User:Fir0002/Discussion on templates

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I'll always remember the arguments caused by my introduction of the {{Support}} and {{Oppose}} templates from the Commons to the English Wikipedia. The arguments (most based on seriously flawed logic IMO) are recorded below:

[edit] Template:Support and Template:Object and Template:Oppose

This cannot be a good idea. Voting on every other topic as a proxy for consensus is bad enough, without adding a liberal sprinkling of dinky "+" and "-" images all over the shop. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:47, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Added a third critter. Are there any more? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What about N, Y, Yes and No? They aren't the exact same thing and aren't in widespread use, but I bring them up because they are similar. This link is Broken 02:22, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good spot - if they were being used on voting pages, then yes; however, they seem to be being used in articles, which is another matter althogether (although query whether they are actully needed, and whether a simply "Yes" and "No" would do). -- ALoan (Talk) 14:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Support, er..., Keep. Maybe it is dumb but this is becoming standard operating procedure on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates (see their voting instructions) after being imported from Commons:Featured picture candidates. TFD is not the place to be setting guidelines for this kind of user behavior. If you want to move to exclude tokens like this from voting, I would suggest bringing it up at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) instead. Dragons flight 22:02, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's useful on Commons because it's a multilingual project, and a picture is needed for those who don't speak English. That's not an issue here, and the instruction creep and new, extra layer of transclusion at FPC and RFA are significant drawbacks. --Cryptic (talk) 22:14, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm happy to have a discussion about whether this could be a problem (and I certainly admit the possiblity on technical grounds), but I do not believe it is an appropriate discussion to be having at TFD. Dragons flight 22:25, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Hundreds of little images on every page with voting seems like an unnecessary draw on our resources. Hopefully nobody will contaminate VfD with this—the page will never load again. The representation that Feature Picture Candidates has "adopted" this change is a bit misleading—the change was made a few hours ago, and apparently unilaterally in the absence of Talk page discussion. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Fair point. Dragons flight 22:31, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • Aren't the bullets an image? Alphax ^τεχ 17:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Yep - see [1] for an example. But this is on the part of the browser, not the server. Duh. I'll shut up now and vote. Alphax ^τεχ 17:13, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep It really clearly demonstrates a consensus - it's much easier to see the most color in a section rather than the most "support"/"oppose" words (obviously in the final tally each one would have to be counted not just estimated by the color). Silversmith had a good idea in shortening the template to only {{s}} and {{o}}, which would make voting eaiser than ever before. --Fir0002 22:26, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete:
  1. Further encourages places like VFD to degrade into simple polls. VFD, TFD, etc. should be places for discussion
  2. To ensure fast load times and a clean page, there should not be images littered all over the page.
  3. Unnecessary load. If we don't use images, as I suggested, then typing {{support}} is not that much faster than typing '''support'''...well at least not enough to justify having a template for it. Besides, it's much more logical to use the syntax for bolding. Note that '''Keep''' is shorter than {{support}}, but either way, saving a few characters to type something so simple is hardly worth making a seperate template for it.
  4. If half the people use the template, but the other half doesn't, I can definitely see this leading to people accidentally scanning over the votes as they count the little +'s and -'s to judge consensus. Unless everybody uses these templates, it will lead to a lack of uniformity on voting pages. But that's a relatively tiny problem- if I liked the idea of this template, this would make little difference to my opinion.
  5. There will have to be two seperate templates- one for use on places like VFD and one for use on RFA. While I suppose saying "support" on VFD could be interpreted as a delete vote, it's definitely ambiguous enough to cause some confusion. Another minor problem- I'm voting delete mainly because of the first three points I made. -Frazzydee|✍ 22:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. — Dan | Talk 22:42, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, I rather liked the templates initially, but sufficient reason has been stated to delete them. Phoenix2 22:44, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Detonate This link is Broken 22:55, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete them all. Voting is evil (what am I doing here?). Besides, what Frazzydee said. — mark ✎ 23:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Discussion at Village Pump. Given that this is primarily a question of user behavior vs. server load, I have posted this question to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Voting templates. In so doing I have asked that people refrain from voting on this issue to allow a more general discussion on whether voting templates represent unacceptable user behavior. TFD is after all not a setting for creating new policy governing how users should behave. Dragons flight 23:07, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • On the contrary, this is where template deletion discussions are held. Publicizing this discussion at the VP is all well and good, but it seems like you're trying to stifle/invalidate the discussion going on here with this request. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:07, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • Please assume good faith. I do not believe that policy should ever be created on *fD pages as the very format stifles discussion. There is nothing in the charter of TFD that says we are empowered to decide how people delineate votes, when voting is necessary, but that is what is defacto happening here. Presumably this will be the discussion everyone points to with respect to future voting templates even if the template was kept in User space or used with subst:. Basically, I feel that process matters more than just having people be confronted with a vote and saying keep or delete. Maybe my opinions in this regard are unusual, but I try to convey them honestly (for example I provided a direct link from VP to here and placed a notice here so people could in principle join the generalized discussion that I hoped for). Sorry if my methods have offended you. Dragons flight 00:59, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • No offense taken, and please understand that I was assuming good faith – I didn't mean to imply anything, just to describe what I saw. I don't quite get your reference to "policy" – this is simply a discussion regarding a few templates. If you want to vote with images, just don't use a template to do it. As others have pointed out, this is a Bad Idea™ for many different reasons. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 01:42, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • The only way in which "the very format stifles discussion" is where people keep trying to turn the discussions into straight up/down support/oppose keep/delete votes using exactly such tools as these. Delete. Uncle G 08:39, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)
• Delete: Excess complication and load for the negligible improvement they bring. Joe D (t) 23:11, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, using templates for voting stifles discussion, which is the primary purpose of voting in the first place. JYolkowski // talk 23:14, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, for the same reasons against the colorful boxes on VfD and other *fD places. --cesarb 23:22, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete for most of the reasons given above. Vegaswikian 23:48, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. As cesarb says, there's precedent for eliminating the use of silly colored things in discussions (on VfD, at least). For these to be useful, everyone would have to use them, and I personally would not. Also, server load, transclusion, blah blah blah. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 00:01, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Draws on resources too much. -Lommer | ^talk 00:05, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Kill, kill, kill. Mark¹ 00:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, really serves no purpose except to distract and use resources. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:06, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)
• Keep these templates. They are really useful, I love the way commons:Featured_picture_candidates looks. — Sverdrup 02:58, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Do you also like the fact that there's very little discussion at all on that page? Do you like the fact that several of the people who have adopted these templates have also taken to giving no rationales whatever? Uncle G 08:39, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)
    • Do you expect me to say I do? I think these are useful at featured pictures candidates, where they are just as silly as the boldface Support I see there (and I got used to do that, and now everyone does that). I can see why people object to these templates' specific uses but not their existence; there are so many places in Wikipedia where we can use this (effecively!) that we can't be sure to cover here. — Sverdrup 18:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral. I quite like them, but if it is a strain on WP, and if pages will load much slower, or not at all, then delete. --Silversmith Hewwo 03:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Even without the TFD template, those pictures make things look silly in a text-only browser such as Links. --Carnildo 03:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. WB 03:41, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Something we can do without. Enochlau 04:26, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • What I can't understand is why the template has to be deleted just because some people don't want to use it. I never wanted to take over the voting process and establish the template as the absolute process for voting. If people want to use this style they should have the option. The loading time of the page will only be mariginally influenced, (the icon being less than 1 kb) and most browsers would cache this. Should we now have a limit on the number of photos which can be posted on the FPC page to save bandwidth? Or should we limit our comments to save bandwidth? NO.
    • Many people already are customising there votes by modifying their signature (see Merovingian, Denni, B. Ramerth, ✏ Sverdrup to name a few) and cramping someone's freedom of expression (IMO) is very unwiki. I can't see a problem of having an extra two templates if some people want to use them, its not like they take up gigabytes of Wiki's server. I intend to make them into the short {{s}} and {{o}} forms to really make them a time saver. And why shouldn't there be a time saver? To say that it will force people to be briefer in their comments is ridiculous. --Fir0002 06:24, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • I don't just not want to use them- I don't want to see them. They're slightly less irritating than they would be if they blinked, but not much. Mark¹ 07:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Well it's not like you vote on FPC anyway. --Fir0002 08:41, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
          • It is and I do. Mark¹ 04:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
            • Even so, it is a bit selfish don't you think? --Fir0002 06:26, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
      • None of those signatures are being customized with the use of templates (and neither is mine). AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 11:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • Why is a template a problem? --Fir0002 06:26, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
