User talk:Fabartus/Wet noodle award

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1 What this page NOW IS and IS NOT

[edit] What this page NOW IS and IS NOT

It was a simple talk page of a trial template, since deceased.
It is a place to discuss suggestions for successor templates that might positively affect negative editor behaviors (i.e. such omissions which waste another editors time).
It is not the place for discussion of the content of the below stinker of a 'trigger rant' in specific detail. 'That Stinker' serves (along with the very brief TFD discussion which follows it) as a statement (or manifestation) of a result of the problem and an introduction to the discussion about the problem.

The issues addressed in ham handed fashion and emotion within it are ones this society of editors needs to address, because in the final analysis, they come down to someone of us acting so as to disrespect (or at least discount by not considering the impact downstream on) anothers time—and by logical inference, likely the time of many editors.
This is not a policy proposal, but it may evolve into a discussion of how we could write such a policy, and what it might be called. My bet is we won't need a separate new policy, but perhaps suggest some modifications to things on the books. // FrankB 06:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (Formerly) Test/Display of current (now DOA) template

	Please consider yourself spanked with a wet noodle
I have found an action by you careless, discourteous, and/or disrespectful of other editors time when placing the {{AFD}} template in [{{{2}}} THIS EDIT] Please learn the importance of leaving an adequate timesaving documentation trail for others to track your actions as an editor. Your failure to do so as evidenced in the edit link above will and has needlessly cost other editors (like it did me) some of our precious and limited discretionary time due to your neglegence and speaking for the rest of us, I resent it. I had to dig to figure out what the heck happened, by whom, or when due to your lack of diligence in leaving a good and sufficient record for a quick check in the edit summaries, or an dated announcement explaination and rationale on the talk pages OR (worse) BOTH, when you applied the controversial template {{AFD}}. Consequently that failure becomes a blatant discourtesy to your fellow editors and disrespects our time. It is better to nothing than to do only the first and easiest ten-percent of a job—most of the work is and should be in leaving a clear rationale and record of why you made such a judgement in a seperate notification section on the talk page with a signed time-stamped edit. I'm sure you didn't mean to be discourteous, or I strongly hope, so please think of your impact on other's when making important changes such as this incident. Any time you place any such 'In Your Face' template on an article, as a courtesy to others, please give a clear edit summary of the event and thourough explaination in a notice section on the talk, where the title line includes the date. It is after all, a bold, and some would say, aggressive act to add such administrative notice templates without prior discussion, and while your judgement may be sound, you owe the rest of us a note about your reasoning, and most importantly, we all need to have a clear way to find out when such were applied, and who is responsible for policing them, to see if they can be cleared. Yes, you should be checking such since you're the one who applied the template which reflects badly on the project at large. Many of us hold you directly responsible for monitoring said page, and expect you to understand when applying these you take on an implicit responsibility to clear such self-references at the earliest possible moment when the article has been improved to overcome your problems statement in the talk notice. Just +{{template name}} is good enough for clean, merge, expert, and such tagging in edit summaries, but you always need to document all reasoning on the talk page too! Always! A) Please note that such In your face tagging templates is a wikipedia self reference which detracts from our credibility with the customer-readers and public at large, and should be used very judiciously. Since in placing such a deliterious tag you are making a broad judgment which reflects on the whole project, perhaps badly, the onus is on you to make plain to the rest of us why you made such a controversial judgement, and most importantly when and who applied the tag so blatantly disrupting a page's presentation. B) You also take on an implicit duty to patrol the page so tagged periodically, and remove such when the evolving article meets adequate or average standards, or your concerns have been fixed up. Please clear such tags as soon as you feel they can be done without, or have been hung to garner comment on {{move}} and {{merge}} proposals for no more than 90 days, 30-60 is probably enough, certainly if you post a notice on the Village pump or generate an WP:RFC. C) When possible, place such low in an article (references area is good) or better yet, on the talk page. Tis is the prefered method for {{unref}} and some other banners which do not need to act as a warning to other editors (Most of us can see the lack of references too! Please also keep WP:POINT in mind.) #Most importantly, MAKE A TALK PAGE annotation in a NEW SECTION using {{Tlx\|templatename}} as part of the title line, preferably with a date such as for example: [edit] {{Clean\|August-2006}}, Reasons for tagging # Badly organized # Some material repeated when not particularly helpful to clarity. # Sentences are not up to encyclopediac standards. # In general, needs an overhaul. ... or whatever shortcomings you discern. When clarified so, others can do the heavy lifting and pitch in to help. Taking such care and courtesy will be greatly appreciated by all the rest of us. There are many more of us that will see such tagging and need to spend time for you to act carelessly so as to ignore effects on our time. Sincerely,

~~==Fix needed==~~

~~Copied from CBDunkerson~~: ~~(Begins Sat:12/09/2006)~~

I have to deal with real life for the rest of today. Can you take a look at Template:Wet noodle award (edit talk links history) and figure out how to get the links and signature to behave. The fonts sizing just jumped on me too, so check the last few minor changes I made in diff to see the issue. I've an edit window open for to apply this unfinished, overdue tool! (Slavering at the bit, so to speak! This is my biggest pet peeve here for sure, and a way to fight it!)
~~(unrelated matter ommitted) Thanks as always. Should be back available late evening or at least by Midnight. (Social thingy too!) // FrankB 20:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)~~

For the wet noodle template, I made some adjustments for what I think you were looking for. The signature will now work if the template is substituted (i.e. {{subst:Wet noodle award}}). There is no way to force a signature without substitution because the person calling the template would change each time. Most such templates leave off the sig and expect the user to add one manually. --CBD 15:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

~~===Reply placed herein instead 2006-December-11th===~~

Xpost from CBDunkerson

Thanks - I was much more concerned with the link malfunction, but I suspect I got back and fixed that prior to your Template:Wet noodle award (edit talk links history) edit. Hmmmm interesting, we perhaps were overlapping on our edits and imposed the same solution there. What I recall doing as a link fix was embedded with some other changes, and apparently close enough we didn't generate an edit conflict.
- What is your recommendation on the signature. Whilst I don't think substing would be a good idea as it's lengthy presentation is pain enough inflicted on a recipient's page, morally speaking on me high horse. If there is a technical reason that makes such desirable, then so be it. Perhaps the same theory as makes subst'ing {{welcome}} (and such) applies???
  
