Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Mark Historical/Redirect. While there was almost no interest in deciding to keep this, there was a considerable number of people advocating either redirection or tagging as historical. In an effort to appease both sides, I have done both. It is tagged with historical, has a short description of what this group did, and then has a link to the main barnstars page.^demon^{[omg plz]} 00:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals

Not so much instruction creep as instruction charge of the light brigade - an attempt to add layers of bureaucracy and definition to what was a very lovely informal system of giving editors a pat on the back. Scorch it and go back to "I feel like adding a barnstar." No bureaucracy need exist for the creation or awarding of them. Phil Sandifer 12:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• I suggest we delete or simply redirect to Wikipedia:Barnstars. This is an abuse of Wikipedia, for the approvals process is simply a parasitical intrusion rather than something intended to improve the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 13:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• I agree with Tony and Phil on this one. Unnecessary, rather a waste of time, and turns what should be an informal, spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous gesture into a 'process'. Delete or redirect to Wikipedia:Barnstars. – Riana _ऋ 13:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  I think this comes from the whole idea of 'official' barnstars. I'm just going to go around awarding this to as many people as possible. – Riana _ऋ 13:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  Or this :D Gracenotes^T § 13:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• I am shocked that this page was permitted to exist for as long as it has. A page for process wonks to process wonkery to prevent people from giving awards to people for improving the encyclopedia? Delete, and ban all supporters. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  Ban? :) – Riana _ऋ 13:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  Yes. No quarter should be given to people who think that pages like this help. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  Presumably that would apply to supporters of the Birthday Committee (?!?!), BJAODN, and ex-Esperanza too. That'd add up to a lot of banned users. --kingboyk 13:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  Make sure that you have the time and effort to read the contribution list or write a bot and ban all the users. There are hundreds of them. --Deryck C. 09:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

  And whoever implements this - here's another hopefully helpful link to speed the processing up. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

  Thanks for your veteran use of query strings :D --Deryck C. 10:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oh my goodness, what a waste of time and energy. Rid the encyclopedia of this anchor. If "peeps" wanna give props to their "homies", they should be able to without Da Man gettin' in Da Way. --Ali'i 13:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, burn the ashes, Umm what is next, rules on how we congratulate people after an RfA? We don't need this kind of bureaucracy to give somebody a pat on the back. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 13:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• This page terrifies me beyond all reason. Please delete as soon as possible. --InkSplotch 13:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Where do I start? Un-wikilike, instruction creeping, bureaucratic, unnecessary, cabalistic nonsense? Why are we even debating this? Drop something large and heavy on it and move on.--Doc^g 13:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• I considered typing some delicious sarcastic comment here, and came up with quite a few, but there's really no point in wasting time ridiculing this. I suggest that we redirect, if only to get a kick out of reading the archives. Gracenotes^T § 13:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete: I never liked this page, it seemed to be very creepy from the get go, but I went through it to avoid rattling feathers, it seems there is some momentum here to get rid of it. IvoShandor 13:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• What a trifle nonsense. Burn at the stake, please.--cj | talk 13:35, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I should add that my concerns are most particularly with Wikipedia:Wikihalo and Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards.--cj | talk 13:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards could be valuable, so long as there's a level of informality surrounding barnstar production. If anyone wants a barnstar but is computer-graphics-impaired, just ask someone there. But we don't need this page to do it. Gracenotes^T § 13:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Perhaps mfd? The latter, I thought was problematic months ago, but really felt I lacked the experience to do anything about. Come to think of it, I just thought this was always how the awards process went, I never knew it any other way. IvoShandor 13:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Get rid of it somehow and Wikipedia:Wikihalo too. --kingboyk 13:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC) I think redirecting or tagging as historical would be preferable to pure deletion. --kingboyk 13:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: This page doesn't appear to have been tagged or whatever. IvoShandor 13:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Correct. I'm just pointing out that I think that page should go too. It's probably too late to fairly add it to this discussion. --kingboyk 13:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC) (e/c)

