Wikipedia talk:Perennial proposals/Archive 2

Archive 1Archive 2

National varieties of English

There are dozens of articles that use colour and color, honour and honor, etc. Help:Using colours uses colour 44 times and color 27 times, and the spelling differences exist peacefully within the same article. They don't even argue or edit-war. Honor Guard also is an excellent example. The last time I looked at it, there were several infoboxes that used honor for a country that uses honour. I do not know how to change that. I am best at spelling and grammar. The ENGVAR issue is slowly resolving itself. Most of the colour/color articles use both varieties of spelling. My recommendation would be to get rid of the British flag/American flag on the Discussion page. Makes me cringe each time I see it because it looks like ownership. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 08:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you'e proposing. Is it to do away with ENGVAR because it's not being followed? To apply it more programmatically so that it's being used consistently? I won't common on the "flags on the discussion page" point, since I'm delivering a neutral notice about a related RfC below.

Anyone interested (pro or con) in what User:Tiyang said above will probably want to weigh in at WT:Manual of Style#Proposal to deprecate Template:English variant notice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

USPLACE

The most recent in a long series of unsuccessful proposals to change WP:USPLACE was followed in March by a conditional moratorium in which the administrative closer said, "consider this another perennial proposal." Would it be appropriate to consider it for formal inclusion in the list? Proposals to apply minimum disambiguation to USPLACE have certainly been long-running and unsuccessful; at the same time I'm sure there are many things that get repeatedly discussed and rejected, and not all may fit the list. Either way, I just wanted to raise it and get others' thoughts. ╠╣uw [talk] 23:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Finally resolved issues

What are these? We should list them on this page. There might be some lessons about how to solve vexing problems. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:14, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

A bit late but seconded. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:10, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Add the MOS FAQ points

The perennials listed at WT:Manual of Style/FAQ should probably be added here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:04, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Forgot about this. Given that no one's objected, I'll work on it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:33, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:FLOW

As WP:FLOW work seems to be discontinued, shouldn't the references to FLOW be changed from "FLOW is expected to affect ...." to "FLOW would have affected ...."? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Social media buttons

It may be of interest to readers of this page that I have started an idea lab discussion regarding social media buttons. Sam Walton (talk) 13:18, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Move maintenance tags to talk pages

see also Wikipedia_talk:Perennial proposals/Archive 1#Move maintenance tags to talk pages (October 2010)

I have re-written the section to state that there is no genera consensus over maintenance templates.

Prior to my edit it stated "*Reasons for previous rejection: Every reader is a potential editor and the maintenance tags give potential editors ideas of how to improve an article." this is clearly untrue. It is much more accurate to say There is no consensus on this issue. I have also highlighted what is to the best of my knowledge the only major RfC to take place over this issue Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 108#Proposal to move the Orphan tags to the talk page in the last quarter of 2013. If anyone knows of any other large scale RfC (say involving 20 or more people) then please add then to this section. -- PBS (talk) 11:06, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit, with the exception of the added link to the orphan tag RFC. It seems to me that you are coming perilously close there to trying to water down the wording that is counter to your own minority POV that tags should be moved to talk pages. I also see you tried to so this same sort of thing here a few years ago and were reverted then too. Anomie⚔ 00:02, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
@User:Anomie what is your evidence that the current wording is accurate? -- PBS (talk) 08:13, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Consensus last time seems to support the current wording. It seems to me that you're trying to define "large scaled RfC" to exclude almost every past past discussion so that you can cast doubt on the fact that the community has consistently rejected such proposals. Anomie⚔ 18:48, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
@User:Anomie. You say "community has consistently rejected such proposals"
  1. What do you mean by "community?"
  2. If "consistently [rejected]" then how do you explain away the Orphan RfC?
  3. If rejected then you will have examples where there has been rejection as opposed to no consensus. Please list some with links to the archive or diffs.
-- PBS (talk) 12:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


Please give some linkgive diffs or links to RfCs where there has been "rejection" as opposed to no consensus. -- PBS (talk) 12:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Automated Hostbot welcome messages

Some time after I started editing Wikipedia recently, I received an 'invitation to the Teahouse' on my talk page from Hostbot. I'm not taking a stance for or against these automated notifications, but they are very similar to a welcoming bot. I also received welcome notifications when I joined, and when I made my first and tenth edits. Worth a mention in the welcoming bot section? Teratix (talk) 11:09, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Spinning out the core admin tools (blocks, deletion, protection)

Probably deserves a section on here. I know there's an essay around talking about these three as the three core tools. --Izno (talk) 17:30, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Izno The existing Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Hierarchical structures would seem to cover it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:19, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
Am blind. Thanks! --Izno (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

US places

The section on US place names currently addresses proposals to loosen WP:USPLACE so "unambiguous" place name articles no longer carry the state name (e.g. changing Missoula, Montana to Missoula. I think it should also address proposals to make the convention stricter and apply it to all or most articles. Every now and then, someone proposes a title like "New York, New York" or "Chicago, Illinois". I think the usual arguments are that all place names are inherently ambiguous or that there are historical or sociopolitical reasons for a stricter comma convention, such as maintaining the federal character of the United States. How about this?

