Template talk:Cleanup

One of these things is doing it's own thing...

... one of these things just doesn't belong. :)

Is there any reason why this template isn't standardized with all the other templates? لennavecia 22:41, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Ehm, you are not very clear, but let me guess: You perhaps have noticed that this template {{cleanup}} has the "other pages message box" style here on its template page and when listed over at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. While most of the other clean-up boxes have the "article message box" style on their template pages and when listed over at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Right?

But don't worry, that is correct. See, most of the clean-up templates are designed to only be used on articles, thus they only have the article style. While {{cleanup}} can be placed either on an article or its talk page. And on talk pages the message boxes should be brown. So this template internally uses the namespace detecting {{mbox}}, which changes appearance depending on what kind of page it is placed on. So when {{cleanup}} is placed on an article it automatically gets the article style, and when placed on a talk page it automatically gets the brown talk page style. As a side effect when this template is seen on its template page and demonstrated over at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup it gets the "other pages" style.

I probably should add an explanation about this to the documentation of {{cleanup}}.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. Hah, no, I'm kidding. I figured it out. Uhm, I copied a deleted article's contents to a subpage in the creator's user space. I added the appropriate tags and this one was the only one that did not have the bar along the left side. I was pretty sure that I had previously added this template to articles and seen the gold bar on the left, but on that page it was a thin gold border, as seen on the template page. Upon reading your message, I went over to a random article and previewed use of the template. I see that it is standardized in the article space. It had no occurred to me it would be coded to look different depending on what project space it was used in. Thanks for the speedy reply! :) لennavecia 02:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Haha yeah, I can see that you went "wtf?" when you saw it change appearance. As you can see I have now added some explanation and two examples about this in the template's documentation.

And by the way, if you want to see the standard styles for the different namespaces then take a look at {{ambox}}, {{tmbox}}, {{imbox}}, {{cmbox}} and {{ombox}}. Together they cover all the namespaces. (And some day when I get the time I will write up a page that shows it all at once and explains it, so we just can link people to that one page.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:03, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hah, yea. Thanks! Let me know if I can help. لennavecia 13:42, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

interwiki he

Can someone please create an interwiki to the Hebrew Wikipedia which would direct to "he:תבנית:לשכתב" ? TheCuriousGnome (talk) 09:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done — JamesR ≈ 09:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Style tweaks

{{editprotected}}

I've made some tweaks to the sandbox layout to bring the template more into line with contemporary ambox styling. Just needs synced. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Sorry, I'm not that familiar with mbox. Why is the demospace parameter removed in the new version?--Aervanath (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

That was accidental. Fixed. Any further objections? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the new style that you Chris want to add to message boxes. I prefer the current style with a bold header sentence, followed by a line break and an explanation below, perhaps in a slightly smaller text size. Have your new style been properly discussed somewhere and a new consensus been reached? Can you point us to that discussion?

And a technical matter: I see that Rich Farmbrough meanwhile added category suppression to the template, which is a good thing. But he used "category=no" which is non standard. See for instance {{tlrow}} which is used to for instance demonstrate message boxes at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Tlrow needs templates to use either "category=" or "categories=no". So I tweaked {{cleanup}} to use the standard "category=" suppression. And I added the same to the /sandbox. And tested both on the /testcases page.

As far as I can see and test the current code both in the template itself and in the /sandbox are technically correct. But I don't like Chris' text style in the /sandbox.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Template messages/Cleanup#Standardisation of template styling. I've laid out my rationale there, and have gradually been bringing templates into line with it over the last few months (although this seems to have coincided with your wikibreak). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I see no consensus on that page. I see you saying how you want it, and one user (Quiddity) agreeing with parts of it but being "not sure" about parts of it. No other users have commented. And now I say I partially disagree. Although I don't feel that strongly about it, so you can consider my "vote" a weak oppose.

