Wikitroid:Requests for Comment/Talkheaders

This RfC was closed at 19:09, February 19, 2011 (UTC) by  ا ل ق ر ا ص ن ة ه ن ت ر {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs).

'Resolution of RfC: Lack of formal consensus and argument(s) support no consensus''. As such, the status of Talkheaders' passive necessity on relevant [talk]pages is "no consensus".' Talkheaders are neither disallowed on nonexistent talkpages, nor equivalently allowed''. In light of said consensus, a new RfC for like, or equivalent issue(s) regarding said Talkheader template may be started again.

This RfC was closed at 10:11, February 19, 2011 (UTC) by FastLizard4 {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs). It will be archived after one week. '''Please do not modify it further. If you disagree with the resolution of this RfC, open a new one.''' If you chose to open a new RfC, remember to address the closing statement left by the closing admin.

'Resolution of RfC: Consensus and arguments support disagree''. Talkheaders should not be added to talk pages where no conversation has taken place.''' Although both sides presented good arguments as to why they should and should not be required, the pro-talkheader arguments did not address the fact that the MediaWiki interface page that contains instructions for people creating talk pages can be edited. In addition, the con-talkheader arguments also mentioned how the creation of a blank talk page with just a talkheader and no conversation is often a point of confusion for editors who believe that there is a conversation occurring on the talk page, only to find that there is in fact none.

As a result of this, I will be modifying the relevant MediaWiki interface page, MediaWiki:Talkpagetext, to include the same information a talkheader does. The changes made to the interface page can be discussed by anyone on the relevant talk page. As mentioned above, if you disagree with the resolution of this RfC, please open a new one, or if you think I've missed something here, let me know on my talk page. -- FastLizard4 {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 10:11, February 19, 2011 (UTC)

Talkheaders
It has come to my attention that Talkheaders are being considered, in a manner of speaking, redundant, on Wikitroid Talk/Discussion pages (the pages they were created with intent for). The current arguments for them being "unneeded", are that:

"1.) They add unneeded changes to Wikitroid RC."

"2.) Creating a page simply to give it a Talkheader gives the illusion that a conversation regarding said page, is ongoing."Be that as it may, Talkheaders are meant to be present on Talk Pages for the purpose of providing a set of pre-editorial notes and rules, regarding preferred etiquette during discussions. They are meant to provide a user with guidelines, before they edit/post on the Talk page. Leaving a Talk page blank (without a Talkheader) until a conversation actually begins, would be like waiting to put a Stop Sign up at a 4-way intersection until an accident actually occurs. Which is highly irresponsible (obviously). I call this Request for Comment, so that we can hopefully make it a necessity for Talkheaders to be present on every Talk page, not just the ones with an already ongoing conversation. In other words, make it a necessity that every Talk page has a Talkheader, even if it is blank (so that future conversation starters will be correctly and undoubtedly informed). Also, if a supporting consensus is in fact met, keep in mind that we may eventually employ the help of a bot for to assist in adding the needed Talkheaders. So, all-in-all:


 * Question: Should the presence of a Talkheader on a Talk/Discussion page, be a priority, regardless of conversational activity.


 * Possible Positions: Agree (If you agree that Talkheaders should unconditionally be required on Talk pages), Neutral (If you are not sure), or Disagree (If you disagree that Talkheaders should unconditionally be required on Talk pages).


 * Default (no consensus): A Talkheader's status as a necessity is left unmodified.

Submitted by: P   i   r   a   t   e   h   u   n   t   e   r  {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 12:25, April 8, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion
Agree: Okay, as PH said above, talkheaders are supposed to be guidelines for editors. Now, how are they supposed to do that when a page is blank? What are you going to do when someone doesn't follow them, because not every anon is going to know the talkheader by heart. Are you going to scold them, or block them? It wasn't their fault. It was ours because we, especially admins, should make sure that they know what to do and what not to do. It will be our fault for their mess-up, so we'll get the blame and that will put us in a bad position. We need talkheaders on every talkpage, conversation or not. Th e Ex t er m in at or {ADMIN} (talk &bull; e-mail &bull; contribs &bull; count &bull; logs) 21:20, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Agree Same as Ex. Only next time I'll have AWB hooked up and I can finish the job with that. -- R o y b o y X {ADMIN} 21:28, April 16, 2010 (UTC)

Disagree - I agree with the idea behind it, that Talkheaders should already be on pages to help new users, promote civilised conversations etc. But I think that creating lots of talkpages will take a long time, waste time on other things that could be done around the wikia, and (as you said) clog up the recent edits page. Employing a bot may solve the problem, but that would also add more changes to the recent edits (unless you hid them somehow). There are too many pages without talk pages that I don't think it's necessary. I also think that this idea sort of insults the intelligence of new users. If they decide to swear and make rude comments on talk pages, it's their own fault. They shouldn't really have to look at talk headers to know how to behave when having a conversation with another human being. Hell Kaiser ryo12 [ ADMIN ] (Talk&bull;Contribs) 21:38, April 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Discuss: Obviously, people should know not to swear, but I'm talking more about signing, new topics, and that other stuff. That is mainly what a talkheader is for. Th e Ex t er m in at or  {ADMIN} (talk &bull; e-mail &bull; contribs &bull; count &bull; logs) 00:12, April 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Discuss: Try making a new Talk page. You'll be greeted with "This is a talk page. Remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes." along with Help links before the text box. ChozoBoy [ADMIN] (Talk/Contribs) 23:24, April 17, 2010 (UTC)

