Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)

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Section sizes in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

Section size for Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) (20 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	2,133	2,133
RfC: Converting all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure	1,674	38,434
Background	1,462	1,462
Survey (community contentious topics)	17,928	17,928
Discussion (community contentious topics)	50	16,453
Cooperation of ArbCom	12,327	12,327
Request revision to initial question	590	590
Tag Refreshed	3,486	3,486
Follow Up Discussion	917	917
Create an alias for the Template namespace	24,567	58,024
Template namespace alias: Second survey	31,836	31,836
Browser config	1,621	1,621
Deprecating new unsourced articles	82,374	82,374
Template substitution counter	7,832	7,832
Wikipedia Sandbox	2,516	2,516
Suicide hotlines	19,757	19,757
Tagging blocked socks	6,610	6,610
Allow all autoconfirmed users to move pages without leaving a redirect	5,041	5,041
Replace disabled Graphs with other templates that work	4,220	4,220
Should list articles have images	20,778	20,778
Total	247,719	247,719

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This page in the Wikipedia namespace has been mentioned by a media organization:

Stephen Harrison (2022-12-02). "The Huge Fight Behind Those Pop-Up Fundraising Banners on Wikipedia". Slate. Archived from the original on 2022-12-06. Retrieved 2022-12-06. Over the course of a messy monthlong debate, participating Wikipedia editors protested that the proposed ads were misleading and unethical, while raising the specter of what would happen if the site's contributors and the foundation failed to come to an agreement before the start of the annual fundraising season.

Please archive[edit]

At least the long RFC discussion about banners... it is unlikely interested editors are unaware of the discussion, or of its closing. The page is getting a bit long in the tooth. Thanks. 65.88.88.68 (talk) 19:38, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Move Vector RFC to subpage?[edit]

Less than 24 hours since launch, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC: Should Wikipedia return to Vector 2010 as the default skin? is already at 140 KB and got over 100 comments. I think this should be moved to a subpage so as not to overwhelm VPR for a month. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 14:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I support this, this was the original plan as discussed at WT:VECTOR2022, before another editor jumped the gun and posted their own RfC here. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022 sounds like a better place to house the RfC. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely agree, but I might suggest a more vague title such as Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Feedback on Vector 2022 launch. Because of Question #2 etc. I would also propose a Question 3 which is a hybrid Vector 2010 with the purple links, additional sidebar TOC added, and restricted width as a default-off on-sidebar toggle. (everything else the same as V10 including the original on-page TOC) — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 18:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure about that, the primary proposal is whether to roll back the skin entirely. Any alternate proposals should be filed under a new Level 3 heading titled "Alternate proposals" or something. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but I worry that would overly de-emphasize those alt proposals. Having the "rollback" Q be first is already clearly a benefit to answering that Q and I expect it will have the most responses no matter what we do. It's not going to be an issue, but I also don't think it's particularly important what the page name actually is, as long as it's short. — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 19:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The main question that is the subject of the RfC is whether Vector 2022 should be rolled back. This should be made clear in the title. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support: while moving the RfC also reorganise the comments into support and oppose subsections.--Æo (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: most of my watchlist entries are now discussions about the new skin; they dwarf changes to the actual encyclopedia. Let's separate this understandably large discussion to avoid drowning out other important business. Certes (talk) 16:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We can just have notices on those pages indicating the move, and it will help VP and VPT remain functional for longer. A small box could also be added to the top of WT:VECTOR2022 saying "here to discuss whether or not to keep the new design? and if so, how? Please discuss further here." — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 18:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A link is already on the FAQ, which I've also transcluded on the talk page's editnotice. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There is a proposal on my talk page to reorder all comments into "Support", "Oppose", and "Discussion", similar to the format of the previous RfC. This will take time to do, however. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kizor has completed the reorganization, as discussed at § Publicizing this RfC and my talk page. I will be executing the split shortly, stand by. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving issues[edit]