  My 'design intent' was to make sure the party applying was taking responsibility for chiding the awarded party, and I'm sure most of us would sign after, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a non-issue... may be a larger issue in the context of the three alternative versions I stubbed out as 'flavors' in the usage.
- Your thoughts thereon would be appreciated, as would those concerning the text message itself, and the concept overall.
  We can do 'technically' with a single template using a parser function or two, at the cost of intuitive use and certainty of how to use it. I'm assuming one display version is the brief upper part for a bad edit summary (in effect truncating above the preachy 'how-to' part on writing a good notice section on the articles talk. In any event, the language needs a lot more 'polish', and I'm thinking I should give it another go when clear of thought and time free, then I want to canvass for feedback. So start the ball when you get a moment on Template Talk:Wet noodle award. Thanks // FrankB 20:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concept causes

Hi, I'm stubbing this in since I'm creating the page, as as with several things I created here in this society, would like suggestions and general feedback. After using some consensus from 'contacts and invitees' to evolve it, I figure to post a notice on the WP:Village Pump. I'm really tired of chasing down when and why someone did something when it's not all that obvious (This 'solution concept' was triggered by an {{AFD}} nomination—one where the nominator didn't even sign and give a good cause in the AFD log.)

More often, I've wanted such for administrative templates like merge, clean, etc., when if became clear the tagging party did not and was not tracking (patrolling) their own application... a mergeto nomination without their reasons, and no comment for months or in one case a year-and-a-quarter, come to mind. 130 edits earlier, I finally found who applied the template when. Hence, I have some hopes that using such 'Wet Diaper awards' in our society can lead to a better standard of documentation, as adding explicit links to a talk page which should be annoted have not been successful by themselves.

-Thanks all for looking in. // FrankB 20:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concept and language discussion

(The above left over title is from when I was planning and making provision for running this concept as a need 'up the flagpole' and just seeing how many would salute it before the above eyesore dissolved into something shorter and far far sweeter... but I used it, so now we've arrived by a little different path. // FrankB 07:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Tfd notes: This is an complete copy of the abortive TFD discussing the above STINKER of a template.

[edit] Template:Wet noodle award ((TFD section))

Just look at it. — Omegatron 20:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Delete. In fact, take off and nuke the entire template from orbit. Sockatume 20:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It's the only way to be sure. — Omegatron 21:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete and userfy. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 21:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete. Oh dear oh dear. Grutness...wha? 21:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete ... wow, just wow. I would offer up a deletion reason, but I think the template in question speaks for itself. And to think, I used to think userboxes were the worst use of template space. --Cyde Weys 22:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Keep -- I'm evolving this and soliciting opinion on same. It still has a bug in the link for some reason I haven't fathomed. FYI-Omegatron was first recipient, as I noted to him or her with a freindly note here.
- Comment this is a bit premature... I've not even asked for reactions from a host of others as planned save a couple of others, the nom. included.
  IMHO, We need something like this to get an inoffensive adherence to those notations which suggest someone make a documentation trail. So pitch in an help improve, not shoot it down sans thinking it through. The alternative is one on one confrontations, which is hardly conducive to good relationship building. This would be far less offensive like any 'wet diaper' award... and it makes the point. This is a tradtitional award type in many societies. The stage after that as planned was to promolgate it on the WP:Village Pump. This is non-disruptive, aimed soley at at user talk page, and says what needs said with some tips. Help making it say it shorter, is the next step, as I'm not happy with the length either. // FrankB 22:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete A small friendly and civil note to editors forgetting references might be a good idea, but this is not the way. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 23:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete, if you want to use something like this, keep it on a userpage, but it needs serious rephrasing to be properly WP:CIVIL. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Umm, how are you going to make editors pay attention to the message you're trying to give them by using phrases like these?
- "I have found an action by you careless, discourteous, and/or disrespectful of other editors..."
- "...and speaking for the rest of us, I resent it."
- "I had to dig to figure out what the heck happened, by whom, or when due to your lack of diligence..."
- "Consequently that failure becomes a blatant discourtesy to your fellow editors and disrespects our time."
- "Yes, you should be checking such since you're the one who applied the template which reflects badly on the project at large."
- "Since in placing such a deliterious tag you are making a broad judgment which reflects on the whole project, perhaps badly, the onus is on you to make plain to the rest of us why you made such a controversial judgement, and most importantly when and who applied the tag so blatantly disrupting a page's presentation."
Then, after you chewed up the poor folk, you ram it in with
- "I'm sure you didn't mean to be discourteous, or I strongly hope, so please think of your impact on other's when making important changes such as this incident."
I can't see this template creating anything but flame wars. Delete. Tito xd^(?!?) 23:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete, rude and the whole attitude is just wrong. Longwinded whining about people who are trying to improve the project is not good. --W.marsh 23:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh dear. Delete per Valentinian & everyone else who feels this is really (a) too long, (b) too uncivil, and (c) too un-in-keeping with the "patience with the volunteers" attitude that WP is usually pretty good at. We have the Gentle Reminders to Use Edit Summaries, Gentle Reminders that Wikipedia is Not [fill in the blank], etc., and assiduous use of these, while not as satisfying as chewing someone out, is preferable. Although the wet noodle reference is mildly funny. Sorry, Frank! Her Pegship (tis herself) 23:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Delete. Agree with Her Pegship. It's just a rant, template-ified. I'm not against a template that conveys the same message, but keeps within Wikipedia guidelines and conventions.--HereToHelp 00:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
- Comment (2)--Sometimes, things need said bluntly. This kind of thing is a failure, and make no mistake, it is a big failure by editors for tagging and summaries is the easy part of the job. This says so in no uncertain terms when I'm much tempted to use stronger language than this. Frankly, this is the only thing here I get emotional about, I don't let myself get excited about article content since the early days. It really riles me when I see someone tag without considering the consequent impact on the time the rest of us might have to spend in due diligence trying to figure out whether the article is better enough or not. When I have to then research to find out who and why, that's acid poured on an open wound. I guess that comes across pretty clearly. Which is why I was asking for input and put it on hold pending a link fix.
  
