Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 12

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Template:Reflist-talk

I was going to boldly add a paragraph to the page, but because of the warning at the top—

You are editing a page that documents an English Wikipedia guideline. While you may be bold in making minor changes to this page, consider discussing any substantive changes first on the page's talk page.

— I'm posting it here first for discussion:

References on talk pages

If your comment includes references that will create footnotes, use Template:Reflist-talk at the end of your comment section. This will force your references to appear in a box at the end of the section, rather than at the foot of the page as they would in an article. Like this:

References

Comments, please! {{Ping}} me.--Thnidu (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

• Honestly, this page is complicated enough as it is. Refs on talk pages are fairly rare (usually they're there by accident – copied in with some other text, and of no importance at all) and it's not the end of the world if they get rendered at the end of the page. Some other more experienced editor might come along and add {talkref}, or not, and either way it's not a big deal. I'd skip it, and let it be something people learn by example. EEng 19:09, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
• @Thnidu: I agree with the proposal. I see this about once a month and while not necessary, I'd like to see the practice formalized. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
• EEng (Ye gods, I just wasted at least half an hour in your "museums". Fun but dangerous!) Um... As I was saying... Yes, I still think it's a good idea. It can save a lot of scrolling (→ time → spoons), and make it a lot easier to compare the references with the text. I'mma put it in. --Thnidu (talk) 21:53, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

  I'm not saying it's not useful to have it where it applies. I'm saying that I wonder if it's worth adding to the crushing weight of detail on this page, which is one of the first we recommend newbies absorb. Anyone can come behind an initial post and add {reftalk} when they recognize that it would help so I'm saying let a more experienced comes-along-later editor do it -- no harm done by the delay -- instead of adding one more thing a newbie thinks he has to try to remember. EEng 22:02, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

  EEng is correct. It would be nice if every editor could be given a pill that allowed them to manage talk pages, but that's not going to happen, and they certainly will not read this guideline before dumping refs in their comments. Learn-by-example is best for {{reflist-talk}} and the guideline should focus on basics which are much more important. Too much detail makes it impossible to see essentials. Johnuniq (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

  You know, I think there's a place for an essay WP:LEARNBYEXAMPLE on erring on the side of relying on learn-by-example instead of stuffing every detail into long intro pages no one can possibly read. The Help: space is a trainwreck because its builders (who, I gather, simply dropped dead of exhaustion one day) couldn't decide whether to make it a set of for-dummies quick-start pages, or a full regurgitation of every consideration and feature, drawn out with numbing examples for each and every point. Favorite examples: WP:How_to_make_dashes, Help:Footnotes, and (my all-time favorite) WP:Picture tutorial. That word tutorial in there was someone's idea of a joke. (Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax is even more indigestible, but at least it doesn't advertise itself as a tutorial or help page.) EEng 23:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC) P.S. Sorry, I momentarily blocked on the absolutely, positively, worst help page every: Help:Table.

  @EEng: I just saw that you'd deleted my paragraph from the page. I wish you had at least mentioned that action in this discussion. --Thnidu (talk) 18:55, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I would have if there was anything that needed saying beyond what's in my edit summary. You're expected to keep pages you care about on your watchlist. EEng 20:04, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

• I wonder if there might be a technical solution to this. It is an annoyance, especially when trying to manually archive, collapse or remove something, and you can't find where those refs at the bottom belong. On a crowded talk page in need of archiving, it can be quite difficult to find which section to stick the template in after the fact, so it would be nice if it could be either automatically generated in the first place or added by bot soon after. Beyond the scope of this talk page, I guess, but I thought I'd see if anyone thinks it's feasible before finding a place to request it. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 05:19, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

  I see no hope of some automated solution. But I really feel this is a search for a solution which, when found, will then be in search of a problem. Sure, it's cleaner if each talk thread ends with its own refs, but if they refs end up at the bottom of the page, so what? They're still there, and when a thread is archived the refs move properly with the thread itself to the archive page, appearing at the bottom there. Sometimes the refs are in the thread accidentally anyway e.g. got copied in as part of some text under discussion, and no one cares where they appear or indeed realizes they're even there. If it really matters that the refs be in the thread proper, someone will have the sense to add {talkref}. Otherwise, no big deal. EEng 05:29, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

  @Rivertorch: It's very easy to work out which sections to add the {{reflist-talk}} to. Assuming that you are starting with all the refs displayed automatically at the bottom of the page:

  1. Have a look at the first of those refs; it will have one or more backlinks close to the start of the line (if there is one backlink, it will be a caret "^"; if there are two or more, they will be lowercase letters).
  2. Click the first of those backlinks, this will take you to some point further up the page, almost certainly in one section or another.
  3. Edit that section, add {{reflist-talk}} to the bottom, and save.
  4. Return to the bottom of the page, check to see if there are any remaining automatically-displayed refs; if there are, return to step 1.

  and you're done. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that's quick and simple! Another approach would be to just not worry about on exactly what part of the page the refs display. EEng 12:02, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64. That's more or less what I already do, and it almost always works, but a while back I encountered a talk page where all bets seemed to be off. I don't remember exactly what I eventually found the problem was (hatted sections? an improperly closed tag, maybe?), but it just stuck in my mind and when I saw this thread it occurred to me that it might be feasible to address the problem through automated means. @EEng, I appreciate that you consider it no big deal. I certainly don't think it's a big problem, but I also think it's often worthwhile to at least consider addressing minor issues that make the interface more confusing than it needs to be, especially for new users. I'm no perfectionist, but I also dislike the "good enough" approach when something might be easily improved. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 18:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree about considering, and that's what we're doing now, but to me the answer is that it's not an improvement to add these instructions to this page. A big problem in editor retention is the learning curve, and by adding this we've made that curve a little steeper in order to get a slight cosmetic adjustment to 1 in 1000 talk pages – maybe (i.e. if this new instruction is remembered and heeded by newbies). And in many cases someone else will make the slight adjustment anyway. EEng 18:27, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

(At ten levels of indentation the text is virtually unreadable on a smartphone.)

@Chris troutman, Johnuniq, Redrose64, Rivertorch, and EEng:
Clearly I left out a crucial point in my proposal: Using {{Reflist-talk}} on one's own comment requires making sure that all previous comments with references have it as well. And that does complicate it, so it would be important to note that this is an option that you can use, but you don't have to.--Thnidu (talk) 19:28, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Great – yet more complication to an instruction that solves a tiny use case in the first place. Until five years ago {reflist-talk} didn't even exist, and we got along fine. It was invented for a the very few times where, for some special reason, it really clarified things to emit the refs accumulated to a certain point (usually how-to pages, MOS pages, etc., on which the mechanics of refs are being themselves explained). You mean well, but this whole thing is a bad use of novice editors' very limited ability to absorb our already complicated rules and guidelines. I suggest we remove it completely. EEng 20:04, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Honest question: would you say this guideline should be primarily for newbs? Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 23:27, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

First and foremost it's a reference for OK and not-OK behavior, for when arguments flair up. To the extent possible, it should present that in a way calculated to allow newbies to absorb it readily. That's a hard balance to strike, and way down on the list is technically complicated oh-and-in-this-rare-case-also-do-this minutiae. I'll say it again – leave this for learn-by-example. EEng 00:12, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

The practice of putting citations in a talk page comment doesn't happen all that often on a single talk page, so I understand EEng's argument. I often insert this template and I feel that including it in the guideline moves my practice of adding the template beyond being my personal preference in not having citations ride the bottom of the page, but makes it a general norm which is why I support the inclusion. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:36, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

I have never seen an argument about whether reflist-talk should be included in a talk page section—it's part of referencing and does not need a "this is a good idea" guideline. The text is out of place here because WP:TPG is a behavioral guideline (don't use a talk page to express personal opinions on a subject or editor). If a reflist how-to belongs anywhere, it is at Help:Using talk pages, which is WP:TP. Further, adding how-to information anywhere will not help the problem of editors pasting refs into talk pages because the editors (often newbies) will not see it. They will only learn how to fix the issue when they see someone else add the correct reflist. Johnuniq (talk) 23:54, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Great point about behavioral guideline vs. tutorial/help page. Talking about {reflist-talk} here makes it sound like you could get dragged to ANI for not doing it. I think the added text [1] needs to be removed as failing to have gained consensus. EEng 00:33, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

• This notion that this is not a common problem is misguided. I think a help page updates would help....but agree no need for this How-to info in guidelines .....add disputed text to [[[Help:Using talk pages]] ....Wikipedia:Talk page layout.....Help:Introduction to talk pages/3.--Moxy (talk) 15:26, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I've removed it here -- and look carefully [2] -- there was already text on the page about {reflist-talk}! EEng 17:26, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

• Agreed with the proposal. This is simple, but people don't do it, and its lack often causes confusing messes. I disagree with the idea that refs on talk pages are rare and usually accidental; in the areas I edit, the opposite is true.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
  Changed my mind after looking over the page again, and I now agree with the "let people learn by example" idea.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:36, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Deleting bot notices

After chasing one link to another to find an answer, the question can only be asked here:

Q. Can bot notices (such as the InternetArchiveBot) be deleted from Talk pages? If they cannot be deleted ... can they be collapsed to use less page space?

Q. If there is a guideline somewhere about deleting bot notices from talk pages ... where is it because I didn't see it in WP:GTD, WP:NOTIFS, and WP:BOTPOL.

Thank you. Pyxis Solitary talk 00:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Is there an example of a talk page which is suffering due to bot notices? I'm not sure what the problem is. I do not know of any bot notices which are unhelpful, so they should be visible for easy review. The problem with deleting them is that other editors will see that someone has removed text, and they may feel obligated to check that the removal was desirable. It's much less hassle for everyone if there are no deletions unless necessary, such as with spam. That has the benefit of not lighting up watchlists with unnecessary edits. Johnuniq (talk) 04:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Talk pages don't "suffer". But they can become cluttered. What I understand by your answer is that when IABot edits have been checked, the notice needs to remain on the Talk page. If that's the case, fine.

Now ... say there are two or three IABot notices, one after the other: can they be folded within a collapse box? Pyxis Solitary talk 06:29, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

No authoritative answer is possible I'm afraid because as you say, there is no guideline. My answer would be that if someone is monitoring a particular topic and making substantive edits to the articles concerned, they might feel that some bot notices were intrusive and collapse or even delete them. However, editors who merely notice such bot posts should leave them alone mainly because an edit on a talk page can cause a dozen editors to feel they check what happened. That particularly applies for contentious topics where people might feel they need to inspect the talk history and check the diff of the removal to see that no other change occurred, and whether they agree with the removal. In short, I leave IABot notices but I do whatever it says about closing its request. Keeping the notice might also be a helpful record for anyone in the future who wonders why a certain edit occurred. Johnuniq (talk) 07:34, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

We need a guideline. I may have voiced the question but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking about it. Pyxis Solitary talk 03:14, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

My solution is to archive them after they start to pile up. We do have talk page archives for a reason, and that reason is now-useless talk page items that people don't need to see unless they have a reason to dig up "old business" on the talk page. :-) Outright deleting them as if spam or personal attacks isn't helpful for anyone.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:39, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd thought about archiving them but didn't want to flip any norm on its head. Thank you for making the suggestion. Pyxis Solitary talk 03:14, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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@Pyxis Solitary: I've actually rethought this in tiny part; the archive-url notices of InternetArchiveBot in particular are actually completely useless, since what the bot does to talk pages is redundantly tell us that it added an archive-url to a citation, which anyone watching the page already saw on their watchlist. These notices serve no legit purpose on article talk pages, and don't need to be archived. I've filed a Phabricator request to have that bot in particular stop doing this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:49, 2 October 2017 (UTC), corrected missing word 22:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Disagree:

1. On the talk page the bot suggests that a human editor checks the bot operation:
   1. Not all of these eligible human editors need to have the page on their watchlist;
   2. If someone else edits the article on an unrelated matter, the mainspace bot edit is no longer directly visible in the watchlist;
2. The bot suggests to notify in the template on the talk page, after checking:
   1. If the parameter in the template is changed to checked, other editors know they no longer need to check, unless they want to double-check, or unless archivebot's operation was marked as unsuccessful (and the first editor who checked doesn't know what to do next to get it sorted): in either case best to keep the message on the talk page, at least until the next round of talk page archiving (if any: a talk page of a largely unproblematic article may have too little content to archive, so, in that case, the bot's communications won't bother anyone either)
   2. Sometimes a website is off-line accidentally when the archivebot does its thing, or, more often, the website is restructured or moved to another domain, in which case the "archive link" is not the best solution, although the first editor checking may have duly confirmed archivebot's operation as successful. So best to leave the archivebot's message on the talk page, even after someone has marked it as successful: someone else may come along who figured out where to find the page that was linked from Wikipedia (without needing to go to the Web Archive). In such cases the bot didn't make an error, but a better solution may turn up after some time.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 08:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I have to revise; yes, IAB does leave some useful notices, including about problems to fix, and about changes it made that may need human examination. "I added an archive-url" is not among these, and its instructions that we need to go look at what it did are basically wrong (especially since anyone watching the page will have already seen it; the notice that "I did X" where "X" is trivial, routine, and virtually unbreakable is equivalent to the watchlist notice of the edit itself, and the talk edit makes another watchlist hit, so that's three notifications about an edit that will never be dangerous. "Not the best solution" is some rare, odd case isn't sufficient. The cite still works, so WP:V remains satisfied. That objection only applies, anyway, to a case where the bot added an archive-url AND a dead-url=yes. We have bot adding archive-urls to non-dead URLs on purpose to prevent link rot. Not just harmless but desirable; and also something we don't need talk page spam about. This whole "notify upon archive-url" grossly violates the spirit if not the exact letter of WP:COSMETICBOT. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  14:51, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Disagree about the reasoning that interaction should never exceed what policy describes as a strict minimum. I think that the messages the bot leaves on the article talk pages are useful. They could be a bit shorter. Maybe. But in general, I don't see the problem: I'd rather have them than not. In my view they may be even useful after having lingered some time on the talk page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Thread opened about this at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Run_around.2C_re:_InternetArchiveBot.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  14:37, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This page mentioned at ANI

This page has been mentioned in the title of a section at ANI.  FYI, Unscintillating (talk) 23:51, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#EEng's editing at WT:TPG - links help as they would've above when mentioning sections of talk page archives. Since you are already looking at the page(s) in question it's easy and polite. FYI. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:51, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

This is a talk page, not a page on which to name names of editors involved in discussion at ANI.  Editors can easily enough find the discussion with the information I gave if they choose, without the information being found in a page search.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Much like above when you vaguely mentioned talk page archives, it is possible to find the information, but it is easier if you are specific. Why should someone have to spend the time looking without even knowing what it's about when they could easily be linked there? I don't know about you but I prefer clicking once to typing, manually searching, scrolling, etc. I think vague references waste people's time. —DIYeditor (talk)

• The puzzle is why it is a priority to you to report here and include in a Wikipedia page search the names of editors in a discussion at ANI.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
• Note that due to quiet edits, see the edit history for the entire sequence of edits.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Huh??? And you really, really, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need to stop trying to control what and how others post [3][4]. EEng 05:00, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

• Personally I'm thrilled for people to know that Unscintillating's opened a thread about me. I fear no scrutiny. EEng 02:26, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to be as blunt as I can here. Unscintillating, you are wrong, drop the stick. Should you continue, it will not end well for you. --Tarage (talk) 08:37, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Also agreed with the original objection that posting ANI-related stuff on a page like this is not cool; it smacks of grudge-matching and canvassing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:41, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Conduct here in general

Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that this talk page, which is the talk page on the behavioural guideline concerning talk pages, is such a good example of poor behaviour on a talk page?

(And yes, I'm painfully aware that I stand accused of being one of the culprits.)

The goal of all talk pages is to arrive at consensus decisions. But to do that we need to listen. That is, really listen and try to understand not just the motivations but also the merits of what others are saying.

Have a look at the essay at wp:bullying. The string at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Guidance against interleaving replies provides I think examples of several of the bullying behaviours described, and some others not even mentioned there. Is it any wonder that consensus is not achieved under those conditions? Andrewa (talk) 18:51, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Take a look at the essay at WP:STICK. The string at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Guidance against interleaving replies provides I think examples of several of the sticky behaviors described, and some others not even mentioned there. This very thread is worth considering in that light as well. Is it any wonder that consensus is not achieved under those conditions? EEng 20:56, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there were several allegations of that behaviour. Do you think these allegations were helpful? Andrewa (talk) 21:51, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Based on what you're doing right now, I'd say they had no effect at all. EEng 22:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

They did not get the response from me that they sought, agreed. But the question I'd like to ask is, if I had dropped the stick as requested, would that have improved Wikipedia? How? Andrewa (talk) 22:28, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

By ending the colossal waste of time that has been this discussion. EEng 22:41, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Disagree. Firstly, there have been some useful points made since the first request that I drop out. Secondly, I don't think the discussion would have ended just because I dropped out. I could be wrong about that, it's a matter of judgement.

Agree that there has been some time-wasting conduct, that's the whole point of this section!

