It seems that all people have to do is abuse a system
for something it
wasn't supposed to do to have it deleted. (WP:PAN, WP:ESP, etc) After
trawling half the discussion I found the following exchange in the MFD.
We did discuss organizing articles around spoilers, and everyone thought it
was a bad idea... It gives undue weight, it can restrict the format, etc. *A
misuse of the spoiler template does not speak for the concept itself.* -- Ned
Scott <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ned_Scott> 05:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Which is why, notably, I nominated the policy instead of the
template. There may well be something useful that can be done with a spoiler
template, but a policy mandating that spoilers be hidden after templates,
outside of section headers, etc. is a policy mandating that articles be
written badly. Phil
Sandifer<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Sandifer>05:25;05:25, 16 May
2007 (UTC)
- But I'm pointing this out more in response to some of the other
comments I've been reading, and not so much on the one you've brought up.
And also, I have no problem with continued discussion. -- Ned
Scott<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ned_Scott>05:22;05:22, 16 May 2007
(UTC)
I have to wonder. Isn't Phil scared deleting the policy/guideline is going
to open up the issue to more abuse? Instead of deleting what we have, I
think it would make sense to attempt to alter the page.
"Sensible lead writing thrumps protection against spoilers." should
definitely be kept in there, but we should somehow list the useful uses of
the template. Plot summaries are very likely to reveal important plot
details, lists of characters less so, so those could use a warning template
if those are included. Having them doesn't insult the reader if they're used
correctly (as per my example) and it isn't censoring either. Instead of
putting all of these possible examples in one pile, try finding proper uses
and rewrite the guidelines around that.
Mgm
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There's a structural problem here. MfD is often 'misused' to create or
change policy - ideally that wouldn't happen - we'd have a discussion
somewhere.
However, in practice, a group of people go an do something. They talk to
a limited section of the community who are interested in the idea,
they arrive at 'consensus' and then they start enforcing their
consensus. That's fine if the subject is Sweedish composers and the
consensus is among those who work on those articles - and the consensus
only relates to those articles.
The problem emerges when the small group are creating a stylistic rule
that will then be presented as a norm over a whole set of articles -
e.g. 'all biographies need infoboxes' 'all fictional plot summaries
should have spoilers' - 'process x will now be used for personal
attacks'. The group creates their policy and then the boy-scouts who
like inflating edit counts go off and enforce it - and the small group
of people working on on a particular article haven't a chance - their
'opposing consensus' and are told to come to the policy page and debate
it there, where the inevitable clique will vote them down.
Ideally, this wouldn't happen as the whole community would be involved
in every attempt at stylistic policy. But people working on Shakesphere
and Jane Austen don't care what the buffyfans are talking about in some
page on spoilers until it is too late.
MfD is crude - but at some level we need a community cluestick where a
genuine cross-section of users can, without involving themselves in
interminable policy discussion, approach the smaller in-group and scream
"STOP IT!!! - NO NO NO!"
Sometimes a clear binary is needed.