  Since our nom decided to act on this without interjecting improvement suggestions, so be it. From my point of view, having spent 30 years in the navy, this is a mild enough rebuke, but that was precisely why I was intending to spam for input and help evolving same. I just did that since writing the above, comment, and just added fat to the fire on the The village pump. I am at least on certain ground when I say that these behaviours are a detriment to all our efforts, especially our productivity, and we need to have some means of making the lesson take hold.
  
  Putting the tag on the article is the easiest 10% at most. More like three percent. Making the banner notice understandable to the rest of us is the job, if an editor doesn't have the time or knowledge to tackle editing whichever article he's trashing. None of these tags make us look good to the reader/user/customer. If you haven't thought about that aspect, please do so. I try to judge that every time I see one, which eats up a lot of time. Trying to figure out who to ask to look back and clear it, or why it was put on god knows when is more trouble on top of all that. This seemed to be an approach which might have merits. If the language is too strong (I can see some of what you mean Titoxd, but this isn't attacking edits, only lack of documentation. In fact, like most such 'wet diapers' I was hoping to come up with something that was more in the way of humourous, than offensive, but this is what came out Friday or Saturday. I've only wanted to apply it five or six times since, and gave into temptation. Sorry.)
  
  If saying I resent the time I spent because you F***ked up is too strong, then suggest an alternative. (I'll cede I F***ed up here, as this was solely a draft, I haven't had time to really chew back through the text, and I certainly should have waited.) Because if you've been tagging sans talk comments, you have F***ked up and been f***ing over the rest of us taking the easy way out. Anyone can place a tag on an article. It's the justifying the reasoning that gets challanging, and that is the information that those of us who come along afterwards need. Not the tagging. // FrankB 00:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone suggest how we take this dialog to another place, if I cede deleting the template from template space is a good idea at this time. We need a copy of the template and it's talk preserved, and a substitute link for the VP. Ideas? Like I said, premature. // FrankB 00:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ideas -- Frank's Wet Noodle award

Xpost of section from User talk:Fabartus: (If it looks familiar, you were probably right! <g>) This dialog began quickly following pulling the plug on the TFD to save time for all wandering through there. TFD participants will be invited here as well as others who stumble on references on other user pages. Welcome all.

One Wikipedian once characterized the environment here as having an adversarial and crisis-oriented mindset. The template idea would work, provided that you could justify why attending to those concerns would trump whatever they were working on. This will be quite an uphill battle I suspect; it's a systemic problem that a single Wikipedian can't fix by themselves. Of course, every little bit counts - you might do this on a small scale for those users you're familiar with at first. There might be a certain type of tactical diplomacy which would be most effective, but you'd need to experiment a bit if you want to go this direction. --HappyCamper 15:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the moral support and response, all.

I realized last evening shortly after trying to halt time waste for all when writing W.marsh (this), that the problem is more me and my expectations than anything else. (This should amuse the lawyer in a few of you!) What I, colored by my 30 years in the service, would have called dereliction of duty and brought one up on charges for not doing is not seen as a mandatory duty by the civilian mindset at all, nor as much more than business as usual. Yawn. In the meantime, I've been going Grrrrrrrrooooowwwwwwl and getting hypertensive.

In sum, it's an interesting self-realization, as I didn't know the military had quite that deep a hold on my internal processes, outlook, or equanimity. Perhaps with this realization I can stop getting upset at the lack and such, but I suspect it's still a cultural matter we should address and shape with some better humored descendant of my own Ranting version, which word, made me concede that fight. Good documentation is fundamental to all scholarship, and most corporate decision making. Compare and contrast that I once got fired for sharing a company fact with an outside vendor (making a department look correctly like assholes) and the fact that any editor can tag an In-your-face template without justifying it... making us look bad to whomever comes along next in the whole world. Not an ideal situation.

Thanks for rallying to look in and comments and all, and I would like to develop the chide into something acceptable by this society. My emotions, and I believe gripes are clear in that text, so how do we make it short and sweet, preferrably, a touch funny. Best regards // FrankB 16:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you still want feedback on this? Because I see it's now deleted. If I understand correctly, you intended that as tongue-in-cheek but people took it for a personal attack? Irony is kind of tricky online. (Radiant) 18:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please. After the faux pas of applying the draft rant—it was, albeit one I'd refined to capture the essence of my gripe as it impacts others time, may as well own that—my original intent is and was to come up with a gentle reminder that is really uncontroversial, and preferably humorous, as my title suggests. Trouble is from the edit that triggered the draft, to the moment I 'took the plunge' and layed it down on one guy I was caught up by another 4-5 occasions when I wished I'd had it finished, and what little time I had to work on it was soley on the link malfunction. (Mea Culpa) I really didn't go back through the text again at all. (Mea culpa)

I generally know to vett something I write in an emotional state anywhere from three days to a week later, as well as get a second or third reader. (Mea maxima culpa) I've actually been expecting some input from CBDunkerson and another I'd asked to look in via email as well as a diagnoses on the link. I simply broke my own rule caught up in a moment of pique, I guess being honest in retrospect. I've been off in RL far too much and am still pressed by those conflicting priorities, so I guess I pressed back against what I saw as near unpardonable lack of concern many here evince in such unilateral actions sans thought (or so it seems) about 'the needs of we who edit there later'. IMHO, a {{clean}}, to give an concrete example, needs a sentence or three outlining the matters the applying editor perceives as problematic.

Last evening, I realized others don't see it as the same discourtesy nor as a negligence as I do, and the guidelines and template imbedded links would imply (See the above link to W.marsh). Nonetheless, changing that lackadaisical attitude in out society toward good documentation seems a worthy goal, and is certainly consistent with the intent of a lot of tags, such as the talk page references in mergeto, mergefrom, clean, etc. (An example of mine, I don't do many, and more often remove such, which I comment similarly with my reasons when removing one. Plus, if I can ID the applier, drop them a note.)

