On 9/6/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Since the spoiler warning templates were removed but the material they were labeling was left in, the analogy breaks down a bit. Deleting the trivia section template doesn't mean deleting trivia sections themselves.
Exactly. I have no problem with sections which may contain spoiler or trivia content, but the corresponding "warning" templates are ridiculous, and I'd be happier if both templates were permanently retired.
On 9/7/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think you over-estimate how much of the removal of the spoiler templates was done in an automated manner. I know that a fairly good proportion were done with a simple tabbed browser.
Obviously not all indiscriminate edits are automated and not all automated edits are indiscriminate. If somebody removes entire sections from several articles without evaluating their content, they might as well be running a bot.
The same goes for something as simple as removing the spoiler warning templates. At the end of the day, nobody cares whether somebody is running a bot or just wearing out their mouse, if the guiding principle is "this template should not be used" rather than "this template identifies sections which should be scrapped in their entirety".
—C.W.