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February 9

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Template:Cite rt

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was Keep per consensus. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 09:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing broken nomination by Darkwarriorblake (talk · contribs) who accidentally nominated the template's talk page in MFD. Their rationale for template deletion was as follows:

It's a template that seems to literally exist for the purposes of citing Rotten Tomatoes, which is already covered by Template: Cite Web. It's redundant and exists to solve a problem that does not exist.

Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 22:32, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Cite Web does all the things these do, without creating a bunch of templates that will inevitably be deleted in time, requiring replacing with Cite Web. WP:OTHERSTUFF, having other redundant templates does not justify this one. Trust me, I would've been nominating each of these in time. The formatting for these is needlessly obtuse and also defies the guidelines of cite web, meaning a user going around doing mass changes is introducing formatting differences on Featured Articles. Maybe my initial argument was less detailed because I thought this was a no-brainer, but this and the other templates have no reason to exist when we already have pretty substantial and robust templates that do everything they do and more. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

Template:Expert needed

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).
The result of the discussion was partially deprecate and remove instances where a |reason= is not also provided. The arguments in this discussion are similar to the 2017 TfD for this template, but this time the delete or deprecate camp has the majority of participation. Primary focus here is the lack of of "necessary" changes in the previous discussions to make this template (more) useful following the previous discussions. The clearest and most persuasive reasoning for keeping this template, however, is for when it is transcluded with a |reason= parameter, i.e. actually indicating why an expert should edit the page, but its effectiveness in these circumstances is difficult to determine.
Moving forward, uses with a |reason= parameter should be kept, and uses with no reason given should either be given one or removed. After these "blank" uses have been taken care of, a more accurate determination of the usefulness of this template can be made. In other words, there is no prejudice against re-nominating this template at some point in the future, though probably not for a year or so or a few months after non-reasoned uses are fully removed. Primefac (talk) 13:16, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As I posted on the talk page in October:

[D]oes this template ever work? It doesn't seem to have a way of actively notifying WikiProjects or other circles where someone who says "Hey, I know a lot about X, let me help" can actually do so. It just sits there in a category. There is a "reason" field, but I never see that used either. I never see people who use this template bring it up on the talk page. It's just a drive-by tag that's slapped on for no reason because an article is underutilized, and it literally never seems to do any good.

For instance, Music of Arkansas has had an "expert" tag since 2012, but the tagger never said anything on the talk page, nor did anyone else. I sampled a whole bunch of uses of this template, and not a single one had anything in the "reason" field, nor any relevant discussion on the talk page. It also doesn't seem like one has to be an "expert" to improve an article[...]It seems that the mere purpose of this template is redundant; in the Music of Arkansas example, {{tone}} and {{reorganize}} seem to do a better job at explaining the issues in the article.

Is this just my confirmation bias, or is this a valid concern? Is there any proof that its use actually helps in any scenario, or is it just 100% prone to drive-by tagging and superfluous to other maintenance tags? I saw the same thing happen with {{expand}} ages ago for much of the same reasons (excessive drive-by tagging, little to no explanation whenever the tag was used, redundancy to other tags).

In short, Is there a way to fix this template and make its presence more prominent to alert users who might actually be experts in the field, or should it just be deprecated?

Everyone involved in the ensuing discussion seemed to have a similar take to mine: that they've never seen it actually result in an article getting improved, that the template itself is prone to drive-by tagging, and that there are far better ways of notifying relevant editors of an article's need for improvement. Even the addition of a "reason" field does not seem to have helped any, as no one ever seems to fill it out (or worse, as on Alcoholic lung disease -- that one had both {{expert needed}} and {{cleanup}}, whose reason field stated "this article needs an expert").

The 2017 MFD, closed as "keep", had similar discussion points:

  • Whatamidoing:

    I've been watching this template on medicine-related articles for much longer than five years, and its actual effect appears to be: absolutely nothing. Outside experts don't edit it, and usually nobody else does, either. I suspect the tag of discouraging some less-than-supremely-confident editors from even trying to improve these articles. There is often no apparent rhyme or reason why the article was tagged, but there is a small tendency to tag "expert needed" when the problem is "the current version of the article doesn't agree with my POV"[...]or "I didn't understand this article, so I'm asking for an expert, even though subject-matter experts often fill articles with incomprehensible jargon"[...]But my main problem is that they just don't work.

  • Nyttend:

    I've never seen improvements resulting from using this template, and while that can't be extrapolated as far as "improvements have never resulted from using this template", I expect I'd be aware of occasional benefits if they exist. This template is about as useful as {{expand}}[...] it says "It would be nice if this article were better" but doesn't give any details, and in fact it's even less useful, because at least "Please help improve this article by expanding it" specifies how to fix the identified problem. This one doesn't even address what's wrong.

Nyttend had previously nominated the template for deletion in 2013 based off the precedent of {{expand}} being deprecated, but that discussion also closed as "keep".