My current thought is to take some of the sting out of a family of templates using a funny cartoonish image of much shorter size and so more similar to barnstars—tentatively entitled 'Non-star' awards which would cite an edit and template (Still need that link fix!) but focus much more narrowly, perhaps citing guidelines and their oft repeated message to discuss things on the talk page. Ideally, with a little fun, we can get better compliance with the documentation. I'm sure I'm not the only one stupid enough to check why and such on talk pages... and history summations to see how long a template has been in place.

As far as the deletion, I decided it was better to not ask people I don't know and don't know me until I can get together with others like you who I've at least rubbed shoulders with over the last few years, after initially trying to turn the deletion discussion to a discussion on the template talk of the merits; no one bought in and commented, so I caved—quickly.

As a result I figured the best course was to violate the village pump and retract the request people look in on the lynching by commenting it out. Then moved the template to user space User:Fabartus/Wet noodle award after copying over the tfd discussion to the talk. Then db-authored the redirects after making them into just links so as to disarm the template. Ditto the link fix on the one page I used it. Seemed the most respectful thing I could do for others time, since it was never intended for 'unveiling'—I just goofed up royally. Sigh. I'm AD/HD and impulse like that make for occasional large gaffs I'm afraid—one reason I've not bothered to self-nom for Admin. I have enough trouble juggling what I've already got up in the air. Sigh.

So take a look at the talk (User talk:Fabartus/Wet noodle award), as the template is designed to be included, so not visible in the template itself.

The way way forward has me stumped. Any suggestions (Anyone!)? // FrankB 23:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This section 'Closed', discuss on User talk:Fabartus/Wet noodle award (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), which I'll be xposting some emails to as well. // FrankB 19: 49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

End transposition from main talk // FrankB 07:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

It should be as short and polite as the short warnings here. Something like:

When adding cleanup templates to article pages, [as you did here] please don't forget to add an explanatory section at the talk page - describing the problem that needs to be fixed will help other editors deal with it more efficiently. Thanks.

It shouldn't try to be funny, as humour is too subjective/culturally-contextual - keep it simple and civil. --Quiddity 03:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I was tinking more along the lines of making the image humorous in some way. Say a barnstarish image with a hammer or baseball bat clobbering it. Could have a few gif versions with simple animation going through some kind of sequence. Agree on the civility. But then you know me and impulse by now, I just forgot it hadn't been refined and went and used it.

It that scheme, put together with my prior conclusion along your advice on short, we'll need a family of them, perhaps as many as a dozen, though hopefully we can just theme group them by key message and maybe get by with half that. I need to go through my rant version and isolate seperate conditions. So I'd assume we're talking circa 4-6 initially. Thanks Q! // FrankB 04:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Shit Q! Leave it to you to know about a page I've never even seen before! I'll have to puruse those, and if we go with the 'Non-stars' humor idea, we could just build a subst of the appropriate item in that table therein! Hats off my friend. Obviously some good comes from lurking on all those policy chats. Thanks // FrankB 04:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No, seriously, the fake/sarcastic "award" is a really bad idea. That's called "inside voice", and you should keep it inside! Imagine how well it would have gone over if I had given you a "typographical-fool award" or a "geocities-designer award" when we first clashed. Chastising/mocking someone isn't a good method of encouraging them...

The best way to create any new template, is to copy a currently-accepted template and change it as little as possible. Something along the lines of my example, short/simple/clear and without attempted humour/character, is the only thing likely to be accepted by the community, and understood by all potential recipients. Hope that helps. --Quiddity 06:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a tip, but for finding the source of template tags, I'd suggest only checking every 10th or 20th or 50th diff, instead of going through them one by one. Once you find a diff without the tag, reverse direction and find where it was added. -Quiddity 04:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exchange with CBDunkerson

Hi Frank. I've been pondering this ever since you asked me to look at the template from a 'coding' perspective. I understand what you are trying to do, but philosophically it doesn't 'sit right' with me. I've been trying to work out the why of it in words and will give that a shot here. Yes, it is important for people to think about how they can make things easier for other users by leaving proper documentation and commentary. However, I don't know that 'poking' people to do so is necessarily the best course. Even if the template is neutrally worded they are likely to become defensive and any attempt at humor is almost certain to be misunderstood and provoke an aggressive response. It is more work, but I think the best course is to politely ask 'could you explain more about what your concerns were / what you meant' and 'nudge' them towards better 'up front' notification with comments like, 'oh ok, I get it now. I just wasn't sure what your edit summary referred to'. Of course, I'm not a fan of 'generic' messages in general except for pure vandals (who usually aren't worth the time of a tailored reply), but we've got alot of others which get used to at least reasonable effect. I was somewhat surprised by the reactions on the TfD as I don't see this template as particularly worse than others of similar intent... they all bother me, but I would urge you to make any generic message as supportive and positive as possible... e.g., "Thank you for placing cleanup tags on <article whatever>. However, I am not entirely sure which items/sections should be improved. I would really appreciate it if you could provide some more detailed feedback on the <talk page>"... et cetera. Obviously this is one of the area where I'm 'outside the mainstream' so you might want to pay more attention to other views. --CBD 11:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Nod to Quiddity and CBD

Drop the humor idea; consider it dead.

I'd think my willingness to dance on the edge of WP:CIV is more outside the mainstream than you're measured take my friend. Probably my heritage in part, and part Navy experience, and part anger as I percieve this very much as an unecessary infringement on my time due to carelessness, thoughtlessness, etc. I do own that, and know that's not the common 'take' on these, which goes with the opinion that others (and the digital culture in this society) are all too often willing to just change it because it can be reverted mindset. Reverting non-vandalism is an anathema to me. It's an overt disrepect for anothers viewpoint and effort in most cases, and I doubt if I've used the capabilility as many as ten times in my wikicareer for non-vandalism, and each of those with some discussion on the local talk, the user talk, or both. (You can see one of the rare one's on my current talk page TOC on Cresta Run matters. Generally, vandalism, an obvious error of some kind or only really bad edit prose/changes is the only good time to use such, and in the later case, I'll usually try to incorporate the changes of the iterim version with appropriate fix ups. So respecting time and effort is ingrained in me.

