Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Archive/Archive 1

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This archive contains discussions organised by subject up to May 2009, and with a summary of discussion and possible outcome.

Content issues

Topic	Page	Outcome	Notes	See Also
Area codes (telephone)	Deletion policy/Area codes	No consensus	The status quo is a large number of stubs, one for each area code; the page title format is Area code ###. Concerns about US-centricity. Concerns about cruft. See history of debate.	Deletion policy/Area codes, List of North American area codes
Bible verses	Whole bible chapter text, Verses of John 20, 200 verses of Matthew, Bible source text	Endorsed	Entire chapters of the Bible do not belong on Wikipedia. Any article containing only Bible text should be speedily deleted or redirected.	Don't include copies of primary sources, Wikisource, Verses of 1 Kings 4 and 5
Bilateral relations	Bilateral international relations, BR task force	WikiProject task force	After a string of AFDs with varying results, it was decided to agree on a guide to what criteria would make relations between pairs of countries notable subjects	Wikipedia is not a directory
Biographical Opt Out	Biographical optout	Rejected	Requests have been received in various fora from the subjects of Wikipedia biographies for the biography to be removed. It was proposed that anyone other than a public official or someone who has placed themself at the forefront of public controversies should be able to request the Wikipedia article about them to be deleted without discussion.	BLP subject response
Brand name products	Deletion policy/Brand name products	Endorsed	Objective information on brand products should be kept. An "iconic" or "universally well known" products deserves its own article. A major product should be added to its company article. Minor products should be merged into a list kept in the company article.
Categorization	Categorization	Guideline	Article: Michael Jackson Useful category: Category:Pop singers Not useful: Category:Musicians whose first name starts with M
Categorization (naming conventions)	Naming conventions	Policy	Categories should have "head" articles. Be specific. Avoid abbreviations. Avoid topical plurals. Avoid descriptive adjectives. Use care in disambiguating and namespacing.
Categorization (people)	Categorization of people	Guideline	No derogatory cats. WP:V, WP:NOR. Subcats (e.g, African American musicians) only okay if topic itself warrants head article; otherwise list.	Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality
Comics (copyright)	WikiProject Comics/copyright	Guideline	Covers okay under fair use. Interior art maybe not. Must illustrate the subject.	WikiProject Comics, WikiProject Fair use
Date delinking	[(dates and numbers)]	Superseded by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking		Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Date formatting	Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Proposal on international date format	No consensus	Where articles clearly concern a North American subject, the North American date format (December 22) should be used. Otherwise, the international format (22 December) should be used.	Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Dictionary definitions	Wikipedia is not a dictionary	Policy	Cent failed to alter status quo.	Dictionary definitions
Federal Standard 1037C	Federal Standard 1037C terms	Cleanup process	Most technical terms are mere dictionary definitions and don't need individual articles. Copyvio concerns.	Federal Standard 1037C clean up
Fictional characters	WP:FICT	Guideline	See guideline. Avoid non-notable substubs. Items from video games and Pokémon are included.	Deletion policy/Middle-earth items, Poképrosal, Deletion_policy/Nintendo_items
Fiction (again)	WP:FICT	No consensus to do anything	Discussion did not accomplish anything as the proposed guideline was too weak for some and too strong for others	Wikipedia:Notability
File names	Generic image file names	Guideline	Don't upload images or other files with generic, non-specific file names such as Untitled.png.	Image:Pleasedont.gif, Image:Forbidden filename.png
History (of all subjects)	Historical information	Converted to WikiProject	Wikipedia has a large number of articles about all sorts of things that should include an historical element but do not. (This is not about purely historical topics.)	WikiProject Historical information
Images (in lists)	Fair use images in lists	No change	Concern that large numbers of fair use images in one place fall outside fair use exceptions. Opposing concern that such images, in some cases, (e.g, List of Simpsons episodes) are essential and cannot be replaced.	Wikipedia:Fair use criteria, Wikipedia:Fair use, Category:Wikipedia copyright, Wikipedia:Copyrights
Languages (constructed)	Constructed languages	Poll itself rejected
Lists (images)	See Images (in lists).
Lists (religion, ethnicity, profession)	Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession	Rejected	Attempt to limit.	Lists in Wikipedia
Lists (songs)	Lists of songs	Rejected	Attempt to limit.	Category:Lists of songs
Lists of basic topics	Village pump (proposals) thread	No consensus	Change pages called "List of basic foo topics" to "Topic outline of foo".
Lists of unusual things	Lists of unusual things	Consensus	Lists of unusual things can be eligible for inclusion; they don't automatically breach policy just by being lists of unusual things
Location of the main page	Proposal to move the Main Page to Portal:Wikipedia	No consensus, although some discussion is still ongoing	Move the Main Page to the Portal or Wikipedia namespace