• Rename to "Bureaucratic Abusive and Pointy". NikoSilver 13:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - does it matter one jot or tittle whether a barnstar is "official" or not? Hell, no. (We have petty satrapies like this all over Wikipedia which are more about bureaucracy than helping the encyclopedia. Have you tried to create a new kind of stub template or a new category recently?) -- ALoan (Talk) 13:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Why oh why does this page exist? Painfully unnecessary bureaucracy. If you want to give someone your own barnstar, go for it. You don't need people to vote over whether they like it. I also agree with Kingboyk that Wikipedia:Wikihalo is, if anything, even worse. Will (aka Wimt) 13:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect to Wikipedia:Barnstars. Let the archive sit there in the redirect's history (rather than delete) so anyone strongly inclined can see what an absurd overbureaucratization results from attempts to organize something that doesn't need organization or standards. Barno 13:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• I've nominated the wikihalo too, see here--Doc^g 14:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Tag as {{rejected}}. Needs to be killed with fire, but the remains should be left standing so others may learn what needs to be killed with fire. --bainer (talk) 14:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect History should be maintained as useful counter-example. Xoloz 14:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm good with both of these solutions ^^^^. NikoSilver 14:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Tag as rejected per Bainer. I cannot comprehend any reason for a process over something which is just supposed to be fun. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete – unhelpful bureaucracy, not worth tagging as rejected. — mholland (talk) 14:50, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Tag as rejected per Bainer. No, wait. First, have a poll over whether we should have a poll over what to do. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• While the begining purpose, when me, Redux and others created this page, was just to make the Barnstar page less cluttered, I guess someone decided to perverse the intent of the page. Anyways, just redirect like Tony said. Sad to see it go, but for the Good of the Community, it should be done. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 15:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep To say that having a proposals process is bureaucratic is, quite frankly, stupid. Shall we get rid of FAC then, as insisting that articles be looked through before we promote them is "bureaucratic"? Shall we simply abolish all policy proposals and let people create whatever policies they like, without reference to what the community wish? The proposals process exists to ensure that barnstars meet their criteria, which is to be broad enough that an editor can make a significantcontribution to that area. People are saying "well, I've seen people giving out barnstars for trivial reasons". Well, those people shouldn't be, and that's why the Barnstar Brigade was shut down: they degrade the value of a Barnstar. Barnstars are a recognition of hard work in an area from one Wikipedian to another. That means the awards themselves have to be suitable, and they can't have rubbish images (and the proposals process weeds those out). If you want to hand out awards will-nilly for no real reason, then you can use personal user awards, which aren't vetted at all. Or make up your own. Barnstars have a strict criteria because they are worth more, and the community needs to be able to see awards that they can hand out and examine them. How many of you voting here have actually bothered to read the process? Have you looked through the archives, and seen the rejection of the Burnstar, and a myriad of other silly ideas? Have you seen the mile long discussions helping proposers to develop their award (because often people have an idea and no image or rubric - did any of you consider that?), providing graphics, copyediting advice, suggesting changes to the description? This process is as vital and as needed as any on Wikipedia that reviews, from FAC to peer review to RfA to RfC. To suggest we actually delete a consensus building process is ridiculous. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  But why must barnstars have a strict criteria, Dev? How are they worth more? Isn't the worth of a barnstar subjective? I'm just trying to understand how you feel about this. – Riana _ऋ 15:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

  Of course there is plenty of necessary bureaucracy in Wikipedia. But barnstars are surely one place where we really don't need it. If you want to award someone, then you can - there's no need for people to vote to judge if your reward is up to a suitable standard. After all, it should be the thought that counts, not how good the image is or what the barnstar is called. This page did nothing to stop people giving out barnstars for trivial reasons - and deleting it won't change that either - but on the other hand who are we to deem something too trivial for praise? People should be able to express their praise in any way they like and when they like - this is nothing but bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake. I don't need consensus to tell me how and when to praise someone. Will (aka Wimt) 15:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep; this page seems to consist of genuine discussion (and technical help for people who might not have the graphical skills to create desired barnstars on their own), not just voting yea or nay. Crotalus horridus 15:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Technical help can probably be covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards. God forbid we give someone a mediocre barnstar. Certainly, if any barnstar I received wasn't polished and ready to go on my userpage, I would turn it down and say "Is this what you consider a barnstar? I do my work on Wikipedia to receive real barnstars, not this piece of junk you gave me!" No, really. Make an image, or kindly ask someone else to make one. Make a barnstar template out of it. Use it once; add it to the appropriate list. Let other people improve it. Merge duplicates. Sounds simple enough to me. Gracenotes^T § 16:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Hmm "The mediocre barnstar" presumably given out for outstanding contributions to mediocrity, wonder if that'd get through. On second thoughts I'd probably get too many of them to be worth anything. --pgk 18:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• No. Process for the sake of process. You want to give someone a barnstar, do so. If other people don't like your barnstar, they can amend it. If the whole thing is objectionable, delete it. We just don't need this. It's not required. While we might need to review articles for FA at FAC, that is perhaps marginally more important to Wikipedia than barnstars. Delete/shut down/redirect/Esperanzify. Moreschi ^Talk 17:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Get rid of it. However that's done, let it be so. There's no possible benefit to bureaucracy here. There is nothing to be gained from having some barnstars authorized or 'standard' and some not. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Weak keep. This isn't really needed and certainly no-one should be forbidden from giving out barnstars because some process wasn't followed but that doesn't seem to be what this page is about. It mostly consists of people proposing and chatting about different barnstar designs. Having a place to get feedback for what you're designing is useful. I don't really see any harm being done. Haukur 17:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment, I don't just see chatting, I see votes. Again, why? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    • They seem to be voting on whether some designs get on some master list. It's probably unnecessarily heavy process for something like that but I'm curious how it came about and what the arguments were for it. Haukur 18:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Can't see any practical value, certainly doesn't help build the encyclopedia and really the awards aren't that big a deal --pgk 18:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, burn and scatter the ashes. Too much bureaucracy for something like this. Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards is much better for this kind of thing. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Weak delete; the original purpose of the page was to prevent possibly inappropriate stars such as the Burnstar or those which violate copyright. However, I suppose that with the Wikiproject, this page is no redundant. Laïka 19:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete: Instruction creep and unneeded bureaucracy. Doesn't seem to be about flagging potentially inappropriate barnstars (the original purpose of the page), and people are now being told they must clear their (perfectly acceptable) awards through the project page. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Tag as 'Rejected', Merge per NikoSilver. Anchoress 22:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Kill with fire. Bureaucracy is evil. Good new barnstars will see lots of use and will become informally established as "official". Ugly or overly-niche new barnstars will get ignored or deleted, and thus will not become "official" or highly-used. Natural selection will take care of it. If a new star is seeing lots of use, we can add it to WP:BARNSTARS. If someone disagrees, a lame edit war sorry, "civil discussion" can ensue. There doesn't have to be an indepth process. ♠PMC♠ 22:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. It seems like a helpful place for someone to ask "Hey I made this, what do you guys think?" What's wrong with that? It's been here for quite a while and last time I checked the Wikipedia had not been destroyed by it. As for the Wikiproject Awards being a better place for this, hmmm. I'm not at all sure that turning things over the small group of people who generally make up a wikiproject is better than this. Herostratus 22:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: There's nothing wrong with a helpful place for someone to ask "Hey I made this; what do you guys think?". The problem is that it has become "I have had to remove your award from the general Barnstar pages as it does not appear to have passed through the proper award process...to become an official Barnstar, Wikiproject Award or other Award it must pass consensus by the community at WP:BAP." Firsfron of Ronchester 23:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Barnstars don't mean anything, anyway, they're only personal opinions between users. To set up some sort of petty bureaucracy in order to make them somehow official is even sillier. Corvus cornix 23:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect. While I recognized some value in the discussions that occurred (which should be preserved in the revision history), I was shocked by the needless bureaucracy that I encountered when I merely wanted to help out with the creation of some barnstars. I managed to get a couple of designs through, but I eventually tired of going to so much trouble. I didn't realize that my opinion was so widespread. —David Levy 23:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete because you can't even give out a "personal user award" now unless you follow the rules and guidelines. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - I saw the fuss that Radiant kicked up at WP:AN, and this is an absolute farce. No one actually cares about degrading a barnstar's worth, and if they do, their priorities are absolutely in the wrong place. Sure have a page for discussing barnstars if you wish, and for other barnstar related ideas, but when barnstars are fucking removed because they'd not jumped through your unnecessarily bureaucratic hoops then you deserve a barnstar of ridiculous pedantry. - hahnchen 01:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, this is silly and unnecessary, and the bureaucracy is bafflingly and excessively complex. The discussion occurring on this page is irrelevant to the point of being depressing and embarrassing. We don't need some kind of "official awards committee". All this does is waste people's time. Do not "esparanza-ify". —ptk✰fgs 15:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - the removal of the half-barnstar for not following the process made my skin crawl. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• delete no need for beareaucracy.--PrestonH^{(Review Me!) • (Sign Here!)