In both cases, most of the "keep" votes were WP:ITSUSEFUL, or vague support like "I've seen it work before", "it's used on a lot of articles" (so was {[tl|expand!), or "it might be useful to someone" without any evidence of the sort. The 2013 TFD suggested making the "reason" field mandatory, but this does not seem to have been implemented, and people are still using it without filling in the "reason" field at all.

tl;dr: The issues dictated in the previous two MFDs still seem to be valid, and have not changed one iota since 2013. With all of the above in mind, plus the precedent established by the deprecation of {{expand}} way back in 2010, I think that this template should be deprecated. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 22:27, 9 February 2021 (UTC)|1=Expert needed}}[reply]

  • An aside I work more with categories than templates but I thought I'd add that Wikipedia has dozens of empty categories for articles that need an expert's attention (Category:All expert subject categories). If this template gets deleted, I might see if something should be done about them as well. Liz Read! Talk! 00:14, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deprecate while occasionally useful, Wikipedia does not rely on expert editors - and there aren't really any experts looking at these queues, making this one of the worst "wishful thinking" cleanup templates. Other templates should generally suffice, with appropriate reason parameters. However, this shouldn't be substituted or deleted until all existing transclusions are evaluated and either removed or converted to a more relevant cleanup template. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 04:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I do admit it's often in need of a stated reason, but I would say that about a lot of templates. I don't think that's a very strong reason for deletion. Besides, I still think it calls attention to an important state (one that many articles are in) between "This article is a mess" and "This article is great", somewhere in the range of "This article is okay, but suffers from a range of complex issues". I've often seen it used as "I'm not familiar enough with the topic to be certain, but I'm 90% certain parts of this article are bullshit". In topics like history, it can be very difficult to find out for a layman what 14th century source is or isn't reliable. Same goes for other expert fields. In cases like this, an expert could much more effectively check the quality and reliability of the article. The first problem here is that when you get too specific, an expert will never be found. There are no experts on "Hills in Vermont" on Wikipedia, but there are plenty of experts on Geography. The second problem is that experts aren't typically going to stumble upon these articles, especially since the tag is often added to relatively low profile pages. I'm certain many people add the tag believing this will bring special attention to the page from an expert, and why shouldn't that be made possible? You mention that the template doesn't post to WikiProjects. Why wouldn't this be something that could be done technically? Prinsgezinde (talk) 05:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I can agree with the original reason for suggesting deletion, but I think there is still a need for keeping the template. From what I take out of the responses so far, it says just as much about the use (or lack thereof?) of talk pages and WikiProjects. This template serves a dual purpose; along with improving highly technical articles, this is a resource for (re)building articles out of stubs or start-class status. Does Wikipedia have expert editors? On an official basis, no, since all of us can edit (nearly) any article; in practical terms, this is not true, since we have to take into account the resources, knowledge, and interests that each editor brings here. Unless using source-editing to add this tag, the reason parameter is essentially mandatory, which goes a long way in better justifying its use (answering "Why?" for everyone at a glance). Instead of deleting this outright, this template may be in need of some updating to improve its functionality; this is a discussion for its own talk page, of course. --SteveCof00 (talk) 09:31, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last two TFDs have had people suggesting improvements to its functionality. None of these have been implemented except for a "reason" field, which no one ends up using. I have asked for examples of this template providing the intended result and gotten literally zero evidence. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 16:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • For one, the backlog of pages has gone from 6,996 to 4,446 between 2017 and today, so clearly there are people doing things with it. For two, I don't think that unfilled parameters are a reason to delete a template. There was plenty of hemming and hawing about people never supplying subject areas, and a 1,500-article backlog of unclassified {{expert}} tags going back to 2007, which ended up taking less than a day to clear out by adding subject parameters. I think it's completely realistic to think that we can fix remaining parameters, rather than just deleting maintenance tags from thousands of articles (as though this will fix what's wrong with any of them). jp×g 18:14, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, I would support making the reason field mandatory for new instances between a finite number of possibilities (maybe mapped to wikiprojects?) that add the article to a subject-specific list. That way experts in the field can find them. If there is no mechanism for experts in a particular field to locate articles requiring an expert in their field, then I agree the tag is pretty useless. If there is no technical way to do that or no will, then maybe change them all to {{too technical}} or {{cleanup}}. Jdcooper (talk) 02:29, 15 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think we can more or less agree that the intention of this template—having someone qualified review and/or rework an article—is a valuable one; the issue is whether its execution and implementation as is actually end up solving those issues, and especially whether there are better ways of making that happen with the other tools we already have.
The biggest issue is that {{Expert needed}} has no effective means of contacting those experts. This seems to be because this template occupies a weird non-committal space between your average cleanup template and a proper workflow—it lacks the specificity and urgency that would accompany something like a request for comment, for example. There are a handful of processes that fulfill a lot of what {{Expert needed}} is trying to do; I'll list the ones that come to mind first (and please feel free to correct/add on after me):
  • Flagging attention=yes on an appropriate WikiProject template on the article's talk page. This is slightly more useful than {{Expert needed}} because it at least theoretically notifies that WikiProject (more like putting a request in the mailbox than dumping it in the driveway), but it has the same issue of "passing the buck" and hoping that someone is monitoring the "needs attention" category. Other issues: it doesn't show up in the article itself (though that could be considered an upside, considering that burying it in the talk page leads to slightly less drive-by tagging), and it doesn't allow for naming a reason (although that's (hopefully) subsumed by discussion on the talk page). It also is supposed to be used "sparingly," but then again so is {{Expert needed}}, so that doesn't mean much for our purposes.