Main Page	Main Page replacement poll	Endorsed	Facelift drifting slightly toward more elaborate.	Main Page, Main Page (old style)
Moving of US city names	Naming conventions (settlements) (permanent link)	Passed with exceptions	Move city names like Baltimore, Maryland and Minneapolis, Minnesota to Baltimore and Minneapolis respectively.
Names (personal)	Deletion policy/names and surnames	No Consensus	An attempt was made to draw conclusions from this debate. Names alone are not notable; Wikipedia is not a geneological database. Some names may have encyclopedic value; names may be useful as disambiguation pages and these may carry a bit of geneology or etymology. Beyond this, Wiktionary.	Wiktionary Appendix:First names, Wiktionary Appendix:Surnames, Categories for deletion/Names
Nobility	Deletion policy/Maltese nobility	Recently reopened; status quo	Genealogy of nobility and royalty encyclopedic. Must be sourced.
Non-free content criterion 8	NFCC 8 debate	Edits reversed and no consensus to restore them	A bold edit to WP:NFCC suggested that the eighth criterion have "and its omission would be detrimental to [understanding of the topic of an article]" removed as a requirement for a non-free image. The change was reverted and discussion did not lead to a consensus to restore it.	Non-free content criteria
Non-free sports logos	Use of Non-free logos of sports teams	No consensus.	No consensus was determined on if sports logos may be used outside of articles on the subject team.	Non-free content criteria
Notability	Notability (essay)	Beyond scope of Cent	Discussion has expanded to a large number of pages indexed on {{notability guide}}.	Notability/Proposal
People (biography)	CSD A7 debate	No consensus	Concerns about inconsistent speedies of vanity pages.	CSD Ax
Places (West Bank)	Political subdivisions of New York	Endorsed	About the preferred usage names as a result of WP:RFAR/West Bank - Judea and Samaria	Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank)
Plot summaries	Plot summaries	Essay	How much of plot summaries would be considered notable enough to be included.	Notability
Pokémon	Pokeprosal	Endorsed	WP:FICT applies. No "Pokemon:" namespace. Walkthroughs to Wikibooks. Merge stubs to lists.	Pokémon Collaborative Project
Politicians (candidates)	Legislative candidates	No consensus	Leaning toward exclusion of very minor candidates.	Criteria for inclusion of biographies
Politicians (local)	Deletion policy/Local politicians	No consensus
Postal codes (Zip codes)	Deletion policy/Postal district	Endorsed	Sheer madness to have an individual article for every postal code. Lists okay.	Do lists of postal codes belong on Wikipedia?
Radio masts	Deletion policy/Masts	Endorsed	Add Location, Coordinates, Purpose, Owner and FCC registration columns to list. Merge stubs to list. Individual articles only if substantial content beyond list.	List of masts
Roads and streets	Deletion policy/Roads and streets, B roads in UK	Weakly endorsed	Don't create articles about trivial roads. WP is not an atlas.
	State route naming conventions poll/Old	Rejected	Should a naming convention be decided upon by poll?
	State route naming conventions poll	Manual of Style	US State Highways are given definitive names for all occasions.	Manual of Style (U.S. state highways)
Rorschach test	RfC	No action taken yet (discussion going stale; potentially outside {{Cent}}'s scope anyway).	The question is of whether the inclusion of certain images on the Rorschach test may damage readers' ability to respond genuinely to the test in the real world.	Rorschach test, Related request for mediation, Talk:Rorschach test/images, Talk:Rorschach test/2009 consensus review
School lists	Deletion policy/Lists of schools	Endorsed	Lists of schools should be more informative than equivalent Categories. Deletions should wait consensus on general schools issues.	Schools
Spoilers (warnings)	Spoiler warning/RfC (talk), Spoiler warning (talk)	Spoiler guideline accepted: Wikipedia:Spoiler	That spoiler warnings should be deprecated	Spoiler template TfD
Sports results	Sports results	No consensus	Championship events okay for articles; what about the rest? Concerns about WP:NOR and copyvios.	Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
Sports teams	Naming conventions	Policy	(1) In cases where there is no ambiguity whatsoever as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the official name should be used. (2) In cases where there is some ambiguity as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the name most commonly used by the English-language media should be used (as determined using the number of hits at Google News). See history for full policy	History of discussion
Television episodes	Television episodes	Endorsed	See debate. Avoid large numbers of episode stubs. Start with single article on a given show; expand only as verifiable info permits. Avoid trivia, synopsis, and extensive quotation from scripts. Put the episode in context.	Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
Towns (New York)	Political subdivisions of New York	No consensus	State of New York townships are formally called "towns", which is confusing since there are real towns in New York, as elsewhere. Some towns are in "towns" with the same name, some aren't. Not to mention counties, villages, and cities. Historical government madness.	Incomplete table of "towns", towns, and villages
Word lists	Deletion policy/Lists of words	Endorsed	Article about "Words of <foo>" may be okay. "List of words of <foo>" to Wiktionary.	Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Process issues