To me, reversing an editor is a major disrespecting event of their contribution and time, so I'm kinda caught between two fires and thier related vexations. (That should be plain in that template, if nothing else comes out of a fair and close reading!) Think deeply on how different things were in the days before we all had computer workstations, computer networks and when all was on paper using office secretary's and such. Such casual reversals of actions at any level would and could only be undertaken by the big boss in a heirarchy or department—at the risk of being seen as a tyrant.
So logically, just because things are easy to change doesn't mean we should tolerate casual changes sans some onus of responsibility and mutual respect for each others time. That is what this all comes down to—how to push the larger culture toward one of increased awareness of the impact one has on another's time.

To be true to my style of respecting others judgements, I have to suffer the (to me) frequent thoughtlessness of the (to me) incomplete way we tag to accomplish the improvements tolerated by the greater group, which is contrary to their own guidelines and suggestions on how to apply controversial edits.
Which is in turn, a wound, an demand on my 'productive time', which I've little enough of as it is (a further wound there too)!

In sum, I see this society is too tolerant of casual neglects suggested by our own guideline, and overt links in many templates. In a sense, we are tolerant when each other breaks a semi-rule, and so disrespecting those guideline at least indirectly with a shrug, wink and a nod, if you will. At the same time, we are perhaps too careful of WP:CIV, as in one way, we are tolerating scofflawish behaviors and imho. asking for more egregious violations by such casualness and somewhat too much emphasis on being nice. I see no reason we can't nudge things a bit more toward conformance and still be nice—which is why the template idea came into my head—if the group sanctions it, it's not a big personal attack as Quiddity (and you) suggest. Nor had I intended to have a final outcome like that, I just let fatigue and time pressures impulsively jump the gun. As Will and yourself can attest, I started seeking input on last weekend via email.

The questions technique and sandwiching a criticism between (distracting) compliments is vintage Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and, in fact when bright eyed and on my toes, my normal approach. So maybe a timesaving boilerplate question set is the best solution. I like it, but we're going to have to get concrete soon on all this.

This section (Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#Editing_hints) unearthed by my diplomacy coach Quiddity, seems to be a good way to go toward with some additional messaging.

I'm going to close this edit now, and then tack in a links sanitized email sequence below (as soon as I finalize) to put those on the record from Krill and Will. I'll do the same with any other germane emails. I got a couple pleading no time for wiki, and just suggested they monitor here. There is no urgency so we have time for deliberative considerations.

After that, I'll start a new section title for proposed messages along the lines of the few Quiddity found, and ask you all to suggest a message or two extracted from my rant template in more diplomatic language. I'd much prefer a group effort. In co-ordination, suggest we give them all a '#' prefix for ease of referral in discussion. I'll stub in a comments/reactions section below too. Perhaps a question version and a statement version would be a good attempt at thouroughness? It should do well to stimulate thought and follow on discussion.

In parallell, perhaps we can all think some on the most egregious and obvious occurences of when a mild rebuke, or polite request for clarification is most warranted, and I suspect there are some specific templates that the prime issue, and maybe for those, ({{pov}} comes to mind) we can put our heads together on messages that target only them.

Assuming we get some participation by you all, we should be able to propose some on that talk page (Wikipedia talk:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace) as a group of proposals, advert that on the pump, et. al. in or by the new year. Does this sound premature or unsound to anyone? As ususual, sincere thanks for your time. // FrankB 18:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pertinent email record

[edit] Spam Message, also to talks

This was BCC'd to wikicontacts, as it was cut and pasted from the spam talk page message to others, in the attempt to turn the tfd discussion to alteration, vice deletion. My Bad and apologies to all again: On 12/12/06, Frank Bar tus 'fabartus @ deleted' wrote

Bad Idea?

I could use an assist (maybe two). I have a pet peeve, and thought I'd come up with a good concept for making chides to editors who leave incomplete documentation trails by creating sort of a wet diaper award. It seems to be drawing some adverse reactions, and even before I'd spammed a request to some others like this for brainstorming on how to shorten same and evolve it, as I'm not happy with it either. Subsequently, it's already drawn fire (here [TFD LINK]) before I could ask in help and get suggestions. Can you take a look and comment here [Templates talk page link, now this page]. There has to be some way to let people know 'shallow edit actions' that reflect poorly on our pages need a talk note justification, no exceptions, thankyou. Much appreciated. // FrankB 22:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emails to/from Will and Krill

I've refactored the order chronologically, so in answering Will, place his message first, and part of that was my answer to Krill, with his message first. I've obviously sanitized email addys, and cleaned up block quote indent effects.
I've CC'd the source message to those contacted by email with the injunction to bring the matter here.
IMHO, This should all be open discussion. Several of the email recipients responded on the Tfd page essentially immediately. Thanks to them, but the problem remains.
One somewhat humourous aside, I deleted various parties on my email addy collection, but missed deleting Jimbo who I wouldn't bother with this! Sorry again Jimbo! FrankB 21:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Original Message -----

From: Will Be back To: Frank Bar tus Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 5:39 AM Subject: Re: Wikipedia help

Well that all seems to have disappeared quite rapidly. I can't even find it no matter which redirected and deleted pages I look at.

I'm all in favor of awards. Whoo Hee! However negative awards, like the Golden Raspberries, the Ig Noble, the Golden Fleece (Proxmire's old gimmick), the Worst Person of the Day (Olbermann's new gimmick), need to be handled properly. Note that the first two listed have actually managed to get the recipients to accept the awards in person, on occasion. The other two represent the views of single people, have never been accepted so far as I know, yet are useful ways of drawing attentioj to problems.

However I do know where you're coming from. Even though we have a number of templates suitable for the editing problems of utter newbies we still sometimes see edits by experienced editors that seem clueless. If it weren't totally inappropriate it might to appropriate to create "don't edit while drunk" or "what weer you thinking?"templates. But it isn't appropriate, and so are most negative awards. It's more work but it it problably best to sit down and write a personal note saying how the standards of the project are higher than the contributions have been hitting, and how the situation can be remedied.