  • Adding a request for comment from an appropriate WikiProject. This has the benefit of actually being tracked by Article Alerts, which means that there's a high chance that someone will actually respond to your query. The issue, of course, is that "query" is the operative word—RFCs are for specific questions and their resolutions, not general issues—and this doesn't end up in the article text itself, either.
  • Submitting the article for peer review. This solicits advice, but from a general audience—not experts in the field.
All this is to say that this template is trying to handle quite a few things at once, in subsuming both general verification and RFC-lite, and without any of the multi-step parts that make those less prone to the sort of spamming and stagnation that this one is. You can make the argument that {{Expert needed}} occupies a unique niche amongst these other processes; you can just as easily make the argument that it doesn't—what's most important, though, is that at the very least we know exactly what we're losing.
The main unanswered question, then, is simple: in deprecating this template, what would take its place?
–LogStar100 (talk) 04:06, 15 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Every maintenance template has a backlog: do you think that the existence of Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009 is a valid reason to delete {{Citation needed}}? jp×g 23:01, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The template has been placed without clear action to follow. Not working. JohnThorne (talk) 02:18, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deprecate in favor of Template:Disputed and cleanup templates. fgnievinski (talk) 04:24, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Although many of these templates have been on articles for a long time, it does have a good reason, because someone who is an expert on one of the subjects might see it as they are reading a page, and edit the article because of it, when they easily might not notice there is any problem at all if the template isn't there. This isn't really able to be measured, and probably happens a lot. Many other templates also don't have descriptions on the talk pages, so that isn't unique to this one. I don't see a real need to get rid of this now. Eric Schiefelbein (talk) 09:20, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're just restating what the template is supposed to be for but ignoring its inherent flaws. It was on an article for twelve years where nothing happened. I get that there is no deadline, but that doesn't mean that maintenance templates can just sit gathering dust forever like this. I have seen zero evidence of any so-called "experts" coming to rescue an article, and no one has ever been able to come forth with a single instance of this template serving its intended purpose. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 23:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deprecate. For anyone who's on the fence about this one, I implore you to compare the current set of articles using the template and the historical backlog (WikiBlame to see when the template was removed), because it is painful. Stuff like Arizona Stadium (inexplicably) is the most notable, but most of it is just removal because of how vague and unhelpful it ends up being—let alone the fact that in actuality it means "soft rewrite, but I don't want to do it." I can't think of any circumstances where this template isn't superseded by one of the myriad other better ways of soliciting help. –LogStar100 (talk) 04:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. If the help of an expert is needed, it will be apparent to the expert, almost by definition. So it's not just that it doesn't serve any purpose. But it also cannot serve any purpose. It's had its time in the sun. It's had its chances; people have tried to improve it. Please remove it. Run to the hills! (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the rare occasions where I've encountered this template, my impression has been that a major aspect of its function is to inform readers. Its message is fundamentally "This article treats its subject matter in a superficial way, and it may outright misrepresent it." The implication of this template for editors is that the problems of the article aren't reducible to issues of completeness or sourcing, and that they aren't fixable in a day spent thumbing through textbooks. What other templates are there that convey the same message? – Uanfala (talk) 19:39, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Uanfala: Template:Disputed, Template:Confusing, Template:Technical, etc. fgnievinski (talk) 21:50, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm struggling to see any sort of overlap – even partial – between Template:exert needed and these templates: the last two indicate issues with style, while Template:Disputed is used, according to its documentation, when an article's truth or factual nature is in dispute. There are many disputes that can be resolved without any special expertise (e.g. by simply looking up a reference work), and conversely, the sort of issued flagged up as needing expert input don't necessarily involve disputes, and only very rarely boil down to a simple problem with factual accuracy. – Uanfala (talk) 22:41, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You said: Its message is fundamentally "This article treats its subject matter in a superficial way, and it may outright misrepresent it." Misrepresention allegations are synonym to content dispute, no? And for allegations of superficiality, there's Template:Missing information. fgnievinski (talk) 01:18, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Template:Missing information is used when there are concrete gaps in an article's coverage, not when the coverage is present but it's superficial and not sufficiently informed by the literature on the subject. – Uanfala (talk) 01:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete . I don't think you need to be a expert to edit a article. Second, there are a lot of people trying to improve it. We don't need to be a expert to edit Wikipedia. Larry Z Contact me my edits 22:21, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I certainly think that it could be rephrased to say something like "attention from someone familiar with the subject matter" and not "attention from an expert". But I don't think it makes sense to say that every editor is going to be able (or willing) to dive into very complex prose about stuff that they've never seen before. jp×g 22:15, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deprecate. If a article needs expert attention then the expert should go through proper channels like the respective WikiProject or through other templates like Cleanup/Disputed in addition experts will find which articles need their attention in relation to the existing templates regarding quality of articles. - || RuleTheWiki || (talk) 06:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @RuleTheWiki: As of yesterday, every use of the template is sorted into WikiProject-based categories; surely, this should bring it in pretty close alignment with "official channels". jp×g 22:15, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia would be a very different place if we had expert editors like this template is calling for. Whether better or worse is a good question. But we don't, partially because of what happened with Essjay 14 years ago. And we're never going to, in this iteration of the project anyway. On that basis, the template has to go. ◦ Trey Maturin 18:39, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Useless. Action is never or hardly ever taken on it. (I say "hardly ever" just because one should "never say never".) Kill it. Lou Sander (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete serves no purpose other than to put off likely editors who feel that they are not the called-for expert. and as per other comments is a very vague tag and as mentioned above wikipedia is not for expert editors.