Topic	Page	Outcome	Notes	See Also
Amendments of RFA closures	Proposal	Rejected	Where important information comes to light soon after an RFA closes as successful and bureaucrats believe it would have had a significant effect on the consensus at the RFA, bureaucrats may request the closure to be reversed by stewards.	Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship
Arbitration committee review	RFC/ARBCOM	Some proposals were to be sent to a vote, but ended up being superseded	Proposal to amend the election and structure of the Arbitration Committee	Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating
Arbitration case process review	Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Draft policy RfC	No obvious consensus, although ArbCom has taken some suggestions on board	Various amendments on the structure, process, and activities related to Arbitration.	Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating, RFC/ARBCOM
Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia	RFC: Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia	Rejected	Discussion of a proposal to reduce Jimbo's constitutional power over ArbCom	Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales
Bots	Discussion over the approval of bots	No consensus	Proposal to replace the Bot Approvals Group	Wikipedia:Bots
Bot flagging	Giving BAG members the technical ability to grant and revoke the bot flag	Rejected	Members of the Bot Approvals Group would be given a new permission allowing them to add or remove the bot flag from accounts. Rejected as there is no serious delay in bureaucrats manipulating the flag.	Wikipedia:Bots
Content dispute resolution	Content dispute resolution	No consensus to change anything	As ArbCom does not, by tradition, make content rulings, perhaps there should be some body that does.	Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
Blatant promotion	Wikipedia talk:Username policy/Blatant Promotion RfC	Policy changes, Twinkle changes	Amend Twinkle to make reporting of blatant promotion to WP:AIV and subtle promotion to WP:COIN easier. Amend username policy to prohibit explicit company names. Amend username policy to avoid coverage of editing behavior, and rather concentrate on the username itself.	Wikipedia:Usernames, Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest
Criteria for speedy deletion	CSD/Simplify policy RfC	Multiple results	CSD must be kept clear and specific, bright-line and mechanical. See complete summary.	CSD, PROD
Deletion (categories)	Category deletion policy	Policy	There are criteria for speedy renaming of some categories.	New speedy criteria, Speedy category renaming
Deletion (process load)	CSD/Proposal	Mixed results	Some new criteria for speedy.	CSD, Deletion policy/Reducing VfD load
Deletion (reform of AfD)	AfD categories	Policy	AfD is now also sorted into categories, as a mandatory stage of the nomination process.	AfD debates subcategories AfD reform
Deletion (uncontested)	Proposed deletion	Policy	Pages tagged {{prod}} may be deleted without discussion in 7 days. Anyone can remove the tag.	Deletion reform/Proposals/Uncontested deletions
Deletion review appeal	Deletion review#RFC	Defer to WP:AN	How do you appeal a DRV?	Deletion review/Archive 14#Where do you appeal a DRV decision? Deletion review#Proposal: DRV no consensus --> relist
Devolution of Arbitration Committee functions	Devolution	Rejected	Editor review and admin action review would be devolved to other groups subordinate to the Arbitration Committee
Editorial Council	Editorial Council	Rejected	An elected council of seven editors would arbitrate content disputes when consensus breaks down.	Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
Good topics	Good topics	Passed	Good topics implemented	Wikipedia talk:Good topics/Straw poll
Libel	Libel	Policy by fiat of Jimbo	Libelous revisions will be deleted from page history.	WP:OFFICE
Portals (new)	Portal/Proposals	Rejected	Attempt to create a process through which new portals would have to pass before creation.	Portal, Portal/Guidelines, Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals
Removal of administrative rights by bureaucrats	Removing administator rights/Proposal	Rejected	After a consensus process, bureaucrats could form a consensus to remove an administrator's rights without reference to ArbCom.	Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship
Removal of administrative rights by bureaucrats	Removing administator rights/Proposal	Rejected	After a consensus process, bureaucrats could form a consensus to remove an administrator's rights without reference to ArbCom.	Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship
Sources (archives)	Archives as sources	Rejected	Attempt to weaken NOR to permit unpublished archives as primary sources.	WP:NOR, Requests for comment/Archival materials
Templates (WikiProject tags)	Avoid using WikiProject talk page templates	Rejected/Essay	Concern about talk pages that contain only tags no longer showing a redlink.	WikiProject banners, WikiProject Council/Guide, {{WikiProjectNotice}}
Undeletion process	Requests for undeletion	Supported	The creation of a process page to request content be undeleted/moved to userpage

