MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
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 Sandiferhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Sandifer05:25, 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 Scotthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ned_Scott05:22, 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 _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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.