I've been sarcastic about three times on Wikipedia and every time it has resulted in grief. Sarcasm just doesn't work with this crowd. Encyclopediasts are really dull.

Cheers, Will

[edit] Reply to Will (Includes email to/from Krill)

Re: I've been sarcastic about three times on Wikipedia and every time it... Encyclopediasts are really dull.

LOL shading toward ROTFLMAO!

Hey Will!

FYI, I'm CCing this response to original list of those I contacted by email, and posting to the ongoing discussion page ref'd below. This should all be out in the open.

I'd left a link on the tfd, so I'm surprised you missed it. I pulled the plug on it as I couldn't get them to discuss morphing it. The new page was deleted for a brief while too, I used the wrong slash and was judged not to exist at all as a user. All kinds of fun spinning out of this comedy of my error. See all my actions on my talk, section header: 'Idea's--Frank's Wet noodle award' or some such on my Talk's TOC. The link is present there too or you can hand code from the below mention.

Anyway, I userfied it in a hurry and should never have used it. Here's an exchange I just finished with Krill. But you may want to wander through there first. About two pages. My answer to Krill is at least half that. Piece of cake after all the troll killing researches you've done. Warning. You'll blurt out at least one 'Oh my God' when you see my gaff. The two (i.e. a copy of THIS) are about to be posted below my discussions with Quiddity and Conrad Dunkerson.

I have no real idea why I gave into impulse and used the danged thing. I had no illusions that it was ready for viewing whilst knowing it would get seen. Too many hours too fast too often, perhaps. I just said 'What the hell', and responded to cumulative annoyances I guess.

[edit] From Krill

From: Kir ill Lok shin To: Frank Bartus Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 6:29 PM Subject: Re: Wikipedia help

On 12/12/06, Frank Bar tus <fabartus at deleted> wrote: > > Bad Idea? > > I could use an assist (maybe two). I have a pet peeve, and thought I'd come SNIP, SNIP... you've seen this > exceptions, thankyou. Much appreciated. // FrankB 22:46, 12 December 2006 > (UTC)

Well, two things:

First, you've essentially written up a guideline in template form, which is a rather crude way of doing things. What you'd really want to do would be to create a regular guideline page (e.g. Wikipedia:Documentation trails), get consensus for it, and then create a *short* template to be used, as opposed to simply putting an absurdly large amount of text into a template.

Second, I happen to disagree with what you're actually proposing. In some cases, certainly -- the addition of a cleanup tag to an apparently decent article, for example -- documentation is needed. In others, it really isn't; if a three-sentence, unwikified, uncategorized, half-coherent "article" gets tagged with {{wikify}} and {{categorize}}, it's perfectly obvious to any reasonable editor why those tags were applied. In still other cases, there's a built-in documentation trail; {{AFD}} tags, for example, result in {{oldafd}} tags on the talk page once the deletion discussion has been closed (unless the article is deleted, in which case the point becomes rather moot). A blanket requirement for documentation would be overly bureaucratic and not at all helpful in the majority of cases.

-- Kirill Lokshin

[edit] My reply to Krill

Krill,

Thanks for your time and response. Good luck with the election btw. I'll be adding my vote there. I think I'm almost down to you in the list. FYI, I'm including this in a response/notification email to others (with CC to you), in refactored order AND posting it to the ongoing talk page. (ref'd below) A lot of this discussion is now becoming near repetative, or outright redundant, but I thank your courtesy and for your thoughts in your lengthy response. This matter is now best handled on transparent talk pages.

I had no intention of letting anything anywhere that long stand--I'm just AD/HD and decided to apply it on a whim-- I should know better. OTOH, aside from the trivial and obvious ones, there are many which should be documented, for there have to be some other stupid diligent and usually courteous editors like me that as a mutual courtesy and out of respect don't like cavalierly clearing such, even though I feel they shouldn't be there. See that's the crux of it. When they maybe should go, and you have no clear clue as to what the gripe was, or in the case of a merge/move/clean, how long it's been there, though there has been loads of editing... and it's not easy to locate in the summary, or worse absent. I count it as a act of disrespect to clear anything out of hand--it's rejecting the work and effort and disrespecting the time, if not the editors contribution to do otherwise. (Yes, I'm aware of how goody two-shoes that is, but I'm still a boy scout at heart, and still a scouter. I'll even admit it seems a little naive--emphasis on seems. Like Jimbo, I have my inappropriate moments of idealism, and I guess this involves one as it involves others time and my actions are something I can control. So I control them to not spit on what I must assume is a good faith effort, reasoning, rationale or cause. So tracking such events becomes important to my time.)

The text (and text format) was as the tfd comment said, a rant, but it along with my exchanges on the tfd capture how I feel on the matter, and focused the issues involved. Our decisions as editors do impact others time constantly, so the corollary is that we need to think in the moment what kind of note we'd need to carry on if we were the one stumbling over the template a month or three later.

However, I realized whilst pulling the plug that evening that the part of me that was speaking was the 30 years I spend in the USNR--Chief Frank was thinking in terms of dereliction of duty--but that's not a normal civilian concept. Civilian companies do use working papers, engineers notebooks and etcetera which get consulted by the next person that takes on that (usually periodic) task (accounting and finance two name two), and corporate records like internal memos and engineers notes do get subpoenaed all the time for litigation, and I've had to produce such to get paid more than once as a consultant. So the concept of clear documentation trail to follow is not a total mystery in the civilian world--just one where it needs to be made part of the societal culture in the company.

I don't know about you, but I have better things to do than page by page do diffs in history to see when it happened. The record holder was something like 143 edits prior on a merge proposal absolutely no one had commented about--fifteen months!

To your particular points. (If you haven't found the follow on discussion on my talk and the talk page, some of this is referring to that material. The page is 'User talk:Fabartus/Wet noodle award', but the slash may need to go the other way.)

