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By Hiding and Kwekubo

Civility

The recent poll on our Civility Policy has been closed and summarised by User:SilkTork. SilkTork noted that:

the majority of people feel the current civility policy is too lenient, and that it is inconsistently applied and unenforceable. Most people feel that civil behaviour applies as much on personal talkpages as elsewhere, and that there are particular problems with civil behaviour on Recent Changes Patrol and Admin Noticeboards. Almost everyone feels we are too harsh on new users, though just over half the people feel that when it comes to experienced users that expectations of behaviour depends on context and the people involved. Most people feel that baiting is under-recognised, although it was noted that it is difficult to recognise baiting, and that people have a choice in how they respond. There was no clear consensus on the use of warnings before blocking, though most feel that the warnings are about right. A number of people feel that everyone should be treated with respect regardless of circumstances, and that being civil does not impede communication. A number of people also feel that experts should be treated like everyone else.

Discussion as to what changes need to be made to reflect the poll has begun. See Wikipedia talk:Civility#Civility Poll results.

Notability and fiction

Debate has reignited at a request for comment regarding notability and how it applies to fiction. Most participants agree that the community is currently divided on the amount of detail with which Wikipedia should cover fictional topics. There is also support for the view that no consensus exists as to whether articles split from a "parent article" in line with Wikipedia:Summary style are part of an overarching topic or become an article on a new and separate topic. However, the correct application of our notability guidance is still under debate. User:WesleyDodds has been making the case for a strict application of the guidance laid out in Wikipedia:Notability applying to articles related to fictional topics:

what needs to happens [sic] is we need to stop overrelying on primary sources. This is the biggest problem facing fiction-related articles on Wikipedia, as too many people are more interested in charting chararcter [sic] minutae [sic] instead of trying to explain to the general reader why they should care in the first place.

User:Jinnai countered that Wikipedia:Notability

is not universaly [sic] accepted in its current form so anyone claiming that it has consensus is on shaky ground to begin with.

An essay attempting to reflect the dominant views of the request for comment is being drafted at Wikipedia:Notability and fiction.

Consensus

A discussion regarding the role of building a consensus on policy pages through editing has been initiated at Wikipedia:Editing policy. The discussion itself was started after a change to the Editing Policy. The contested change saw the removal of text which had been added without discussion. The removed text follows:

However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first. The change may be implemented if no objection is made to it or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general, as should proposals for new policy pages (see also Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Proposals).

User:Kim Bruning made the change on the 15 August, noting it on the talk page. User:Ched Davis objected to the change, stating:

Changes to a policy page should be discussed on the relevant policy talk page.

Television schedules

An RFC has been opened at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not as to whether or not current television schedules for television networks/stations are appropriate content on Wikipedia. Opening the debate, User:Mark pointed to discussion from April 2008, found in the archives of the village pump. User:Masem commented that

The key factor between being a TV guide and an encyclopedic coverage of what shows a network airs is the fact we do not break this down week-by-week, episode by episode or include one-time events.

User:DGG felt that

schedules for individual stations are not generally appropriate. The stations can do it better themselves. The work it would take us to do it correctly should be better spent on writing articles on topics we need to cover--or perhaps improving the plot sections of TV shows.

Making the case for "historic block schedules", User:Firsfron argued that

these block schedules are in use in television encyclopedias, and appear frequently in reliable sources (these are available upon request). These national schedules affected (and still effect) millions of viewers each year, and have a major impact on the television industry each fall, especially around Upfront time. Entire books have been written about these schedules

A request for comment to clarify the suitability of external links to accounts on Twitter was made by User:MuZemike. MuZemike was confused by current guidance, and asked that, given

there are many 'fake celebrity' Twitter accounts out there ... [s]hould we allow such external links coming from Twitter, should we require verification, or what?

Putting the case for allowing Twitter links, User:RL0919 argued that:

I don't see why a subject's official Twitter feed wouldn't typically be an appropriate external link, even if the subject also had some other form of internet presence. If the feed is a fake or is never used, then subject-article editors can handle that on a case-by-case basis.

Outlining a way forwards, User:Ianmacm commented that:

[t]here is nothing wrong with the current policy, which has little to do with anti-Twitter snobbery. The real problem is having external links sections clogged up with non-notable trivia and blatant spam from blogs etc. This has to be removed, which takes up time that is better spent doing other things. If a user really thought that a tweet was of earth-shattering importance, they could raise it on the talk page of the article to see what other editors thought. The reality is that most tweets are non-enyclopedic, and it would be a worrying development to allow them as external links as things stand.

Polling

A poll has opened to resolve a long-standing and contentious dispute over the names of several articles related to Ireland, most recently dealt with by the ArbCom. Polling is by Single transferable vote / instant-runoff voting; the chosen solution will be enforced for a period of two years. The poll opened on 2 August, but it is unclear when it is to close.

At the village pump, a poll on whether to create a recent changes page for unwatched articles to prevent vandalism by modifying the recent-changes table in MediaWiki is currently open. So far everybody is in full agreement with the idea. The poll opened on the 5 May, but it is unclear how the poll will be closed or how the idea will be implemented.

Deletion roundup

Your writer has trawled the deletion debates opened and closed in the last week and presents these debates for your edification. Either they generated larger than average response, centred on policy in an illuminating way, or otherwise just jumped out as of interest. Feel free to suggest interesting deletion debates for future editions here.

Articles

Categories

Files, templates, redirects and stubs

Briefly

Requests for comment

35 Requests for comment have been made this week:

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==Good job==

I like how this particular signpost article was written. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was just coming here to say the same thing. The authors clearly put a lot of legwork in on this one and did a hell of a job summarizing it all clearly and concisely. Excellent work.--Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No offense, but Hiding, is this amazing page your work? I haven't heard of Kwekubo, and if this their doing, I'll have to follow them more closely. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much. Kwekubo posted about the Ireland poll to the tip room, and I cut and pasted that into the report, so I felt they should be listed as co-author. But otherwise, I am to blame. Hiding T 20:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost: doing it for free since 2005.
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