How can we do better? Andrewa (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

What have you achieved apart from wasting the time and energy of several editors? The traditional response to myself and EEng would be that we should just suck it up and take this page of our watchlists if we don't want to participate in the never-ending banter. However, WP:TPG is important and some of us feel that it would be undesirable to be driven away to allow pointless navel-gazing with who-knows-what outcomes. Start an RfC or stop beating the horse. In answer to your question, we could do better by respecting WP:NOTFORUM. Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Obviously in your eyes I have achieved little. The discussion is of course ongoing, and its outcomes still to be decided. But two points must be made. Firstly, you are obviously involved, and one of the reasons that you don't like what I say is simply that you don't agree with some of it. Secondly, even if you do have valid criticisms of my behaviour (and I'm not perfect but I am seriously trying hard) this is not the place to discuss that, for many reasons... policy and commonsense being the most important of these. The first port of call is my own user talk page.

Agree that this is an extremely important page, and that is why I (and others) are prepared to volunteer so much of our time here. Andrewa (talk) 23:49, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Accessibility 2

Non-actionable discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
SMcCandlish observed in #Accessibility above Accessibility is presently a lost cause on our talk pages... (diff) which I think is a far more important issue than anything in the string of which it is a substring, and deserves a top-level section. I have already confessed to being confused by the provisions for accessibility on talk pages, violating them unintentionally on occasions, and I turned out not to be the only one confused. (I've added the "2" to the section heading to avoid duplicate section headings... I don't think that is covered in any guideline, have I missed it? But it can be very confusing and should be.) Andrewa (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2017 (UTC) And now we have "strings?" EEng 20:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC) Section and subsection if you prefer. Sorry if you found the terminology confusing. Andrewa (talk) 21:49, 13 September 2017 (UTC) It's cute when philosophers make up new terminology so they can abuse it. EEng 22:09, 13 September 2017 (UTC) I think that the last two comments by EEng#s, and my replies (that's including this one), should probably be hatted... any volunteers? And any other comments? Is there really a problem with the terminology? Andrewa (talk) 22:26, 13 September 2017 (UTC) I guess you didn't see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive964#EEng.27s_editing_at_WT:TPG. Are you never going to get a clue? EEng 22:38, 13 September 2017 (UTC) I did see that... surprised that it got as far as it did, as I didn't see the required previous discussion on your user talk page (but perhaps I missed it), and it was a rather waffly request anyway. Taken to your user talk page. Andrewa (talk) 23:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC) I say again, someone please hat this, unless you think there really is a problem with my terminology that requires clarification. Andrewa (talk) 23:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? #1

Collapsed first RfC attempt

Recently, there has been substantial discussion at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Guidance against interleaving replies about whether or not interleaving should be discouraged. The discussion has also concerned defining interleaving and benefits to interleaving. Editors have defined interleaving as breaking up another editor's text to reply to individual points; some editors have argued that this is problematic because it confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. There has also been the argument that breaking up an editor's post like this is not an issue if the editors' posts are signed for each point. Further, editors have discussed if "Do not" or "Generally do not" wording should be used if the guideline is to discourage interleaving. See Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Interleave defined and Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving, and other sub-threads of the discussion for more details. So the questions are: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? If so, how strict should the discouragement be? Below are some options based on points of the discussion: Voting and wording options 1. No. Do not discourage interleaving. 2. Yes. Discourage interleaving. Use the following wording: "Do not break up another editor's text by interleaving your own replies to individual points; this confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. In your own posts you may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} or {{Talkquote}} templates to quote others' posts." 3. Yes. Discourage interleaving. Use the following wording: "Generally you should not break up another editor's text by interleaving your own replies to individual points; this confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. In your own posts you may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} or {{Talkquote}} templates to quote others' posts." 4. Use some other wording. I will alert the talk pages of various WikiProjects, policies and guidelines, and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) for wide input. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC) Mu Close this RFC as malformed and restart in binary format (and my answer will be Discourage). This FRC shares with its own question the major problem: chaotic divergence of discussion into endless disagreement when many things are discussed at the same time by many people. However trivial the ussues are. (Wikipedia is a laughing stock often criticized for this). Staszek Lem (talk) 02:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC) Staszek Lem, what binary format do you suggest? I asked about how to format the RfC above. When formatting it, I took in all of the points noted. I didn't see any other way to format the RfC than to give the backstory and present the options that were debated. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:56, 19 September 2017 (UTC) Probably that the RfC may get clearer results if it were of the form "should WP:TPG discourage interleaving" which would lead to yes or no opinions. Johnuniq (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC) Hmmm, the current format leads to the same options as well. With the new format, how would you suggest providing backstory? By this, I mean providing information so that editors know what has been at dispute and why? Or do you think that the RfC shouldn't provide any context at all? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2017 (UTC) I had promised myself to ignore this page for a few days but I have to enthusiastically endorse the lucid remarks by Staszek Lem. Thanks! Johnuniq (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC) Note: This is what the RfC looked like before the collapse. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Exceptions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have thought of a few good exceptions to these guidelines:

1. Other user’s comments should only be edited if the another commentator made a mistake. There is nothing wrong with correcting someone else’s mistakes. You’ve seen many people do this on various articles.
2. If a user said something stupid and doesn’t want to see it, he or she needs to get permission from the first person who replied before removing the thread entirely. This happened to me at Talk:Grand Theft Auto III when I removed a whole section and it was reverted by Rhain and X201. I started the section “Xbox version” over there and I wanted to remove it because it sounded stupid, but they wouldn’t let me remove the section.
3. If another user received an unwanted notification in an article’s talk page, it is considered embarrassment and must be removed by anyone on sight. These comments should be placed in the user’s talk page instead. I’ve seen Dissident93 do this at Talk:Splatoon#August update info edit warring and Kintetsubuffalo did this to me at Talk:All Star (song). Meters and Boomer Vial reverted my edits once for no reason at all.
4. If a user made a mistake about your life in a comment (such as your age), you can correct it yourself. Lugnuts got my age wrong at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film and Doniago reverted my edits, even though I did the right thing: correcting a lie.

Feel free to share your opinions on any of these exceptions. DBZFan30 (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. When a user like DBZFan30 repeatedly and steadfastly makes childish edits in conflict with Wikipedia policy, confronting their childish, poor editing on the talkpage is most warranted.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 04:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
• We don't need any new exceptions, especially ones that do not actually reflect what Wikipedians do on talk pages. If someone's edit makes a mistake or is using a template in the wrong place ask them to fix it. If they don't, really no one cares. If someone habitually misuses templates, and this is causing disruption, open a WP:ANI thread about it. Posting stupid stuff and realizing it's stupid is part of the learning experience.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
• @DBZFan30: Your initial problem here was that you left blank lines which created four lists instead of one (see WP:LISTGAP), which is also an accessibility issue. Your subsequent fix broke the list semantics, creating a second accessibility problem; I have fixed your post in accordance with WP:TPO#Fixing format errors. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

In May 2017, DBZFan30 was warned about WP:HOUNDing by Lugnuts, for following Lugnuts' edits around and hitting "thanks", and that if DBZFan30 continued, they would face being blocked indefinitely. @NinjaRobotPirate: was pinged for information. Now DBZFan30 is doing the same to me, and I would absolutely support an indefinite block of this troublesome and childish user.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@Kintetsubuffalo: Whilst we can easily find out that they thanked you eleven times today, we cannot see which edits the thanks were related to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I would be happy to screencapture it. Even now they are editwarring at All Star (song).--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

There'sNoTime warned him. If he keeps up, I guess post a thread at ANI, and one of us will see it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Disambiguating or fixing links -> Fixing links

The section "Editing others' comments" contains a subsection entitled "Disambiguating or fixing links" . I'm proposing that this be changed to "Fixing links", because a) disambiguating a link is a subtype of link fixing and so it's at best redundant; b) the section enumarates several types of link fixing but does not include disambiguating links. Disambiguating links on talk pages is generally not done and it is explicitly recommended against at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. – Uanfala 15:36, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links#Disambiguation --Guy Macon (talk) 20:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Editing talk page archives

It seems to me there should be explicit guidance of some sort on whether/how editors should be allowed to edit talk page archives. In particular, should contributors be allowed to edit other editors' comments per the exceptions listed in WP:TPO, e.g. by removing personal attacks, hatting off-topic posts, or removing comments by banned editors? This thread arises from a discussion I had recently with Guy Macon, who re-piped a bunch of wikilinks in talk page archives to reflect that a redirect had been deleted (example). This was all innocuous, good faith stuff, but I do believe that a consensus would likely support at least partially restricting the editing of talk page archives.

In my view archives should not be edited at all, even to perform housekeeping tasks of the type Guy was engaged in, except to perform housekeeping on the archiving process itself. That way the discussion is fully preserved (the primary purpose of archiving) and editors can see exactly what it looked like prior to archiving, without being misled. The alternative would require editors to review archive page histories, which would be unduly burdensome and unreasonable. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:51, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

DrFleischman makes a good point, but there is a downside to his proposed explicit guidance. Here are some example cases showing the downside:

Example one: WP:BU was deleted in 2004.[5] There are still multiple comments that link to it, saying things like "For banned users see WP:BU."[6]

Let's say I write an essay tomorrow explaining that some things are not allowed in the sandbox and suggesting that the user edit his sandbox to get the formatting right using the preview button but instead of saving he should make a local backup.

Let's say I give my essay the shortcut WP:BU. Suddenly I have changed the basic meaning of WP:BU from "banned User" to "Back Up" and thus changed the basic meaning of the comment "For banned users see WP:BU".

And I have done so in such a way that the user who made that comment sees no edit to his comment.

Example two: WP:ZIMFF was deleted in June of 2017.[7] There is still a comment that links to it, saying "The page is nothing but a WP:POINTy attack on the folks who drafted WP:ZIMFF".[8] (BTW, I am the one who drafted ZIMFF.)

Let's say that tomorrow I re-use the now-redlinked ZIMFF redirect for an essay on Zimbabwe Freedom Fighters.

Suddenly I have changed the basic meaning of the comment "The page is nothing but a WP:POINTy attack on the folks who drafted WP:ZIMFF". Now it makes no sense. And I have done so in such a way that the original author of the comment (in this case DrFleischman) sees no edit changing the meaning of his comment.

My conclusion: In general, when a redirect is deleted and thus open to be re-used, it benefits the encyclopedia to fix any redlinks to the deleted redirect. And there is nothing special about archived discussions that cause them to be immune to the meaning-changing side effect I describe above. That being said, any efforts to fix the redlink must never introduce even a hint of a change to the meaning of the original comment. We want to avoid the meaning changing, not introduce new problems. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:49, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I understand your rationale, but I think your approach could lead to more problems than it solves. A redlinked reference to a WP-space redirect in a talk page archive is easy to understand. If you're unsure of what was linked to, you click through the redlink and the relevant deletion discussion will usually pop right up in the search results. In any case, I'm talking about more than that sort of housekeeping, I'm talking about all of the WP:TPO exceptions. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:49, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@DrFleischman, your good faith suggestion sounds like instruction creep to me. We should not tie the hands of level headed eds who try make reasonable tweaks, and leave a note saying what they did and who they are. And for people waging a campaign by tweaking archives, there's probably plenty of straightforward WP:DISRUPTSIGNS for an admin to take action. In particular, this last group won't be hindered from doing what you are complaining about, just because we add some lingo, and the existing DISRUPT language is sufficient for blocking them. To sum up then, such text would tie hands of level headed eds making reasonable edits, but do nothing to prevent or halt disruptive behavior from others. Though well intended, its a good example of instruction creep.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your argument here. I thought WP:CREEP was about adding instructions that would complicate the guidelines. I'm proposing that we come up with a simple rule on an issue that isn't currently addressed. I'm not belaboring the technicalities of existing guidelines, or about people waging campaigns where WP:DE would apply. The main point would be to address good faith edits to the talk pages archives that would inadvertently interfere and possibly confuse editors who come along later and want to know what was discussed.

Take a hypothetical example that isn't far-fetched to anyone who's been around the horn here. Let's say you have a dispute with Editor A. The dispute is resolved and archived. Later, Editor B, who is sensitive to mild personal attacks and a strict rule follower, is browsing through the archives and comes across your dispute with Editor A and takes it upon themselves to remove your personal attack without a strike-through. The issue then comes up in a later discussion, say after you get into another dispute with Editor A and it ends up at ANI. Now you have a whole bunch of editors who are all confused and possibly misled because no one would think to to check the archive page history, right? What a mess, one that could have been avoided if Editor B had been instructed not edited the archived discussion.

I'm not suggesting this sort of thing comes up often, but that's not what WP:CREEP is all about. It doesn't come up because there's an unwritten community expectation--a norm--that people won't edit the talk page archives. When they do, it's disruptive by its nature, regardless of whether it's done in good faith. I'm suggesting that we make that norm explicit. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Talk page archives almost invariably have a note saying something like "This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page". That ought to be sufficient to stop inexperienced, good-faith editors from editing the archive. The problem with writing rules to reinforce that instruction is that the very people that you claim to be trying to influence are the least likely to actually read WP:TPG. The most likely use for the explicit guidance that you envisage is to beat folks like Guy over the head for doing sensible maintenance on archives. Archives are meant to be static records, yet they rarely are because every included element, templates, images, etc. is dynamically rendered on the page as it is now, not when the archive was made. Unless you're prepared to subst: every template and find a way of fixing every image when archiving occurs, you really ought to be accommodating of maintenance edits whose effect is solely to keep the content as true to the original as possible. In my experience, it's rare that people actually edit archives, and rarer still that they do without really good reason. Hard cases make bad law and we're better off dealing with any genuine problems (like your "Editor B") on a case-by-case basis. --RexxS (talk) 22:03, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Good points. And FYI I'm not trying to beat Guy over the head! --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I didn't think for a minute you were. But if you create a club, you'll find that other editors will pick it up and use it (Rexx's First Law of Guidelines). --RexxS (talk) 22:16, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

For the record, DrFleischman is doing exactly what a good admin should do. Too many times I have seen admins assume that someone who is doing something unusual is Up To No Good. DrFleischman (correctly) assumed that I am someone who wants to improved the encyclopedia, but may have chosen the wrong way of doing so. I am not convinced that I have chosen the wrong way (see my examples and the argument posted by RexxS above) but I could be wrong and it is worth discussing. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

DrFleischman is not an admin. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:57, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Guy, not only am I not an admin, but after you explained your rationale on your talk page I stopped particularly caring about your particular edits. I was just struck by your accurate observation that there's no rule against doing these sorts of edits, and how that clashed with my own understanding of community expectations, as well as, as Rexx rightly notes, language that appears in ubiquitous archive page templates. There seems to be some incongruity there. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Plus "is doing exactly what a good admin should do" is entirely valid praise even if someone is not an admin. People who exhibit that quality are those who become admins eventually.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

@DrFleischman... By distilling WP:CREEP to whether it creates complexity, I think you're not fully grasping that guideline. As stated in the nutshell at that page " Guidance that is too wordy and tries to cover all the bases and every conceivable outlying case tends to become counterproductive"; as you yourself admit, "I'm not suggesting this sort of thing comes up often..." Rarely occurring problems adequately covered by other tools is precisely what is meant by the full guideline's title "Avoid Instruction Creep". I do appreciate anyone's effort at suggesting improvements, however. Thanks for your interest and willingness to propose things! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• I stumbled onto a fairly recent, closely-related discussion that spanned WP:VPP and Template talk:Talk archive navigation and got a lot of interesting feedback. I haven't digested it all. I'll probably ping the participants in that discussion at some point, see if they have anything to say. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Fixuture, Martin of Sheffield, Mandruss, ansh666, Xaosflux, MarnetteD, Iazyges, TransporterMan, Robert McClenon, Johnuniq, isaacl, WhatamIdoing, Kudpung, NeilN, Agathoclea, MRD2014, JJMC89, Redrose64. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm on the fence here, there are merits on all (3?) sides. But the above-linked discussions were about allowing discussion to continue on an archive page, which was a non-starter, and I'm not sure what relevance they have to this issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that earlier discussion is relevant, as it was about continuing discussion on an archive page, after the discussion has been archived, or providing a one-click solution for restoring the discussion to the current talk page. isaacl (talk) 06:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Highly relevant, as the earlier discussion was also about whether and how editors should be allowed to edit talk page archives. No matter, if you're not interested in opining here then sorry for bothering you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

There are very different considerations, though. Continuing discussion on a talk page archive means a complete change in standard practice, requiring archive pages to be monitored, and users to be contacted. Making maintenance edits is a question regarding preservation of the original comments, something that isn't an issue when continuing a conversation (all previous comments would remain unchanged). So none of the points put forth in the previous discussion apply to this discussion. isaacl (talk) 07:03, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I can agree that the primary purpose of archiving is fully preserving a previous discussion. I know that sounds odd, but my primary use of archived discussions for the last few years has been finding bug numbers. In that context, a working and accurate link is much more useful to me than a perfect copy of the original discussion on whatever arbitrary date it was cut-and-pasted away by a bot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