The last archive subpage mentioned in the page header is Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 195, with only 9,854 bytes content. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 196 does not exist yet. And the bot just skipped it and moved recent VPPR discussions to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 197, and then continued to Archives 198, and currently Archive 199. What went wrong with the bot? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:33, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@CX Zoom: This edit bumped the counter without actually archiving anything. Really, it should have been reverted at the time, and whilst Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 195 would still have been short, there wouldn't have been a gap in the sequence. It's been six weeks now, and there have been several archive edits taking the sequence from Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 197 up to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 199, so it's too late to simply adjust the counter. There are two things we could do: the easiest is to create Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 196 as a dummy page; or we could move Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 197 to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 196 and so on up the chain - this is slower and more accurate, but may break inward links. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to do the later. The number of inward links low for these 3 archives (197, 198, 199). WP:TPO allows for fixing links. – robertsky (talk) 00:10, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And... moved, moved, moved, edited links on the following pages:

197->196:

198->197:

199->198

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council

.. and adjusted the counter to 198 as well, some 1.5-2 hours before the next archival edit is made by the bot. If the bot ends up creating 199 instead of adding to 198, we can adjust the counter back. – robertsky (talk) 00:30, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for some unofficial clerks[edit]

I think we need some unofficial clerks for Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). The two main tasks (IMO) would be:

Notice when the section heading claims it's an RFC, but it isn't actually a Wikipedia:Requests for comment, because the OP never added the {{rfc}} template, and either change the section heading or encourage the OP to get it properly listed.
Notice when a predictably large discussion is being started, and gently encourage them to have that discussion on a separate, dedicated page. (The goal is to keep the village pump pages short enough that people can actually use them, which definitely means a page size shorter than 500K, is probably under 250K, and might be as small as 100K. See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#SIZESPLIT but for Village pumps, where we're trying to hash out a goal size.)

Does anyone else see these problems, and would anyone like to help out with the work? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with #2; part of the reason we have discussions at the village pump is to get broad participation, and holding the discussions on a separate page inhibits that. Yes, the pages can become more difficult to use, but I think the negative impacts of that is less than the negative impacts of reduced participation. BilledMammal (talk) 23:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like you might have a faster device and/or internet connection than me! I find heavyweight discussion pages very difficult to deal with. None of a page can be read in the mobile interface until the entire thing loads into memory, since all the subsections start out collapsed. If a discussion gets over about 100k, I'll just read it in diff mode if I'm tryna follow it.

I think the slight downtick in participation that may be (data, anyone?) associated with holding it on a dedicated subpage with just a link on the VP itself, is probably an acceptable tradeoff for keeping the pages' resource footprint on the lighter side. Folly Mox (talk) 01:07, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm doubtful that there's any decrease in participation. About two-thirds of Wikipedia:Times that 100 Wikipedians supported a policy change was on dedicated subpages (and only one was at a village pump). All but one thing at Wikipedia:Times that 200 Wikipedians supported a policy change and everything at Wikipedia:Times that 300 or more Wikipedians supported something was on a dedicated subpage. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One good clerky action would be to keep a regularly updated section at the main VP page pointing to the subpage. The updates could be as simple as "discussion is ongoing". It might encourage further participation and notify watchlisters. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:42, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting improves watchlists, allowing us to tell easily whether a contribution summarised as "/* Discussion */ Reply" is on a subtopic of interest. Of course, the main pump would keep a short section containing a static wikilink to the subpage. Certes (talk) 09:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting is useful, the size of the paid admin proposal was starting to break the page. But I don't think discussions need to be moved to a subpage straight away, let them start and be moved once they get to a certain size. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IG as said above, size can be an issue - We can start putting size limits where we keep pages to <some limit to be decided later> size here, and a discussion that exceeds it is moved to another page, with a copy of the opening comment and a link to the rest of the discussion. That way, particiants get the gist of what was proposed, and can easily go participate. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 14:14, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I often read on a mobile device and connection; I just use the desktop site. Even with Vector2022, it's far better than Minerva in terms of usability and in term of responsiveness. BilledMammal (talk) 04:34, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've split off a long discussion to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Emoji redirects. That brought the page down to just above a quarter million bytes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]