But I think more users should have a say, since this is a change to a fairly long standing design praxis. Of course, one way to get more users to react is to change some boxes to your new design and wait for reactions. And for instance link to that discussion in your edit comments.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to link to the discussion in any future edits I make to this format. For what it's worth, it's attracted very little debate over what must be 20+ high-use ambox templates over the last few months, and I did try to start the discussion in the most appropriate central forum. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Y Done - Okay, since this is only a matter of personal taste, and you are strongly for your text layout, and I am only weakly opposed, and we haven't really gotten any points of view from others, then I feel you outvote me on this. Thus I have now deployed your version of the text layout.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Usage of this template on main articles

Sometimes I find this template being posted on the articles proper, without any explanation what is wrong with the articles. I would suggest adding to the instructions here that always an explantion should be posted on the talk-page stating what should be improved. Just posting a template is in my opinion a very ineffective (and lazy) way of trying to improve Wikipedia (or in fact just a way to make things worse by uglyfying articles that are already substandard). KKoolstra (talk) 10:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagging is a quick and easy way of adding pages to the appropriate cleanup categories, which is an essential part of some editors' workflows. "Drive-by tagging", as it is sometimes known, is controversial to some but it isn't prohibited. I do quite a lot of this myself and I think the results speak for themselves when looking at my edit history. Mandatory discussion just slows that down when an article's flaws may be obvious. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

This template is probably one of the most mis-used ones. But it should indicate a style issue. If you can't see an obvious style problem the template could be old and the person who fixed the article didn't remove it. Or the tagger could have made a mistake, some people will put clean-up on anything they think needs work of any sort not only style issues. In either case, if you don't see a style problem remove the template with an edit summary stating that the article has no style issues to cleanup. Putting templates on talk pages just means it even less likely to be removed when the problem is fixed.--BirgitteSB 18:14, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

A possible solution could be to add a link to Wikipedia:Clarify the cleanup somewhere in the text of the template. -- œ^™ 21:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Please generate a template designated to

the wikip-article section cleanup--222.64.218.7 (talk) 02:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

{{cleanup|section}}. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

or {{cleanup-section}}. -- œ^™ 21:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed amendment

I propose adding a suggestion to add a more specific cleanup template, linking to WP:TC. Stifle (talk) 11:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

TC redirects to Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Why would we want to link there? Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC).

Sorry, me being dense. Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

Adding an optional parameter that will descrease template size similar to the expand template

Just as in {{Expand section}}, why not add something like a small=yes parameter to vague and frequently misplaced tags such as cleanup that will make them smaller in size to give the person placing the tag the option of not visually detracting from an otherwise well-formatted and laid out page while still informing of possible maintenance issues. phew, how's that for a run-on sentence :P -- œ^™ 21:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

See below - easy to do. Aymatth2 (talk) 18:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Overhaul needed

"This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards." Really? Either it meets our standards or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, the tagger is obligated to explain why. This template in it's current form should be deleted. It's infuriating to encounter an article with it and have no clue why it was posted. We have plenty of good detailed cleanup templates. Why on earth should we have such a useless template that doesn't even support a reason field? The lazy taggers that resort to this template hardly ever bother to leave anything on the talk page either. So let's stop them by adding a mandatory reason for the tag. Any instance without a detailed reason should be subject to immediate removal. I know that the driveby taggers will object to this, but they shouldn't get a vote. I request that only the editors who actually work on fixing articles comment on this proposal. --UncleDouggie (talk) 10:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have commented on this in 2 months, which seems odd. I do think this template is too generic - but deleting it would be a step too far IMO. At least it flags up that there is something wrong with the page. Ideally, the template should be rewritten to include a mandatory parameter for the sort of cleanup required. Cleanup could then automatically replace itself with a more appropriate template(s) from Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup based on key words in the reason parameter. If no reason is entered, it could fail the template addition, and if the reason couldn't be understood then it would have to stick with Cleanup or perhaps Multiple Issues. What do people make of that?--Peeky44 _{What's on your mind?} 18:58, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

{{Cleanup-table}}

I'd like to propose to include {{Cleanup-table}} in the See also section, as there are already several links to similar templates, but not to this one.
While at it, it might be nice to capitalize the c of {{cleanup-section}}, as that's the only one without a capitalized c. --JorisvS (talk) 15:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

{{combrefs}}

Could someone create the above template. It should advise editors that the article needs its references combined. Or, if there is such a template, tell me what it is? - UtherSRG (talk) 22:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)    (Please reply on my talk page.)