For those who do want a a perfect copy of the original discussion as it existed on a particular date, bringing up that version from the history is trivially easy -- not a burden at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:31, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Except that all of the dynamically generated content (templates, other transclusions, Lua calls in infoboxes, JavaScript, css rendered elements, etc.) will all display as they are rendered now, not necessarily as they were on that particular date. --RexxS (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• I do not have an opinion on this case as I don't have the patience to work out the backstory. However, in general, archive pages should not be edited. There are rare exceptions such as WhatamIdoing's point about fixing typos in important links such as to a Phabricator task (phab:T170039 is an example of a working link). One problem from editing archives is that it sets an example that other editors might emulate. Let's say that an experienced editor could correctly see that changing WP:ZIMFF in an archive was desirable. An unfortunate consequence may be that other editors, possibly less experienced, may invent a job for themselves and routinely "fix" links or other archived text that they think is problematic. While it is always possible to analyze the history of a talk page or its archive to find the original text, doing that can be irritatingly inconvenient. If people start fiddling with perceived problems, scanning an archive to see what happened may no longer be useful. For example, I might have seen the original discussion and recalled it had links to WP:ZIMFF, then later searched ten archives for that text—it would be frustrating to discover that my time was wasted because the text had been adjusted. Everything at Wikipedia should be focused on supporting the encyclopedia and fiddling with archives is an example of an unhelpful activity. Another point is that while fixing a Phabricator link would be easily defensible and probably uncontentious, other less obvious cases (such as changing WP:ZIMFF) will lead to hours of wasted time as seen in this case. Johnuniq (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• Slippery slope argument. I would encourage you to at least examine the two examples I gave above. They contains diffs to every edit I talk about, and specific examples of how redlinked redirects can change the meaning of a comment. I would also note that when I fixed the redlink, I simply changed WP:ZIMFF to WP:ZIMFF -- so your search would still work just fine. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:58, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• Since I was pinged above: as far as having actual "discussions" continue on an archive copy - I'm not seeing any wide support for this, primarily as they won't be on the same watchlists. As far as housekeeping goes - I've made housekeeping cleanups on archive pages (such as resolving Special:LintErrors/self-closed-tag) that due to software changes can impact reading of the page. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:21, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I'll add that continuing discussions that have been archived is already given treatment in the existing TPG, in the section WP:TALKCOND. If it was archived while it was ongoing, we're told to restore it. If it effectively closed, we're told to start a new thread (and when I do that, I always include a WP:DIFF pointing at the archived thread). This is another reason why the good faith suggestion is CREEP. It's already covered! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• While I recognize the good-faith positions of everyone here, let me just say that even without citing CREEP that I just don't think this is needed. And if it were done, needed or not, we might need (a) two or more different sets of rules for, for example, article archives vs noticeboard archives vs noticeboard talk page archives vs MEDCOM case archives, (b) a clearer definition on when and how pages are to be archived in the first place so as to avoid the "can't edit archives" rule becoming weaponized (for example, does the can't-edit rule apply only to archives performed by a archive bot of x days duration or does it also apply to manual or one-click-archiver archivings, and (c) are there some kinds of edits (e.g. de-archiving vs modification or vice versa) which would be exempted from such a rule. The more you chew this the bigger it gets and to what end? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: As seen with this case, I have moved archived material, as to keep the related discussions together for easier reading and coherency (such as when editors are pointing and/or linking to an aforementioned discussion), and I have moved archived material when one archive barely has anything in it. In the latter case, I do this because, for example, there is one discussion in the archive, while the next archive may have packed in more. I don't think it's usually beneficial to have an archive with only one discussion; so I combine the latter archives. The empty archive will eventually be filled with new material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:12, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I still think that editing talk page archives is a non-solution in search of a problem. Carrying on discussions in talk page archives would simply spread discussion across more places, which is not useful. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:59, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

In the case of my edits, though, I didn't truly edit them...content-wise. I moved them, and I do think the moves were beneficial. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:03, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

When we manually archive, we are touching the archives, but we are not editing the existing material. That's how I view moving material to an archive when it's not a matter of moving fresh material to an archive. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:06, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I also feel that a such a codifying is WP:CREEP. Editing of archives has a real world equivalence where for example a birthcertificate gets changed due to parents getting married/adoption ect. We normally would not change somebodies active discussion contributions, so we would not change their archived contributions. There are exceptions to the former, makes sense that there are exceptions to the latter. The only real difference is, that the discussion does not continue in the archive. Agathoclea (talk) 06:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• No new rules that enable control-freaking. Moving stuff in archives for practical reasons is fine (e.g. correcting mis-ordered posts; this can happen when noobs top post and people don't notice then archive stuff in the order in which is appears on the page rather than the order in which it added to the page). There are all kinds of other legit edits people make to talk archives, e.g. fixing links that have become broken (the "nice" way to do this is with a piped link so that in rendered mode it reads as written, but takes people to the correct place); fixing code errors that booger the page display; replacing a template that's been merged out of existence without a redirect, to use the merged-to template, if the template is needed to make sense of something in the archived discussion; fixing one's own typo if it's really important (e.g. if it reversed one's intended meaning by leaving out a "not"); redacting personal attacks, per permissible WP:REFACTOR; striking !votes by proven socks; adding {{talk archive nav}} headers; removing spam and vandalism; reverting errors made by bots or AWB runs; posting pointers to relevant later discussions (especially if they overturned a previous RfC or other consensus discussion); unarchiving a recently archived post, e.g. to close an open RfC (some admins even do this directly in the archive page!), or because a bot auto-archived something that still needed further discussion; and so on. I do many of these things, and no one objects.

  It's a WP:COMMONSENSE and basic maintenance thing. WP has been doing just fine without any rules about this. Adding them 16+ years after the fact is blatant WP:CREEP and WP:BUREAUCRACY, unless there's proof that we have a serious problem on our hands and that it cannot be addressed by normal, existing remedies. See also WP:AJRULE. As for the OP's example, yes Guy Macon's re-piping of links to no longer be broken is permissible and normal. The fact that opposition to this basic maintenance is inherent in support for this proposal in the first place raises my opposition to it by several orders of magnitude. PS: Yes, it is pointless and silly to try to continue to have a discussion in an archive page. We don't need a rule about it because no one competent does it, and doing it won't result in an actual discussion. We need don't need a law against talking to yourself in the basement. If someone posts something that is worthy of discussion, refactor it to the live talk page so it actually gets discussed. If someone is going around adding "the last word" to a bunch of archived discussions, take them to WP:ANI on a WP:DE charge. We have process for this already.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC), revised 23:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Moot due to revision of above comment

SMcCandlish, I do not begrudge you of your position on this and you are entitled to your opinions, but would you please consider striking or at least scaling back your unwarranted accusations about my motives? There's no basis for your assumptions about my motives (undercut by my various comments here, if you had bothered to read them), and I'm straining not to see your "!vote" as an oblique personal attack. I really do not know where this is coming from. You could have made the same points without biting. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC) @DrFleischman: Done. Wasn't the intent; I'm commenting about rules of this sort in general and types of misuse/abuse/drama they generate (and this venue is unusually prone to "There oughtta be a law ..." thinking – frankly, if I could WP:TNT any WP:P&G page we have and replace it with a very short list of points essential for the project to function, this would be the page). No implication of personal motive was intended. Hell, I just said above you'd probably make a good admin. ;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  23:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Interleaving revisited

I recently ran into a situation where an RfC was posted with the usual Support/Oppose sections and with a threaded discussion section at the bottom. Most editors commented in the designated sections, but two editors decided to post signed comments supporting their POV right in the middle of the header, thus giving their opinions more prominence. They did this after multiple !votes were cast, thus making it so that the later !voters were essentially voting on a different RfC than the early !voters. Is this an example of inappropriate interleaving? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:34, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

No, its just inattention to layout and formatting and the existing TPG already provides explicit OK for us to fix such things. I fix them like this.... leave the bold part of their vote with a cut and pasted signature in the right section and move the comment with original signature to the right part of the discussion section.... plus I explain what I did and and why in the edit summary. Making such corrections is encouraged by the existing TPG and though you did not ask, consider the fixing editor... that ed is not "interleaving" either, since by definition interleaving is making our own comments in the middle of someone else's, and following the existing TPG to fix someone else's layout and format errors is something else.... of course, we have to be careful to just do the fix in one edit, and make our own comments in another. As for the intention of an ed in not following the layout, well sure it might be intentional to gain advantage but who cares? AGF means we assume it was an accident and the most constructive response is WP:SOFIXIT.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:09, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

It's probably unintentional disruption (which is still disruption). But why don't you link to the RfC so we can see? Andrewa (talk) 23:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Δ/2017 Advisory RFC. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:23, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Wow, what a mess. Definitely disruptive. And yes, you could call this "interleaving"... just as the previous example of undeniably bad interleaving mixed with outdents was interleaving. But it seems agreed that these are all examples of bad interleaving, and already discouraged as disruptive editing. And they don't follow the convention that I and others have followed and want to continue to use. Not at all.

To discourage interleaving generally just because it can be used so badly is akin to discouraging the drinking of water because it's a component of beer, in the hope of reducing drunkenness.

It would be good to provide guidance as to exactly how interleaving can be used. Even the strictest teetotallers say that water is OK if it's not part of an alcoholic drink. We should follow their example. Andrewa (talk) 09:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed it's disruptive, probably unintentional, and that it isn't "interleaving". It just bonehead, and the fix is to refactor the posts into the proper order.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:30, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

It was definitely intentional. When an uninvolved editor attempted to refactor the posts into the proper order. The editor who posted in the wrong place reverted him. When I objected I was told in no uncertain terms that this comment must remain in the lead of the RfC because the author considered his opinion to be more important than the opinions of the proles in the comment section. I am not talking about a mistake. I am talking about deliberately disrupting an RfC because you don't want that particular question to be asked. I may be wrong, but I think it is interleaving. I posted something -- in this case the heading of an RfC -- and another editor posted his reply right in the middle of what I posted, ignoring the comment section where everyone else was responding. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

It is "interleaving" of a sort, but not the sort that anyone is proposing should be allowed, which is the sort we are discussing here, or trying to. See my (now properly signed) comments above. Andrewa (talk) 09:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually under certain circumstances adding a comment to the start of an RfC is permitted, I added the possibility years ago to the RfC page: "If you feel an RfC is improperly worded, ask the originator to improve the wording, or add an alternative unbiased statement immediately below the RfC question template. Do not close the RfC just because you think the wording is biased." (see the section "Suggestions for responding"). This was added to stop closewars over an RfC that had a perceived (or real) biased (non neutral) introduction, and a lack of goodwill between two parties. -- PBS (talk) 12:09, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Changing section headings

If a section heading is changed, it breaks existing links to that section. This can be very simply fixed by adding an {{anchor}} using the old section name, which preserves these links.

This came up with this edit, which is problematic for several reasons. But changing the section heading in that way does not seem to violate the guideline.

I suggest that the guideline should state:

• If you change a section heading, check whether this will break any incoming wikilinks, and add an {{anchor}} template if it will or if in doubt.
• The new section heading should be unique on the page. It should not exactly duplicate any other section heading (at any level) or any existing anchor.

Comments? Andrewa (talk) 23:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• Part oppose/part support Opposed to saying "check whether this will break an incoming wikilinks" because that sounds like it is setting up a precondition to fixing problems with headings, and I'm opposed to creating procedural obstacles the wikilawyers can turn into clubs. In addition, if people correctly add the anchor then this "check step" would be superfluous. Support that some helpful guidance would be beneficial but stopping short of making anchors a requirement. I'm speaking as one who does change headings when they are non-neutral and though I was vaguely aware this problem might arise, I had no idea this simple coding could solve it. The only down side I see is that problematic language in an original heading would be preserved at least to eds looking at the wikicoded text in the edit window... but doesn't that mean everyone who chooses to comment? For most things an anchor is easy and prevents anyone from getting lost. But for really outrageous headings, its probably better to accept the low risk/low impact possibility of broken links than tolerate the certain/highly visible original outrageous text within the anchor codes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• Adding advice good, adding new guideline rule bad. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:39, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

• Before we embark on another endless discussion trying to dissect, taxonomize, categorize, and legislate against all manner of hypothesized problems, can I ask for a diff of an actual example of a problem caused by a changed section heading? Yes, we all know it can happen. Yes, we all know it has happened – somewhere, sometime. But humor me.... do you actually have such an example handy? EEng 03:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I would refuse to respond to that on minor-WP:POINT grounds, honestly. If we already concede that it happens, it's a pointless waste of another editors' time to try to arm twist them into posting examples of it happening. Most of us do not keep running logs of "stupid stuff I see on Wikipedia"; we just fix the stupid and move on. The issue is whether we consider this a frequent enough problem to address, and if so whether we want to do it in "please" or a "do/do not" manner.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
  • This is an actual example. Andrewa (talk) 12:19, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

No, it's not. It's just an example of a section heading being changed. Where's the problem created thereby? Where's the broken link? Someone adds a thread to an obscure article's talk page, and twelve hours later someone modifies the title of the thread to be a bit clearer, and we're supposed to run around fretting about whether, maybe, someone somewhere had linked to the thread in the meantime. Another giant waste of time. EEng 15:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I can provide the diff of the broken link if you like.

Agree this was Another giant waste of time. And that's because most of the comments above seem to be by people who have not read the proposal, and none of them seem to have read the existing guideline any more carefully than I did. Had someone linked to the relevant section earlier it might have been a little waste of time, but see my comments below... there is still room for improvement. Simmer down and let's improve Wikipedia. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

• Concur with Guy Macon; having some advice about this is probably a good idea, but do no insert more rules. This page should dump about half the rules on it as it is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
• Just because "talk" is in the title of this guideline does not mean we have to keep talking forever. Imagine if WP:TPG were perfect and covered all points showing how editors could avoid breaking things. How would that actually help the "with this edit" example in the OP? Only tragics have examined this guideline and there is no way its wording would influence what happened there. This is another of a "learn by example" situation where if an editor has good reason to believe the edit was unhelpful, they should revert or fix it, with explanation in edit summary or talk. The corridors of Wikipedia are full of misguided and confused people and tweaking guidelines to point out the obvious will not help. NewsAndEventsGuy is correct that WP:TPG should not include a club to impede the correction of dubious section headings. Johnuniq (talk) 06:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I certainly was not suggesting a club to impede the correction of dubious section headings, in fact my suggested addition did not provide any restriction to changing section headings, none whatsoever. Rather it suggested that when headings are changed, and anchor should be added to avoid breaking links, and the section heading should be unique. Nothing more than that. Andrewa (talk) 12:24, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
• Isn't this already covered at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Section headings? – Uanfala 16:43, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Thus we find that this is yet another completely useless, half-baked thread wasting time on something already handled. I wonder how many more we have in store. EEng 17:58, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I propose opening up an extensive discussion on the topic of completely useless, half-baked threads wasting time on something already handled. Hey! Why is everybody throwing things at me??? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea although made in jest. The above discussion is simply appalling. Do we really expect to retain editors when we carry on like this? Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I think that's a bit unfair, and not in the spirit of collaboration, especially considering how many others also missed the paragraph in question. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Excellent point, thank you Uanfala, and I had somehow missed that (as have several others above). Perhaps it needs to be a bit more prominent... the anchor doesn't appear in the TOC of course, and the section is Editing others' comments, and says in part no one, including the original poster, "owns" a talk page discussion or its heading, so changing a section heading is arguably not Editing others' comments at all. Maybe that's why so many of us missed it. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if this needs to be more prominent within this guideline. The need to be mindful of breaking links to sections is not specific to talk pages, if anything it's even more relevant for other namespaces and it's already explained at the most general level possible at WP:HEADING and Help:Section#Section linking. – Uanfala 18:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Also good points. But I do make the point that the guideline already reads In order to ensure links to the previous section heading (including automatically generated links in watchlists and histories) continue to work, one should use one of the following templates to anchor the old title: {{formerly}}, {{Visible anchor}}, {{anchor}} (my emphasis added) and, until you pointed it out, none of us seemed aware of that. So I wasn't actually proposing anything new except adding an option of not using the templates if there were no incoming links (which I now think was a bad idea anyway).

(That part of the guideline seems to have been written before the current system of notifications was implemented, which is now also a plentiful source of automatically generated links to section headings, but the point is just that these incoming links may well exist and it's not easy to find them. Which is why my proposal to weaken the guideline by allowing the option of checking for incoming links was a bad idea.) Andrewa (talk) 07:48, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

So still think it might be a little more prominent. Andrewa (talk) 19:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

You could say the same about every bit of advice in the TPG, since each point is overlooked by someone, somewhere, at least some time. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:32, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Let's put the whole page in bold. That way it will all be more prominent. EEng 13:43, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Why stop with bold? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:12, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Why indeed? EEng 16:05, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the humorous attempt to illustrate the point. We now return to our regularly scheduled high noise to signal ratio. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:33, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. Not sure what to do about it, but it would be good to do something. Instruction creep is not the answer. We have too many bloody rules already. We need to somehow make attitudes a bit more collaborative, they seem to be deteriorating to me. And both wp:AGF and wp:NPA have largely gone out the window, we only intervene when it's already in danger of starting world war three. Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

As badly and consistently as in the above? I think not. Thankfully. Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Not a complete waste of time

Thanks again Uanfala for your to-the-point contribution, which answered my first point and enabled me to progress the issue concerned.

I think I should give up on the second, about duplicate section headings. It's also covered in our maze of rules, just not as well as I'd like. But I see no chance of improving it by discussion here. I might just make a bold change and see what happens.

Thanks to all who have contributed as able. Andrewa (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Striking through a user's own talk page, wr to WP:TPO?

