Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Per

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 Keep and mark as {{essay}} —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xaosflux (talk • contribs).

[edit] Wikipedia:Per

An essay that's redundant to Wikipedia:Glossary#Per and has a name that's is too close to Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests's shortcut of WP:PER Barberio 15:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy keep, WP:POINT nomination. If you don't like the name of a page, rename it. When people assume that a user that says "do X per Y" somehow implies that Y is a policy, this page is useful to explain to them that this implication is unfounded. Note that Barberio has been attempting to legislate against people linking to essays in discussion, apparently because he believes that a link to an essay implies that it's policy. >Radiant< 15:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Are we going to delete WP:CRUFT as redundant to the glossary, too? -Amark moo! 15:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  WP:CRUFT actually has some significant extra text beyond a glossary definition and explanation of use, so it's not redundant to the glossary. It also clearly identifies as an essay, and does not conflict with something else's WP shortcut. --Barberio 15:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  This has significant extra text, an essay tag should suffice to identify it, and conflicting with a shortcut might be grounds for renaming, but not deleting. -Amark moo! 00:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

  Just a note. An {{essay}} tag has been directly refused by those editing the page. And previous attempt to mark it with one have been reverted. --Barberio 11:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

  That's stupid, but not a reason to delete it. Does anyone seriously advance the idea that if you can't get what you want on a page, it should be deleted? -Amark moo! 05:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

  If "what you want" means "anything that strikes your fancy", no. But does anyone seriously advance the idea that a tendentious essay should be allowed to persist indefinitely, unlabeled as such and categorized as a help page? You can think of it as truth in labeling. —Neuromath 08:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

  Or I can think of it as using an MfD as a tool in a content dispute. I repeat, not getting what you want on a page is not a reason to delete it. If you think it's bad, then the correct avenue is dispute resolution. -Amark moo! 03:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent) Dispute resolution, as opposed to deletion, might make sense if the page had any reason to exist that was independent of its objectionable characteristics. But I tend to agree with Barberio that if the material that makes this an essay, rather than a help page, were removed, what remained would add nothing to the glossary entry for Wikipedia:Glossary#Per. On the other hand, if it were tagged with {{essay}} and removed from Category:Wikipedia help, would even its author (Radiant!) see any point in its continued existence? The apparent intent was to write a help page, not an essay, and Radiant! has reverted attempts to reclassify it as an essay. For these reasons, this MfD nomination is not at all frivolous, and WP:POINT is not relevant, contrary to Radiant!'s remarks above.

I think it is also worth mentioning that only two people, Radiant! and Barberio, have edited the page at issue thus far; and only one person, Radiant!, has been able to exert significant influence over the page's content. If there is ever to be a legitimate help page on per, that state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. And in view of the policy WP:OWN (which in my opinion is more relevant here than the guideline WP:POINT), if Radiant! wishes to continue controlling the content of the page, he should userfy it to his own user space. But that step, likewise, might defeat the whole purpose of having such a page. It is not even clear that a help page specifically on per is needed at all. (Below, I suggested the possibility of writing one, but on reflection, it's not clear that anything that I think needs saying would be neutral enough for a help page either. In any case, a section in the essay WP:NOTPOLICY might be enough.) —Neuromath 02:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Um... the fact that nobody else has edited it doesn't mean that nobody else likes it. Look what happened when the only people who had edited WP:INDY tried to have it deleted. I think it should be in projectspace. I also think that it truly is an essay, but that's not relevant to if it should be gone. -Amark moo! 02:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Would you say the same if this essay had been created in the article space? (I'm not suggesting that Radiant! would really do such a thing; I'm looking at a far more blatant example than what we are dealing with here, in order to clarify the principles involved.) My best understanding from the help page Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages (WP:MM—the relevant section is WP:MM#Cross-namespace moves), and from the essay Wikipedia:Userfication, is that removing a page from its original namespace (as in my idea of moving Wikipedia:Per to Radiant!'s user space) counts as deletion, and that deletion processes are indeed the proper forums for such proposals. I will admit that these pages do not give entirely clear guidance on this matter, that Wikipedia:Userfication is itself a non-authoritative essay, and that I'm having to read guidance documents I hadn't read before in order to know how to respond to you. I do recall seeing something, somewhere, about how it's supposed to be improper to use XfD's in content disputes, as you are insisting; but I don't think discussions of what namespace a page should be in, or even of how it should be tagged or categorized, should be considered as content disputes. Could you remind me where the statement in question is, so that I can examine it more carefully? —Neuromath 06:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's not really a content dispute if you want to userfy it. But if you want to userfy it, just like if you want to delete it, you have to give a good reason, which does not include "Because Radiant edit wars to keep it his way". -Amark moo! 15:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