Quiddity, God love him, dropped a link to a set of templates that already exists for doing such little nag messages. He also suggested I minimize this kind of thing to in size. Since that was the eventual goal, with my rant as an outline, I need an hour or so to evaluate the two side by side... then see, but the quick read I did give them suggests that's the better solution, and they are already in place. I have one reservation, which is I really do want to make it something with a little fun in it, so perhaps just incorporating those in my 'Non-star' derivation 'comic' with the appropriate graphic gives both the message and an approved vetted message.
First, you've essentially written up a guideline in template form,

which is a rather crude way of doing things.

Well, maybe. But that all came out pretty quick, got some polish, although is redundant still, and I got caught up in the link failing to link vice the content, when I did have a moment. I've been very under the gun, and really away from wiki all together this last couple of months, and am just not getting back in the saddle. I just finished a computer sim, and here it is pushing two am and I'm answering email... so while I'm getting back in the saddle, I'm still groggy. As far as the crude approach, the intent was always to refine it, and throwing enough spagetti against the wall to see what might stick is a good way to find the 2% of good shit in all the noise at times. That's really what that was. A proto-beginning, sans much follow up. Insofar as the guideline point, as far as I'm concerned, this is all already covered by the infinite numbers of guidelines which constantly council us to refer to the talks, the tags themselves with explicit injunctions to see the talks, etc. That means the problem is social, how do we get some compliance with existing guidelines. There may be virtue in the notion of having a discussion in the guise of a guideline with a plan to have such written better into the existing ones, but this is an attitude, and needs persuasion or education or both. So I chose to 'Shock' with some strong words 'Cost me time' and the like. As one pointed out in the tfd, negative messages cause one to dwell more on the negativity, than the message. (my rephrasing)

create a *short* template to be used, as opposed to simply putting an

absurdly large amount of text into a template. We really already covered that. Temptation coupled by frustration to my impulse driven psyche lead me to fuck up. That simple. AD/HD is not a fun way to have your brain wired in many cases. It's got it's up side, but impulsively putting one's foot in mouth, even at my age, is not one of them. I agree the amount of text was absurd--think of it as spagetti on wall--a very crude rough first draft. Heck, I'm even sure I'd have altered the tone drastically toward WP:CIV norms. But that wasn't supposed to see light by strangers. Period. That Fuckup again.

Don't really disagree with what your disgreements ennumerate, save to point out the whole generation of the thing was triggered originally by AFD's. There was a block of related articles I was vetting and I couldn't find, nor figure out who'd done the nomination on the first handful. I never did get back to vote on the others, as I composed the rant. May have been a cabal of several as the early comments were by the same three or four people. So Troll(s)? Or attack on some editor, or pov attack (funny, but can't recall what was in the block--def. up too late!) but the one policy change I'd encourage would be that all such noms be signed and annotated in the talk with reasons there as well as on the xFD page. People have got to take responsibility... more of that courtesy to the rest of us mentioned high above.

Lastly, the later point has a key shade of grey. If it's clear. With 6,000+ edits, I've seen lots of tags, and the majority had no documented reasons--contrary to the various suggestions in the countless guideline. Many can be forgiven as the obvious kinds, but many (most really) should have had at least a small courtesy note in the talk that at least let people know which tag was applied to the article on what date by whom--one which would show in the TOC.

(See my talk, I gave an link to an example there.) The edit summaries simply don't cut it there, and if I'm active occasionally on an article, I'm going to pay attention to a talk page edit on it sooner than one of the many daily edits which eradicate all the preceeding edits when viewed from the watchlist. I've got 2500 plus on that, and there is no way I can begin to puruse the tenth of that even one day a week. So now and then I spot check some stuff.

So I don't agree we need a new guideline, though it may be worth a deep think about. I agree that it's not a huge problem, as I infer, most editors are willing to act boldly. One corrallary realization that came out of my gaff was this, if we tolerate an ignoring of a guideline advised practice, that's a lot like tolerating breaking a rule. We're essentially, as a society, tolerating scofflawing behavior and asking for worse in the process. That's not as polished as I wrote to someone yesterday, but that's the essence.

In conclusion, we go for ideals in so much of wikipedia, why not on this little good habit which would be a courtesy to those who come after. I get spun up by it because I internalize it as a discourtesy, as my rant says plainly. Now that I've made the military connect with that, I think I can better hold down that anger as my perspective has shifted, but is the best course for the society the status quo now that I've raised the issue--or would it be better if we gently guided some into better practices for the benefit of those who come after. Don't know about you, but I've been on a few article talk pages where I'd had a presence before, and not even realized it... until scrolling way up and spotting my own sig. -- it can be surprising. Is it so hard to understand that our fellow editors deserve the courtesy of a clear notation to save them time and trouble.

That's really all I'm advocating. Someone placing a tag here should have no trouble writting a one or two sentence synopsis of their reasons... if only as a reminder to themselves, as soon or late, they may get a question from me whether that damn tag has been on there long enough. As I avoid reverts, I avoid clearing such without consultation or at least a notification of my action when I think it's a clear, well justified and likely to be unworthy of challange kind of call. If not, it stays in our face... and none of these make wikipedia look good to the outside reader.

Thanks ever so much for your time. Good luck with the ArbCon election... I'll miss you if you make it on Military matters.

Best regards,

Frank

That's verbatim messages, allowing for editing to disarm the templates given by Krill as examples using {{TL}}.

[edit] proposed messages

How about...: Assuming state a name, then the condition or senario first, then italicise the message proposal.

1. 'Merge-no-message'
Assuming Merge tags but a summary you can find
— Did you realize you forgot to initialize a discussion section on [THIS EDIT] and so I do not know your reasons. There have been no comments, so would you please clear the tagging.

2. Merge-bad-summary'
Assuming Merge tags with hard to find summary sans no talk
— Did you realize you forgot to initialize a discussion section on [THIS EDIT] and so I do not know your reasons. How long has that been on there anyway? I had to hunt back through history to find you.

3. 'Clean-no-message'
Assuming one of the Cleanup tags but a summary you can find
— Did you realize you forgot to initialize a discussion section on [THIS EDIT] and so I do not know your reasons. There have been edits, so would you please clear the tagging, or summarize the deficiencies you percieve on the talk.

