. OOM 224 (he/him) 17:40, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I'd argue against that last one. Avoiding idioms and metaphors is harder than it sounds and way more than needed (you only really want to avoid certain types thereof), and arguably shouldn't really actually be enforced. Demetrius Viridianus (talk) 17:59, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Using the word "enslaver" could be considered a euphemism for "slaver" when a source uses the latter, because a euphemism is "the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend". ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 18:11, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
    • RE: Demetrius and Thrawn, good points. Are there examples of idioms and metaphors that are used in articles? I had things like "cut to the chase" and "run off his feet," which shouldn't be appearing in articles outside of quotations—though I suppose these things, like contractions, don't actually need to codified, so I'll take them out. OOM 224 (he/him) 18:20, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
  • First off, good work streamlining all this, as what you have cut wasn't really helping. Wikipedia may as well have an even bigger NPOV page than our current one, but the essence of it is quite simple, and in the end, a policy should be easy to read and understand, not a philosophical essays. Also the removal of the mention of "speudohistory" is very welcomed. Small note on the quote: do we want to keep it under the old format ([src] rather than a ref)? I don't really care either way, but… using an outdated quote model on a policy page isn't a great example to give to editors, especially novices who are looking up to policy to determines how to do things properly. Under the IU section, I have an issue with "Characters, vehicles, and battles" as it does not accord well with the rest of the sentence: "but the actors who play them", well actors don't play vehicles nor battles, right? :D An and should be added in the following sentence: "Present tense may be used in headings, image captions, quote attributions." The IU and OOU share a common minor sin of being a bit too movie-centric (IU: "the films in which they feature are out-of-universe." / OOU: "documenting films, film crew"), as I believe we should refers to media more broadly (and even if only to put it relations to actors, they also are parts of series and video games). For the NPOV section, I feel it would alleviate any confusion by contextualizing who is "she" in the example "She deemed the covert attack under Palpatine's dictatorship an outrage…, as per my own reading experience when reviewing the policy draft was to shift my focus on "she" and wondering who it was. Finally, I disagree with your choice of adding "Lists of miscellaneous facts […], such as the "Behind the scenes" section." to the MOS, I think it is way more relevant in the LG, as it's a question of where content should be (or not), rather than how should content be stylized. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 16:09, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the feedback! I've made some adjustments accordingly, plus some clean-up of the out-of-universe section to make it clearer with a video game as an example. For the last point, rather than being about where content should be, I actually think that policy line is more so to address the use of lists and recommend that information be organised in more formal prose instead as befitting the MOS section on having an encyclopedic perspective. I've reworded it to make that clearer though. Let me know what you think now. OOM 224 (he/him) 17:40, 13 May 2024 (UTC)