Social issues

Topic	Page	Outcome	Notes	See Also
3RR merger	Wikipedia talk:Three-revert rule	Consensus for merger	Community discussion about merging the three revert rule policy page to Wikipedia:Edit war	Edit war
Automatically grant adminship	AutoconfirmAdmin	Snowball rejected	Automatically grant admin status on request to anyone who fulfilled a minimum edit and experience requirement	Administrators, A user subpage to refine the proposal (author requested deletion)
Blocking users	Blocking policy proposal	Rejected	Concerns about blocking by IP	Blocking policy
Bureaucracy	Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not Permanent link	Archived	Is it correct to say Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy?	What Wikipedia is not
Civility restrictions	Civility restrictions	Archived	To what extent is low-level incivility a problem, and what can be done about it?	Dispute resolution
Death threats	Death threats	Subsumed	Proposal moved to subpage of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and further discussion directed to the talk page of that policy.	Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks/Death threats
Equal treatment of editors	Equality	Essay	Discussion petered out without clear consensus emerging. Dispute over actual equality of editors considering higher standards for Admins and our policy of not biting newcomers.	Wikipedia talk:Equality, WP:No vested contributors
Grant various admin rights separately	Village Pump discussion	No consensus	Rights like semi-protecting, blocking, etc. could be	Wikipedia:Administrators
IRC Channels	RFC/IRC channels	No consensus to do anything	After a request for arbitration and several separate MFDs, a policy was proposed on making an official policy for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia IRC channels.	IRC
Ombudsman Committee	Ombudsmen Committee (Village pump discussion)	Rejected	A new committee to investigate disputes on Wikipedia retrospectively and give advice on how to better handle them in future.	Third opinion
Personal attacks in debate	Deletion policy/Personal attacks	No consensus	Discount/remove comments in debate that contain personal attacks? The reaction may be worse than the action.	Metastasis
Pranking/April Fool's jokes	Pranking	Rejected	Prohibit or restrict prank articles, main page edits, interface changes (through the MediaWiki namespace), or joke RFAs/AFDs/MFDs/policies	April fools
Remedies	Requests for remedies	No consensus/rejected	A new dispute resolution mechanism to sit between RFM and RFAR, where a small committee would discuss disputes before presenting proposed remedies for community consensus.	Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
Responding to suicidal individuals	Wikipedia:Responding to suicidal individuals	Rejected	Consensus agrees that Wikipedia is not a counseling service.	Wikipedia_talk:Responding to suicidal individuals#Time to reject
Review (editor)	Editor review	Process	Voluntary peer review process.	Guide to requests for adminship, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards
Review Board	Review Board	Rejected	A panel to be elected or appointed to monitor the use of checkuser and oversight and investigate abuses of same.	m:Ombudsman commission
Review of the RFA process	RFA Review	Essay	A multi-stage review of the current requests for adminship process. Still in progress.	Requests for adminship
RFC (enforcement)	Requests for comment/Enforcement	Rejected	Attempt to put teeth into RFC.	Requests for comment
