Template talk:Descriptive

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This is a template to use on pages that are built using the original wikipedia guideline process...

that is to say, figure out what you're actually doing and how much that has consensus or not, and how much it's working or not, write down your findings, and discuss them with others.

Actually all policy, guideline, and essay pages should ideally be like that. This is just to make it look official. :-)

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Removing the "guideline" part reduces confusion with the guideline and policy templates... sure... but on the other hand does that mean we are abandoning experience and consensus in favor of wikinomic? Kim Bruning 16:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, there's that word again. I think this is one of Zen's delightful little paradoxes. What we're doing is protecting the wiki from nomic by seeming to give in a little way, and reducing the scope for further nomics. Simply put, if you call two different things the same name, you open the way for wikilawyering. Kim, I dislike wikinomic (wimic?) as much as you do, however I am also a crackshot player if I want to, and I have some pretty good ideas on how to counter it. >Radiant< 22:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My observation

I have posted an opinion similar to this one on Wikipedia talk:Discuss, don't vote, but I felt it might be useful in helping to construct a better encyclopedia to reproduce those comments here.

In short, I find {{descriptive}} to be a content-free notification. What it says, at its core, is "Some Wikipedia editors approve of the contents of this page."

And, well, big deal. Some Wikipedia editors approve of articles on minor fictional characters which are longer than our articles on major philosophical movements of the 20th century. Some Wikipedia editors approve of having multiple pictures to go along with Autofellatio, just in case one picture was insufficient to convey the concept. And some Wikipedia editors approve of massive Userbox cruft cluttering up the Template namespace.

The primary purpose of this template, based on its wording and based on comments from Kim Bruning, seems to be to give certain Wikipedia opinion pieces the weight of quasi-policy by removing the word "Guideline" from the template which accompanies them. I believe such efforts to be, at best, misguided.

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}
06:47, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• I fully agree. >Radiant< 08:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't say anything about anyone approving the page, does it? *reads template twice, does a grep, reads again*. Nope, nothing there about that.

It is assumed that everyone who has read a descriptive page approves of it. After all, if you didn't approve, you'd have edited it.

This template is used on pages that have explicitly been written using the original process we used to create guidelines. Some recent pages are tainted and are unlikely to reflect consensus.

Kim Bruning 20:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

• Hm, it seems that your first two paragraphs contradict one another. As to your third, an example would be nice? >Radiant< 21:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, apparently we're looking at this from very different perspectives.

The first paragraph states my position from my perspective, the second tries to find common ground with yours. I had never explicitly considered the concept of "approval".

Is approval linked to "authoritative" in your mind, as in "this page should describe an authoritative policy that everyone should follow?".

A while ago, a good example was WP:CSD. Many people were simply ignoring it. AFAIK, this has never led to an arbcom case and has never been used as a principle in any arbcom case. (though I admit I haven't checked recently.)

Kim Bruning 08:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Let us not be jejeune, Kim. The phrasing of the template is designed to carry the connotation that the page meets some nebulous form of approval by "wikipedians in the field," whoever they may be, who regard the contents of the page as a "best practice". The fact that you can't grep the word "approve" or "approval" out of it means nothing, as you well know, what with your Ph.D and all in semiotics or whatever. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 00:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a PhD in semiotics, but I once had a 10 minute conversation with someone who had :-P

I am actually somewhat at loss wrt your concept of approval (see also my answer to Radiant) . Not only does the exact text not appear on the template, in fact that the concept never occurred to me as an explicit concern. I thought I was explicitly describing how consensus worked. This is along the lines of telling people that wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If that's a big surprise for them, just wait till they hear about consensus! ;-)

So help me understand your issue, and I'll try to explain mine, and let's find the common ground to come to a consensus. Kim Bruning 08:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• I can read this template in two ways. One is simply stating "this is a page that some people like and others don't", which is semantically meaningless. The other is "these are best practices" which can easily be seen as an authoritative statement. If a page is authoritative, use the standard template to avoid confusing people; if it is not authoritative, do not confuse people by making vague statements that imply that it is. >Radiant< 09:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I hope you don't feel I lured you into a trap, but here's the next question for you: can a wiki page be authoritative, and if so, is it still a wiki page?.

Kim Bruning 10:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• That would be a reasonable argument for permanently protecting all policy pages. >Radiant< 11:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

That's interesting. How so? Would protecting them make them more authoritative? Kim Bruning 00:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• It would make them less volatile. >Radiant< 08:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It would not nescesarily be inert. I think that wiki pages describing guidelines are exactly the same as any other kind of wiki page. If you protect a wiki page, it won't be a wiki page anymore. Perhaps it would be a nu(pedia) page?

In the case of a protected page, problems and errors would accumulate, until people got totally fed up and change the page all in one go. Kim Bruning 10:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• No, you have that backwards. In a freely editable policy page, problems and errors have been shown to accumulate, until people get totally fed up and change the page all in one go, and then are reverted by some wonk who claims that "this hasn't been properly discussed". >Radiant< 12:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed, perhaps we should enforce some kind of verifiability on guideline pages? (This is what I'd like to do.) Kim Bruning 21:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, that's easy, just lock them in the agreed-upon version. >Radiant< 23:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Don't you know that pages only ever get protected on m:The wrong version ? ;-) Kim Bruning 11:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
        • If you'd re-read that essay, you'd see why this it only adds to the argument for protecting policy pages. >Radiant< 22:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)