If a user is given a warning that they specifically disagree with (and it's not one of the mandatory unremovables, such as a refused unblock request), they are clearly permitted to blank it. Are they also permitted to strike it through instead? This is re: [9], and this warning given in response. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:26, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

(1) This question is based on a fallacy. The DS/alert template that kicked this off is not a warning. Prior to the DS overhaul in 2013-14 or therabouts, DS indeed used a "warning" system following an edit that raised others' ire. The receipt of such a warning was perceived as a rebuke, and so under the old system there were frequent dramas and disputes over the giving of them, and whether the receivers' edits merited them in the first place. Under the new system, the "alert" is emphatically nothing more than an FYI. I give them to myself the moment I enter a topic area to which DS applies. I give them to others, even people who have made stellar edits or comments to be proud of. They are nothing more than an FYI, after all. And so the question here is based on a fallacy. The edit that was struck out was not a warning, just an FYI.

(2) So can we add strike out to others comments on our own talk page? Or are we limited to just three options (a) archive (b) leave alone (c) delete entirely? In my view, if an editor gives someone else a bit of helpful advice, they should put it out there and WP:DROPTHESTICK. The receiver can do whatever they want with helpful advice. We don't really need to say in our TPG that adding strikeout is tantamount to giving someone the finger, or is a no no or any such thing. See WP:CREEP. Eds who get the idea of respectful collaboration don't need guidelines for the obvious, and for others, who don't understand that concept, yet more micro rules won't make a whit of difference. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:15, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

It is not possible to have a guideline that covers all the ways people can be silly, but the example given is as bad as it gets. That's because there is a strong convention that the author of a comment may strike their text after reflection—the striking is to avoid misleading future readers who might spend time analyzing the comment when in fact the author has now withdrawn it because it was based on incorrect information, or they changed their mind, or whatever. In the example given above, the recipient of a discretionary sanctions notice struck the comment, which makes it appear that the comment's author had struck it. The author was correct to assert the striking violates WP:TPO. Johnuniq (talk) 01:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with that. If this "violates TPO" and especially if this violates TPO to the level of being blockable, than TPO has to state that clearly beforehand. Now I don't disagree with the implications of such a strikethrough or any questions of "fingers". But if we're going to be blocking editors for breaches of policy, that policy has to make itself clear. I cannot find any such in TPO as it stands. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:28, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

People are not blocked for striking someone's comment (done once or twice), and there is no reason to think that occurred in this case. I see no indication of that in the block log or the user's talk. Johnuniq (talk) 02:44, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

And yet they are blocked. And were also threatened for being blocked, on this basis of TPO. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:26, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Bullshit. John (talk) 13:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Johnuniq for a perspective I had not considered. Yes formatting others remarks may give the appearance that the author of the comment did the formatting and could be read to change meaning. In the present example its at a users own talk page, and the added formatting does not change the tags set in the server log for purposes of invoking DS (specifically, the criteria used to determine if the editor was "aware" DS applies. So in my view taking whatever dispute to the users page and continuing the tit for tat, first by the hosting editor adding strikeout (perhaps under a misunderstood reading of WP:OWNTALK) and then by others worrying about this drama on a usertalk page when it doesn't really change anything tangible at least raises the possibility that there is enough meta:Don't be a jerk to go around. Elsewhere, though, I guess I can see how specific circumstances might create enough genuine disruption that admin action is needed to prevent further problems, which is the only legitimate basis for such action. In sum, I don't think the present example exposes a gap in the TPG, only in the judgment of the ed who added the strikeout and others who complained about it. Are ya'll sure taking the spat to user talk in this manner was not an extension of a WP:BATTLE, as opposed to writing good article text? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

• A related question is whether generally it's alright to strike other people's (good faith) comments. I occasionally do that with blatantly inappropriate templated messages on the talk pages of newbies. – Uanfala 09:44, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I do that myself, not infrequently (and often to Cluebot). I think it has a semantic difference though: TPO has always taken the line that "an offender" may remove a message indicating that it has been read. When a 3rd part strikes a warning, that's an indication that they not only disagree, but see the warning as inapplicable to an unarguable level (and presumably would say so at ANI, if it went that far). Such a warning could still be a GF error.

In this case, can the accused remove the warning by striking it, also indicating that they dispute its validity completely?

As this hinges on the semantic difference noted, and TPO has never extended that to the accused, then I have to agree that they can't do this. But in which case, we need to clarify TPO. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Fact that you speak of "the accused" suggests you really didn't understand the first paragraph in my first comment in this thread. DS Alert templates have nothing to do with "accusations" zip none nada. They're just an FYI "Please be advised that..." period, nothing more or less. Attempts to make them more or less likely indicate WP:BATTLE mentality motivating the person who is trying to add this negative connotation. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Well I understand how you might use them, but in the case linked here, they're being used (repeatedly) to bully editors with whom the poster has a disagreement. There's a thread on ANI to this effect.

I can't imagine a neutral poster of such notifications really caring too much what happens to them, but in this case they (and the strike-through) are being used to call for a block: " their very poor approach to striking comments from others on their talk page, which is a blockable offence in its own right". Andy Dingley (talk) 23:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Bullshit squared. --John (talk) 00:36, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

@Andy, Re your comment that .."they're being used (repeatedly) to bully editors..." did you just say that DS templates are being posted on editors' talk pages in an effort to bully editors into submission? If that's the real issue here, then see "Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned." Also, the template text itself has some language about decorum and how they are to be used. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:46, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think Johnuniq has it right. Strike-throughs should only be done by the author on their own comments. An editor is welcome to archive or remove a DS notice on their talk page but making a strikethrough seems to violate REFACTOR. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:06, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Technically I agree, but the user page formatting in this example does not alter the way DS is applied. The server still has a record of the notice, and that's enough to apply DS should the need later arise. This is an example of the behavior coming to our attention through a non-issue, in my opinion. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:21, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

• It does make it look like the original poster was responsible for striking the notice, as they were the last one to sign it. Either the talk page's 'owner' should have added a 'striking' note and their own signature, or it should have been collapsed. –Sb2001 01:10, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
• I agree striking out what another editor says is changing it and only the original editor should normally do that. They could have added their own comment or removed it. I see no need to change anything in the guidelines. I see nothing blockable about it in itself - the person should just be asked to change it or the whole thing removed. Continually doing it in a PITA way could be blockable but then so can practically anything. Dmcq (talk) 17:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Dope! For at least two years the section of TPG titled "Editing others' comments" has included "Striking text constitutes a change in meaning, and should only be done by the user who wrote it or someone acting at their explicit request." So this issue seems to be explicitly addressed already NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:03, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

• I have to agree with those who say don’t strike others comments. This is because I don’t see what a strike through accomplishes... if you don’t like a comment or a notice placed by another editor on your talk page... you can simply remove it. (Yes, we have a few exceptions to this, but what we are talking about isn’t one of them.). Just delete the notice. Blueboar (talk) 22:08, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussing ed behavior at article talk

At the current version of WP:Dispute resolution we have a couple places that talk about content vs conduct disputes and where each should be discussed. Its possible the current text can be read to say it is OK to talk conduct at article talk. I don't think that's consistent with our intent and would like to discuss it. Below I have quoted the relevant text and marked the questionable text in red. The red text came to my attention in this talk thread. Since the sections are basically explaining the TPG I came here to get a wider review.

I'll start by quoting the two sections of the DR project page, tell you about the bold edit I tried, and will wrap up by comparing the relevant language in our TPG.

• Subsection "Focus on Content", which is familiar to most of us as the target for the commonly cited redir WP:FOC. The current text reads (entire)

Focus on article content during discussions, not on editor conduct; comment on content, not the contributor. Wikipedia is written through collaboration, and assuming that the efforts of others are in good faith is therefore vital. Bringing up conduct during discussions about content creates a distraction to the discussion and may inflame the situation. Focusing on content, and not bringing up conduct, can be difficult if it seems other editors are being uncivil or stubborn. Stay cool! It is never to your benefit to respond in kind. When it becomes too difficult or exhausting to maintain a civil discussion based on content, you should seriously consider going to an appropriate dispute resolution venue detailed below; but at no juncture should you lose your temper. Wikipedia is not like the rest of the Internet: we expect editors to be polite and reasonable at all times.

---Dispute resolution project page, subsection "Focus on Content"

• Subsection "Resolving user conduct disputes". With red added by me, the relevant part of current text reads

If the issue is a conduct dispute (i.e., editor behavior) the first step is to talk with the other editor at their user talk page in a polite, simple, and direct way. Try to avoid discussing conduct issues on article Talk pages.

---Dispute resolution project page, subsection "Resolving user conduct disputes" (red added)

This red text is the focus of the dispute At the project talk page (thread link in first paragraph at top of post) Fluous (talk · contribs) commented that the red text implies it is OK to discuss conduct/behavior at article talk, just not favored. Fluous seems to think our rules already prohibit conduct discussion at article talk and I agree. I tried a bold edit to eliminate that alleged inconsistency. My edit changed the section with the red text to

If the issue is a conduct dispute (i.e., editor behavior), per an [[WP:FOC|earlier section of this guideline]] do not discuss it at the article talk page. Instead for conduct disputes, the first step is to talk with the other editor at their user talk page in a polite, simple, and direct way.

However, Stickee (talk · contribs) reverted, saying in his edit summary that my edit was changing policy, and saying at that talk page that the sections are not inconsistent. ("it's not at odds with FOC. FOC also gives guidance, and not a rule that discussing conduct is completely prohibited. That's why it says 'focus on content' and not 'only discuss content'.")

So that's the issue at that other venue. But to be consistent overall, I came here to look at the TPG, because this is the main guideline on the topic. Our TPG says

Talk Page Guidelines-

Section heading - Good practices for all talk pages used for collaboration

Hatnote - These guidelines apply specifically to discussion pages which are used for collaboration, which includes just about all talk pages other than user talk pages. The application of these guidelines to user talk pages should be governed by common sense and should not supersede guidelines and policies specific to those pages.

Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page.

--- Current TPG, bold in original

One of these wikilinks points right at WP:FOC, which I quoted at the top of this post. So they're all tied to together and should be as clear as possible.

SUMMING UP - I think our TPG and WP:FOC are trying to say we shouldwill not talk conduct at article talk, and I think the red flagged text quoted from the DR project page could be improved by making that more clear. In particular, I do not think my attempted edit was changing our rules, only making them clearer and more internally consistent. Anybody? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:17, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about the long opening post but thanks for reading this far. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the most permissive interpretation is the correct one - long discussions of editor behavior should be discouraged at article talk, but it doesn't make sense to forbid them completely in the general case. Making short assertive comments on user behavior, and polite requests to behave following WP:CIVIL (e.g. "I have concerns that you are too involved in the topic, please calm down and let other editors develop their arguments") may be helpful at refocusing discussion and smooth collaboration. Requiring that all these comments be moved to talk pages would make the discussion harder to follow, and would prevent other editors from noticing them. There are times when comments on editor behavior are forbidden for good cause (very heated topics subject to arbitration remedies), but this should not be the default. Diego (talk) 15:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Note the last bold text in my opening post. That's a bolded quote in the current TPG that says "Comment on content, not on the contributor". Are you saying that actually means "Comment on content, (mostly) not on the contributor"? That's what it sounds like. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm saying that "try to avoid" is better here that "do not". "Comment on content, not on the contributor" is good advice, but if someone makes a remark at an article Talk page addressing the behavior of some other editor, we wouldn't want someone else saying "hey, you've commented on the contributor's behavior, you've breached policy!" as a throwing weapon. There will be extreme cases where doing this and failing to WP:GETTHEPOINT will be disruptive, but these will be already covered by WP:UNCIVIL. Better keep this policy to provide advice about civil dispute resolution, and leave enforcement for other dedicated policies. Diego (talk) 08:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Some clarification could be undertaken, but we cannot ignore the fact that the reality and the norm is that editorial behavior that directly affects a particular article or attempts at consensus formation about the article are routinely discussed, at least in short, at the article talk page. This is never going to change.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  08:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventGuy: It's a heading. Headings aren't meant to be comprehensive. Just like the 3rd pillar that says "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit" doesn't mean literally anyone - if you're banned or blocked you can't. There's always nuance involved, just like in this case. Stickee (talk) 08:28, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Last line of lead

The last line of the lead states that this guideline applies to all discussion pages. However, I think there is one exception... our WP:Reference desk pages are an exception, because they have their own separate guidelines. This needs to be noted. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Not separate: WP:RD/G#Talk page guidelines. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Reference desk pages are not for discussions, they are for answering queries. They may bear some superficial resemblance and that is acknowledged as in RD/G, but a person isn't an ostrich just because both have two legs. Your 'please discuss' would be rejected at a reference desk because at a reference desk 'We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.'. Dmcq (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

As used here the word "discussions" indeed includes the Ref Desk. I noticed you didn't provide a wikilink to any definition of "discussion" that could arguably be read to exclude "queries" at the Ref Desk, and interestingly, the Ref desk appears to not use the word "query". Bubble up to 45000 feet and we're simply talking about how to simply talk. Dive down to 600 fathoms and the Ref Desk guidelines refer to what happens at the Ref desk as a "discussion". For example, the Ref Desk guidelines, has a section titled "Do not offer answers on topics on which you are not qualified", and under that heading says "If you are unfamiliar with a topic, it's recommended to stay out of the discussion..." NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:10, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

• Existing All guidelines here also apply to Wikipedia discussion pages, such as WP:articles for deletion.
• Alt 1 All guidelines here also apply to Wikipedia discussion pages, such as articles for deletion, with the exception of Wikipedia:Reference desk pages (which have their own set of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines)
• Alt 2 These guidelines apply to all discussions anywhere on the English Wikipedia, as modified or supplemented by local consensus, e.g. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines.
• Alt 3 These guidelines apply to all discussions anywhere on the English Wikipedia, though for some areas they may be modified or supplemented by other guidelines, e.g. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines.
• Other your ideas????

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Seems like #3 captures the comments and edits so far. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

• 3 would work, but link guidelines. Too many wikiprojects and other little gaggles of editors keep declaring their WP:PROJPAGE essays to be "guidelines" when they are not. The danger with this entire "make an exception" direction is that it's liable to encourage others to demand special pleading exceptions from the rules for their little fiefdom, without any community consensus for such a thing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose any "modified by" language. Local consensus should not be allowed to override core policies such as WP:TPOC. See WP:LOCALCON. This very week I have read comments by editors on the refdesk arguing that the following are valid reasons to delete a question: "This is garbage". "That was disgusting". "Any negative comments about Donald Trump's public statements can be deleted under WP:BLP". "The question contained no citations". "The discussion was hatted days ago, but I don't want it to be in the archives". Seriously. All of the above were justified by claiming that the refdesk guidelines override WP:TPOC and that on the refdesks you can pretty much delete anything you don't like. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:50, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose all of the above, per Guy Macon; I didn't realize there was this much of a problem. I think the RefDesk "guidelines" need examination and re-normalization; as with some recently demoted pages, it may not be a guideline at all, but just a WP:PROJPAGE essay that was tagged with {{Guideline}} without any WP:PROPOSAL process.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  11:31, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, that’s because the RD guidelines predate the WP:PROPOSAL process. Many of our older policies and guidelines never underwent a formal PROPOSAL process (including our Reliable Sources and Notability guidelines... and I doubt anyone would seriously argue that these guidelines are not valid because of that.) Blueboar (talk) 11:57, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

If I were to post RfCs asking the community to approve our Reliable Sources and Notability guidelines, the !votes would be well over 95% in favor, which means that under WP:SNOW posting those RfCs would be a waste of time. If I were to post an RfC asking the community to approve the actual wording of the refdesk guidelines, I don't really know which way it would go, but if the RfC was somehow able to address the way the refdesk guidelines are actually being used (see my list above) the !votes would be well over 95% against them being used that way. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

That's my sense of the matter, too. When people make WP:PROPOSAL observations about old pages it does not mean "remove the guideline tag right this instant!" it means "consensus that this really is a guideline is iffy". I.e., that if it were subjected to a proposal or RfC today that it's questionable it would be accepted.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  10:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• No change. They aren't project pages. People with queries on the them are not Wikipedia editors. I really don't see why people here seem to think they are talk pages. They are not supposed to be discussions, some are but queries are not supposed to be for discussion like this discussion here. I think perhaps some people here just want rid of them and so are just talking them down and trying to fit them into something they are not. If so the right place to discuss is at WP:VPP#RfC: Should the Reference Desks be closed?. Which is an actual discussion amongst Wikipedia editors. Dmcq (talk) 12:15, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

  They most definitely are Wikipedia editors. They became editors the first time they clicked Save changes - if not at the exact moment that they first clicked an "[edit]" link. If you mean that no "content-creating" Wikipedia editors post to the ref desks - well, that's demonstrably untrue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

  I hoped I was conveying a meaning rather than talking about a mechanical action, I do not normally mean to include all the trolls for instance when I talk about Wikipedia editors. I realize this talk page talks about editors and I'm happy for everyone on a reference desk to be addressed as such for the purpose of following these guidelines. You were not trying to edit Wikipedia articles or discuss improvements but querying a reference desk for an answer. Dmcq (talk)

Question Is there a forum other than the RefDesk where the interaction between TPG and some other purported "guideline", or other "thing", is an issue? Or have we really just teased out a possible conflict between RefDesk at TPG to focus upon? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

They are not a forum - "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate". Responses according to WP:RD/G should be factually correct and preferably cite Wikipedia articles or other reliable sources. It isn't a talk page or a page for discussion. I know there are some discussions -that does not mean they are discussion pages any more than some rant on a article's talk page stops it from being for discussions on improving the associated article. Dmcq (talk) 13:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

You didn't answer the question and you mis-read the word "forum" in the question. Compare meaning of that word in WP:FORUM and WP:FORUMSHOPPING Forum = venue = place = page = namespace etc. Again, are we only talking about RefDesk & TPG, or are there other "forums"/pages/venues/whatever that present a similar issue (applicability of TPG)? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:39, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

You are using forum in a style which implies what is there is discussions because it is on the internet and internet forum in its first line says "An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages". They are not discussions and therefore it is not a forum. Dmcq (talk) 18:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

To answer the question asked, I do not believe that there is any other place other than the reference desk where the interaction between TPG and some other purported "guideline", or other "thing", is an issue. For example, the help desk works just fine while following the TPG -- no "house rules" needed. I would argue that the results clearly show that the help desk has far fewer problems with trolls, off-topic question, poor-quality answers, etc, than the reference desks. In my opinion, the refdesk guidelines are a major contributor to the toxic environment of the reference desks. To put it bluntly, the TPG are not broken and do not need fixing with house rules that are claimed to override the TPG. --Guy Macon (talk)

What part of the reference desk guidelines do you think overrides the talk page guidelines in a way that promotes problems? What I see is a lack of enforcement. Dmcq (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

There are actually two problems here. The first problem is that there are direct contradictions between the two policies. For example, "The basic rule—with some specific exceptions outlined below—is that you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission" (followed by a list of what you are allowed to delete) in WP:TPOC vs. "Any answer that provides medical advice, whether the question sought it or not, should be removed" in WP:RD/G/M.

