And Jimmy, you were saying that Cunctator was excessively interested in consensus?

Zoe

 james duffy <jtdirl@hotmail.com> wrote:

The Cunctator has begun renaming the articles on slogans to remove the form
[[Slogan: . . . ]] which had been used by general agreement. However he
argued that no compromise was likely therefore he went and began renaming
everything unilaterally. So we need to find some sort of agreement rather
than have The Cunctator unilaterally deciding wiki policy. Otherwise we
will have endless endless renaming wars.

I propose we use the form [[Slogan: . . . ]] rather than the alternative [[
. . . (slogan)]].

1. Some people complained about how we don't say [[Book: . . . ]] or [[Film:
. . . ]] and that therefore putting in slogan was wrong. I disagree. A
slogan is by definition POV. Used without qualification, particularly if the
slogan is politically controversial, rascist, homophobic, or derogatory to
some people's religious, ethnic of cultural origins, can cause offence or
appear to be endorsing the POV in the slogan. The use of the word slogan in
the title is necessary to distance wiki from the slogan message as it would
appear on the list or on google. Doing that would NPOV it by drawing
attention to the fact that we are merely repeating a slogan, not expressing
one.

2. Putting it in brackets at the end of the line could cause problems if a
slogan is long, for the '(slogan)' might not appear on goggle, if the end of
a long line was cut off. Instead people simply see a POV slogan coming from
wikipedia.

3. Putting '(slogan)' at the end means that people would be greeted with a
potentially POV slogan, with which they might have a strong positive or
negative reaction - prior to reaching the end of the line (if they see it at
all) where it is neutralised by the word slogan. Putting the word slogan in
first means that before they even read the slogan they know it is a slogan
and is featuring on wiki as a slogan, not POV propaganda. The very first
word people read in an article title is the first word. Not everyone reads
the full title, particularly if it is a long title. So the key NPOVing word
'slogan' should be where everyone can will and can see it, at the first.

4. Grammatically, having it at the front of the line makes more sense. For
example, [[Slogan: AIDS Kills Fags Dead]] in effect reads, 'the slogan: AIDS
Kills Fags Dead'. Putting it at the end effectively reads 'AIDS Kills Fags
Dead - which is a slogan' As I said above, people may have a very strong
reaction to that particular slogan. Using the 'slogan' word upfront NPOVs
the statement by contextualising it as a slogan, not an expression of a POV.
Put at the end, people may well have had an emotional POV reaction (for or
against) before they reach the word slogan at the end, if they even notice
it.

5. Using both forms (as The Cunctator seems to want) seems unnecessarily
complicated. It makes logical sense to use one standard template, not two
because using two (with [[Slogan: . . .]] being used for controversial
slogans poses the question: who decides if a slogan is controversial
enough? Some people might see a slogan as sufficiently NPOV enough to use
'(slogan)' at the end. Others might disagree and the result would be an
edit/renaming war. Having one template means that no-one has to form a value
judgment on whether it is or is not controversial. If it is a slogan, the
one universal format is used.

We do need to have some sort of consensus agreement on this issue set out
clearly. The Cunctator has already annoyed people involved in the debate by
his unilateral action. It would help the situation enormously if we had
clear agreement on the form, which could then be entered as a naming
convention to which people could refer, rather than producing constant rows
over slogans today, tomorrow, next month, six months down the line, etc.

Any opinions?

JT



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