Disagree: Maybe I'm just crazy but I really like reading discussion pages even if not to comment, and seeing every single minor one with a whitelink makes it impossible to tell which pages actually have a legitimate discussion going on. It also makes it a lot harder to find issues that need addressing--I'll ask a question in a talkpage and it gets ignored for months or even a year because no one knows that talkpage has content. No exaggeration there, by the way, it's happened. I understand why they're there, but isn't there some way to automate the process, maybe with a button saying "this page has no content, click here to add a talkheader" and then penalize users/anons who ignore creating the banner/following its guidelines? To say nothing of the RC spam, of course... Dazuro 01:27, April 17, 2010 (UTC)

Disagree: Essentially agreeing with HK and Dazuro here. I don't think we need to have a talkheader for how people should act on the talk page. True, the talkheaders should be on every talk page, but they should only be added on an as-needed basis, in my opinion. Anyways, we don't need a reminder of how to sign on every talk page; that's as useless as the Monaco sidebar to registered users. New users learn in time, and it isn't that hard to learn such a simple thing as adding ~ to each post you make. As an after-note, you guys need to set up a bot account if you're going to do this. You guys not only managed to flood RC with those talkheaders, such activity that I'd normally see from a spambot, but also tried to hide other activity that other contributors would find questionable, which is not fine by me. R A N 1 {ADMIN} (talk • contributions • logbook) 02:56, April 17, 2010 (UTC)

Disagree: Piratehunter compared an unused Talk page to a 4-way intersection without a stop-sign. Anyone see the problem with this? How often do you guys see fights breaking out on a Talk page before someone gets the chance to stick a talkheader up? ChozoBoy [ADMIN] (Talk/Contribs) 23:19, April 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Discuss: Just to clarify ChozoBoy's above statement, I was referring to it as though it were a real world, civil/legal issue. If there is no Stop Sign (talkheader) at the intersection (talkpage) when a wreck occurs, the State Dept. of Transportation (Admins) will completely and legitimately be held responsible for said accident. But doing the latter, of adding a stop sign (talkheader) in advance, before the accident occurs, will remove all potential for the Highway Dept. (Admins) to be blamed. It's basically a disclaimer, saying that, "We're warning you ahead of time, so if you get into an accident, it's your fault because we did our part to warn you." Disclaimers are here to prevent lawsuits, not literally on Wikia of course, it's just a figure of speech, but my point remains. P   i   r   a   t   e   h   u   n   t   e   r  {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 16:27, May 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * The way you present it seems like this is being done to "save our own skins". I notice the majority of voters here are admins, too. Is this for the new user's best interests or the admins? Hell Kaiser ryo12 [ ADMIN ] (Talk&bull;Contribs) 16:34, May 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Both. The new user gets informed on what to do and what not to do, and we admins can irrefutably say that "we tried" or "we warned you", basically. It's the best for both sides in my opinion. P   i   r   a   t   e   h   u   n   t   e   r  {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 16:42, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Discuss: Note that requesting a bot flag would hide any edits from the Recent Changes. The MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 22:28, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly, so we would be making talkheaders a necessity, but by employing AWB we would not have to actually add them, or watch them being added. P   i   r   a   t   e   h   u   n   t   e   r  {ADMIN} (Talk&bull;Contribs&bull;Logs) 23:23, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

Disagree: It can cause confusion about the existence of a Talkpage. Reminding users to create talk headers can be done through a MediaWiki page. (The one that controls the editing a talk page message) The MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 23:47, May 8, 2010 (UTC)

Agree: - Wasn't this solved already? Anyways, I think it should be done not by hand, but by the thingamajig the Beuros use to automatically do it to every page. It's important, because I've seen so many things irrelevant to the talk subject, that it's just not even funny. Talkheaders might fix this. T erro <font color="Cyan" size="2px">r <font color="OrangeRed" size="2px">Dact <font color="Black" size="2px">yl (Talk &bull; Contribs) 00:47, May 27, 2010 (UTC)

Agree: We don't want new comers to do the things I have done in the past (Fanon and Fighting) so basically we want to prevent the 3 F's F**** (Swearing) Fighting and Fanon. Metroid101 00:28, June 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * Discuss Name one time that a user has swore, or fought before a talkheader was added. Also, Fanon has nothing to do with Talkheaders at all. The MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 01:57, June 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply I think he means adding speculation and theories to the talk page. And talkheaders say that the page is for the discussion of the article. (It dosen't include any message telling users not to discuss theories etc, granted). <font color="FireBrick" size="2px">Hell <font color="Crimson" size="2px">Kaiser <font color="FireBrick" size="2px">ryo12 [ ADMIN ] (Talk&bull;Contribs) 02:18, June 13, 2010 (UTC)
 * ReplyI've got to say, I'd take all of the kooks on all of the talk pages that we get, to be able to see which ones actuallly have talk on them or not again. ChozoBoy [ADMIN] (Talk/Contribs) 05:39, June 13, 2010 (UTC)

Agree: We don't want new users doing the three f's and/or posting irrelevent comments. Jack Davies 06:49, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Nothing has been said since June 24. I say we should do this. The message that is given while editing a new page does not inform a user of what s/he is supposed to do on a talk page, it only tells them to sign their posts. Also, it would make us seem a bit more perfect if every page had a talkheader. We can ignore redirects, disambigs count as pages, and yeah. We would use AWB if we were to do it again, but we would need some way to detect what pages still need talk pages. -- R o y b o y X  02:37, October 11, 2010 (UTC)