        • Your sig is ridiculously long -- it should be put in a template or be shortened (IMO). A template makes it easier and makes the wikitext easier to read; banning templates telling us to use long wikitext snippets to do it if we want is Premature optimization. — Sverdrup 15:10, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not saying it doesn't confer benefits. Some of the points raised here are quite interesting... but it's a matter of aesthetics. It's ugly, and we all want to concentrate on the pictures being offered and the comments being made. But really, counting oppose and support words, when they're in bold, really isn't that hard - and also there's no neutral icon too. Enochlau 23:42, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • There is actually, although I haven't brought it across from the commons because of all this argument erupted. --Fir0002 06:26, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Extreme delete. Radiant_>|< 07:53, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Will draw too much of the server's resources that will cause pages to load slower. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 08:45, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • If that is the case than why is it being used on the much larger Commons FPC? --Fir0002 10:13, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • Because Commons is used by people with different languages that may not overlap, so it makes sense to have a language-independent symbol. We don't need it on :en. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • It's ironic hearing arguments about them being an eyesore, when the biggest eyesore on WP is the signatures people customize. It is also annoying to anyone who only reads diffs, and has been complained about a lot. But lovers of their fancy signatures wouldn't be happy if their "freedom" to use them was taken away. Including myself. --Silversmith Hewwo 11:32, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Exactly. --Fir0002 12:09, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
        • Oh, I'd set up the software to take away the "fancy" sigs away too - a plain link to the user page and talk page should be enough for anyone: see: -- ALoan (Talk) 12:22, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • And in response to ALoan, English WP is the largest of all, and we have a lot of people read it and contribute to it whose english is very poor. So although it obviously isn't as necessary as on Commons, I don't think it's a valid point for deleting them. --Silversmith Hewwo 11:37, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • Hmm - if someone can't understand enough English to be able to use "support" and "object", do we really want them voting on FAC, FPC, VFD, etc? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:22, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • And you dont need a graphic to accomodate the different languages. A simple '+' or '-' would suffice. --Fir0002 12:09, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
            • Good idea. If it was simply a matter of {{subst:support}} being used to add '''+ Support''', I would not care at all (but why do it? it is more characters to type, FCOL). But adding in {{support}} with the dinky image is wrong on many counts. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:22, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
              • And another point - The commons is using this template to accomodate language barriers. Right? Well if someone who can't speak english can understand that the words "support" and "oppose" (used in the templates {{s}} and {{o}}) than they should be able to just write the word "support" or "oppose". --Fir0002 22:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose their use! I've looked at their use at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates and elsewhere and find them thoroughly annoying. Furthermore, they distract from any comments that editors have made, which should be the more important point. They should all be Extreme deleted. BlankVerse ∅ 12:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Well I find your customized siganture very, annoying, but I don't go complaining about it (upto now). Who are the editors and why should their vote be more important than a "common" wikipedian?? --Fir0002 10:06, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't think Blankverse or any other wikipedian is insinuating they are better by having a custom signature, as anyone can do it in their preferences. It is also only html code that the browser has to render, and not a server bandwidth issue like hundreds of images on a discussion page. <>Who?¿? 16:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Crush by elephant! (See, I can vote with pictures too) the wub "?/!" 13:14, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • And why should't you be able to? --Fir0002 22:40, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - I like the idea, but it can't work (for reasons stated above). violet/riga (t) 14:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Annoying. Let's keep the wiki simple. --Bernard Helmstetter 17:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete -- More resource hungry, more time to download a page. Sure, it's prettier, but that's hardly a positive when we're all so used to the masses of text here anyway and gotten along just fine until now. Everything just says no. - Longhair | Talk 17:40, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • If bandwidth is such an issue, than why run such as nominating poll at all 365 days a year? The actual image thumbnails on every image that is being voting on, would be more than the combined download time of all the icons used to vote for it. --Fir0002 22:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - Pretty but completely unnecessary. Maybe recommend people use colored votes if you want to make them more visible, but even this is not necessary. - Omegatron 18:46, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Only some people would use, so appearence is misleading as well as distracting. -R. S. Shaw 19:03, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • To reiterate, so are customized signatures. --Fir0002 22:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep although merge object and oppose. Two is enough. They are nice, and not obligatory. I always said that colors are an important tools help increase the 'processing speed' of reading (i.e. save our time) - for example, it is slightly faster to count green/red instead of reading 'object', 'support', 'comment', etc. The increase in page size or processign speed is insignificant in the era of such fast computer capabilities growth. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:35, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  We could implement a recommendation or policy to make vote text in colors instead, as I showed above.