An edit war A series of contending edits by itself wouldn't be enough of a reason to delete or userfy, if it occurred on a page that had a substantial edit history before the edit war that series of contending edits started. But an edit history that consists solely of an edit war a series of contending edits between its creator and a single other contributor does at least raise considerable doubt as to whether the page has any legitimate reason to exist other than to express its creator's personal and tendentious opinions. And if it doesn't, then that is a very good reason not to tolerate its continued existence in the state that Wikipedia:Per was in when this MfD began (in the Wikipedia: namespace, lacking the {{essay}} tag, and categorized as a help page). This page Wikipedia:Per was created on 9 September 2006 by Radiant!, and its subsequent edit history to date has consisted entirely of an edit war a series of contending edits between Radiant! and Barberio that started on 11 January 2007. What is more, Barberio's edits have been essentially limited to reclassifying the page as an essay rather than a help page, and (in one instance) reducing the entire page to a brief definition, consistent with his stated position that it is redundant to the glossary entry for per; and Radiant!'s edits have been essentially limited to reverting Barberio's edits. (If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, let them please check the edit history for themselves.) This edit war series of contending edits hasn't even been about content; it has been about labeling, categorization, and whether the page should exist separately from the glossary entry for per. —Neuromath 22:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Note: I borrowed the term "edit war" in my above comments from the remark I was replying to. Having just read Wikipedia:Glossary#Edit war and skimmed the guideline Wikipedia:Edit war, I now realize that "edit war" is very strong language on Wikipedia—stronger than I had intended to use, and probably not accurate, especially since it appears to have a strong implication of clearly improper, even blockable, behavior. I certainly don't think either Radiant! or Barberio has gone to extremes that would warrant blocking. I have therefore stricken the term "edit war" from my comments, and replaced it with "series of contending edits". I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has a more succinct and less clumsy term for a series of contending edits that falls short of the improper extremes implied by the term "edit war". —Neuromath 22:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I don't see an actual reason for deletion. Perhaps the page needs to be rewritten, clarified or renamed, but not deleted. SuperMachine 18:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Radiant. --  Mikedk9109  (hit me up) ^SIGN 18:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per Radiant. Not fully redundant as the explanations and examples may be helpful to some. If it needs to e renamed let's do that rather than deleting it. Eluchil404 23:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Radiant. Terence Ong 11:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Slightly more detailed than the glossary entry. Should be expanded to include information that cannot fit in a short glossary explanation. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• As for the name. We have explanatory dab notices for that: "If you're looking for X, please go to Y". - Mgm|^(talk) 13:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak, conditional keep. This page should be kept only on the condition that it shall be marked with {{essay}}. It is not a neutral help page, nor is it helpful; it is the misleading expression of a controversial opinion. Meanings of words, including per, are not determined solely by the intent of the speaker or writer, but principally by the way they are likely to be understood by the hearer. "Per X", and similar expressions like "in accordance with X", are naturally understood to imply that X has some kind of binding force that supports the viewpoint being expressed. The real problem is not that some people will react indignantly to this implication, but that others who agree, or are neutral, will be misled into thinking that the viewpoint expressed has more official support than it really does. Posting an explanatory essay cannot prevent such misunderstandings; instead, it will make the problem worse, by encouraging Wikipedians to continue using this misleading language. The only real solution is to stop using the misleading language. The use of "per", especially by administrators, should be restricted to cases where the implication of binding force is actually justified. That is what a help page should explain. I would be happy to write a suitable one. I don't like to suppress opinions I disagree with (I voted strong keep on the recent MfD for Wikipedia:Fancruft), but if Wikipedia:Per is not to be marked as an essay, then it is so misleading and harmful (since it looks like a help page but isn't) that it should be deleted. —Neuromath 06:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC) (PS: for the same reasons, keeping the page should also be conditioned on removing it from the category Wikipedia help; the category tag falsely implies that it is a neutral help page. The language it tries to explain is inherently unclear, and will inevitably be misunderstood if it is used, no matter how often it is explained. And the page doesn't just explain the intended use of per; it defends that use against criticism, and implies that continued use is acceptable, and that anyone who objects to such use is simply making a newbie mistake.) —Neuromath 10:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Past attempts to mark it with the {{essay}} tag or remove it from the Wikipedia help category have been reverted. Removing the material that make it an essay would reduce it to a state of complete redundancy to the glossary, hence the nomination. --Barberio 22:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Radiant (ah, the irony) -- Selmo ^(talk) 01:38, 25 January 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.