Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Proposed MOS talk page standards

The discussion was closed out with no consensus - too few participants. Please do not modify this discussion

MOS discussion parameters

Over 1200 editors watch this page. To avoid filling their watchlists with unnecessary endless discussion, please follow these suggested guidelines.

1. Make the title to your new topic clear so watchers may know if they are interested or not. Not "==Another round of discussion==" but "==Semicolons (another attempt)=="

2.Handle digressions in threads in a clearcut manner by starting a new thread when appropriate. Otherwise confusion may result, lengthening the discussion, the original intent of which may get sidetracked. Instead of saying "I think solution X should be applied to Y. And I think that we should apply solution W to problem Z" when Z has not been mentioned before, say, "...I also have a suggested remedy for problem Z. I've started a new thread below to discuss it." Then start a new thread "==Remedy for problem Z=="

3.Discussion is not ping pong. You don't have to volley every serve immediately with vigor! When the discussion has not been resolved in one day, please respond only once a day. It won't get resolved any faster, and fewer responses will lower the entries on the watchlist.

4.When the topic has not been resolved in a week, please respond every other day to trigger fewer watchlist entries.

5.When three screensworth/"pages" of discussion have been made with no resolution, state that you are moving the discussion to a new public page so that interested editors may follow. Close out the discussion on this page.

Express consensus on inserting the above guidelines above in the top of the MOS talk page

Please express your opinion, against or for, collectively or for each of the guidelines above.

Reject or accept all of the proposed guidelines with one entry!

The following are for editors who want to accept one or more or reject one or more guideline

Please express your sentiment five times (and not above)!

Proposed guideline #1 - Clarify topic subtitle

Vote yes Good idea. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed guideline #2 - Start new thread for topic change

ONLY THE FIRST SENTENCE should be inserted. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SUPPORT THE WHOLE DAMNED THING. I have MOS talk on unwatch now, despite wanting to be engaged on the subject, plus wanting to connect with the better writers. I suspect the "freedom extremists" and those who want to use Wiki more as a social experiment and chat forum and less a place to write an encyclopedia will be opposed to this guideline, because they would rather screw around another 10 years, rather than progressing the content.TCO (talk) 21:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion below is essentially closed out. Kept here for credibility.

Feedback on MOS discussion standards

1. Very well done. Very much needed. Does not take any stands on the content or even on the style of discussion (citing sources). I think that is wise.

1.5. "three pages" of talk is unclear what you mean. Three screens? Some sort of history view? I just don't get it.TCO (talk) 02:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2. Please rename the sandbox to be something understandable like "Proposed MOS talk page standards" (for the same rationale as section header naming).

3. I can't tell what some of the other comments are and if they are on sandbox 17 (MOS guidelines) or what.

P.s. 2 and 3 are no biggies, but just want to help you, to get good done for the community.

Done. Thanks for the feedback! Student7 (talk) 21:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More feedback on MoS discussion standards

1. Excellent idea.

2. Do you mean "digressions"? Digressions are part of the conversation and can themselves add value. It might be better to add sub-section-headers for digressions.

3a. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA never going to happen. Maybe if people were reasonable and logical.

3b. Conversations aren't timed by days; they're timed by the ideas that come in. Setting an artificial limit for responses would not be best.

4. Topics should not be moved off the main page when they have reached a certain length but when they are no longer relevant. If there were a non-subjective way of measuring when a topic has become repetitive, then a move-off rule might work. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback. Digressions was indeed was was meant.

3a. Leave for laughs? :) (Maybe this will all wind up in the Wikipedia humor archives someplace! :)

3b. The idea is that 1200 watch the page. There are sometimes dozens of responses. For those who aren't interested at all, we cannot unwatch the thread but we would sure like to avoid it in the watchlist. How can this best be achieved. And why can't interested parties go to another announced page to which interested, but non-commenting editors may follow, if they wish.

4. Sheer length is a problem IMO. Having a huge thread to wade through. I am sometimes not sure that I am in the correct thread when attempting to add my comment. I would think this should be addressed somehow, but maybe too minor. I confess to addressing more than one point here. Guilty of my own suggestions! :) Student7 (talk) 21:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All is the enemy of some. The value of a lost comment because someone observed the time limit is way less than the valyue of cleaning up the conversation. Some comments would even become more thoughtful with dwell time. This project has been around for 10 years, and the page itself does not change on a dime. Brakes to make the discussion followable and higher content level would have more worth, than what we lose. We don't need to be free form.