  The increase in bandwidth and server resource use is highly significant with an image-containing template which would appear on many pages many times from a server run entirely from donations. Templates like this have caused all kinds of debate already because of their server load. - Omegatron 20:14, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

  • • I seem to remember that not too long ago Wiki ran a fund raiser to the amount of $20,000 for their servers. You can't tell me with that much to spend that wiki is being run a pair of 486's. --Fir0002 22:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • $75,000, as I recall, and it was raised well before the fundraiser concluded. Like so many other projects, however, the limiting factor on performance is not how much money you can throw at it, but how much developer time. --Cryptic (talk) 23:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Surely not for server load, that would depend mainly on the equipment. --Fir0002 06:29, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

          Yes, for server load. Load depends on the equipment and the efficiency of the code. The code is bogged down by templates. Besides, these three are unnecessary and distracting. - Omegatron 17:59, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. There are already more pressures than I like away from consensus building. We keep introducing elements that increase the appearance of democracy at the expense of consensus. These are way too reminiscent of marks on ballot papers. The various tallies are worrying enough. This is a step too far.—Theo (Talk) 19:59, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • So you are against democracy?--Fir0002 22:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia is not a democracy. It works on building consensus, not raw vote-tallying. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 23:36, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete -- Netoholic @ 20:48, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)
• Delete -- Umm... I dont hate it. It looks cool and okei. But for the sake of server load this should be removed as it can simply be done with '''Oppose'''|'''Delete'''. Err..server load..? Yeah server load... users are encourged to substitue bable template (though i dont do it) to their user pages for the sake of reducing load! So I say delete -- Oblivious 21:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • People! can't you guys see that it is being used universally on the commons FPC? A much larger page, and as I mentioned further up the page - if people can understand the words "support" and "oppose" enought to be able to type in the write template, than they can just as easily type the words in so the templates do not play any part in overcoming the language barrier! Its there - as it should be here - because people want to express their vote in that style. Why oppress it? --Fir0002 22:30, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • 1) You have an odd definition of the word universally. 2) I don't care what they're/you're doing at Commons. 3) It's not oppression. If you really feel like it, and no one else cares, you can still use images in your comments. Just don't use this template. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 23:34, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • What do you mean and "odd" definition of the word 'universally'? Have you even had a look at the FPC on the Commons? Perhaps 1 in every 50 votes doesn't use the template (see this this and this to name a few.) And the Commons is part of the Wiki project - and if it works OK for them, it can certainly be used here without an ill effects. --Fir0002 06:26, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • At FPC I count about 10 people using it (infrequently), and quickly scanned about 30 that don't. Hardly "universally" accepted. violet/riga (t) 23:46, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • To be fair, there were only about nine hours - from 13:02 Jun 20 to 21:51 Jun 20 UTC - between the instructions on FPC changed to use {{Support/Oppose}} and the tfd template was applied. In that time frame, the only support or oppose votes I see on FPC that did not use the template is Guettarda's here (at 13:04) and Longhair's here (which another editor later changed to use the template). In contast, all of the other six editors voting during that window used the templates, and three more began even after the tfd notice started wreaking havoc with the formatting. --Cryptic (talk) 00:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Crush by llama! OK so they're cute, but, um, no. Commons:Featured picture candidates makes me shudder. Oh at first glance it's all pretty with clicky things and colours and drop-shadows and whatnot that would make the overfriendliness team at Microsoft.com proud, but there are hardly any *reasons* given for the votes! It's already bad enough that some people (here and there) give little to no reason with their vote, but being able to copy-n-paste such a tag will further encourage mindless voting. I doubt server drag would be much of an issue; however it is more troublesome for the end user. Now which is longer?