--Iztwoz (talk) 09:34, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I'm leaving aside the perceived failure of this template to attract editor attention (and isn't that a problem with most content-related maintenance templates anyway?). The real issue is that it's used to flag up a serious problem with an article's content, and one that is addressed to the readers first and foremost – removing this template from any of the 4,300 articles it's used on is completely out of the question. Replacing it with another template wouldn't work either, as there don't seem to be any that come close. Changing the template's wording may, however, be an option – its message can easily be rephrased to avoid the taboo word "expert", or to give a clearer statement of the article's failings. – Uanfala (talk) 22:41, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I do agree that it currently lacks effectiveness, but as Prinsgezinde mentioned there indeed are a lot of things that can really only be described as "it's clearly bad but I don't have enough time to find out how" in the site. I recommend making |reason= mandatory just like what's already been done with {{cleanup}}. --Artoria2e5 🌉 09:57, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. We already have other templates for the vague "someone should do something here" that do not imply you need to be an expert to do it. This is Wikipedia, after all. Zarasophos (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Drive-by tagging is problematic because it is useless if we don't know why it needs "expert attention". For the less technical topics, Google Scholar will work as long as you have at least an undergraduate-level understanding of the subject, and overly-technical articles already have their own tag for when we do need an "expert" to clarify the article; {{Disputed}}, {{Confusing}}, and {{Missing information}} are likely to be useful as well. I've got a feeling that nobody is trying to process these tags... –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:00, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Articles needing expert attention
Fig. 1: Graph of the number of articles having the {{Expert needed}} tag, by month. Total is 4,474.
  • Delete except where reason is set. All articles not assessed as being "good" or above should in an ideal world get attention from an expert, but orange banners everywhere won't make that any faster. Tagging articles ad hoc as needing attention is superfluous; it's not a proper triage system to find the articles most in need. OTOH if someone has written in a reason then the template should be substed onto the page so it can still be acted upon. User:GKFXtalk 17:07, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pause I think there is room for more creative solutions, rather than the one-size-fits-all choice of deletion/keep. I looked in one of my areas of interest and found Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics#Things_to_do which lists on its third line "Apply your expert knowledge to improve an article Category:Mathematics articles needing expert attention" There I found over 160 articles, many with specific concerns raised. I don't think all that information should be thrown out. On the other hand I would agree with removing tags with no further information and more than a couple of years old, if there is a way to do that. We could also encourage other projects to adopt some existing expert needed categories like Mathematics has. Is there a tool that would list the number of items in such categories so the backlog might be more apparent? The total number of articles tagged Expert needed is small enough for a concerted cleanup project. Let's give this some more thought.--agr (talk) 21:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Perhaps it does just need a massive purge. eg Boy, List of newspapers in Canada "The specific problem is: Canada doesn't have just one faith-based newspaper, right?" Ice hockey in Bosnia and Herzegovina "The specific problem is: inadequate content on the historical and cultural aspects of the subject". The question is whether that really solves the fundamental problems - it's too easy to tag and nothing ever happens. Nigej (talk) 22:00, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, cleaning up questionable existing uses of the template is definitely a good idea. On List of newspapers in Canada, for example, it should probably be replaced with something like {{expand list}}. Ice hockey in Bosnia and Herzegovina could simply have all its maintenance templates removed: it's a stub, so these problems are obvious without banners at the top. Boy, on the other hand, looks like a good use – the placement of the template in April 2019 was accompanied by a talk page post which triggered a series of discussions, touching on the very point of the article's existence. – Uanfala (talk) 15:01, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • The trouble with the Boy example is that it although there was a general discussion, it's not obvious that it did get edited by an expert, and now the tag is simply a reminder of that discussion, serving no useful purpose. Seems to indicate that perhaps there needs to be a time aspect to the tag. Delete after x months but let it be readded. We need to force the tagger to do some work. Nigej (talk) 18:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, Boy is probably not the clearest example, as the tag is used in conjunction with other tags (for completeness and style). Still, setting an expiry date on the template is, in my opinion, a solid no-no. The template is not a time-limited request for assistance (at least it's not just that), it primarily signals to readers that something substantial is off in the article's content. This sort of message shouldn't be removed until and unless the issue has been resolved (WP:DETAG). Would we ever dream of automatically removing {{unsourced}} or {{POV}} from articles that have remained unsourced or one-sided after x months? – Uanfala (talk) 18:34, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm of the view that leaving large numbers of inappropriate "expert" tags around, because there's a chance we might delete an appropriate one, a much worse approach. Some sort of review is needed when the tag is added and then at intervals thereafter. And if people are not prepared to do that, it should be removed. Nigej (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep but update the template. Updated template shouldn't work without "reason=" parameter, and at least one wikiproject. The mentioned wikiproject should either be notified, or there should be an automated list displaying the articles with the tag. —usernamekiran (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I just came here from an article that did have the reason set, and even in that case I feel it wasn't specific enough to be actionable. How is it intended to encourage experts to make an edit? If someone is reading about a subject they are an expert on, they won't need a tag to tell them it is rubbish. If categorization is the goal, then a category without a tag accomplishes that (though cleanup categories are their own kind of disaster). If a non-expert sees the tag, is there a desire to have them take some kind of action? Seems to me the only effect it might have is to act as a "someone at one point thought this article was crap" warning. I will admit that I come at this with the opinion that most other cleanup tags are not helpful and should be deleted, though this one is worse than most. — RockMFR 14:22, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and update the template. I agree that the updated template shouldn't work without "reason=" parameter, and at least one wikiproject. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater here? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:08, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm the notorious drive-by flagman. But I think this behaviour is widely underrated. I'm able to contribute as much as I do mainly because I actually use Wikipedia heavily in my own research; I'm never at Wikipedia for Wikipedia, but for myself first of all. And that's a good thing, because I'm using Wikipedia while scratching a real itch and it puts one into an entirely different mindset about what issues need resolution in the here and now. As they say, with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow. Except that didn't always turn out to be true. But there is a strong analogy, and it does work here: with enough orthogonal agendas, most problems will finally come to light. I'm big into comparative advantage. There's no point in me fixing what any other editor might notice. There is a point in my addressing what only I am happening to notice, because my present mission has just rubbed my nose into it. In the large, my mission is to build a giant map of all the knowledge I need to integrate together according to my particular vantage point on how systems theory plays out in the modern world. Well, systems theory is found everywhere, and therefore so am I. I'm depressingly well travelled, almost to the point of self-mockery.
Generally I'm mainly trying to use the Wikipedia leads to establish my coordinate system, so the majority of my edits address problems with the lead. But I often come across sorry articles in a terrible state of affairs, and when I can, I try to break the back of what's preventing other editors from chipping in. Some articles are in such a sorry state, the casual editor simply doesn't know where to begin. There are those here who believe that all editor projects begin by starting a homestead on the talk page. Yeah, no. If I did that I would soon be a citizen of Wikipedia, and unemployed in the real world. A wizard arrives exactly when he means to, and then he buggers off ASAP. Maybe I launch a couple of fireworks with my bushy eyebrows to delight the children, but then I'm off to the next page. I do some of my "back breaking" work because I can (there's the comparative advantage term kicking into action). Because I have actively engaged with with ten of thousands of Wikipedia leads, I know a right proper mess when I see one. I didn't pick that number "tens of thousands" out of the air. I maintain my own personal wiki, where I often copy key sentences from Wikipedia leads into what amounts to a shadow wiki. Today I have 24,974 pages in my personal wiki invoking template:Wikipedia, which is what I do to mark the page as a shadow page to (usually) the same page name on Wikipedia.
Sometimes I come across pages where I would like to break the back of the existing gridlock, but I simply can't, because I can't even fake knowing enough to not potentially make the situation worse. For these I often slap on an "expert needed" template, always with a reason, rarely with an associated talk entry. I'm not trying to justify my behaviour, I'm merely offering up honest description. Just in my last 1500 edits or so here on Wikipedia (less than two years most likely), I see edit comments about my use of the "expert" templates on the following articles:
I'm not here to advocate that my judgement is generally steady and sound. On the contrary, my wiki travails continue morning, noon, and night, come rain, sleet, or snow. But I do generally try to do mostly the right thing while passing through. 25,000 pages actively pillaged (countless more visited without the T-shirt), and the six above pages had me entirely stumped as to how to fix the central problem. I think there's a tremendous amount of non-survivorship bias at play in this discussion. The whole point of expert needed is that some pages become mired in non-productive quagmires and that you really do need to pass the torch to some future editor—quite possibly some long future editor, because we don't actually compel participation (though we grind hard on people for not homesteading on the talk pages). You can make these templates go away, but you can't make the underlying problem go away. Think about it. The reason= default text could easily be "this foe is beyond my powers", aka I'm not the right wizard for this mission, aka this ain't my particular Balrog. Without delving into my particular wizardly powers, what I can say at least is that I have impressively bushy browwicks, and generally my browwicks don't sag unless the "wizard wanted" sign is one for the ages.
I've finish off by saying something about "expertise" in general. I've read two book in over the past two years on the subject: The Death of Expertise (2017) and Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts (2012). I don't recall these books clearly now, but the general tenor was that expertise is a complicated construct. Remember how we forked off that otherpedia that never found its wings? It was all about toeing the line of traditional expertise and authority. I think the real problem is that few people want to ride into the fray under the banner of "expert for general hire". And we don't actually need a true expert, what we actually need is someone who is sufficiently immersed in the topic area to be fluent in snipping the right colour wire, so as to put the article back on its feet again, when no-one else dares to pick up the wire cutters; I'm rarely trying to summon an actual "expert" so much as an ecosystem appropriate Crocodile Dundee. G'day mate! Crikeys, this page is a right mess. Toss me a shrimp on the barbie—actually a prawn, but he's not sure we're not American—while I snip a few of the worst wires and trim a few of the worst barbs in this soupy brier patch. If it were up to me I'd rename these template pages "Crocodile needed" and be done with it. Taht's the real problem here, IMHO: we're trying to summon an Oxford bow tie (see The Russia House (film)) when what we actually need is a Bowie knife.