As it is now, I have the page on unwatch, given the last few days spew. And I say this knowing I'm the kind to use the talk page as a forum and spew as well. A day limite for volleys would really be fine. I bet we could get several people to observe that. You'd get me too. Gain that! TCO (talk) 21:48, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(4) Maybe keep it simple and go with less of the suggestions and the highest value ones. At least the one day volley thing. It would cut the back and forth repetition (and someone else usually will make a re-rebuttal anyhow.)TCO (talk) 21:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would just make it a straight one day. Not the 3 day wait. A lot of damage can get done in the first 3 days. someone else can make the re-rebuttals (with 1200 watchers). Even if they don't, we still gain more than we lose, on balance. Life is tradeoffs and wikians need to learn that.TCO (talk) 22:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Remember WT:MOS would improve a lot if we could just avoid words like "stupid", even though we already have rules against that. Perhaps more rules wouldn't hurt, if we don't have unrealistic expectations of compliance. Art LaPella (talk) 07:44, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're talking about catering to the people watching the page. They should not come before the people doing the work. It sounds like what the watchers really need is a different kind of "watch page" command, one that would be less sensitive. Curtailing discussion on the MoS page is not the way to accomplish that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:12, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Darkfrog that a special "watch" on threads would solve everything. This sort of thing is done with Afds, etc. with ten or so bunch of threads lumped together. Hard, or even impossible to do here. Maybe with some future implementation of whatever is being used...

I want to understand Darkfrog's comment "They should not come before the people doing the work." I assume this means that the participants should have priority over "listeners." The problem here is that the rest of us don't want to be blindsided by a sudden change to standards in which we did not even know about. On the other hand, reading, ad infinitum, about a dash versus a hyphen, which most of us will forget about whichever way is decided, is something we could well do without. (if you had a position there, I apologize).

And yes, this will be rejected by the "participants" if the "listeners" don't weigh in instead of merely listening. That will be their problem, I guess. They have the chance.

Thanks to all of you for making these observations. And please continue. Student7 (talk) 18:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, is that what this is about? Why not just start a special page for WT: MoS announcements, posting things like "Discussion under way on issue X" and "Discussion on X has come to conclusion Y" or "Discussion X has come to no conclusion"? The toughest thing there would be finding an objective way of determining when a discussion is over. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to imagine compliance with these rules. Suppose other editors were calling each other retarded, and you wanted to warn about civility but it wasn't your turn to respond yet. Suppose you made an accusation, and the answer was that you missed something obvious, so you need to apologize. Suppose your comment was misinterpreted, and the discussion continued based on a completely false premise. Suppose it was misinterpreted as a personal attack, or maybe even a racial slur. Would you get the discussion back on track, or would you honor this dimly remembered bureaucratic rule instead? And if you only broke the rule to say something important, wouldn't everybody consider their own comment to be important? Art LaPella (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Darkfrog first. The end of a discussion bothered me too, I agree. You and your cohorts agree that it is over, then post the results on the main page and everyone (who wasn't following, or worse, didn't even know it was going on, just started watching the main page, etc.) starts screaming. All of the sudden, it isn't the end of probably a lengthy and difficult discussion. It is the beginning of another even longer discussion.

With huge discussions going on, we could fork them all. If editors would stand for it, maybe the best policy. We could watch only the threads we want, but we would have to watch some thread, or you'd miss everything.

For Art, I think compliance would be like everything else. If somebody objects, they can point to the "discussion guide." They may be ignored! Not really enforceable, right? I would assume common sense would apply up to and until civility disappears. Then I suppose you have editors trying to game each other with rule breaking. But that can not be helped (almost slipped there! :) If they weren't pointing to these guidelines, they'd be pointing to something else.

So rule breaking would have to follow common sense. It's only when editors get annoyed that they could point out "this is your fourth post today" or whatever. They wouldn't be doing that if the discussion were going well and people were being objective and it seemed to be heading for a resolution. IMO, anyway.

Thanks to both for the feedback. Student7 (talk) 21:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Student7, in the scenario you describe, it isn't the end of the discussion because someone new has something new to say. That is a good thing. That is when the conversation should resume or else we go back to the bad attitude of "I'M tired of talking about this so YOU must shut up." Also, it wouldn't be posted to the main page but a separate announcements-only page. The discussion itself would take place on the discussion page, where everyone who wants to would be able to find it.

"Not really enforceable"? An illusion. People have said the same thing about the MoS itself, and look what happens.

On a discussion page, the rules should be as general as possible, otherwise people will abuse them. That's why the first line of rule #2 is good but all the specifics are bad. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the Manual of Style talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.