The second problem is that some refdesk regulars ignore the actual language of WP:RD/G/M -- it says that the answer can be deleted but one refdesk regular is using it to delete entire threads -- and has support for doing that from certain other regulars. This isn't just limited to the refdesk guidelines; a significant number of refdesk regulars think that the question "Is Donald Trump saying outrageous things a clever tactic meant to manipulate the media into not focusing as much attention on his actual policies?" should be deleted under WP:BLP, which is just plain nuts.. Another example: deleting an already hatted thread because "this should not be in the archives" is defended by saying that the refdesk guidelines override the talk page guidelines (even thouth nothing in the refdesk guidelines authorizes such a deletion). --Guy Macon (talk) 02:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: thanks for taking time to understand and answer the question. Sounds like this is issue is specifically related to Ref Desk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:26, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. The root problem is the "I can delete anything I don't like and gin up an excuse if anyone challenges me" attitude. The refdesk guidelines are the symptom, not the cause, but changing them from policies to being explanatory supplements to the talk page guidelines will make it harder to gin up an excuse. There is a precedent in the way that Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is an an explanatory supplement to the Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Be bold pages rather than being a policy. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Of the two problems that Guy Macon said were in the reference desk guidelines

• the first about medical advice in RD/G - that just reiterates WP:MEDICAL. The talk page guidelines are simply not complete in that respect. If anything it is the talk page guideline is in conflict with policy but putting in everything verges on WP:BEANS.
• The second is as I said a problem with enforcement. As they said some regulars are ignoring the reference desk guidelines. and nothing is done about it despite complaints. Is for instance anything going to be done at long last about the complaint at WP:ANI#Proposal: Topic ban for Medeis / μηδείς? The question about Trump for instance could be seen as provocative by some but it should not have been hatted as a BLP violation. For controversial questions people should just closely follow the guideline and provide references to sources that have discussed this very problem. At most for an addition I'd have a marker that a question was controversial or trollish and to encourage people to give replies that referenced a good source for an answer not just personal opinions. Dmcq (talk) 10:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Agree that hatting would have been appropriate for the trump question. As for your other claim, please quote the exact wording of WP:MEDICAL that mentions deleting other user's comments or in any way implies that WP:TPOC does not apply. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I did not say I thought hatting was appropriate for the Trump question and I don't think it was. I said it would be appropriate to put some marker on to let people know answers should be strictly in accordance with the guidelines.

The appropriate line in WP:MEDICAL is 'WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE'. If an editor gives medical advice they are violating that. At best they should point to a Wikipedia article or some reliable source - rather like what I was saying in the previous line about following the guidelines strictly and the same marker could be used. Dmcq (talk) 15:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

So you don't know the difference between asking for medical advice and giving medical advice in an answer? And you don't know the difference between "this is not allowed. Keep doing it and you may be blocked" and "this is not allowed. Any editor may delete this on sight. There is a list of what you can delete at WP:TPOC"? Again I ask, please quote the exact wording of WP:MEDICAL that mentions deleting other user's comments or in any way implies that WP:TPOC does not apply. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure you think you're very clever with your word play but may I point you at WP:POLICY#Adherence "Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken". We should not give medical advice. If editors were able to keep to the guidelines and just point to reliable sources or article when asked for such advice that would be good and we could allow such question - but currently they don't and persist in giving their own advice. I would like a way to coax/push/enforce adherence with the guidelines in such cases but it is not done. Dmcq (talk) 17:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Try posting an RfC to see if the community prefers what you want the policy to say over what the policy actually says. If that RfC shows a clear consensus, I will instantly switch over to advocating following the policy that is in your mind. Until then I will continue to advocate following the policy as it is written. Please don't be offended by this; its just that there are other editors with other policies that exist only in their minds, many of which cannot be reconciled with each other. That is why I stick with the actual written policies that have been shown to have community consensus. Your "common sense" and "spirit of a rule" can be shown to contradict other editor's "common sense" and "spirit of a rule", and it would be unfair to pick yours and reject the others. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:12, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

How about a bit less Socratic dialogue thanks and more directness? How do you think queries involving medicine should be dealt with, do you agree with the reference desk guidelines that advice should not be given and requests for advice should be removed? Do you believe this is against the talk page guidelines? Which guideline do you think is more in line with WP:MEDICAL? Dmcq (talk) 10:36, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I would not remove the question (we have no rule against asking for advice)... but I would remove any answers that actually gave medical advice (replacing them with a polite note containing a link to WP:MEDICAL). That said - simply linking to an article or pointing to a source is not medical advice. There is a distinction between pointing someone to a source for medical information and giving them advice. Blueboar (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Well that is how I would like things to be, however many editors just cannot shut up and not give advice when asked for it. Policies and guidelines are supposed to document accepted procedure and hatting or removing queries that provoke that behavior on the reference desks is the accepted procedure for stopping medical advice being given there. And that is what the guideline says in accordance with WP:POLICY. People don't go around asking for medical advice on talk pages. If we had a better procedure for marking such question so people knew they had to only refer to reliable sources then that would be a way of avoid a difference in that area but arguing should against reality is pie in the sky and disruptive without such a plan. Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

If you have a problem with someone giving medical advice, collapse the answer and post a warning on their talk page. If they do it again, report them at WP:ANI where, if the admins are doing their job, they will face a series of escalating blocks.

If anyone deletes an answer, question, or thread that is not specifically listed as being OK to delete at WP:TPOC, revert the deletion and post a warning on their talk page. If they do it again, report them at WP:ANI where, if the admins are doing their job, they will face a series of escalating blocks.

If, as you have indicated above, you think that it is acceptable to delete comments for reasons not listed in WP:TPOC, go to the talk page guideline talk page and post an RfC asking that your new reason for deletion be added to WP:TPOC

If the admins are unwilling to do their job, take it to arbcom.

It really is that simple. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:43, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Centralized versus forked discussion

We should probably cover the principle that discussion of the same topic/issue should be centralized on a single page, rather than forked to multiple venues; it's even advisable to point participants in one discussion to another that is at the more appropriate venue, and close the one that isn't. We should cross-reference WP:FORUMSHOP and WP:CANVASSING, but make it clear that even accidental discussion forks are not productive, and can even result in conflicting outcomes. Good shortcut to use for this: WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  09:04, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Already got this, WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:34, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Rather paltry and easy to miss. I've set up WP:Content forking/Internal (supplement essay) to cover this in more detail, along with policy forking.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:38, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? #2

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There has been substantial discussion at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Guidance against interleaving replies about whether or not interleaving should be discouraged. Please refer to that discussion and its subsections for in-depth details. Editors have defined interleaving as breaking up another editor's text to reply to individual points. One argument is that this is problematic because it confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. The other argument is that interleaving can be beneficial and that there is a difference between useful and disruptive interleaving.

Thoughts? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:18, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes (the guideline should discourage interleaving) - My reason is pragmatic, and based on my personal experiences as a wiki editor: in every instance that I have ever seen anyone interleaf their replies, it has muddled the discussion, made it confusing to follow, and made it extremely difficult for someone who is joining the discussion at a later date to catch up/follow along. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes - This is problematic because it confuses who said what. After years of editing, I've recently spent significant time trying to comprehend such a series, eventually reaching that understanding only by reviewing diffs in the page history. It's ridiculous to require readers to do that in order to make sense of a dialogue. I've yet to see a case where interleaving was the only way to preserve/restore context. We have the {{tq}} template, a common way to refer back to part of a previous comment, or we can simply say, "Re the x question,..." or something similar. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes I though it was just common sense not to break up someone's comment, but apparently that needs to be explicitly stated. Stickee (talk) 04:39, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes I have never seen a good example of interleaved comments used in a discussion, except for specialist cases such as WP:FAC. My comments are intended to be considered as written. If someone breaks them up they destroy my argument, and if they copy my signature underneath each fragment, they make it appear that I presented the fragment as a comment. Some editors object to interleaving, so editors who like it should desist in the interests of collaboration. Regardless of the outcome of this RfC, WP:IAR would allow interleaving in rare cases where participants agree it is useful. Johnuniq (talk) 05:06, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes: The guideline should discourage interleaving. Interleaving has proven to be a Really Bad Idea going back to the days of FidoNET and USENET. It encourages picking apart minor details and discourages presenting a logical argument. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:28, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• No. The guideline should discourage excessive and confusing interleaving, but not interleaving in general. There should be a guideline as to exactly how to do it, along the lines of the proposal already being developed above. Andrewa (talk) 06:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes An edit like this illustrates this problem precisely. Several people have confirmed that in the subthread Anchors (Version 3?), without prior knowledge of that specific edit diff they cannot tell that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu (talk · contribs). It's misattribution, plain and simple. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:29, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• It doesn't matter in the end. While the community engages in rule-making over obscure cases, the Wikimedia Foundation keeps working on the Flow extension (now renamed mw:Structured Discussions), which they want to use to eventually replace talk pages, and where interleaving will be impossible. What we need is to open a debate on assistance tools on top of wikitext, to help keeping the structure of discussions, that makes it simple to create threaded comments which are easy to follow for newcomers and veterans. Interleaving wouldn't be necessary if a tool made it easy to quote parts of the comment you're replying to, for example. Diego (talk) 08:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• if a tool made it easy to quote parts of the comment you're replying to - I have quoted a part of the comment I'm replying to. It took me about ten seconds, which I would call easy enough. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:50, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• Sure, but you're not a newcomer anymore; and you knew how to use the {{tq}} template to highlight the part that you were quoting. The point is that talk pages should remain accessible to new and casual editors (i.e. those who come to comment from time to time), without requiring that common features be memorized, by providing a GUI for them. If you require specialized knowledge to perform simple tasks, you're giving arguments to the WMF to replace the current software with their preferred toy. Diego (talk) 09:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• I see, thanks for the clarification. I submit that any such assistance tools would also involve a learning curve. In any case, there is nothing wrong with addressing the environment that we have today, when there is so little effort required to do so. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:12, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• Oh, I agree that interleaving is not a good idea; you can always copy the original comment and interleave the replies on the copy, without destroying the structure of the original post. What I was pointing at is that we shouldn't take the environment that we have today for granted, since the WMF seems to have an unclear path to change it somewhere in the future.

BTW, the learning curve for using a toolbar to access available functions will typically be lower than learning to use templates, because of the recognition vs recall distinction. Diego (talk) 09:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• No, not "interleaving" in general. See #Already expressly permitted by TPO above for why. Discourage excessive and confusing interleaving (if saying so is thought necessary – we do already have a policy against disruptive editing, and no lack of ability to enforce it). See #Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving, above, for examples. This proposal is very ill-considered, and would effectively ban WP:REFACTORing. It's a solution in search of a problem, and a WP:ICANTHEARYOU exercise, given all the above discussion of why a generalized anti-"interleaving" provision is a terrible idea. Disruptive interleaving is a rare and mostly noob behavior, rapidly corrected by community norms, and already addressable under extant rules in the odd case that someone persists in it. Constructive interleaving (e.g. to split unrelated questions into separate subthreads, and to collapse-box off-topic material (or remove abusive material) is a necessary and long-accepted talk-page maintenance process, and is not confusing or otherwise problematic as long as attribution is preserved, and it's not done in an incompetent manner. This proposal seems motivated by possessive WP:OWN sentiment, along "how dare you touch my posts!?!" lines.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:01, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

  PS: See this ongoing ANI for an example of the wikilawyering, bad-faith bullshit that is going to be terribly magnified by this RfC's outcome if what is written as a result of it is not very narrow and targeting specific, disruptive behaviors only. (Summary: accusation by editor A that editor B has been "altering" other's posts and should be punished for it, which has turned into a total WP:BOOMERANG on editor A.)
  Relevant essay: Don't help create more pointless "Asshole John rules".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  01:50, 30 September 2017 (UTC), updated 07:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, far more often than not, interleaving only makes discussions more unintelligible. And I strongly disagree that the edits described at #Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving are in any way "useful". older ≠ wiser 10:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes Better to just use bullets or paragraph letters in your own comment and start by saying something like

• (A) Re About interrupting the flow... I think blah blah
• (B) Re About too long didn't read... I think blah blah
• (C) Re About too many RFCs on the same point... I think blah blah

and in this way, 50 gazillion other people can argue with me via proper threading (aka indentation) without having to pile on at a point where the original post was interrupted.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:55, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, as a mild suggestion only We don't need more rules for the wiki-lawyers to use, but a bit of guidance as a mild suggestion would be nice. North8000 (talk) 12:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes, as a mild suggestion only as per North8000 as a compromise, although I would prefer to support SMcCandlish's No. This a cultural problem. For those who come from a newsgroup background interleaving is the usual way to comment on comments (Posting style#Interleaved style). For those come from a background of office emailer and the like it is uncommon to interleave comments. Personally I prefer the news group style (when I first worked with MSDOS and Lotus Notes I hated it, having been familiar with UNIX workstations with integrated news and email clients). I think it is tedious to have to quote people and leads to disjointed conversations as follow-ups may be way down a page. If interleaved threading was to be the norm conversations could be more succinct and probably briefer. However I do appreciate that the Wikipedia talk pages are largely inhabited by quiche eaters people, who probably have never seen a newsgroup (and interleaving) but are familiar with email, Facebook et al and prefer what they are familiar with a non-interleaved style. -- PBS (talk) 13:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

  @PBS: Even in newsgroups, the new comments are interleaved over a copy of the original post, not altering the initial post itself. Until WP:Flow becomes a reality, discussions at Wikipedia take place over a single page shared by all editors; if you interleave replies, you are destroying the initial shape of the original post. The conventions of a different discussion software can't be applied here unchanged. Diego (talk) 13:48, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

  Not in practice, because what happens in a newsgroup is dependant on the time a message remains in a newsgroup. After a pre-set time the older comment disappears and all one is left with is the reply. In very active news groups (with therefore a short time to live for comments) the original comment my not make it across the relays to the news server one reads. I understand that talk pages are not a similar construct to a newsgroup but, for example, you expect this comment to come lower down the page than yours because that is how we do it on Wikipedia. New editors more familiar with the Lotus Email style tend to post new comments in new sections at the top of a talk page. It is not the technology that limits how we commonly use talk pages it is self-imposed rules. -- PBS (talk) 14:00, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

  No kidding! Even the idea that newsgroup and mailing list people are all used to bottom posting isn't true; that's matter of newsreader and emailer software, much of which is configurable. I'd been in top-posting mode most of my online-life (which dates back to before the Web existed) when I arrived here, and I hated WP's bottom-posting style. I still think it's terribly inefficient but we're stuck with it.