Meanwhile, the bullhorn itself is not the problem. It mainly needs to be pointed better; and even then don't expect miracles, because many of the pages this gets slapped onto are legitimately hurting units. Are you thinking that if we eliminate these templates, people who are now doing template drive-bys are suddenly going to start homesteading on the talk pages and really finally at lost last roll up their sleeves to fix the problem? If so, I respectfully submit that you're completely off your rocker. This whole expert-needed mechanism is orthogonal to homesteader culture, and not in the least antithetical. Just my long-winded two cents. — MaxEnt 21:51, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You should consider making a TLDR summary. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You mean you can't understand "This whole expert-needed mechanism is orthogonal to homesteader culture, and not in the least antithetical."? Me neither. I'm a "brevity is the soul of wit" man myself. Nigej (talk) 21:34, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Homesteader culture" is the fantasy some various proposed change to Wikipedia culture (e.g. nuking the expert needed editorial template system) with result in more constructive volunteer contributions through increased participation and settled discussion on the talk page. These are the editors I referred to as homesteaders: they stay for a drink or two and socialize.
I am very much a tumbleweed editor. I leave comments on the talk page, but I then I blow town, because I have fish to fry in the next town over, and there are in excess of 5 million towns, each with its very own talk page whistle stop (of these 5 million towns, I don't intend to visit more than about 100,000—and in doing so I could feasibly leave an edit on 20,000 of these). I made that comment because I skimmed the other comments before me, and picked up the gist of a certain sentiment cluster that progress is more readily made when people stick around the talk page, rather than flagging and fufarting off.
When a tumbleweed flags a page, it's in the context of tens of thousands of other pages visited. That ought to be worth something, but how to capture it? I know: create a quick and dirty flagging system that passes the torch across the cultural divide from tumbleweeds to homesteaders. We could call it, hmm, "expert needed". Yeah, sure. That might even work. Only is hasn't worked great. I get it. But this is what I'm referring to as the orthogonal issue: that you aren't helping the tumbleweeds at all by removing something that's within their flighty wheelhouse in the expectations that they will settle down and join a different culture. Less brief, perhaps more clear—yet no apparent gain in the wit department for all that.
I really came back to confess that I have again resorted to my least favourite tool, and slapped expert needed computer science on Classification scheme (information science) (which is freshly renamed from something ghastly; see my one-and-done comment on the talk page there). This instance does nothing for my argument keep (already registered above) as computer science is the wrong discipline, but next best is Wikipedia:WikiProject Libraries and that really looked wrong. This is precisely the kind of nasty page where we need some kind of effective solution, yet it's probably out of reach for the average person who drifts along. The overlap with semantic spectrum is conspicuous, yet I haven't the faintest idea of where to begin the surgery.
I pretend not to know much about this sphere, only I'm not quite as clueless as all that. When it comes to something in the JavaScript world (gigantic) you can pretty much count on some intrepid coder who cranks out JavaScript for a living (with a secret fetish for computer science legalese) to come along and sort the subject matter boundaries out with verve and dispatch. But not for this sad duckling: it's simply not ANSI- or W3C- or WHATWG-adjacent enough to attract that kind of definitive attention.
I don't have a solution. But this is another fine example of the problem space, IMHO. Just today I read through the whole of MOS:NUMBERS. It would be heavy going if I didn't already know most of it. I love that document, because it's a fine example of a document written in the aftermath of what people who showed up actually did (every single counterexample has probably occurred in a real edit).
For this debate, the pages to consider are not the ones where expert needed was ill advised (which happens with every mechanism to some degree), but the pages where alternative solutions are far from obvious—without simultaneously presuming that more participation on the talk page solves everything, because that mode of engagement is far from reflecting the whole of the productive culture here. — MaxEnt 01:35, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Very discouraging to new/non-expert editors. Articles with the tag almost never get proper attention with the template and simply scares people away from editing articles in need of attention. Wretchskull (talk) 19:11, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete tagging seems to be completely arbitrary. Any article would theoretically benefit from an "expert" on the topic. This template does not help in any way to attract these experts or help other editors. --Ita140188 (talk) 01:47, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I see no persuasive reason to remove this. It's perceived failure to attract attention doesn't seem a good reason to me - that's a sign that people ought to be more familiarized with it, not that it should be removed. Besides, the same argument could be made for virtually any template about the needs of an article, yet I don't think anyone would want to remove them all. Second, the notion that it scares off editors is not a concern to me. If an editor does not possess expert knowledge when it is required, then it's good that they don't edit. If someone possesses expert knowledge, they won't be scared off. If the template was improperly applied then I trust that anyone with enough knowledge to contribute to the article would realize this. --Karlshammar (talk) 10:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - can attract COI editors and say they are experts on the subject. 🔥LightningComplexFire🔥 15:44, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This does look like it's heading toward "delete" or at least "deprecate". Those saying "keep" are calling for improvements that were suggested in the last two TFDs (e.g. making the "reason" field mandatory, notifying WikiProjects) but never implemented then either, which shows a clear lack of interest in maintenance. (Nor do I see how notifying WikiProjects would help; I post on WikiProject talk pages all the time and not once have I ever gotten a response.) So far, not a single person suggesting "keep" has shown any evidence that the template has ever carried out its intended purpose, while many people saying "delete" have shown evidence that it has not. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 06:01, 6 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Think why would an article need an expert's attention. It is either (partially) unreferenced, better references are needed, disputed, POV-pushing or incomplete - and there are templates for all of those conditions. If the template is meant for issues other than referencing, the expert needed template may be interpreted that an expert is needed to weigh in with their original research or a synthesis - none of which are permitted by wiki policies. I assume particularly complex issues listed in appropriate categories/wiki projects will draw attention from willing expert contributors with or without this template. --Tomobe03 (talk) 11:57, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In addition to the above, how would a non-expert contributor even know that an expert is needed? I can see how such a determination could be made by an expert, but then the template is redundant. Wouldn't the addition of the template by a non-expert mean "I personally don't understand this sufficiently to contribute and have no time/will/resources to read about it in sufficient detail"?