Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Conclusions

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This page contains a list of centralized discussions that have been completed in the past, and the conclusions that have been drawn from them. These conclusions should be seen as consensual guidelines for Wikipedians. It can be assumed that the Wikipedian consensus holds that they hold true in the majority of situations to which they apply.

It is possible for consensus to change over time. Thus, it may be useful at some point to re-open some of these discussions. If so, the relevant link should be moved back to Template:Cent and advertised, and discussion can continue. However, please only re-open a discussion if, after you've asked some other user's views on the matter, it seems to no longer reflect Wikipedian consensus - do not re-open a discussion simply if you personally disagree with the outcome.

Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines has more discussions (approved, rejected, and proposed) some of which may not have been listed for centralized discussion.

Contents

[edit] 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

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

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

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

Main Page Main Page replacement poll Endorsed Facelift drifting slightly toward more elaborate. Main Page,
Main Page (old style)

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.

Notability Notability (essay) Beyond scope of Cent Discussion has expanded to a large number of pages indexed on {{notabilityguide}}. Notability/Proposal

People (biography) CSD A7 debate No consensus Concerns about inconsistent speedies of vanity pages. CSD Ax

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)

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)
Open Concern that spoilers should be more prominent. 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

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

[edit] Process issues

Topic Page Outcome Notes See Also
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 5 days. Anyone can remove the tag. Deletion reform/Proposals/Uncontested deletions

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

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}}

[edit] Social issues

Topic Page Outcome Notes See Also
Blocking users Blocking policy proposal Rejected Concerns about blocking by IP Blocking policy

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

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

Review (editor) Editor review Process Voluntary peer review process. Guide to requests for adminship,
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards

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
Disputed 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

Userboxes Many proposals compete in an effort to regulate the creation, format, storage, and display of UBX. This is a failure of the centralized discussion process. No consensus exists for any proposal. Some remain active; most have stalled or been rejected.
  Active: Inactive/Rejected: See Also:

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

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

[edit] Technical issues

Topic Page Outcome Notes See Also
Templates (conditional) MfD/qif Keep and deprecate. Don't use {{qif}} to create conditional templates. Superceded by ParserFunctions. ParserFunctions,
Templates using ParserFunctions