} 05:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete raises bureaucracy to the level of ridiculousness. MaxSem 07:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Partial vote (is this allowed?) Per Dev920 and Crotalus, BAP was originally set up together with the original barnstars so that the meaning of barnstars won't be twisted or degraded. Barnstars are, originally, the highest class honour on Wikipedia to be awarded to those who has given tremendulous effort to the project. Therefore, some discussion is required to ensure the scope, quality and sanity (I know I might be banned of bureaucracy for using this word) of barnstars. However, if the meaning of barnstars has indeed changed such that the community now prefers to live in a wild west with people creating (and not just awarding) barnstars for the most subtle reasons, whether due to a blunt hatred against bureaucracy since Esperanza was dissolved, or due to a fundamental rejection against administrative processes, then may the BAP be deleted as the subject of the whole discussion has already lost its meaning. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy on a whole (again I'm afraid of being banned if I don't add this clause), but if we can't allow even a minimal amount of bureaucracy, how can quality be enforced? That are just some of my concerns. Hope they don't offend. --Deryck C. 09:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Redirect (mainly due to possible licensing issues) to the main barnstars page. We don't need processes to come up with this stuff, just common sense! --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 09:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -would have been a strong Keep but I am concerned about the bureacratic example on Radiant's talk page listed above. Anything that rewards good article editing is a bonus. I like all the funky barnstars and see that having a love-fest on this page is a good way to get more. I have collaborated with some great editors and appreciated the time factor of having a look at all the unusual awards because I didn't have the time to photoshop up one myself. I see Deryck's note above and I only give them when I'm pretty darn appreciative. As far as teh deleters, no-one is saying you can't make up individual funky awards, I've done it and loads of others have had great fun with it and this page shouldn't impact on that (thus my concern at Radiant's talk page). However I don't see that deleting this page benefits Wikipedia at all and possibly slows article improvement. Remember this is a volunteer effort. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• This has been needing deletion for a long time. Delete, do not tag, do not reject, do not pass go. Probably, redirect to avoid a profusion of potentially context-breaking redlinks. Splash - tk 14:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - This project, especially in the light of the Smomo edit, is a mistake. Awards were supposed to be a casual 'attaboy', not a process bound beaurocracy. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:51, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Hold everything!!

• How 'bout this folks? Limit barnstar awards pages/processes as per current to those with barnstars only. All others are free to be created, modified, mashed up or whatever. Thus givers and receivers can either use barnstars as per these pages (i.e. not use unratified ones), but the policy now does not apply to all/any barnstar-less one. thoughts? cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I've never understood why purely sentimental "awards" presented as gestures of kindness require formal "ratification" to exist in the first place. They may be given to anyone, by anyone, and without the approval of anyone, so what's the point? Discussion is fine, but the bureaucracy that I encountered was nothing short of absurd. —David Levy 13:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
    • The point being that it looks like their is blurred or little distinction at times between individual awards and barnstars/those ratified somewhere and that maybe clarifying/demarcating this into two categories may be helpful (i.e. to allow people to defend making their own awards).cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 14:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
      • You aren't explaining why such a distinction should exist. Why do we need "ratified" awards? —David Levy 14:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
        • OK. If it could be done in a collaborative sense only thwn I like the idea that a positive exchange may or should take place here. There seems to be some heritage regarding the barnstar and it is nice that subsequent barnstars have had preambles and discussions regarding what their role is etc. I agree this is idealistic but think a forum can be really helpful. I concede that the last few discussions on the page have some issues but the previous couple of archives seem productive and good-natured. In essence, some people like the idea so why not leave them to it? cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 14:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
          • Because this needlessly and bureaucratically restricts the behavior of others. —David Levy 14:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
        • PS: In some ways I like the idea of receiving an award that a whole bunch of people ave had a look at and spruced up just as much as getting one from someone who has gone to the effort of coming up with something original and off-the-cuff. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 14:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
          • No one seeks to eliminate either type of award. —David Levy 14:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Really the last thing this project needs is a bunch of self-appointed busybodies telling people precisely how they may express their appreciation for somebody else's work. --Tony Sidaway 14:53, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• • • exactly, that's fine for you and many others - hence the demarcation I propose. Again, there seems to be a fairly active debate on the page so why make a unilateral decision?cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 15:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I thought Cas's suggestion was what BAP originally meant to be? Is this a "keep" vote then? --Deryck C. 10:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete with prejudice I've never seen a stupider, more mmisguided case of instruction creep in my life. Get rid of the damn thing. -M^ask? 19:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, but scale it way back to just be a