Subst:

I noted on one article that has this template that the "Up for deletion" note was there. So I went to the discussion and found it closed and decision to KEEP. I wondered why the Deletion note was still there, since I didn't see it in the source code. Then I saw that this template is coded for automatic substitution. Why is that? Anyway, I deleted the template from the article, then added it back in, and the Deletion note disappeared. Will this have to be done on all the articles with this template? Or would it be better to get rid of the auto-subst:, at least temporarily?
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  20:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

{{editprotect}} The following code, right at the beginning of the source, makes no sense to me. It seems to force substitution of this template, and then adds a cat to the NAMESPACE putting the article into the "Pages with incorrectly substituted templates" cat.

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>NAMESPACE}}|<includeonly>

[[Category:Pages with incorrectly substituted templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]</includeonly>|}}

Moreover, this template was recently up for deletion. A note was added to the source code to this effect, which has since been removed. But since the subtitution is auto-forced, that note remains on all the pages where this template is used. Apparently, editors are going to have to remove each subbed version and replace it to get rid of the "Up for deletion" notice. There is no good reason that I can see to keep this code in the template. Please remove it. There is a copy of the corrected source code in the sandbox that can be pasted into the main source page. Thank you very much!
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  16:24, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of that code is exactly to detect where people incorrectly added the template to an article, for instance by subst. it. That is an incorrect usage, as normally these templates are NEVER substituted. When this does happen, instead of making it impossible to detect that someone made this error, such pages are placed in Category:Pages with incorrectly substituted templates. So it works as it should. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:32, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, TDJ. Learn something new every day. And yet it still doesn't explain why I had to rm the template from an article, Clausius–Mossotti relation, then put it back into the article, before the "up for deletion" note would disappear. What's up with that?

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  06:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

• Obfuscated code
• Paleozoic#climate

Rm the template and then reinstall it and the Up for Delete msg. disappears. Not all of the "Link tos" still have the msg., but obviously some still do. Is it "bot" time, yet? <g>
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  22:52, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• My bad. I just did a purge on one of the above links and the msg. disappeared. As Emily used to say, "Never mind".

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  22:59, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Reason parameter not documented

This template has a reason parameter which is not documented. Is there any reason its use should not be encouraged? I would think using it would help make it clear what the why the tag was added to an article and eliminate having to search through article histories and talk pages.--RDBury (talk) 06:41, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done I have added some mention of the reason parameter and included it in the two examples on the document page. -84user (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I've been going through articles with the tag and in many cases it's difficult to tell why it was initially added or whether the problem has been resolved. I see the need for a generic tag; one should never underestimate people's creativity when in comes to adding material that needs to be fixed. The reason parameter should help alleviate the mysterious tag syndrome though.--RDBury (talk) 18:41, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes reason is cool. SmackBot is reason-aware too, so it is better than people making up their own parameter names. Rich Farmbrough, 23:17, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

Correcting to apply to all namespaces

{{edit protected}} Please replace the code beginning with the message box transclusion and ending with the last includeonly with the code in the sandbox. This causes the template to correctly name the namespace in which it is placed, and expands the categorization for other namespaces. Please also remove the protection template, as it is redundant with the documentation transclusion. --Bsherr (talk) 00:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest using {{cat handler}} as this is what is was designed for. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that Template:Cat handler uses just one parameter for all talk pages, meaning that separate categories cannot be named for when the template is used on, for example, an article talk page versus a category talk page. Is that not right? --Bsherr (talk) 17:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I should add that the reason this matters is because this template is allowed to be applied to talk pages to refer to the subject page. But the categorization should be according to the subject page, and cat handler doesn't permit that. --Bsherr (talk) 17:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Disabling editprotected as there seems to be a dispute as to the best way to proceed with this. I agree that the rationale for the change is sound, but we want to make sure that the fix itself is correct before deploying. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Ironically, it appears that this template could use some cleanup of it's own. Regarding it's use at Talk:Andy Dick (and indeed, all other talk pages) I assume that it is the article that requires cleanup, and not the talk page. Also, templates and files should not be categorised as "Articles needing cleanup"; in fact, files tagged with this template aren't being categorised at all, presumably because {{NAMESPACE}} does not recognise "Image" as a valid namespace. PC78 (talk) 23:15, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