• <a href="/wiki/Image:Symbol_support_vote.png" class="image" title=""><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/15px-Symbol_support_vote.png" alt="" longdesc="/wiki/Image:Symbol_support_vote.png" />
• <li>

Yes, that's the basic HTML this page shoved me for each type. 222 characters instead of just 4. Multiply that over the course of a clogged SchoolWatch Vfd and it'll take forever to download (in comparison to the pure tagging) regardless of how good your connection is. I can see the reasons for using it, but I would never want to see an asthetic "improvement" made at the cost of supplying reasoning. We're Wikipedia, not Encarta, we value functionality over clicky things. Crush, I say! Crush! *does best impression of ticked-off llama sound* *fails miserably* bah, I knew I should have gone with the donkey instead... Master Thief Garrett^Talk 03:18, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• • The commons is a different voting process - there they don't use the thumbnail discription or put in reasons for their opposal as a rule. As for the copy and paste - that is simply ridiculous! How can the text '''support''' be harder to copy than the text {{support}}  ? So there is no "cost of supplying reason". It is just as easy for someone to leave a reason without the template as it is with the template. I fail to rationale behind that argument. --Fir0002 06:26, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. -Sean Curtin 04:45, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • Look at the above vote - no rationale and no template. --Fir0002 06:29, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • And there's nothing wrong with that! Why say again what loads of others have already said? violet/riga (t) 07:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • What?! Have you been reading what is being said at all? People are saying that if the templates are introduced than the voting process will have more of these no-reason-votes. --Fir0002 08:19, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
        • And what's wrong with that? violet/riga (t) 12:21, 22 Jun 2005 UTC)
        • The FPC page should have a certain amount of reason behind each vote. --Fir0002 22:36, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
          • Fir0002 dude, Why dont you give up? I mean majority of people are saying Delete with reasons good enough to delete it. As a regular voter in FP you should know, better than anyone else, majority is taken into consideration in descision making. --Oblivious 13:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
            • There is no way I'm going to "just give up". The only have decent objection to this template is that of server load. And to tiny extra templates aren't likely to make much difference since such an overwhelming amount of people say that they hate them and will not use them. Although I can't see the justice behind comments like "they look ugly" coming from users who use ridiculous signature styles. I know there isn't a chance now that these templates will survive, but I just can't see why a user should be unable to use this simple, small template. I drew a case study from the FPC page on the Commons, showing that the page loads up as fast as the FPC on en.wikipedia, and there was no problems with server load. But people just conveniently ignored the point. People are saying that the template would discourage reasons behind votes, just because instead of typing '''support''' you will be typing {{Support}} and therefore it will somehow prevent you from typing anything after it. I mean where is the logic behind that!? I just can't believe they way this template is being treated. --Fir0002 22:39, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • All right: Delete for reasons already given by other voters. You might not agree with them, but the reasons that people are consistently giving for deletion are pretty obvious by now. -Sean Curtin 05:18, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Some faulty reasoning has been thrown around. For example, people should always provide a rationale and these templates shouldn't change anything about how they act. Also, this is a multilingual project just like the commons. The number of non-native English wikipedians is significant. Still, I don't see how these are useful for scanning unless everyone uses them. And unless subst: is used they will strain servers and using subst: doesn't exactly make voting any easier. It's a nice idea, but I don't think it would work. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:32, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • What would not work? These templates are being taken so seriously that everyone has to be against it or accept some kind of impending dominance of silly icons -- it's a wiki, people! Templates are used when people like it, because they think it's a good idea. I can't understand how anyone just wants to delete these templates, when what they want is really to frown upon their use in their favorite Wikipedia insitution. What if, for example, this template was kept alive, was sporadically used on all votings but only was left in heavy use in say, personal elections. (I don't know if we have any of those left in wiki-form.) The point here is that it's not sensible to ban this EnWiki-wide just because "it won't work". Have some faith in the free wiki. — Sverdrup 10:40, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Support They make the page eaiser to read at a glance by looking at the colors. --michael180 14:22, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. There are enough knee-jerk voters already; why make it easier for them? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:34, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • How is it easier for them with a template? --Fir0002 22:39, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, not needed here. Alphax ^τεχ 17:13, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Wikipedians can read fine without the server resources. Shem^(talk) 18:20, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, because they encourage people to take one side or the other without any consideration that they might want to be neutral or just want to add a comment. Angela. 20:29, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

