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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 discussion was Keep and mark failed. There is also a good argument made to also protect the page, but I see no reason to do so pre-emptively. — Coren (talk) 00:53, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Government

[edit]
Wikipedia:Government (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Ok, this proposal was posted back in May. It was overwhelmingly rejected by the community at that time. I had quite forgotten about it, and apparently so had everyone else including it's author, since it was not edited at all for eight month. Last week somebody made an edit to the talk page that was obviously based on mistaken assumptions about what this was. That popped up on my watchlist and I clicked on it to see why I had this watchlisted. Since it had been rejected and never edited again, I marked it as a failed proposal and closed and hatted the old discussions on the talk page. The proposals primary author undid all that and insisted that he simply hadn't had time to fix the problems. See Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Wikipedia:Government and the article talk page for the blow-by-blow of what happened next. Basically, the community has roundly rejected not just this specific proposal bu the entire underlying concept as it is incompatible with how Wikipedia works. The pages author insists he just needs more time, ignoring the fact that the details don't matter if the whole idea was rejected. So,I am not neccesarily actually proposing deletion, but this was the course of action recommended by the folks at DRN. I believe this should be marked as a failed proposal, that's all I was trying to do it, but if it's author insists it is simply not ready to be discussed even though he has eight months and did nothing until yesterday and it was rejected anyway, then it should be moved into his userspace until such time as it is ready to be discussed. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The problems mentioned in the nomination are resolved by page protection (or blocking a user who becomes really disruptive), not deletion. We have a long standing precedent to keep good faith policy proposals, even when they are misguided. Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:37, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That is why I specifically mentioned in my nomination that my preffered outcome is actually userfication. Since the primary author insists it just isn't quite finished yet that seems the proper course of action, but they did not voluntarily agree to it when asked. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would actually prefer that the user start a new proposal from scratch instead of tinkering with a failed proposal. This policy proposal was clearly rejected, and should remain a historical archived item that is not edited further (except for routine link updates etc.). Sjakkalle (Check!) 21:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or indef Full protect both the talk and project pages. The entire idea was rejected and there is no way that this will be approved in the near future. It is just being used disruptively now. --Guerillero | My Talk 18:38, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mark as failed and a fresh start if the user thinks a new version will go anywhere. Crazynas t 22:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, tagged as {{failed}}. We don't delete failed proposals. As this is not an uncommon idea, and as there was wide participation on its talk page, it should be left in project space. It was wrong to "close and hat" the discussion. Evidence of a discussion is found in the age of the most recent posts, not in the judgement of a closer. Proposals are {{failed}} without a requirement for the discussion to have concluded. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:26, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
uh, Joe, as I mentioned in my nomination, should you care to look, discussion and editing of this page stopped cold eight months ago until a misplaced comment utterly unrelated to this page showed up on the talk the other day. I closed the stale discussion in which the proposal that used to be here was rejected eight months ago. That is the discussion that was closed and hatted, and by your own logic that was in fact the right thing to do. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:03, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like the way you hid the discussion in a collapsed box. Better to archive. But that is a small side issue.
On furtheer thought, I think I agree with Beeblebrox's basic position. It was a hopeless proposal, and should be marked with {{failed}}. Subsequent edits to the page, attempting to turn it into a descriptive essay, are fantacy, are attempting to cover over the failed proposal, and are misleading. I think the author should start a new page in his userspace, and not be allowed to confuse the history. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:43, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, no reason for deletion. As SmokeyJoe says, we don't delete failed proposals. In this case, I'm struggling to say how this one is classed as 'failed' - as far as I can tell, it's simply a descriptive page that accurately reflects current practice on Wikipedia. But even if others disagree and insist on {{failed}} being used, there's no reason to delete it simply for failing to achieve consensus. Robofish (talk) 16:21, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your confusion is due to the fact that there was in fact a proposal here at one point . A proposal that was, as you can see from the talk page, strongly rejected. In order to stave off the "failed" tag, the primary author of the proposal changed it the other day to the descriptive page you see now. So, really I guess we have kind of a new question to answer here: do we revert to the rejected proposal and markk it as failed, or do we leave it as ...whatever it is supposed to be now and mark it as an essay or something, or do we userfy it pending the author figuring out for themselves what this is supposed to be? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy or delete. Wikipedia is a community, if not public, namespace, and this text has a very prominent name, which is likely to attract readers. It shouldn't be occupied by any kind of 'failed' text or proposal or whatever it is. --Kleinzach 09:37, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Renaming just makes everything more complicated. If you are against deletion, surely the best option is to userfy? --Kleinzach 23:03, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That could work, although I still prefer userfication, the usual result when someone's proposal is this incompatible with WP norms but they want to keep it around for whatever reason. I assume we would not be leaving a redirect behind in that case? Since Wikipedia has never had anything referred to as a "government" what would we put in its place? Or leave it blank, indicating the fact that we do not and probably will not ever have a government? Beeblebrox (talk) 04:32, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, there already exists a de-facto government system, as the present version of the page points out. The fact that many editors are against this and it's never been formally recognized in our policies is irrelevant. It's a bit like trying to read about masturbation in books dating from the 19th century and before. It was a taboo subject, but it is safe to assume that it was common practice, despite the sources of that time claiming otherwise. In the original version, I took for granted that present practice would not be controversial, and I just looked into the near future. Obviously, we will have a more formal government system quite soon, and we can already think about the formal policies for this.
Beeblebrox, why not accept my challenge and close that RFC about WP:V to prove me wrong? Count Iblis (talk) 14:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it really is a shame that when it comes to this proposal, you are completely blind. I don't know if your ego simply won't allow you to admit the truth or if it is some other problem, but I don't see any point in discussing this matter directly with you. You can't just imagine what you believe is going to happen later and post it in WP space as though it has some basis in fact. Maybe somebody else would care to bang their head against the brick wall that is preventing you from making contact with the reality of this situation. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And now we see this [1] rejection of the very idea that we even have policies, or at least that those policies do not apply to Count Iblis. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The old version talked about what was going to happen, the new version is about the current situation, which is simply an informal ad-hoc version of the old proposal. Count Iblis (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It's a good idea to keep failed proposals — they ensure that people won't repropose them without realising that someone already tried before. It won't affect bad-faith users, and good faith users will either decide not to repropose the idea or will make a stronger case than would have been made if the original failed proposal had been deleted. Userfication would get rid of the benefits of keeping a failed proposal, and the prominent title is an even better reason to keep it: we don't want someone proposing a government without having thought about what was said on the subject in the past. Nyttend (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That being the case, should we not restore the actual proposal, instead of the ...whatever... it is now? Beeblebrox (talk) 06:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • We've always allowed editors to ruminate on the nature of the project and potential ways it can move forward, no matter how unlikely they may be. If this is truly a one-man project then if there were a strong consensus that it didn't belong in projectspace it could be userfied. However, I can't see any real harm in the status quo where it is marked as failed and Count Iblis is free to work on it again if he pleases. As for Count Iblis's conduct, if that is disruptive it should be dealt with separately unless there is some good reason to assume that this small, failed proposal is some sort of locus for the disruption. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I As far as I know that is in fact the case. I've run into the Count in several other discussions, and although we have not always agreed, I have never seen him act like this before. He seems obsessed with avoiding the result of his obviously failed proposal being marked as such. If all he wants to do is "ruminate" on WP, that is something to be done in userspace, especially since it is clear he wants to WP:OWN this page. Whether he wants to admit it or not, this was a proposal, it was rejected, and the re-write hid all that, replacing it with the essay that attempts to define something which does not actually exist outside of the Count's imagination. That obviously does not belong in project space. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.


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