  One thing we could change fairly painlessly that would be tremendous utility improvement is top-posting new threads, even if we bottom-post inside them). It's frustrating and frankly stupid that we have to page down and down and down to find current discussions, even if an argument can be made that we should wade through a particular discussion before commenting on it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

  @PBS: In my opinion, the "newsgroup norm" line of reasoning is an example of how we create Wikipedia:Systemic bias. If we're really trying to make a global inclusive encyclopedia, we should operate without any assumptions about people's prior digital experiences. Shoot, just last week some new editors might have been corresponding by snail mail. Then there's the old farts (like myself), who after posting 20 lines of unbroken text return two weeks later somewehat forgetful of exactly what we said, and we want to see our 20 lines of unbroken text. Otherwise my type of old farts end up adrift. No doubt some of my fellow older editors have more pliable brains than I, but the calcification is an exponential process, it seems. Pardon the digression.... another common experience among the antique NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yes with common-sense exceptions, specifically when we're talking a list of "action items" as one would find at GAN/FAC, which is generally going to end up as a back-and-forth discussion between two or three editors.. If an editor has replied back to you with a list of bullet points, interleaving your actions to resolve those makes a lot of sense; though out of courtesy to new editors to that discussion, one should indicate they are interleaving with so-and-so's list. Interleaving in any other case is generally inappropriate. --MASEM (t) 14:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. Guidance should be to generally avoid and perhaps seek agreement (or for comparatively rare, pre-arranged, structured processes). Smcandlish examples are not interleaving as described (breaking-up and inserting text - inside another's comment) they are hiding, removing, sectioning discussions, minor spelling, etc. But even if they were, (and I can only think of one that's close and it is removal and replace with a template WP:Personal attack, which is usually quite brief), because they are so particularly specified, it implies that others not described are not allowed by guidelines. The general principle is still, generally don't edit other's comments (period), or by breaking them, and then inserting your own text, as such can be confusing and/or annoying, or worse (misrepresentation) to others, unless specialized considerations are agreed. Also, what I think the few 'no's' are missing is that we Wikipedians leave comments and then walk away for weeks/months/years, with the expectation that if we ever come back, it will be the same as when we left it - and shocked if it were to be changed. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

  Except that "don't edit other's comments (period)" is not a rule here; we permit it for a variety of a reasons, most of them technical. The list refactor I did here just today in the course of addressing an edit-protected request is a perfect example. It is not different in any salient way from an interleave refactor, in which a bunch of unrelated stuff was mashed together and badly needed to be split up into separate posts or even separate sections to be addressed; it's blind coincidence that they were all simple matters that did not need extensive item-by-item discussion. If they had been the only approach difference would have been copy-pasting the original attribution to the separated-out points so it was clear who posted them. While the need to do such as split-up refactor to interleave questions/resolutions/discussion on a point-by-point basis is rare, we absolutely should not forbid it. If you see the history of my own talk page, you'll seem me do this pretty often (I usually use "refactor" or "split" somewhere in the edit summary), and as far as I can recall not one single person has ever objected to it. Outside my own talk page, as I noted elsewhere, objections have only been raised a handful of times, and either were either quickly resolved, or were just ranty noise by someone being a WP:JERK. No new rule needed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:17, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Your response is nonsense, as I wrote nothing about "rule" - and your example that you seek to make a point with does not make your point. There is overwhelming Consensus that the interleaving being discussed is and should be discouraged - so best to inform people, in guidance - equally there is overwhelming Consensus on the general principle from which this guidance would flow. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:56, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yes. We are all accustomed on talk pages to seeing a signature at the end of a block of text, which demarks the end of an editor's comment, and identifies the editor making that comment. Any interleaving destroys that simple relationship between comment and identity and leaves us searching through the edit history to ascertain who said what. It would start to become unusable if A's comment were allowed to be split by a series of interjections by B, whose comments may in turn be fragmented by C or even by A replying to B. No, that way lies madness. Let's make it crystal clear that interleaving on talk pages should not happen. If you consider other pages, such as FAC, each commentator has a block with their name in the "heading", so the author of the first level comments is already clear  – even then, it is not acceptable if interleaved replies to those comments are themselves subsequently interleaved, and I have never seen that done on any FAC or similar page. --RexxS (talk) 17:04, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. Exactly per RexxS. (and let's hope this talk page will soon stop being the most featured entry in my watch list every time I refresh it). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes It is confusing. Expecially when sometimes people mess up on indenting. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:30, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes ......but in no way should new or old editors be chastised about this.--Moxy (talk) 20:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• @Moxy: To clarify: If this passed, would a gentle reference to the guideline be chastising? If so, I don't see how the guideline would be worth the space. For the most part, people learn about guidelines by seeing them linked, not by spending hours upon hours browsing guidelines. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:49, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

• yes under the general principle of not messing with other people's edits. Jytdog (talk) 20:58, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes I do not want anyone chopping up my comments for the reasons already expressed above. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:47, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes Other people's comments should generally not be interfered with without very good reason. LK (talk) 23:11, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes It is editing and changing someone else's post to break it up. Pasting their signature to every segment, proposed as a solution to the orphaned text, leaves each segment even more obscured from its original arrangement and makes it appear as if the user in question actually made that many different posts. This could only be unraveled by looking at the page history. It is not appropriate for subsequent editors to determine what the context is for individual portions of someone else's posts or to wholesale re-arrange the post for convenience. {{talk quotation}} and {{talkquote}} are adequate to serve this purpose and already used as a matter of convention. On Usenet and other circumstances where it is common to interleave responses to quotes of portions of the original it is equivalent to using {{talkquote}} to break it up, not breaking up the original post. WP:FAC is not really a "talk page" more like a project page but any guidance here on TPG could mention that there are some places where interleaving bullet points is accepted such as FAC, or the guideline could be explicitly applied to the Talk: namespace. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:01, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes - whenever my comments are interleaved I get the distinct impression it was done to alter the meaning of my comment. Recently EEng interleaved my comment with an image without signing it, making it appear as if I had stated these things. Interleaving should be extremely discouraged or even completely banned. Bright☀ 09:28, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes, the guideline should discourage it, per all of the above. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:36, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. I haven't seen it often but it is annoying. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes, but - the guideline should discourage interleaving, but should recommend best practices for when it might be necessary (such as providing a note or diff to the original comment, or wrapping the interleaved comment with some kind of notice) or alternative best practices for replying to lengthy comments that perhaps should be sectioned. For example, a bulleted list referring to selected parts with brief quotations, or something. Also this should be carefully worded so as not to suggest that interleaving is forbidden, which will lead to unnecessary drama. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:17, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
• No, we should not have an outright ban. There are some times when it's appropriate, such as interjecting with a single sentence or a working link in the middle of a very long wall of text. I expect an outright ban to result in unnecessary disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  It definitely will.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:27, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  There are no outright bans at Wikipedia, even in policy. Therefore that can't be what is being proposed here. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:43, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  @User:Mandruss I think you comment is disingenuous, as it is not a retort to WhatamIdoing comment "I expect an outright ban to result in unnecessary disputes" as an outright ban will cause people to dispute an action under the grounds that is is not "unnecessary" but following policy/guidance. If that is not true why support a change in wording as quickly and as vehemently as you did? -- PBS (talk) 10:23, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  I !voted as soon as I arrived at this RfC, which happened to be second. Was I supposed to wait? My !vote was not vehement by any sense of that word. I'm sorry you feel something I said was disingenuous. And I can't make sense of the rest of your comment, sorry. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:31, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

  Perhaps more to the point: We all know full well that when someone says "ban" in the context of a WP rule (short of a WP:OFFICE legal requirement) that it means "strongly discourage"; no one here is under the impression it means "make a rule that is uniquely exempt from WP:IAR and WP:COMMONSENSE", so pretense that someone is making such an argument is a straw man. Some might think that qualifies as disingenuous (and that pretending that you need this explained does too, LOL).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:15, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

  Actually, we do have rules that are exempt from IAR. Consider the spam blacklist and WP:COPYVIO. If you want to speak in terms of the community's actual practice, rather than its written rules, then I invite you to think about whether you've ever seen an admin engage in a WHEELWAR and get away with saying "I was just ignoring all rules". We simply do not accept IAR as an excuse for a substantial amount of rule-breaking.
  More to my point, you should not create "absolute" rules when you expect IAR to apply every single day of the year. I've no objection to this page saying, "Sometimes, some editors will be angry if you break up their long wall of text to reply to part of it inline." That's reality-based, because some editors will be angry, even if you double-indent and your comment is benign and helpful to anyone else reading the comment, like "I think you meant to link [here] instead." But I do have a problem with saying "Do not stick your own comment into the middle of another editor's long comment" in the guideline, and then excusing this overreaching, WP:CREEPy rule that goes against actual, daily practice by saying here, "Well, if there's a really, really, really good reason for it, then you are welcome to try to spend all day at ANI trying to tell our increasingly rule-bound and increasingly bureaucratic editor base that IAR is still a policy, and you thought it was reasonable to invoke IAR in that particular instance". To add such a rule that when we already know that multiple long-established processes (including FAC, PR, GA reviews, and DYK) are regularly doing exactly what some editors would ban or "heavily discourage" – well, either those editors don't know much about how the rest of the project functions, or they don't know how to write a good policy. But I don't think that we should cater to their judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

• Yes but expressly allowing for unenumerated exceptions. I've done it a few times when alternatives seemed even more awkward. No one complained. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 03:36, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes - Almost any complex situation can be handled with a brief restatements of the points being responded to. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:00, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes (except, "Almost any complex situation can be handled with a brief restatements of the points being responded to." can lead to complaints the response is "too staccato", something I've been tapped with after using several clipped-out quotes & bullet points, to clarify what I was responding to...) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 01:43, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes Allowing editors to arbitrarily (or worse, with a purpose) separate the points raised by another editor isn't consistent with WP:REFACTOR. Reworking a single comment as multiple mini-comments can drastically change the apparent meaning. Triptothecottage (talk) 03:33, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. Interleaving is not a great thing to do. Edaham (talk) 07:59, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• Discourage or prohibit There are countless ways to respond to individual points in another's comment, from quoting passages to starting sentences or paragraphs with "regarding you assertion that..." to (politely!) adding a numbered list to the previous comment and mimicking that list on your own, to simply adding bullets to your own in the same order as points were made in the previous comment. Interleaving has, in my experience, been absolutely nothing but disruptive, and I've seen it done for pointy reasons about as often as I've seen it done for the sake of isolating and responding to individual aspects of a comment. As to the learning curve that comes with using features like ordered or unordered lists or quoting; there's a learning curve just to finding the talk pages. If an editor can find a talk page, edit it, and sign their comments, then they can learn to precede lines with # or *, or to use {{tq}}. If an editor cannot do those things, then they have no business editing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:12, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• No to adding "discouraging" or "recommending" language to guidelines or policies. Policies and guidelines should explicitly forbid or allow actions, period. As soon as you add flimsy wording to the guideline, you encourage fights between people who think it is okay to juggle the wording of comments around and people who think it is disruptive. The proposal should be to explicitly disallow interleaving. If interleaving absolutely needs to be done, there is IAR and explicit exceptions already mentioned.Holbach Girl (talk) 02:37, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
• Yes the guidance should discourage interleaving. What seems clear is that it cannot be stated when it would be of definite benefit -- so do not make an unclear guidance. I tend to think it would break up a users post and conflict with the clear WP:TPO "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page.". Ease of the next poster is not in doubt -- but will the first poster feel his text has been messed with and confused, and perhaps intentionally so ? Markbassett (talk) 00:52, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
• Yes - Summoned by bot. Interleaving should be discouraged but not necessarily punishable as an editor who does break up a conversion has good intentions - it just makes lengthy conversations much more difficult to follow. Meatsgains (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Couldn't the replying editor make judicious use of {{tq}} and paragraphs to highlight the specific points they are a replying to. For example:

Because A causes B, C. But D, therefore E and F. <editor 1 signature>

Because A causes B, C. No, this is completely wrong

But D, therefore E and F. I agree <editor 2 signature>

Of course, in a realistic discussion the quotes and responses would be longer. Sizeofint (talk) 04:09, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting breaking into a paragraph such as the post of editor 1 above, and agree that should be strongly discouraged if necessary (but it seems commonsense to me).

The usenet/fidonet convention referred to above (and still an integral part of many email clients and recognised by at least one of our own bots) is to intersperse between paragraphs, using one more level of indentation, and signing only the last of the added paragraphs. But it seems this is confusing to some, so it's been suggested that each paragraph needs a signature.

But I would have no objection to others replying inline to my first and second paragraphs above provided the convention is followed, in fact before this discussion I just assumed it was good and normal practice. Andrewa (talk) 06:53, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Examples

Several editors above have referred to their negative experiences of interleaving. It would be good to have actual examples. The only ones provided in the previous discussion were five very similar instances of which this is typical, and I agree it's a terrible edit, but it doesn't even remotely follow the convention as I understand it. Andrewa (talk) 07:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Here's one, although not the one I was referring to. The other was even more confusing due to creative use of indenting, but it's harder to locate.
In this example, who wrote the comments preceding each of JFG's comments? Was it one editor or multiple? How much of your life did you spend answering those questions? How long would it have taken you if you were a less experienced editor? Is this the only way JFG could have responded to the multiple points separately? No.
Bottom line: (1) Editors are conditioned to expect all text between consecutive signatures to be from the editor in the second signature, and that convention keeps things clean and simple. Readers' mental energy should be spent understanding the words, which is usually difficult enough by itself, not trying to reconstruct who said what. (2) Making copies of the other editor's signature would be an improper modification of their comments, since it would misrepresent their actions. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Why should the con interleaving side have to provide more than one example of bad interleaving when the pro interleaving side have failed to produce a single example of good interleaving? Is there an example of good interleaving in general discussion (not WP:FAC)? Actually, one example would not be enough because, per WP:IAR, this guideline does not need to allow interleaving if it is only rarely useful. Johnuniq (talk) 07:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

"How much of your life did you spend answering those questions?" is itself a key question here. I'd bet good money that the grand total of all time all editors have spent answering such a question on rare mangled threads like these examples is grossly exceeded by the amount of editorial productivity already squandered on discussion about it on this page just in the last few weeks. The closest thing to a new rule we need here would be ... actually, I'll just open it as an alternative proposal, below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

IMO this is already covered by WP:TALKO when it says "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning". As someone has pointed out, splitting a comment by another editor can be easily seen as a way of changing its meaning, since the editor posted everything together.

I think the guideline could contain advice in the opposite sense: if sometimes editors want their post to be interleaved by replies from others (e.g. in the question/answer scenario), they should make it splicit in the structure of the post, by laying it out in different subsections, either with bullet points or section headers. Many editors may not have thought of this possibility, and I believe it covers the case for which interleaving is useful. Diego (talk) 10:37, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

That's classic confusion of content and presentation, of function and form. I agree that TALKO already obviates most hand-wringing concerns about "interleaving", and demonstrates that we don't really need a new rule to address disruptive refactoring.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

When the original poster didn't think to do this, you shouldn't be interleaving comments in the middle of the post, anyway.

That's classic confusion of content and presentation - Human speech is not a formal languaje or program, the rules of design don't apply to it; meaning is inferred both from form and content. Diego (talk) 12:09, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Understanding the difference between them is not a rule of design, it's a basic reasoning tool. Korzybski wrote a lot about this, and it's worth reviewing (or see any overall work on general semantics).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:46, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Why should the con interleaving side have to provide more than one example of bad interleaving when the pro interleaving side have failed to produce a single example of good interleaving? [10] They don't. Nobody does. The goal of us all here is to work towards consensus. Consensus isn't actually a Wikipedia invention, it was arguably invented by the Platonic Socrates and it has been used by others since. But it would help if we had examples, both ways. That's all. I've provided an example of what I think is good interleaving but it has turned out to be controversial. Andrewa (talk) 13:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I think interleaving can be done well, but if you want an example of it being done badly, see this recent discussion. Bondegezou (talk) 11:31, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Agree that's a terrible mess. Andrewa (talk) 16:56, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Diego Moya: In this firehose of a thread, I missed your "if sometimes editors want their post to be interleaved by replies from others ..." ruminations, and agree. Some of us already do indicate if we actively want something to be interleaved upon reply, either by just saying something like you suggest, or by pre-splitting and signing material into micro-threads. I just did the latter the other day, in a template parameter overhaul discussion. Rather than post a "solid" bullet list of parameter line-items, I made each a separate post (though not a separate page-save) so each could be commented on (or ignored) as people saw the need. Editors are always free to do this. What many people commenting here want, though, is for it to be some kind of wiki-crime to touch in any way someone's horribly confounded post and make it parseable, and this is frankly an insanely bad idea. It's totally against our community norms, even if the need to do this is infrequent, and of course can always be BRDed. When it's done because it's needed it is rarely BRDed. The entire nature of this proposal is to decide that talk pages do not exist for collaboration or getting work done any more, but are records of individual creations of art and genius that are inviolable, short of them transgressing a policy like WP:NPA or WP:COPYVIO. This approach will itself violate multiple policies, including WP:OWN, WP:EDITING, WP:NOT#WEBHOST, and the WP:5PILLARS meta-policy (pillar 3), and arguably also WP's own CC licensing terms. It also turns the intent of WP:TPG on its ear, and effectively invalidates WP:REFACTOR (while a how-to, not a guideline per se, it's a central part of how WP has operated the entire time).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Here is an example of am absurdly disruptive case. This user has unusual levels of difficulty with organizing his thoughts and this is exactly why I think we need to discourage the practice. Of course it's not just the splitting of the post that's problematic, it's that subsequent formatting in a complex (or disjointed) situation turns it into an undecipherable mess, but I think that is part of the fundamental issue. Splitting up a post necessarily creates a break in the usual indentation-signature cues for what post starts where. And it doesn't take much to turn it into a pile of spaghetti. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

"This user has unusual levels of difficulty with organizing his thoughts" is a WP:COMPETENCE problem that can already be addressed; it's the opposite of a need for a new rule with likely wide-ranging negative consequences. For a user with competence problems, a new rule will not help, since they won't read, understand or obey it. This is a scenario of "We need a new rule because someone's not following the rules." Or "I got attacked on the street last Tuesday night. I wish there were a statute against night-time Tuesday assaults."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:45, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to add [this edit] as an example of why this practice should be actively discouraged. In this case, the editor responding to me actually emphasised certain phrases in the parts of the discussion he was responding to. I removed the emphases in my subsequent edits, and I absolutely assume it was all done in good faith, but it can be seen the interleaving worked hand-in-hand with the bold text to change the emphasis of my original discussion. Triptothecottage (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

We already have rules against changing emphasis and other content in others' posts (without really good reasons, like removing personal gross personal attacks). You're making an argument of the form "because fleas are bad, and dogs sometimes have fleas, we should kill all the dogs."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

Offer useful advice that actually reflects practice, instead of trying to force a new practice. Use wording familiar to everyone; reserve "interleaving", the meaning of which has been arguing about here for weeks, for a single line that directly addresses the particular (rare) behavior considered disruptive.

