Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Archive

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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
Biographical Opt Out Biographical optout Rejected Requests have been received in various fora from the subjects of Wikipedia biographies for the biography to be removed. It was proposed that anyone other than a public official or someone who has placed themself at the forefront of public controversies should be able to request the Wikipedia article about them to be deleted without discussion. BLP subject response
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.
Non-free content criterion 8 NFCC 8 debate Edits reversed and no consensus to restore them A bold edit to WP:NFCC suggested that the eighth criterion have "and its omission would be detrimental to [understanding of the topic of an article]" removed as a requirement for a non-free image. The change was reverted and discussion did not lead to a consensus to restore it. Non-free content criteria
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
Responding to suicidal individuals Wikipedia:Responding to suicidal individuals Rejected Consensus agrees that Wikipedia is not a counseling service. Wikipedia_talk:Responding to suicidal individuals#Time to reject
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)		 Spoiler guideline accepted: Wikipedia:Spoiler That spoiler warnings should be deprecated 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
Sports teams Naming conventions Policy (1) In cases where there is no ambiguity whatsoever as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the official name should be used. (2) In cases where there is some ambiguity as to the official spelling of a club's name in English, the name most commonly used by the English-language media should be used (as determined using the number of hits at Google News). See history for full policy History of discussion
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
IRC Channels RFC/IRC channels No consensus to do anything After a request for arbitration and several separate MFDs, a policy was proposed on making an official policy for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia IRC channels. IRC
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
Pranking/April Fool's jokes Pranking Rejected Prohibit or restrict prank articles, main page edits, interface changes (through the MediaWiki namespace), or joke RFAs/AFDs/MFDs/policies April fools
Remedies Requests for remedies No consensus/rejected A new dispute resolution mechanism to sit between RFM and RFAR, where a small committee would discuss disputes before presenting proposed remedies for community consensus. Wikipedia:Dispute resolution
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
School threats Wikipedia:School threats No consensus/rejected Threats of violence made against a specific school/students to be reported to the Administrators' Noticeboard.
Userboxes Wikipedia:Userbox migration A technical solution Migrate your userboxes to user space. Keep them compliant with Wikipedia:User page
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