My edit protected request resolves all of these issues. --Bsherr (talk) 23:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll go and take a gander then. PC78 (talk) 23:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Heh, now if only I could get the darn thing implemented. Martin? Martin! --Bsherr (talk) 00:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

PC78, the purpose of the transclusion of "Wikipedia other" is to make the namespace lowercase for all namespaces ("template" not "Template", help not "Help") except Wikipedia ("Wikipedia" not "wikipedia"). --Bsherr (talk) 00:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that template does what you think it does. As you've got it coded now, it's saying "page" in article & talk space where it should be saying "article". PC78 (talk) 00:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Grumble grumble. I've been debating whether to make a template to do this function. I'm gonna do it now. --Bsherr (talk) 00:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Having looked at {{cat handler}}, we may have similar issues there. Since it was Martin's idea it would be great if he (or someone else) could offer further guidance, but ultimately I don't think it's necessary for the changes being discussed here. The current template doesn't use it. PC78 (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I've implemented the new namespace manipulation template. Looks like it's working now. --Bsherr (talk) 01:18, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

A few other crits about the sandboxed template:

1. Is the change from ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:All pages needing cleanup to ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:All articles needing cleanup intentional? It makes sense I guess, but it means some restructuring to the existing category scheme.
2. You haven't added a category for files; again, is this intentional? Though to be honest I'm not entirely sure how this template applies to files, or even templates for that matter. Still, perhaps this template is non-specific enough for it to be applied anywhere?
3. The category currently used by {{Cleancat}} is ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:Wikipedia categories in need of attention.
4. I don't think that dated categories are necessary for anything other than articles. I could only list 25,000 transclusions with AWB, but once the article and talk space were filtered out it only left 292 uses.

Also, I've just found {{cleanup-article}}, which appears to be completely redundant to this template. PC78 (talk) 16:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The move from all pages to all articles is intentional. I thought it might be suitable to subcategorize in this way, and I don't think a second cateogry for all pages is particularly useful. As for files, I can't imagine how a file would need cleanup; the template works on all pages, but I leave it to the judgment of others as to whether a category is needed. Same with dated categories. And I'll redirect cleanup-article. Cheers. --Bsherr (talk) 17:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

In that case, it might be an idea to repurpose ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:All pages needing cleanup as a catch-all for the other namespaces, with articles, categories and whatnot subcategorised as appropriate. PC78 (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a good idea. --Bsherr (talk) 17:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Done, and I've removed the dated cats for nonarticles too. --Bsherr (talk) 17:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

{{edit protected}} Ok, per PC78's proposal above, we'll now implement, and if Martin wants to return to advise us on additional changes to the template, we'll consider them subsequently. --Bsherr (talk) 07:07, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response.  Done. You're right, it would have been a pain to get cat handler to work properly here. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:15, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm just curious but was the intention of the last edit to this template intended to leave articles with redlinked and un-hidden categories? See Noorduyn Norseman for example. Or was the idea to fix the categories, like Category:All articles needing cleanup and Category:Wikipedia articles needing cleanup from June 2008, later? Cheers. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 12:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, the idea was to fix them later. You can help! There's much to do. --Bsherr (talk) 16:27, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I missed it earlier, but I'm not sure it was a good idea to rename the dated categories. I've made some tweaks in the sandbox to switch back to the existing categories. PC78 (talk) 16:30, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll hold off setting up the categories until it's decided what to do. So there wouldn't be a separate category for templates? Why is that? --Bsherr (talk) 16:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to rename all these categories then be my guest, but I don't see any need to prepend them all with "Wikipedia"; I thought the idea was just to change the main category from "pages" to "articles"? Feel free to put the template category back, but I was thinking that there propably wouldn't be all that many. PC78 (talk) 17:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, no I don't have any problem leaving off Wikipedia. I thought it was best practice, but I'm not pushing it. By the way, apparently there is such thing as image cleanup. There's a whole category structure for it using other templates. --Bsherr (talk) 17:40, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I removed the "Wikipedia", as the category structure is used by other templates and this was creating a fork. Rich Farmbrough, 18:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC).