  Comment: Angela's is an excellent point, I'd encourage other editors to note it. Shem^(talk) 20:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  This point can be overcome with the addition of a "neutral" template. There already is an image Neutral Vote, so creating a tempate would be simple. --Fir0002 22:39, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

• Delete - more overcomplication by people who think "votes" around here are actually votes. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:54, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep all. These are useful in many contexts. A deletion solely based on whether they are needed here is illogical. The decision about use for voting is a different issue – it must not be decided by a vote for or against a particular template. (I actually sympathize with Mel Etitis' and Angela's concern about sheep votes, but whether they actually aggravate the problem is questionable. The templates may even make it easier to spot (and fight, e.g. discount) such votes. I believe that making things intentionally hard often creates more problems than it solves. Such questions should be discussed in a different place, as Dragons flight said.) — Sebastian (talk) 02:32, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
• Delete, on wikipedia, even votes shouldn't be just about numbers. --W(t) 02:39, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

  Why is this a reason against a template for a checkmark that can be used in hundreds of other places? — Sebastian (talk) 04:07, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

  It encourages scanning of the page for the majority opinion instead of reading the comments. If there's something other than voicing support or opposition to things on infrastructure pages you want to use the checkmark for it's still there as an image, in that case there's no need to have a boldface "support" attached to it. --W(t) 04:13, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

  Sorry, I just realized that this vote is not about the "Y" and "N" templates. — Sebastian (talk) 04:29, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

  Ooh, hadn't seen those, those are excellent, all for keeping those. --W(t) 04:32, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

  How can you be against the support and oppose templates and be all for the y and n templates?! What's the difference? --Fir0002 06:20, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

  The support/oppose templates can only realisticly be used in voting. The y and n templates are wonderful for use in comparison tables and such. --W(t) 06:24, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

• Delete Evil Monkey∴Hello 03:37, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - Sorry, Fir0002, but I don't like them. I am also worried about server load, although I do not know the technical details about small redundant images and hundreds (thousands?) of template requests per page load. -- Chris 73 Talk 09:27, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. All we have to do is use subst to get rid of repeated template acquisitions, and as for the image server load argument, the servers are now able to handle up to 600KB images without any increased server load, no matter how many people access the image at once. Talk to user dammit on IRC, and stop rehashing old arguments. --brian0918™ 13:39, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • If you subst it it adds a pointless chunk of code. The other problem is that there seems to be no point in using it if most other people aren't. violet/riga (t) 17:39, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral - if it doesn't impose a load on the image servers. It has only recently been introduced as an idea on WP:FPC, and even then without discussion (but that's fine, boldness is a virtue). The template looks quite nice, but it doesn't seem particularly necessary. Only a few people are using it so far. Using 'subst:' would solve any transclusion issues, but it would obscure the Wikicode for each vote. Many new voters struggle to place their vote above the comment/section break at the bottom of the page, particularly if the previous vote has a convoluted signature. I'm just please that we have mostly gotten people into the habit of bolding their vote. -- Solipsist 14:54, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I agree with Sean Curtin. --Kbdank71 18:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Good luck to anyone who takes it on themselves to orphan that one. Phils 12:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I kind of like these templates as they make it easier to know which votes are support and which votes are not. I could see some negative aspects to them as well. So my vote is Neutral(as the image suggests). Falphin 15:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete <- Is a very clear indicator of one's vote. And agree with several above, the discussion is more important than the vote in many cases, as well as extreme server overload if they were in use; in this particular discussion, there would be 56 instances (+/- 1) of this template and graphic in use; for one discussion, that is quite a bit. <>Who?¿? 16:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Not really, as noone seems to want to use the template. It is only supposed to be an individual taste template not a everyone must use this template, although it can be used that way as I have mentioned several times earlier. --Fir0002 00:16, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • You just proved our points, an individual taste template, belongs in user namespace, not main. <>Who?¿? 01:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • It should be as easy as possible to indulge in your taste, and doing it that way is far more complicated than need be. --Fir0002 03:00, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
• Support - I don't buy the server load arguments - if there are 100 instances of a single image, the browser should only request it once when the page is loaded, not 100 times. Firebug 08:35, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - For the same reason. THe image has a very small file size, and it only needs to be loaded ONCE each time someone looks at a page it is being used on.