In summary (and presented as a detailed bullet list for easy examination – this could be markedly compressed, since WP:TALKO, etc., already address some of this):

• Split apart or otherwise refactor a previous comment only for good reason, when doing so is an aid to understanding and resolving the discussion.
• Properly attribute posts when doing so (e.g., copy-paste the original signature and date if a long comment is split into two shorter ones).
• Some examples of good reasons (if we need to include examples):
  • Separating unrelated questions or proposals into separate discussions.
  • {{Collapse}}-boxing material that is off-topic.
  • Redacting a personal attack found in the middle of a post, and leaving behind a note about the redaction.
  • Converting a confusing series of questions or points into a list, to aid editors' ability to follow and respond.
• If someone objects to their comment being refactored, do not editwar to maintain your change to it. (We probably don't need to say this; it's already inherent in TPG and BRD.)
• Avoid splitting or reformatting a post in a way that makes it difficult to read or understand, or that subverts the intent of the poster. (This is really already covered by TALKO)
• Some examples of poor reasons and approaches (if we need to include examples):
  • Interleaving point-by-point responses to various details (instead, you can sparingly use {{talkquote}} in your own reply).
  • Especially, attempting thereby to mock or to deny a voice to another editor (this is disruptive).
  • Attempting to derail a proposal by fragmenting it (also disruptive; you can make your own proposal).
  • Trying to replicate the threaded reply style of your favorite e-mail program or webboard (WP has its own discussion-formatting norms).

I think that should cover it. It also happens to accurately describe long-standing practice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

"Split apart or otherwise refactor a previous comment only for good reason, when doing so is an aid to understanding and resolving the discussion" is a problem. everybody who does this, no matter how disruptive, believes that they had a good reason and that doing it was an aid to understanding and resolving the discussion. I suggest "Nevar split apart or otherwise refactor a previous comment in order to insert your own comment" instead. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Regarding your alleged examples of good reasons:

Re: "{{Collapse}}-boxing material that is off-topic", that isn't interleaving, it is refactoring, and is already allowed per WP:TPOC

Re: "Redacting a personal attack found in the middle of a post, and leaving behind a note about the redaction", The only note you should leave behind in the middle of another editor's comment is "[redacted]". This is already allowed per WP:TPOC. There should be no interleaved comments about why you redacted it. If you feel a need to explain, post a note under the comment where you inserted the "[redacted]".

Re: "Separating unrelated questions or proposals into separate discussions", No. It is not for you to decide that another editor has combined unrelated questions or proposals and "fix" the comment. Instead, post your separated list below the original comment, using "Re:", as I have done here.

Re: "Converting a confusing series of questions or points into a list, to aid editors' ability to follow and respond", No. It is not for you to decide that another editor has posted a confusing series of questions or points. Make the list in your own comment, posted below the comment you are responding to. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

The collapseboxing I illustrated absolutely is interleaving, and yes it is permitted, and that's the entire, obvious point about why the RfC above is misguided.

Please cite the policy or guideline that prescribes that only and exactly "[redacted]" must be used. (Hint: this guideline itself disagrees.) Then go look at what people actually do when they redact.

It is indeed for any editor to make such a decision, per WP:REFACTOR and standard practice for 16 years. (And it's also any other editor;s prerogative to revert or question such a refactor; WP:BRD is a norm here for a reason.)

Ditto. I have no idea where you're getting this command-from-on-high shtick from, but it's pretty silly.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:33, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I like the general idea behind this proposal.

Unlike Guy, I think there are times when we need to split up long collections of unrelated things. I don't think that every rushed/inexperienced/drunk/thoughtless comment needs to be carefully preserved. A ban on interleaving would also make worklists much harder to manage. Consider a long list of pages or users that need to be processed that someone posts at ANI or WP:CCI. We'd be declaring it a violation of this guideline to mark off the ones that you checked or to leave an inline note that identifies the result, even if the most efficient result is to mark the items you've processed as  Done or  User blocked. In a list with more than a couple of items in it, "I cleaned up Example" is not nearly as efficient as marking the actual list item. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, the fallout of the self-selecting "you cain't touch muh posts" trainwreck above is going to be wide and far-reaching, with all sorts of pointless negative side-effects and fighting we can't even predict yet, unless whatever emerges from this is extremely carefully and narrowly written to only address the rare but actually disruptive practices people have legit concerns about. This is quite simply the collectively most boneheaded WP:SNOW I have ever seen in 12 years on WP; it's a groupthink/mobrule WP:SPITE case of people doing a reflexive kneejerk vote from emotion without thinking this through. As I've warned several times. But whatever. I'm just going to let this ride off the rails, and will laugh ruefully from a safe distance while it explodes and lights wildfires all over the wiki-countryside.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:39, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

That is pure evidence-free FUD. Everyone on this page knows that the fifth pillar means that anything which is useful is fine. That means good interleaving is good. However, I still have not seen anyone post a non-artificial example of good interleaving, other than for specialist cases such as WP:FAC. Johnuniq (talk) 03:15, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Hardly FUD. Read this actual discussion. It's full of outright denialism that good interleaving could possibly exist. The good example I posted in a section for it (and a contrasting bad example), before the RfC, is a fictionalized example of what I do regularly. It seemed much more politic to me than providing an actual diff that singles out someone else's post as a confused mess, just to use them as an example. (The fact that people have been doing this on this page as a form of public mockery actually raises some WP:CIVIL concerns.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:46, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I think interleaving is pretty common at GA reviews, too. I don't think that "specialist cases" really describes it.

And while we might like to hope that "everyone on this page knows" that IAR is still a policy, it has gotten harder to do that in reality. (Really: People cite MEDRS to revert additions that include citations to top-quality peer-reviewed research in highly reputable journals, and that guideline doesn't actually ban such sources. That kind of edit is not about what's best for the article; it's about Following The Rules.) And even if someone still thinks it's easy to do what's right for the project even if it contravenes some unimportant general rule, I think we can all agree that "everyone on this page" is a tiny fraction of "everyone", and that quite a lot of the people not on this page don't know which rules can and should be set aside under which circumstances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Of course GA reviews are special cases. The reason we don't interleave in the general case is that it beaks the relationship between a block of text and its attribution to a signed editor. In GA reviews (and similar), there is one reviewer whose list of comments are already incontrovertibly ascribed to them. Interleaving a list such as that does not break up the already obvious attribution of each point to the reviewer. However, you won't find GA reviews where the replies to the reviewer are themselves interrupted through interleaving by a third editor because that would cause the same sort of confusion that this guidance seeks to eliminate.

In brief, where the attribution of the original text is crystal clear, and the block of text is composed of a list of individual points, interleaving makes sense. Otherwise it should be strongly discouraged as rude, disruptive, and most importantly, thoughtless. --RexxS (talk) 12:13, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

[Addendum]: And while I'm here, a six-person pilot study can be published in a "top-quality peer-reviewed" journal like the Lancet, but it doesn't mean you can use it in Wikipedia to claim that a new miracle cure for cancer has been found. We have MEDRS for a Well Thought-out Reason™, not just to Follow Rules. --RexxS (talk) 12:20, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed on MEDRS, but the idea that all interleaving is "rude, disruptive, and most importantly, thoughtless" is just plain counterfactual. Those of us who do it (and, duhhh, preserve attribution while doing it) are doing it very carefully, to improve the conversation and help the original poster get the answers they want, and for clearly-thought-out reasons. Your characterization only applies to people being stupid or assholes. We all know the difference, and stupid assholery is already addressable by current remedial processes, ergo a new rule about this is CREEPY and ill-considered.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:28, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you preserve attribution without forging another editor's signature, but leave that aside for now. The real fact is that for every one person who might interleave (while preserving attribution) carefully, thoughtfully and for the best reasons, there are 999 stupid, careless, thoughtless arseholes who wouldn't know an attribution if it was rolled up and inserted into their jacksy. I think I'm prepared to inconvenience the former to save the rest of the encyclopedia from the latter. --RexxS (talk) 21:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

On the "forging" stuff, this was already addressed (search this page for "impersonate" and "SIGFORGE" for details). Copy-pasting the real sig so it remains attached to the material to which it pertains isn't forging a sig. Your 1:999 ratio hyperbole is silly. Andrewa and I have been asking again and again and again for proof, and all we've been offered is a tiny handful of cases that are either a) noobs used to emailer and webboard mode, who get disabused of randomly interleaving comments very, very quickly, and b) rare "gonna tear your post apart because I'm an asshole" disrupters, who can already be dealt with per WP:DE per long-extant process. This RfC is a solution in search of a problem, being supported primarily by people blindly in favor of a "hammer" rule, who don't understand the ramification; by people who want to see a very narrow and "light recommendation" version to reasonably address actual disruption (which I hope the closer understands is the real consensus that will emerge); and by "don't you dare touch my posts!" control freaks who know damned well what the costs of this will be and don't care as long as their ability to ego-stroke is protected.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Where are some examples of good interleaving? I do not want someone to break up my comments and post my signature under a fragment as if I had posted that fragment. Anyone interested in collaboration would understand that 27 yes responses versus 3 no means that interleaving should be avoided. Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Given the SNOW above, I'm not going to spend several hours digging up examples no one's going to look at. If you want some, search my own talk page for "refactor" and "split" in my own edit summaries and you'll seem many cases of it. Do the same at WT:MOS and other MOS subpages and you'll find more, though much further apart (usually months). It's not something anyone does every day. But it shouldn't be banned by people who get red in the face over the idea that their stunning and perfect talk page works of art do not belong to them but to the community like every single other thing on this site. As for the your smug assessment of the RfC above, actually read it. There is no monolithic, unqualified "yes", but a lot of very different opinions – many of them moderate, cautious, qualified, and urging both "only a suggestion" language and a limited scope of quasi-restraint, but in favor of saying "something" about it. It's not at all a sign of consensus for coming down hard on "interleaving" (which means multiple different things to different people). I trust the closer to see that and to close accordingly. When this inevitably comes back around for clarification after people wikilawyer other editors half to death over this stuff in a tedious WP:OWN manner – be that in a month or 6 or 18 – then I'll be happy to drop an enormous pile of diffs that prove my case, if it's not already self-evident. I'm not going to burn the rest of my night doing it now. I've already outlined enough cases, and illustrated an example one in great detail (the split out off-topic commentary, reply to it, and collapse-box it example), and pointed to where people can diff dig on their own if they're having such cognitive dissonance that – despite all this discussion, examples, and explanation of exactly when this sort of thing is useful – they willfully refuse to actually picture it in their heads without seeing it with their own eyes. It's not my job to deal with reality-denial that thick.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Finally an example

Have a look at this edit which interestingly took place at AN/I.

Now note that what we are interested in here is the form of stringing, not the merits of the argument. I find it very easy to understand the way in which this comment relates to the longish post to which it is a part reply, and have no problem seeing who the various authors are. And it's far more concise than any alternative yet suggested.

There will be many more examples over a period of time. It's not that common, but it's useful on occasions. Andrewa (talk) 06:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Are you offering that diff as an example of helpful interleaving? It might be better to find an example not by a now-indeffed user. A permalink showing the ANI section is here. The sixth paragraph starts "Please do not do this". The text beginning "if I wrote leverage" was inserted between the first and second paragraphs of the comment. That text interferes with the original comment, making it harder to see the point and harder to see who-wrote-what. Copying signatures would be misleading as it would make it appear that the author offered the first point as a complete comment. The problems are not severe as the interleaved text is very short. It would be much worse with longer text, or if people replied to the interleaving. Johnuniq (talk) 07:12, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

No way is it helpful interleaving. MfortyoneA (talk · contribs) dropped their post into the middle of Bonadea's post causing the preceding paragraph to be misattributed; if placing at the end of the thread was unsuitable, they should have put the reply after the entire Bonadea post. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

And this is exactly the issue. I can't for the life of me see how this edit made the first paragraph misattributed. The only explanation yet offered for this failure to interpret a very simple and explicit convention is that one user (it may even have been you) uses speedreading on talk pages.

My only objection to your method is that it makes already long and complex discussions longer and more complicated... and for those of us who don't use speedreading on talk pages, harder to follow the threads. But it's a strong objection, and there's no significant upside I can see. Andrewa (talk) 17:22, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

It made the previous paragraph unattributed. It doesn't matter one jot how short the interleaving is, because (following normal conventions) other editors may add replies directly below that interleaving, adding any amount of extra text. One of them may decide to outdent, and yet another may insert a sub-heading like "Arbitrary break". Eventually the unattributed paragraph may become detached from its signature by an arbitrarily large amount of text, and that once again leaves readers scrabbling around the page history to see who wrote that unattributed paragraph. Far from being an example of "useful" interleaving, it is merely yet another example of a practice that is rude, disruptive and thoughtless. It needs to be strongly discouraged. --RexxS (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The attribution is quite obvious to me, but you're saying that you (and some others) have difficulty following it, even in this simple example, and that is certainly something to take in to account.

Hypothetically, if other users answer the reply, it could indeed eventually be separated by an arbitrarily large amount of text. But that's not just a problem with interleaving, it's a problem with stringed discussions generally. My post of 17:32, 2 October 2017, below, is being separated from the post to which it replies by an increasing amount of text. In a complex discussion, the strings get complex. The question is just how to best structure them so as to make them most intelligible. Some commonsense is required, and we will never all be happy with the conventions used.

But thanks for the contribution. I'm sorry that you see the example as rude, disruptive and thoughtless. I think you're being a bit harsh there, but it's important that we hear all opinions on the matter. Andrewa (talk) 21:57, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I am offering that diff as an example of helpful interleaving.

Agree that It might be better to find an example not by a now-indeffed user. And I'll keep looking, as I said, and I expect we will gradually gather them. It's not all that common, as the failure of both sides to quickly provide examples demonstrates.

I note that the paragraph six you quote reads (in part) Please do not do this ever again. Adding an emphasis to somebody else's post is a form of changing the meaning of that post - maybe it is what the original poster intended, maybe not, but the only relevant thing is that if the poster didn't choose to add emphasis, nobody else should either (certainly not without clearly stating that they have done so). The longer quote rather changes the meaning, and I think your more selective quotation above is misleading.

But what is relevant here is, how does the interleaving in the example I gave facilitate or hinder following the discussion? I think it makes it clearer what is going on, particularly when it becomes an archived discussion, and that the alternatives so far offered only make it harder and more time-consuming to read the thread correctly. And this is true whether or not we agree with what the writer is saying, or whether they were rightly blocked for other reasons.

You say The problems are not severe as the interleaved text is very short. No, the problems are non-existent in this example. You speculate It would be much worse with longer text, or if people replied to the interleaving. Examples? I'll keep them coming. Suggest you do too. Andrewa (talk) 17:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Even this very simple example shows an obvious problem with interleaving - the first paragraph being responded to is left unsigned. This is a case where you would have to do some "speedreading" yourself to make sense of it if you were reading straight through otherwise you wouldn't know who had written the first paragraph when reading it and the reply - you have to scan down to find the signature below. Further if the signature were forged - I mean copied to the first paragraph - the intent of "But this" in the second paragraph would be obscured without analyzing the timestamps of the replies. Regarding your suggestion, and assertion with the section heading of "finally an example", several cases of bad interleaving were already offered in your examples section above. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

It seems another very good example from that point of view... it's good interleaving and we're not likely to find better, IMO. I note your edit summary dead horse... yes, this RfC seems likely to be closed as consensus to do something to discourage interleaving.

But I'm hoping that examples like this will clarify exactly what is to be discouraged and how, and how strongly. Despite the ANI discussion and subsequent indef, this particular interleaving didn't draw any criticism that I can see at the time.

What we most need is third-party examples of disputed interleaving... ones that users of interleaving (such as myself) see as good, and opponents of the practice see as bad. This seems to me to be the best yet.

The examples of bad interleaving given by the opponents so far have all been undisputed. They've been appalling edits for reasons other than the interleaving. Andrewa (talk) 18:45, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Andrewa it seems to me very obvious who wrote the first paragraph, but to address you concern User:DIYeditor would you object to the person who interleaves such a comment copying the signature from the end of the block (now the second paragraph) to the newly terminated first paragraph? In which case the author of the first paragraph would be explicitly stated, but it has the disadvantage of making it look like the division into two paragraphs was intentional. Another option would, like the start of bullet points in an RfC, to add an initial word in bold eg Interjection, Insertion or Comment or some other word in bold to be agreed (and placed in a guideline) so it is explicit that the comment was in an interjection?

