Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Merging, moving and deleting articles

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 speedy keep per unanimity of discussion and nominator's suggestion that this can be closed. — TKD::Talk 09:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Merging, moving and deleting articles

Also included, several dozen subpages of the Wikiproject scouting, such as this, this, and this, recognizable by the bright neon green tags.

In a fit of bureaucracy and instruction creep, the Wikiproject Scouting has decided that it's a good idea to write their own guidelines, their own Manual of Style, and their own process for merging and deleting pages. These potentially contradict existing guidelines and MOS entries, probably are redundant, and certainly are confusing. Obviously, none of these pages meet the generally accepted consensual standards for being "guidelines" or "MOS entries", nevertheless the scouting project insists on "tagging" them like that, and revert warring over those tags, but the project has been unwilling to discuss this.

Despite edit wars to the contrary, these are neither guidelines nor part of the MOS. I would suggest either properly calling them {{rejected}} proposals, considering the lack of consensus for having individual guidelines for each wikiproject, or deleting them altogether as harmful instruction creep. >Radiant< 11:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE that Rlevse has engaged in one-sided canvassing in order to vote stack this debate. >Radiant< 12:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose strongly/keep
Radiant is not telling the whole story. There has been discussion on this but he won't negotiate and was only willing to accept his view of the wiki world. He has no prior involvement with our project. There are many projects with their own guidelines for topics specific and helpful to their areas and Radiant seems to have declared wiki war on this. I see nothing wrong with supplements specific to a project. Before the Scouting project was formed there were no FA articles in this area, now there are 14, not to mention the other innumerable improvements the project has made to wiki. This is what wiki is all about. Gadget850's efforts to organize and improve the project guidelines should be applauded as an extension of that effort, not MfD'd. Anything, such as project guides, that helps a project do its work better and improve articles should be commended. Deletion requests like this are what drive people away, not keep them around to improve articles. If this move proceeds all the projects would have to remove their own guidelines, which would be nothing less than a travesty. Rlevse 12:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The point is that these are not "guidelines", nor "Manual of style", the way these terms are actually used on Wikipedia, and your attempt to pass them off as such anyway is misleading. Being confusing and misleading drives people away. >Radiant< 12:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • oppose Note: this is a keep, Sumoeagle179 21:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This began when Radiant deleted the message box from the series of guideline pages with no discussion. I reverted, we discussed. I proposed and made changes to the message box, he then deleted them again.
  • The offending message box simply states that the page is a guideline of the Scouting WikiProject and "Wikipedia policies and guidelines have clear precedence over any guidelines presented here if there is any conflict between the two."
  • The particular page in question used to have the {{expand}}tag on it (this seems to have disappeared in the edits), as this guideline is still being worked on. The only real points on this page are a) processes should be announced and can be discussed on the Scouting todo page and b} use the Scouting redirect tag. I just don't see these as general "instruction creep", as they are specific to articles under the purview of the Scouting project.

--Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The role of WikiProjects as sources for guidelines covering particular subject areas is both long-standing and well-established (see, e.g. WP:WIAFA #2), and the larger and more successful WikiProjects commonly maintain numerous internal guidelines (albeit mostly without the colorful tags). If the real issue is—as it appears to be—the exact text/color/taste/whatever of the tag being applied to these pages, the matter can no doubt be resolved simply by discussing it with the project. (To be quite honest, I'm rather disturbed that the nominator does not appear to have attempted doing so, preferring instead to nominate things for deletion. MFD is a cleanup process, not a stick with which to threaten one's fellow editors.) Kirill 15:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would assume that "discussing it with the project" (emphasis mine) ought to take place on the project's talk page rather than any individual users, though. ;-) Kirill 16:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I pretty much agree with Gadget850, Rlevse, and Kirill. As long as a project's guides are supplemental to, amplify, and don't conflict with Wiki guides, I see no problem. The Scouting guides explicitly state this. Gadget850 has already tweaked the said tags to make this even more clear. Kirill's point about WP:WIAFA #2 is excellent too.Sumoeagle179 21:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. First, I note that I participate in the WikiProject Scouting, but I did not come here by seeing the note on the Project pages. I regularly look at MfD and saw the first part of this debate last night (Oz time) and decided to sleep on my thoughts about this issue. I have not been involved in the development of these guidelines but use them and support them. OK, first I note that the Project pages contain the clear message that "Wikipedia policies and guidelines have clear precedence over any guidelines presented here if there is any conflict between the two". The Scouting Project is following policies and guidelines. I do not think that any participant in the project is in the slightest confused about this. I think people who do not participate in a project should be cautious about criticizing a Project, although Projects should be open to scrutiny regarding their following of policies and guidelines. In this case, there is no problem about the project following policies and guidelines. Different Projects do things in different ways. This is a wiki. Let a thousands blossoms bloom as long as core policies are followed. Although I do not think this is strictly necessary. I nevertheless recommend that the scouting project takes some of Radiant!'s points and change the use of terms such as "Manual of style", "Guidelines" and "Rules", and replace them with other terms. Perhaps "Project editing conventions" would be better. --Bduke 22:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Precisely. I object not to the existence of these pages, but the misleading tags. If that were a template (as it should be) this could be discussed in TFD instead. >Radiant< 08:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Alternatives were discussed at User talk:Gadget850#Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting/Lists, and I made several changes in response. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 22:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Missing the point

I'm afraid you're missing the point entirely. The Japan and Arabia project have (a) one MOS page, (b) the name of which does not refer to the Wikiproject, (c) that were discussed by the community at large. The scouting project has (a) twenty MOS pages, (b) all of which are directly part of the wikiproject pages, and (c) for none of which larger consensus has been established. Do you see a difference here? >Radiant< 08:08, 16 August 2007 (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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