place where people can ask "what do you think of this barnstar I created"? No "support" or "oppose", just people's comments. And definitely no removing barnstars because it didn't go through some sort of review process. --Fang Aili ^talk 19:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Tag as {{rejected}} and redirect to main barnstar page. I never liked this overly bureaucratic process becasue it seemed anti-wiki and glad someone finally spoke up about it. FloNight 20:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Tag as {{rejected}}. The corpse of this monstrosity should be hung up for all to see, so nobody else will be tempted to emulate it ever again. Coren 22:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Reject or redirect. I could see someone wanting the right image and asking somewhere - but I would think that could be handled at Wikipedia talk:Barnstars. This one has a fair quantity of incoming links which would go nowhere if the article was deleted. Should have a note to see the Barnstars page, or redirect there. Gimmetrow 23:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Reject or redirect (is it possible to do both?) per FloNight. ElinorD (talk) 23:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Remove the bureaucracy but keep the list of barnstars. I very, very rarely use them (about twice at last count, I think), but when I do feel moved to do so, I like having a list to chose from. Remove any references to "official" stuff, but beware an explosion in silly, annoying barnstars (like what happened with userboxes), now that all controls are being removed... Carcharoth 00:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Obviously silly barnstars can easily be removed. IvoShandor 03:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
• There were never any problems before this little fiefdom was established, and I don't see why there will be any now. Market forces and peer pressure will work just fine. --bainer (talk) 03:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what I said earlier. Retain the list, but make additions to it informal. If you come up with a new barnstar, stick it on the list. Silly, hideous, POINTY or overly niche Barnstars will be replaced or removed by way of natural selection. No one needs pages and pages of process to make up awards. ♠PMC♠ 03:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete or tag as rejected. Instruction overload, and I say that as a lawyer who usually likes complicated rules. Sandstein 08:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or at the very least tag as rejected, but keep the lsit of barnstars. Too many guidelines! Barnstars are just like a pat on the back. Also the "General Guideline" part should be kept, just those two bullet points, per what Carcharoth said- just a precaution against annoying barnstars or perhaps vandalism- however it's unlikely that a new vandal will have even heard of barnstars, let alone vandalise them/with them. CattleGirl ^{talk | sign!} 09:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I think the point of this was to prevent a myriad of less-than-helpful barnstars, as well as deal with controversial ones. (I was witness to a mess of a debate about the Islamic Barnstar awhile back.) While Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards may be less than active atm, I think if this were merged with the WikiProject, it might generate more activity there. Therefore... - jc37 12:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
• Merge to Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards. Perhaps make all but the award list pages to be subpages of the WikiProject. I think "some" process should remain - compare to Featured article criteria. - jc37 12:15, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: How, exactly, do barnstars compare to the featured article criteria? Apples and oranges, perhaps. IvoShandor 12:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comparing that there should remain some process of "approval" of Barnstars, similar to how we have a process of "approving" featured articles. Process to process, not process to object of the process. - jc37 12:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel like I am beating a dead horse, but, at the risk of being repetitive to above comments, why should barnstars have a process? IvoShandor 12:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

While anyone make technically make and/or give an award, a process is good in order to: help determine the tech specs of an award (often having a discussion with the uploader of an image about colour and all sorts of other image issues is nice); to prevent an award which may be contrary to T1; to help prevent duplication, or even better to merge similar ideas into something greater than the sum of the parts; and all the other things that such a discussion may foster. And the process also is useful to prevent WP:BITE. Consider a newbie who's excited about a "new" barnstar they've created, only to findout that it minorly violated some rule they were unaware of. It's speedily deleted, and now they find that recreation may be frowned upon. And we possibly lose someone who might have become a valued member due to a simple misunderstanding. All of this could be avoided by such a process in place. - jc37 13:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that all of this can be accomplished without some voting process. Barnstars are used enough, meaning the page is looked at by enough editors, that keeping out barnstars that are flagrant violations or just silly won't be a problem. Any technical help can be acquired at the project or the barnstar talk page. I fail to see how what you point out requires some bureaucratic process that is an obvious violation of policy. IvoShandor 13:18, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"...an obvious violation of policy." - Pretend, for a moment, that I have no idea which policy you're referring to, and please link to it. - jc37 13:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Pretending. Because I know you saw the links on the MfD for Wikihalo, but I'll ignore that. WP:BURO, WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY. And before you cite all of the examples of the necessary bureaucracy on Wikipedia, please explain why barnstars should be subject to this. IvoShandor 13:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep (as much as it pains me) or redirect to WP:Awards or, preferably, WP:Barnstars. I was actually going to make a somewhat witty remark along the lines of 'Nuke it from orbit' but the comment about the purple star/purple heart issue got me thinking. To be quite frank, I hate the beaurocratical feel of this and the idea of having a formal policy for awarding barnstars (ie. non-formal awards) seems ludicrous to me. But -- and this is the problem as far as I am concerned -- there doesn't seem to be any good place to discuss concerns about a particular barnstar other than this one. Yes, we do have the template's talk page but there's a good chance that nobody is ever going to see anything you post there. And then there's Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Awards which should work just as well in theory but looks like it's not quite as popular. So, in essence, while I really dislike that WP:BAP adds another layer of bureaucracy, I still figure that it's important since there's no equally suitable place to "get the word out". -- Seed 2.0 02:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia talk:Barnstars? There are plenty of places that we can make available to talk about barnstars without needing the pointless bureaucracy that goes along with this page. --bainer (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• Reject (don't redirect, that would defeat the purpose of rejecting). We really don't need an official way to get barnstars approved. First, there isn't a stunning need for lots more of them. But more importantly, why can't barnstars that are in bad taste or used to attack people just be sent to TfD or IfD and removed by disagreeing users from WP:BS? This is a wiki after all. On occasion, broader input may be needed but there's always WP:RFC. Mangojuice^talk 13:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
• Question I worked a lot on this page, and while I do agree with you about its beaucracy, something I have been trying to think of a soloution to for a long time, what would you suggest we do when this page is deleted, users get even more confused about Barnstars and how they work, and there is an 'explosion' in weird barnstars that overlap and go against wikilove all over the place? I do admit some changes need to be made, I'm just very concerned that there is a general backlash and bandwagon-jumping at all this bureacracy that the main opposers haven't really thought about what this page does and how things are going to work afterwards. Thanks everyone :-), Smomo 17:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok reading that again, it may have come out the wrong way. What I mean is, how are we going to make sure that all the potential problems this page gaurds against won't happen when it is deleted/changed? Smomo 18:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

OK forget that. Smomo 18:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• Seven steps to propose an award, and another three when it's been accepted? Delete, thanks. – Steel 22:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Can't see any use for this. // Pilotguy radar contact 22:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete ... no "rejected" or "historical" tags, please. I don't think it's necessary to preserve every bad idea in Wikipedia's history. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Also delete the 70 affiliated pages listed here and here. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 01:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, would it be a problem if Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/RibbonArchive gets put into my userspace? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
      • An extremely bloated and confusing proposal that hasn't seen wide use? But why? —ptk✰fgs 03:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Even while the ribbons are not official at all (as I pretty much asked for), I am still asked from time to time to draw these ribbons for users to make their userpages look nicer. So, I wish to keep it as a guide of what I have done, and what others have done, and see what needs to be made (on request). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
          • I certainly wouldn't object to the userfication of any pages. The barnstars and ribbons created as a result of the project are very nice ... it'd be a shame to lose them. If any do not already exist elsewhere, it wouldn't be a bad idea to userfy them so that they may be somehow/somewhere preserved. I do not desire to get rid of the images, but rather of the overly bureaucratic (in my view) project. I think this MfD could be a prime case of "userfy upon request". -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
            • While I strongly disapprove of the bureaucratic rules under which they were conducted, I see no valid reason to actually delete these discussions (which serve as records of how/why barnstars were/weren't created). —David Levy 05:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
              • I agree what David Levy said. A poorly maintained page doesn't mean it's a bad page. It just requires more attention from editors. This page ensures that scopes of the barnstars doesn't repeat. It also minimize the chance and serves as an alternative to edit wars should 2 barnstars overlap scopes and supporters from both sides trying to vote for their favourite barnstar and discredit the other. So I would say keep. OhanaUnited 05:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
                • To propose that we need to devote more time to this is silly. You don't divert good editors from the encyclopedia to save an unnecessary trophy bureaucracy of dubious significance. You just delete it and let them scatter like roaches. —ptk✰fgs 05:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
                • To be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of retaining this process. I believe that it should be deactivated. I simply see no valid reason to delete the discussions that already have occurred. —David Levy 18:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
            • Well, you can move the page I mentioned to my userspace whenever you feel like it, but let me know when it happened on my talk page please. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.