State name in US place names

  • Proposals:
    • Change WP:USPLACE (the "comma convention") to remove the state from the titles of articles about unambiguously-named US places. Example: Missoula, Montana → Missoula.
    • Make the "comma convention" stricter: require the state name in all or most titles, even widely recognized cities with unambiguous names. Example: Denver → Denver, Colorado.
  • Reasons for previous rejection:
    • Reliable sources commonly append the state to US place names, but do so less often for widely recognized places.
    • Appending the state name for lesser-known cities, and omitting it for major cities, is common usage and sufficiently natural that it may be considered part of American English.
    • Repeated or otherwise ambiguous place names are very common in the US; a majority would require disambiguation regardless of WP:USPLACE. Appending the state produces a consistent and predictable set of titles.
    • Not disambiguating by state would affect the titles of articles about places in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Ireland, where disambiguation is not common (see for example Manchester, England; and Manchester, New Hampshire).
    • Including the state makes it clear that the article is about a US municipality, which can be helpful with lesser known places.
    • Twenty-nine significant US cities do not carry the state name per AP style. In the early days of Wikipedia, all US place names carried the state name; even the New York City article was at "New York, New York". When the state was removed from a few major cities' article titles, contentious move request discussions and page move wars arose. After years of discussion, consensus finally arose to use the AP Stylebook as a reference, and to limit the removal of the state name only to those cases.

Any suggestions? szyslak (t) 04:34, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm in favor of returning to a strict "city, state" format for all US place names. You mention "widely recognized cities with unambiguous names" and give Denver as an example where the "city, state" formation is not needed, but Denver is NOT an unambiguous place name in the US (see Denver, North Carolina among others). --Khajidha (talk) 12:06, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Perennial proposals which succeeded

The top of page alludes to the fact that some perennial proposals have succeeded. Are there examples? Would it be of interest to add a footnote with links to at least a couple of them? -sche (talk) 17:46, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Based on my observation of thousands of refimprove templates, inline citations are a de facto standard. I find it laughable that this is still in "perennial proposals", and think that what's become a joke should be removed. RobDuch (talk) 23:06, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Voluntary account verification

I think that this has probably been intensely debated before, but i was unable to find a relevant discussion, and hence this discussion. What my proposal is; that users who want to have their accounts verified should be allowed to do so (like Citizendium). If they want to contribute anonymously, they can just sign out and do so. One benefit i can think of is that contributers with knowledge in technical topics such as natural sciences, engineering etc can be identified and their contributions can be easily idetified as reliable. Any reccomendations and counter arguments are welcome. :) SarthakKas1 (talk) 11:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed blanking - not worth listing?

In the "Deleted pages should be visible" section, one of the "See also" items listed is WP:Proposed blanking.

I do not think this is worth mentioning, since it does not appear to have ever been a serious proposal; a user since banned appears to have created the page by find-and-replacing the word "deletion" with "blanking" in WP:Proposed deletion. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 23:57, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I wonder why you didn't send that page to MFD all those years ago. As for it being here, it's not necessarily a bad example of the "let me see deleted stuff, too!" line of thinking. The original proposer says on its talk page that part of the motivation is that it hurt his pride to have to ask for a WP:REFUND from an admin when he wanted to see a deleted article, instead of being able to do everything himself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:03, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Should implementing Extension:Variables be included on the list?

The MediaWiki Extension Variables is not installed on any of the Wikimedia wikis. Apparently it causes problems with other extensions, but I want a more detailed explanation, even if it is not suitable to be placed in the Perennial proposals page. JsfasdF252 (talk) 16:02, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

If you want a better explanation, here definitely is not the place... --Izno (talk) 20:29, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Edit summaries

I find the supposed reasons not to make edit summaries mandatory to be pretty absurd. Are they really supported by a widespread consensus? To comment briefly on them:

  1. forcing (or reminding) users to enter edit summaries may annoy them enough they will not save their (possibly constructive) edits.
    • I find this completely implausible. If there is anybody out there at all who would rather throw away their edit than add a brief edit summary explaining what they changed, then I doubt that what they were adding was in any way worthwhile.
  2. Forcing users to type something in the edit summary box does not mean that they will provide accurate, honest, or useful edit summaries.
    • True, but if asked to provide an accurate, honest and useful edit summary, what percentage of users will do so? I would be very sure that it would be the overwhelming majority. WP:AGF and all.
  3. Manually added edit summaries also suppress the automatic edit summaries.
    • Can't see how this is an argument not to require edit summaries
  4. Blank edit summaries are a good way to spot possible vandalism.
    • Blank edit summaries are so common that this is no way at all to spot possible vandalism.

Myself, I see no convincing reason at all for edit summaries to be optional. I find it discourteous and arrogant for anyone to think that they do not need to explain what they are doing (if anyone really thinks that). If you make a change to an article, it is no burden at all to explain what you did. It requires no thought and very little time. So are there some substantial reasons that I have not thought of, that are more convincing than those given, for edit summaries not to be obligatory? 46.208.236.129 (talk) 11:36, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Automatic Semi-protection of TFA's

I was reading through the page and noticed that the part about automatic protection of TFA's needing an update. I dug and found a RfC that was closed in favor of a trial for semi-protection of TFAs, but then checked the protection logs of a few articles in September and October 2021 (RfC was closed at the end of August 2021) and it seems to never have been implemented by anybody. I thought here was a good place to note its non-implementation. —Danre98(talk^contribs) 20:16, 29 July 2022 (UTC)