--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:05, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are plenty of situations in which expert attention is specifically needed, and not references or copyediting or NPOV. A great example is the tag at Pierce oscillator#Operation: this a problem that only an electrical engineer (or an advanced amateur) would be able to even make sense of. I wouldn't expect a philosopher's involvement to help with this section at all. Likewise, I would not expect an electrical engineer to be any use at Subjective expected utility, and I would not expect a copyeditor with no domain expertise to be particularly helpful in either. Having subject-specific expert templates is the only way these articles are going to be fixed; there is a difference between "refactor some paragraphs" and "fundamentally re-approach how the subject is being explained". jp×g 23:13, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Particular expert isn't needed to report what a source says. Unless of course, the expert is meant to provide a synthesis - which would be exactly what policies prohibit. Furthermore, this would only serve to discourage contributions - as it certainlly appears that the expert needed tags currently successfully do. All the more reasons to delete not only as unhelpful, but as a potentially harmful tag. If an article is confusing to read there is {{Confusing}}. --Tomobe03 (talk) 23:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm not familiar with the information regarding particular instances of an article being improved, but that isn't the sole purpose of the template. Additional purpose of the template is to inform the reader that editors involved in the article's creation might lack the expertise and understanding of the topic that might just be too complex for everyone to comprehend. Vs6507 18:51, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, for the most part when I’ve seen this tag its been redundant. I also agree with the suggestions that it is perhaps a bit demeaning and discouraging. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:02, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, It's not useful and there are more specific templates available that are often more helpful as they let editors know exactly what issues need fixing rather than just saying there are issues. I don't think deprecate would solve anything as it would also potentially put off some editors from improving articles. Suonii180 (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Although it's not very well-explained, it does look like the template can be applied specifically for sections rather than as a blanket article-wide tag. (If only the technology would keep up, to allow tags simultaneous updates for both articles and talk pages...) --SteveCof00 (talk) 08:08, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I am in the process of fixing all the unspecified instances of this template (so far I have added subjects to 500 out of 1,500 transclusions). The existence of a backlog is not a reason for deleting maintenance templates (at the time of writing there are still 25 articles needing cleanup from October 2009). The use of a maintenance template for stupid things is not a reason for deleting maintenance templates (it is not that hard to go through and remove it from articles where it has been added stupidly). It is true that a non-specific "expert attention needed" tag is completely useless, but fixing this will probably take me less than a day. jp×g 19:28, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Surely, when the usual gang of ... non-experts ... cannot figure out the right thing to write, a subject matter expert could help. That's not necessarily because the article is too technical. As with many other maintenance tags, it's not unusual to find tags posted 5 years ago or longer, is that a reason to drop the citation needed and verification failed templates? Fabrickator (talk) 05:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it takes less than one day for a single person to clear out a 14-year backlog, it probably wasn't that big of a deal to begin with. This TfD itself has probably consumed more energy than it took me to categorize every unspecified inclusion. jp×g 17:45, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: if something needs expert from an attention then it needs attention in some specific direction—factual accuracy, sourcing etc.—and at the very least that needed direction will induce a different template ({{Unreferenced}}, {{Misleading}} etc.). Better yet, either fix the problem yourself or describe how the problem can be fixed on the talk page of the article, and if it's a low-traction page then post to a WikiProject. It is entirely obvious that, for instance, if the issue is on 3-opt then the issue will only be resolved by an expert, because a layperson simply doesn't have the tools available to resolve the issue. But there's no fleet of experts monitoring only these backlogs and not non-expert backlogs. I've never seen a success story with this template, but I have seen watchlist clutter and people wasting their time and confusing instances where the template doesn't disernibly apply. In general I hate template clutter, because it's busywork. Find a problem you can solve and solve it, rather than a problem you can't solve and tagging it. — Bilorv (talk) 01:53, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I have made a personal project of giving technical articles expert attention. This tag and the associated categories is one of the sources for articles I select for attention. I personally think the tag is useful and my project is an instance of something TenPoundHammer claims not to exist as justification for deleting this tag. In at least a limited sense, the template is working. It is maybe not working as well as it should. I will work on making sure we have links to the categories in the todo sections of Wikiprojects I am involved in. ~Kvng (talk) 13:32, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and make it work. I agree it would be helpful to make the reason parameter and subject area mandatory. That will make it easier to remove the tag once the problem is fixed or diagnosed as not a problem or to replace it with a better tag. The tag should be dropped if a skim reveals no obvious problems and there are no comments on the talk page. These tags are useful; half the work of fixing a problem is identifying that it exists. Personally, I sometimes fix a computer science article if it has this tag on it, since I'm a professional programmer. The tags put articles into the by-subject WikiProject Cleanup Listings, to which there are a lot of links from Wikiprojects and "what can I do to help?" pages, which are probably our primary vehicles for recruiting experts. There is a legitimate backlog that requires specialized expertise, but the way to fix that is to recruit more subject-matter experts rather than to destroy information about where they are needed. We could try emailing professors in the relevant fields; perhaps they just need someone to help them learn how Wiki syntax and citation and social rules work? -- Beland (talk) 23:25, 16 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete; each instance which has a reason and subject area gets added to a list of articles needing more care. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 11:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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Template:Skenderaj