Rollback	Requests for rollback privileges, Requests for rollback privileges/Poll	Active	Attempt to create a new class of users privileged between Registered Editor and Admin/Sysop.	Bugzilla 3801
School projects	School and university projects, Centralized discussion/Method Engineering Encyclopedia	Guideline de facto	Instructors are encouraged to assign WP editing as a class or student project but all such must conform to our extensive policies and guidelines.	Deletion policy/Teletraffic Engineering, WikiProject Method engineering
School threats	Wikipedia:School threats	No consensus/rejected	Threats of violence made against a specific school/students to be reported to the Administrators' Noticeboard.
Userboxes	Wikipedia:Userbox migration	A technical solution	Migrate your userboxes to user space. Keep them compliant with Wikipedia:User page
Userpages (removing warnings)	Removing warnings	Rejected	Attempt to class as vandals users who remove warning templates from their own user or user talk pages.	Talk page etiquette, Vandalism
Userpages (vandalism/protection)	Protected Userpage	Rejected	Attempt to prevent anons from vandalizing user pages.	WP:UP#Ownership
Userpages (hosting deleted content)	Deletion review regarding indefinite hosting clause permanent link	No consensus	A limit should be placed on the duration of hosting deleted pages in userspace.	Wikipedia:User page
Vandalism	Deny recognition	Essay	Ignore fame-seeking vandals.	WP:BEANS, Herostratus, Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels, Deletion review/Willy on Wheels
Voting (boxes)	Tally boxes, Criterion boxes	Endorsed heavily	Don't use (colored) boxes on debate pages to register or summarize votes.	Example vote boxes
Warning templates	Removing warnings, Removing warnings poll, Cent/Removing warnings	Rejected twice; reopened	When a user removes a warning template from his talk page, he is committing vandalism.	Vandalism
Wheel warring	Wheel war policy	Guideline	Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it.	Wheel war

Technical issues

Topic	Page	Outcome	Notes	See Also
Enabling indexing of the User talk namespace	VPP discussion	Rejected	Indexing by search engines should be re-enabled for the User talk namespace.
Allow moves to be marked as major edits	Straw poll	Supported	Allow users to mark page moves as major edits.
Templates (conditional)	MfD/qif	Keep and deprecate	Don't use {{qif}} to create conditional templates. Superceded by ParserFunctions.	ParserFunctions, Templates using ParserFunctions
Bot to auto-archive all web pages used as references	WebCiteBOT	Approved	Unclear if all URLs should be submitted to WebCite to prevent link rot.
Displaying time delta since last modification to article	VPP discussion & straw polls	Approved	Placing the time delta or "last modified" timestamp in a more prominent position failed to gain consensus.	Bug #19276

Miscellaneous

Topic	Page	Outcome	Notes	See Also
Transition from GFDL to CC-BY-SA-3.0	Transition to CC-BY-SA	Approved & Implemented	Use Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license in addition to the GFDL for text content on Wikimedia projects	Meta:Licensing update, Wikipedia:Copyrights
Discussion regarding the "Wikipedia Forever" fundraising banner	Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia Forever	Mixed	Widespread disapproval of foundation actions. Many of the objectionable banners were pulled anyway after foundation claimed they had poor fundraising performance.