4. Clean-bad-summary'
Assuming one of the cleanup tags with hard to find summary sans no talk
— Did you realize you forgot to initialize a discussion section on [THIS EDIT] and so I do not know your problems with the article, nor how long it's been tagged. How long has that been on there anyway? I had to hunt back through history to find you.

5. Clean-no-why
Quiddity's alternative to three--no Cleanup list
—You added a cleanup tag in [THIS EDIT], but didn't specify why in the edit summary or talkpage. Please could you explain at the article's talkpage what the problem is, or remove it if it is no longer necessary. Thanks.

6. Merge-no-discuss
Assumes TWO merge tags, and no discussion begun.[1]

T'would be nice if you used the (Template:Merge (edit talk links history)) second perameter to clarify which of these talk pages you inaugerated and stubbed in with a discussion section with your reasoning. I can't seem to find one. (Ahem)

7. Merge-no-discuss(2)
Assumes TWO merge tags, and no discussion begun.[2]

You attached two tags to Wikipedia:admins, proposing two merges, but did not open a discussion. Sure, it was in good faith, but you must open the discussion yourself. Ta! frummer 23:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC) Sooooo... At least one person thinks like me! <G> -- fab

[edit] Discussion on suggestions

Quiddity's suggestions: "Did you realize..." sounds kind of accusatory/patronizing/condescending. Maybe reword for politeness and more general-audience-applicability, along the lines of:

—You added a cleanup tag in [THIS EDIT], but didn't specify why in the edit summary or talkpage. Please could you explain at the article's talkpage what the problem is, or remove it if it is no longer necessary. Thanks.

However, as I have haven't encountered this problem myself, I don't know how useful a template would be in the varied situations it might crop up in. As others have suggested, it might be better to just compose a short personal query each time? Or instead, collaborate with the wikiproject for user warnings suggested below :) —Quiddity 19:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Quiddity, I'm a little inclined to invoke a definite appearance of rebuke or acusitory tone, politely, but firmly. The How long has that been on there anyway? I had to hunt back through history to find you. line is a tad 'deliberately' naughty--considering I 'did' find the edit in history. But imo, sends a message by doing so. Similarly, perhaps JYolkowski's return to the Wet noodle title below has some merit and should be aired further.

I'll be the first to concede that I'm a poor judge of how nasty that (or any of these) can be misconstrued, but will also be a little disappointed if the society doesn't accept some semblence of a rebuke in the wording. So I was deliberately testing the edge with the four I formulated.

But I'm not above administering some 'tough love', if you'll pardon the term. MHO, WP:CIV is given too much weight in many ways, and I don't recollect anything that covers what to do about the systemic and real annoyances, inconveniences, and outright waste occasioned by preventable neglect by another on the rest of us who may follow. What I want here is a set of acceptable message rebukes that heighten the awareness of our obligations to each other to protect one another's time. I can live with a little embarrassment if I received one, as like most adults, I've had to deal with a lot of little course corrections along the path of life. Whether we get them from parents, bosses, the spouse or the next door neighbor they are part of society in real life. I don't see that an occasional expression of mild displeasure is going to create edit wars, or put someone else's nose out of joint in a severe way. The thing that takes the sting out of such, a sting I submitted upon one of the invitees here is the link imbedded in the warning templates. They are implicitly if not explicitly demanding such notes be applied when the template is applied. My hopes here are for a set of templates which will raise the expectations of compliance all the time

(Hmmmm, perhaps t'would be good to formulate such Templates that a section title had to be left from a talk annotation that had to be made first. If the lack of {{{3}}} were conditionally to generate an error message, that would help a lot! In fact would reduce things to missing edit summaries. I've also been exploring by email options to add a keyword (Magic word) to allow automatic datestamping when the template is emplaced, but alas, that is likely to be unfullfilled.) How about some more wording and case ideas folks! Anyone want to tackle a message for NPOV and OR warnings? Happy Christmas all! // FrankB 06:22, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

--More thoughts --

Personally, I think that there is a use for this template. I have seen people AfD (or whatever) pages without leaving a decent edit summary, and it's really discourteous as I can't tell that they've done something important by just looking at the edit summary. I think that text along the lines of "spanked with a wet noodle" may be a bit OTT, but that can easily be fixed by removing the text and renaming the template. From a design perspective, the underlining in the template notice is probably unnecessary, but again that's just a minor thing as it can be easily fixed. JYolkowski // talk 00:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Just re-read this point by Quiddity whilst tidying up things above.

That's called "inside voice", and you should keep it inside! Imagine how well it would have gone over if I had given you a "typographical-fool award" or a "geocities-designer award" when we first clashed. Chastising/mocking someone isn't a good method of encouraging them...

Well, Q and I know we have different styles, and I can follow that sarcasm, or 'mocking' might go over badly, but I'd like to hear some other thoughts on whether we can or should incorporate some displeasure in a message or message variant. // FrankB 07:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your input

Hi, I'm one of a group of editors who look after the wikiproject for user warnings. I don't necessarily agree with your template above, but what I do want is your enthusiasm for the subject. We are currently in the midst of implemeting a new system of user warning templates. This is only the first part of a larger overhaul and in the next month or so we will be looking at welcome templates, deletion, shared ip, edit summary, and templates usually only issued once. So if you are intestested gove us a look and any questions don't hesitate to give me a shout. Regards Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 19:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doing what is right vs taking the easy way

Some admins/editors tend to miss the forest for the trees. If an article is light on content, the easy thing to do is put an afd, the right thing to do is some research and improve the content. If you don't want to work on the article yourself, then an alternative to the afd would be to notify the contributors on their respective talk pages that the article is light and it needs improvement. Many editors move on after working on an intial article and may never see the afd until it is gone. Some editors using any Xfd count on that. It is there way of attacking other users, and unfortunately it is quite effective.

Another is this article needs wikified. Come on how hard is it to go through the page and put in brackets, you had to open it so you could put in wikify. That is just lazy.

They will take the time to look at the article long enough to find fault, but will not take the time to do a little research and fix it. Take the time to do the research, if not notify the contributors on their talk pages. Putting up an Xfd is only going to get small articles deleted, because the Xfd is unlikely to be seen until it is to late. But then many know that and do it on purpose. --71Demon 17:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)