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The result of the discussion was keep. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nearly all people in the main template have no WP article.–Cupper52Discuss! 20:02, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Template:ISO 15924/footer

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The result of the discussion was Delete; deleted by Fastily (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) AnomieBOT⚡ 03:10, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This navbox does not help navigating: just a list of 200 letter codes and no related info with it at all (expected like: linked names or articles). A better navigation place is provided in mainspace(!) and in template backoffice workspace. Interestingly, already in 2006 deletion was proposed by Evertype [1] ;-) DePiep (talk) 19:50, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK with deletion but I don't feel strongly either way. I am confused by the statement that it doesn't link to articles because it clearly does link to the script articles for each code. DRMcCreedy (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, they do link. Maybe I am detailing too much here ;-)  : The issue I see is: the target article/topic is not visible, nor logically present. For simple navigation, I'd expect texts that actually say, like, "code Xabc = topic PQR in article Abd Def" (linked properly of course). And this is what the two alternatives, even one in mainspace article body, already do. -DePiep (talk) 23:16, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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Template:Nintendo publishees

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The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:10, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The scope of this template is not well-defined. At a quick glance, you may think it is a list of Nintendo subsidiaries and affiliated development studios, but no, that's already covered with Template:Nintendo developers. So I'm not sure what the scope of the template is here. It seems to be studios that have had their games published by Nintendo at least once, but that is a weak relationship to build a navigation template around. Navigation templates are supposed to list related articles with that relationship established in reliable sources per WP:NAV. Anything grounded in sources will start to push this template towards being duplicative of the aforementioned Nintendo developers template. So I recommend deletion. TarkusABtalk/contrib 16:53, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete — The criteria for this template is practically nonexistent. None of these companies are related to each other outside the fact they worked with Nintendo a handful of times. Some of them, like Treasure, have only worked with them once and then never again, yet they're listed as "publishees" (whatever that means). I don't see this being of value to readers wanting to easily navigate related articles, since this is just a dump of random companies whose only relation is that they maybe worked on a Mario game in the past. Namcokid47 17:06, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per above. The word "publishee" is very obscure, not sure I've come across it before - if I buy a book, I'm a publishee (something like that). The main link at the top of the template "Nintendo publishees" actually takes you to List of Nintendo development teams which fails to mention many of the companies in the list. Nigej (talk)
  • Delete weird, niche navigation template. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 05:00, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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Template:Citra Award for Best Actor

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The result of the discussion was delete and then redirect Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:13, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This award navigational template is redundant to an already existing award navigational template, Citra Award for Best Leading Actor, which User:CalliPatra tried to WP:PROD as a "bad duplicate", [2], when the original template was created eight years ago. Aspects (talk) 13:26, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Template:R from template shortcut

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The result of the discussion was merge to Template:R from shortcut. {{R from template shortcut}} will now be placed in the holding cell where it will remain until namespace detection is implemented in {{R from shortcut}} after which the merge will be performed. (non-admin closure) --Trialpears (talk) 09:04, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Propose merging Template:R from template shortcut with Template:R from shortcut.
I think these templates would work better if merged together. It is pretty pointless to have a separate template just for template redirects, although I am not opposed to keeping the two categories to track all the template shortcuts. In fact, aren't template shortcuts supposed to be from one template code to another template code? Aasim (talk) 10:12, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Template:State results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election

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The result of the discussion was relisted on 2021 February 28. Primefac (talk) 01:19, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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