{{editprotected}} The current sandbox contains the necessary fixes for categorisation. PC78 (talk) 20:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Femto Bot and Salix Alba and Bsherr and I have created the required article categories. Empty monthly categories will nominate themselves for speedy deletion, and, if they regain members, Femto Bot will re-create them, so there is no rush. I will review the sandbox and the template changes thus far to understand what is happening. Rich Farmbrough, 23:22, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

OK some comments, more or less at random:

1. People don't use this on talk pages in the same way for example [1].
2. The current template is broken for template space: See the doc page.
3. The template DMCA can be used to provide dated cats fro articles only, DMCAT for articles and article talk pages, DMCFACT for files, articles, categories and templates.
4. I see that the sandbox has lost what might be seen as cruft (I haven't checked the template proper). Every day someone "subst"s a cleanup template, sometimes many. With DMC this is less harmful than it used to be, but it still leads to problems, the tag, for example, can't be dated. By having beginning and end comments SmackBot and other agents (and humans) have a good chance of "de-substing" the template. Otherwise it is a manual task I pick up at the end of each run, if I am keeping up. The "Pages using incorrectly substituted templates" category means that others can fix these problems too.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:46, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

Two more comments:

1. The code to display a Mbox on the template's own page and Ambox on use is clever, but not a good idea. The template should appear on its own page as it does used in anger.
2. Dated categories. A comment above suggests that dated categories are not suitable for small clean up categories. Not so, however small there may be stale members two, three or even more years old.

Rich Farmbrough, 00:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC).

I'm happy to leave the categorisation to you guys, but a few points:

1. Regarding use of the template on talk pages, people do use this on talk pages in the same way (incorrectly?); see Talk:A Requiem for Homo Sapiens, Talk:Andersons Creek, Talk:Andy Dick for example.
2. If the changes I sandboxed are no longer required, can the fullurl at least be changed from FULLPAGENAME to SUBJECTPAGENAME? The edit link should always go to the article, not the talk page.
3. A question for elsewhere perhaps, but should {{ambox}} not support the |demospace= parameter? This would be ideal for the talk page example you linked, since that page should clearly not be categorised as an article needing attention.

PC78 (talk) 07:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

{{edit protected}} Please change ambox to mbox. --Bsherr (talk) 00:44, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Concur. The whole point of these edits was to expand usage of the template to all namespaces. PC78 (talk) 03:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Rich, just to explain, the code Martin put in was to display ambox on the template's page and mbox in the wild. The reason Martin did that is because, most frequently, it's used on articles. I agree with you that the template's page should show its use in the wild, but you had it reversed. It's mbox we want, not ambox. --Bsherr (talk) 04:26, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Changed back. Amalthea 15:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Substitution

Since it was mentioned above, we can make template substitute to a transclusion of the template, like with this change. E.g., {{subst:cleanup/sandbox|date=October 2010}} → {{Cleanup|date=October 2010}}.
Amalthea 15:51, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

That's very clever. Looks good to me. --Bsherr (talk) 04:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cleancat

Template:Cleancat has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. --Bsherr (talk) 15:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Small parameter

There have been periodic debates over whether the cleanup template should be used on the article page or the talk page. A third option would be to let editors, at their discretion, specify a "small" parameter, e.g. {{Cleanup|small=yes}} I have made a test version of the template, illustrated to the right, which is a copy of the production template with one line added:

"|small={{{small|}}}".