That specific conversation that Andrewa highlighted is now archived, and in that case the comment could have directly followed the posting as no other comment did. But let us suppose that someone wished to comment on a comment on the paragraph that Andrewa wrote at the start of this sub-thread that is nothing to do with anything in this sub-thread. Let us take the paragraph that starts: "I note that the paragraph" as an example. Is it any more clear to add the comment after this one with an indentation of ":::" quoting the whole paragraph again or to interject directly under the paragraph to which the comment is attached. An alternative is of course to describe it as "paragraph 3 of Andrewa 17:32, 2 October 2017" with or without a link to an {{anchor}}, but is that really a more elegant solution than simply interjecting a comment? Or suppose you (User:DIYeditor) reply below here to something I have said in this paragraph but someone wants to comment on the first paragraph of this posting if you have used six "::::::" is it clear for them to add a level six comment after yours about my first paragraph or to insert a comment between my paragraphs? OR is it forget about clarity "rules is rules" and as I did not sign the first paragraph no-one should ever ever interject a comment between them? -- PBS (talk) 11:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

It may seem fairly obvious in this case but it's a very simple example; what of a situation with multiple interjections between several paragraphs (3, 4, 8?) with multiple subsequent replies to each? I think it leads to a mess. As to signing, if the first paragraph in the example is signed by copying the signature and new comments are inserted between, what would "But this" in the beginning of the second paragraph be taken to mean? To make any sense of it you'd have to analyze (compare) the timestamps of the separate signatures and see they're the same and make the inference that they were originally part of a single post. I think that leads to confusion and more work for the reader. And yes I object on the grounds that it implies it was intended as a single or separate post by the author and that the author left the timestamp. As far as whether to insert new comments directly below ones you're replying or at the bottom of the page, I would have to gauge the chances of the comment being lost in the shuffle and decide whether to put it immediately below or at the bottom of the page with a brief {{tq}} of the first few words, or other reference to it, and with the appropriate corresponding indentation. To me either approach is valid. If someone after me wants to respond to your first paragraph only I would say that yes the appropriate way is to place the comment after mine by quoting or referencing the material. What does it matter whether they are responding to the first paragraph alone or your whole post? If I have replied to your post as a whole and it is broken up by someone else subsequently, how would a reader make sense of what my post is responding to (unless I've made it very clear)? The context would be split and obscured. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Very interesting comments. First things first. It may seem fairly obvious in this case but it's a very simple example... exactly. Now, what made this example more difficult to follow? I have no trouble with it. But others do. Do you? Andrewa (talk) 08:25, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

1. Some editors indent within their own comment, either as a mistake or for some reason that makes sense to them. Coming to the discussion cold, how can a reader know whether the first part of your insertion was written by Thnidu?
2. You didn't sign the first part. This is supposed to make things clearer? If you had signed it, point 1 would apply with the change of "Thnidu" to "you". The bottom line is that indentation is far too unreliable as an indicator of change-of-speaker—especially considering that change-of-speaker does not always increase indent level, per WP:THREAD.
3. As for I have no trouble with it, I can only shake my head in dismay. This discussion is not about whether an interleaving creates a potential problem for he who does it. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:04, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Added interleaving text to the guideline

Per the #RfC: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? #2 discussion above (a permalink for it is here), I added interleaving text to the guideline with this edit. Editors have previously argued over whether to use "Generally, you should not" or "Do not." Per the RfC's close, I went with "Generally, you should not." But editors are obviously free to further discuss the wording, as suggested by the closer. I personally see no need to discuss this topic much more than we already have. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:41, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

That looks good, thanks. Johnuniq (talk) 23:14, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Even looks good to me, as one of the principal opponents of this WP:CREEP. The wording in it is accurate even my from my perspective, even if it's not actually necessary to preserve order at all. It likely won't do anything practical, since it's an observation of the usual, not a prohibition, so someone who disruptively interleaves will still feel empowered to do it, and you'll still have to invoke the same drama/DR process(es) to stop them. But if the addition assuages the anxieties of "don't you dare touch my posts" people and gets them to go back to something more productive than wringing their hands about it loudly for weeks on end, I'm quite happy with this language.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:07, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

When I ask someone to not break up my posts, they listen, even though one person has forgotten not to do it in the future. A simple reminder is fine in such cases. Pointing a person to this aspect of the guideline is more incentive to not break up the posts, and editors generally adhere to guidelines and policies once pointed to them. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:46, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Should our guidance still say don't create empty talk pages?

It appears to me that it's normal practice to create a talk page when creating an article. Why are we advising editors not do to this, and not to add headers if the page is empty? This seems to make it harder for new editors to comment on an article. Doug Weller talk 16:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I thought a talk page was created automatically when an article was created. No? Blueboar (talk) 17:42, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

No. isaacl (talk) 17:48, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I think a page with a {{Talk header}} is a lot more user friendly than an empty page, which begs for the common no-section-heading first post from a novice user. In fact I would almost expect this to be automatically inserted because of the useful instructions and links it has, if Wikipedia did things like that automatically. I assume there was some reasoning behind adding this guidance at some point? If not I would suggest the opposite advice be given. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:05, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. This advice has been wrong since ca. the mid-2000s, after the advent of wikiproject banners. PS: We should not advice putting {{Talk header}} on things without good reason; that huge, annoying template is for highly contentious talk pages that attract flaming and noobs, e.g. Talk:Donald Trump.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:43, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Mass posting

Wikipedia:Mass message senders#Audience says: "Mass messages should only be sent to groups of users who are likely to want their attention drawn to the message." m:MassMessage is a special tool but manual mass posting has the same effect so I suggest a similar addition to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#User talk pages:

"A message should only be sent to a group of users if they are likely to want their attention drawn to the message. See also Wikipedia:Mass message senders#Guidance for use."

I come after seeing DoctorWho42 post this to around 250 users: "Hey! I saw that you edited the article Black Mirror and thought maybe you would be interested in this new user category I created?" It was for example posted to AnemoneProjectors who made a single minor AWB edit in 2012 [11] and hasn't heard of Black Mirror.[12] I haven't edited the article and wasn't posted myself but mass posting like this is likely to waste a lot of editor time for practically no benefit (the category got 3 members). PrimeHunter (talk) 17:54, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

It probably shouldn't have been sent as a MassMessage to that audience. A message targeted to significant contributors to the article would have been better. I received the message and only made one (non-recent) vandalism revert. — JJMC89 (T·C) 19:22, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Meh... It’s easy enough to simply ignore mass messages you don’t care about (if you don’t want them “cluttering” up your talk page - just delete them. I routinely “blank” my talk page... deleting messages once I have read them). Blueboar (talk) 19:47, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I figured maybe anyone who edited the article Black Mirror might be a fan and the fastest way to help populate the new user category would be a direct message on the user's talk page? I'm fine with refraining from the practice, but I was hoping to do the same with individual episodes like "Fifteen Million Merits" or "San Junipero". I'm open to alternatives?-🐦Do☭torWho42 (⭐) 00:30, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

No, you don't need to spam hundreds of talk pages in order to expand a user category. There is absolutely no need. If you wish to recruit people to expand new articles that might have edited similar pages, then I suggest you use existing tools and pick a few people who have already expanded similar pages. That being said, I support this proposal. Nihlus 00:38, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

wow, thanks @Nihlus:! this should definitely help me way more to recruit fans to their fandoms. 😎-🐦Do☭torWho42 (⭐) 00:50, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Dispute over archiving

I'm in a dispute with DanielPenfield over whether (and how) old discussion should be archived on a page that is far smaller than what I see as the common size for archiving talk page discussions. Please comment at Talk:Triangular trade#Archiving of 12 year old discussions. Graham87 10:20, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Non-free images

While the majority of non-free content used on Wikipedia seems to be images, there are audio files, etc. also being used. So, it might be a good idea to tweak WP:TPG#Non-free images to "WP:TPG#Non-free files" or "WP:TPG#Non-free content" and revise the wording of that paragraph accordingly. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:27, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Good point, but I think it might be better to create a new anchor for that. Thinker78 (talk) 08:00, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

IP-hopping talk page removal

There is an IPV6 editor (who apparently has an account, but has decided to edit some articles while logged out) who used a specific IP to add a comment to Talk:List of Christian rock bands‎‎. Two different addresses, each claiming to be the same editor, has tried to remove the comment. I am interpreting WP:TPO as being the same address, not just the same ISP or geolocation and same IP range, and apparently so is another editor. I recognize WP:OWN is reserved for specific environments, but is this a possible extension? I could see ignoring it because V6 addresses change so frequently, but I just want to know if the editors of the guideline have comments or advice. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:13, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Working at Wikipedia requires a fair bit of common sense. The situation is that one IP address added a comment that is not critical to the discussions, and another similar IP address removed it soon after with an entirely plausible edit summary. How does the encyclopedia benefit by reverting the second IP? The fact is that IPs are people and are allowed to edit. Actually, IPs are encouraged to edit—it's how many of us started. Please revert your revert and leave the IP alone. And no, there is no need to edit the guideline. Johnuniq (talk) 21:38, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Help me

Collapsing this since discussion has been moved to editor's talk page as suggested

I've come across an editor who is repeatedly reverting my edits, deletes my comments (in violation of WP:TPO), and refuses to acknowledge my comments or have a conversation on their talk page or the article talk page and instead just deletes the comments. Does anyone know what recourse I can take for this? Thank you — Tha†emoover†here (talk) 17:39, 9 May 2018 (UTC) Hi Thatemooverthere. We can't really make editors communicate with us or engage in discussion when they don't want to; moreover, for the most part, they are allowed to remove posts or blank their user talk page per WP:BLANKING. At the same time, it is assumed that if they remove a post or blank their user talk page that they have read and understand everything posted on it; in other words, choosing not to respond does not mean they can claim that innocence later on if their editing is problematic. All you can do is properly notify them of issues and attempt to discuss things with them to resolve these issues. If the issues persist and the editor is not listening, then you can bring the matter up for discussion at the appropriate noticeboard. The other editor, however, should not be removing your posts from Talk:Cannibal Corpse without providing a very good reason policy or guideline based reason for doing so. If they remove your article talk page posts again, just bring the matter up for discussion at WP:ANI. One thing I noticed is that it appears the editor is using WP:TWINKLE. Since they are still a new editor, they might not be familiar with how Twinkle works and when it should be used. This does not mean they are not responsible for any mistakes they make using Twinkle, but it might also indicate that they misunderstand WP:NOTVANDAL and just made a good-faith error here. -- Marchjuly (talk) 20:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC) Thanks for giving this ed a detailed answer, however I would have put it on their user talk page and just left a link to the thread here. This talk page should be for discussiing these guidelines, rather than mentoring or fielding complaints or doing WP:DR. But again, thanks for addressing this eds cry for help. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:47, 10 May 2018 (UTC) Good point NewsAndEventsGuy. Moving it there per your suggestion and collapsing this discussion. If I messed up the formatting, feel free to correct. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:23, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

wt:citation needed and talk pages

There is discussion in wt:citation needed about the use of {{cn}} in talk pages. Some has to do with adding {{cn}} to other editor's comments on talk pages. It would seem that there might be some cases where it would be a good idea, but could be against the general recommendation against editing other's talk entries. Would it be reasonably to specifically allow adding {{cn}} to talk pages? For now, I am leaving out discussion about when it would be appropriate or needed. Gah4 (talk) 23:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The very limited exceptions allowing editing others' comments are limited for good reason. Cn tags exist to allow cite problems to be tagged relatively unobtrusively in articles. No such need applies to discussions, where in fact disagreement should be explicit and detailed. EEng 23:30, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, it should be explicit and detailed in articles too, but often isn't. Too often I can't figure out which part it applies to. (At the end of a sentence with multiple statements.) It is suggested to discuss {{cn}} in the talk page, but most people don't. Also, talk pages sometimes have parts of articles to be discussed and fixed, before moving back to the article page. Gah4 (talk) 00:55, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Nah... don’t use the tag on the talk page. There is no need. If you would like a source for something, just ASK (for example: “Above, you said ‘XYZ’. Got a source for that?”)... Or you can use a less challenging tone (for example: “Above, you said ‘XYZ’. I would love to read more about that. Could you point me to some reliable sources?”). Blueboar (talk) 01:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Since I don't have a good example, I so far agree. I suspect though, if I was reading it, I would be more likely look up something with the tag, than without, same as for articles. That is, one could mention a need for a citation on a talk page without the tag, and I would probably not tend to look one up. Gah4 (talk) 01:56, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

• Why is this being discussed here instead of at wt:citation needed#Is citation needed meant to be used in talk pages also? See WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

is it acceptable for an editor to erase someone's post because it wasn't indented the way they wanted it to be?

User_talk:Dream_Focus#Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Editing_others'_comments I have someone arguing with me, denying they did anything wrong. Confirm please you can not erase someone's post because it wasn't indented how you wanted it and you claim someone might somehow get confused. The offending edits are [13] and [14] Dream Focus 21:09, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Personally, I'd be inclined to either fix the indent myself—and risk being taken to task for changing someone else's post, especially if I misread what post they were replying to—or leave a note on their talk page asking them to fix it themselves. Another approach might be to place a note under the offending post, pinging the user who didn't indent properly and specifically asking them to remove the note when they fix it. Removing the whole post is a little over the top, sure, but it doesn't seem like a huge deal unless they make a habit of it; everybody is entitled to exercise bad judgment once in a while. You've made them aware of your disapproval, the post has been restored, so what's left to say? Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 22:25, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree deletion was a poor choice in this instance. See also WP:REFACTOR NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:24, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

it's a bit rude on a user talk page and inadmissible anywhere else. WP:REFACTOR appears to be perfectly clear and precise. Maintaining the correct levels of indenting is quite appropriate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:03, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

What Kudpung said.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:42, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Excessive all-caps shortcuts

Can an excessive use of shortcuts which are written in all-caps be considered shouting? If so, how much? wumbolo ^^^ 16:25, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Its sort of a leading question, as you have injected your own opinion into the question via the word "excessive". That's meant as constructive NPOV feedback. The important thing is.... who knows? We would be able to give better answers with an example of where you think it is a problem. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Examples required, please. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:44, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Generally, no. If someone really needs to cite 18 policy sections, it's kinder to do that with shortcuts than with full-length page titles. The odds that it is needed are low, but there is no policy against being hyperbolic or a "rules person"; it's just tedious. More of a WP:JERK matter than anything else. There can also be WP:BITE considerations; newer users don't know what all that gibberish means and peppering them with a shotgun blast of WIKronyms is off-putting. This is one of the reasons I routinely replace crap like [[WP:BLP1E|notable for one event]] with [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Subjects notable only for one event|notable for one event]] in actual guideline, policy, and non-userspace essay text. These pages are mostly intended for recent recruits; when they hover over the links, they should see something that's parseable by them. Shortcuts exist for experienced editors' talkpage and URL-bar convenience.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:50, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

User talk page deletion

Are we addressing anywhere the idea that user talk pages should not be deleted (either upon request or by an admin deleting their own talk page), because it effectively destroys much of their interaction record (for everyone but the few with the power to examine deleted material)? It can make it difficult to prove various things at WP:ANI, WP:AE, WP:RFARB, WP:ARCA, etc. This is even a more serious consideration than it sounds at first, because AE in particular has been known to issue boomerang sanctions in the case of a claim/accusation that isn't diffed, yet a real event (warning, etc.) may not be diffable except by a subset of the admin user group.

I don't find this addressed here or at WP:DELETION. The pseudo-section at TPG titled "Archive—don't delete" seems like it should, but is actually talking about removing thread content from an extant page, not deleting an entire page (and doesn't even apply to user talk anyway).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:43, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

What about "User talk pages and user talk archives created by page move are generally not deleted; they are usually needed for reference by other users." Isn't that sufficient? The quoted text is from WP:User pages in a section called 'Deletion of user talk pages'. EdJohnston (talk) 00:58, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I guess that helps dissuade users from {{db-user}}'ing their own talk pages or otherwise seeking deletion, but is very wishy-washy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

The TPG, under WP:OWNTALK, now says in part -

Although archiving is preferred, users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages. * * * User talk pages are almost never deleted, although a courtesy blanking may be requested.

The DELTALK wikilink in the quote goes to the part that Ed already quoted in this thread.

Have these provisions proven insufficient for whatever inspires the question, SmcCandlish? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:32, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, yes, or I wouldn't've brought it up.  :-) The thing is, the page doesn't instruct admins not to delete their own talk pages. I've encountered that habit at least twice when trying to diff something. [I decline to get into the details since the disputes are stale, and in one case it would be "gravedancing" about a former admin who got blocked then quit.] There's no active dispute in which I have a concern about it right now; I just got my memory joggled about the occasional problem while trying to trace the history of changes and discussion/disputes about them at a guideline page, and it led back to one of those admins' nuked talk pages and thus to a dead end.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:34, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

That's interesting. The premise of being granted admin/beuacrat/etc superpowers is, or at least should be, a record on which the community can rely for placing trust and faith in that person. As a price of admission, talk page deletion by these folks should simply be prohibited, period. After their superpowers expire, then they should be treated like any other editor. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:39, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. It's basically a double reason admins should not be allowed to delete their own talk pages: a) WP:ADMINACCT requires admins to be accountable, and hiding dispute about their actions impedes the ability of the community to ensure that accountability, and b) if they become a non-admin later, they should not have the "benefit" of having nuked their talk history when that would not have been available to some other random editor.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:59, 22 June 2018 (UTC)