Putting this into production would have no impact on existing usage, but would give editors a bit more control over appearance. Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 18:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Although this template does facilitate placement on talk pages, maintenance tags should go on article pages. Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Move maintenance tags to talk pages. Without any criterion on when the small parameter should be used, enabling it only facilitates inconsistency. If consensus is that the template is too big, we should be talking about making it small in all instances. I don't think it helps to make it the arbitrary choice of whoever's placing it. But I do respect the effort. --Bsherr (talk) 18:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

We could encourage consistent use in the template documentation. E.g. You may use the optional small parameter, by typing {{Cleanup|small=yes}}. Use this if you feel that the defects are relatively minor. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a subjective distinction, and I don't see the logic in using a smaller version of the template in such a case; no matter what, the notice should stand out. As Bsherr noted, we can discuss what size is optimal, but I disagree that it makes sense to vary the size according to issues' severity.

If someone believes that a defect is relatively minor, he/she should be encouraged to simply correct it instead of inserting a tag. —David Levy 19:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Subjectivity is unavoidable: placing the warning on the page in the first place is a subjective decision. The documentation encourages editors to be bold and fix problems rather than just point them out, but some editors are not confident about doing so. The enhancement to the template was extremely easy to do, because it uses template:mbox, a "meta-template" used for most warnings, which supports the parameter. Many warning templates pass the parameter to template:mbox, but for some reason this one does not. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

1. Indeed, determining whether the tag is needed is inherently subjective. I see no reason to introduce additional subjectivity to the process, given my belief that the distinction in question (major defect vs. minor defect) doesn't justify the proposed deviation.

2. There are valid reasons for some cleanup/maintenance templates to vary in size, but I see none in this instance. —David Levy 20:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

If the smaller template were for minor cleanup, the message of that template should say that its for minor cleanup. But I'm not sure that the extra complexity is worth it. As David said, if it's minor, better to encourage users to just fix it. The bigger the template, the more the incentive to get rid of it, or the more it encourages readers to become editors. --Bsherr (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, {{ambox}} only supports left-floating small boxes, so without further changes it would actually look like this:

Amalthea 21:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I mostly spend my time adding content, so may look at it from a different viewpoint. See Cincinnati Riots of 1884 for a sample article started a few days ago. Not great, and perhaps it should be tagged for cleanup. But I put a bit of thought into the visual layout, which as a result has non-default image sizes and positions. Editors should have some discretion over the appearance of their edits, within limits. They should be able to add a gentle warning, and should not be forced to choose between no warning at all or an aggressive "in your face" type of warning. Given the choice between saying "This article is junk" or saying nothing, I would say nothing.

{{Current MLB season|Arizona Diamondbacks}}

The mbox template or this template would need tweaking, but I am sure it can be done fairly easily. I am not nearly technical enough to know which would be easiest. See right an example from an article page (Arizona Diamondbacks). I would be reluctant to introduce a new template for a quieter warning. A parameter on the current template seems better. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

{{Cleanup}} isn't the only cleanup tag. Perhaps a different one would be more appropriate for the type of situation that you have in mind.

As noted above, I disagree with the premise that a less severe defect warrants a less noticeable tag. —David Levy 00:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Holy macaroni! I had no idea there were so many ways of criticizing an article. I don't want to think about how many could be applied to Cincinnati Riots of 1884. Multiple issues, clean up, reorganization, copy editing, capital letters, essay-like, inappropriate tone, cleanup-images (obviously), story, condense or sections (your choice), spacing, manual of style, criticism or controversy, insufficient context, off-topic, missing information, verification by an expert, confusing or unclear, misleading, POV, weasel words, unbalanced, emphasis, page references ranges, too many pictures, not enough categories, wikify. I think all the above apply to this article, but do not have the heart to add all the warnings to it. I actually didn't think it was that bad, until I saw the list of cleanup tags.

What is the best process to make these warnings less aggressive? Aymatth2 (talk) 00:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

You mentioned {{multiple issues}}. When an article has, well, multiple issues, this template can be used instead of stacking numerous others. Just be sure to note the specific problems within the tag and/or on the article's talk page. —David Levy 00:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

You can also propose changes on the talk pages of the individual templates, or, if it's a matter for all the cleanup templates, on WT:TC. --Bsherr (talk) 01:03, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No maintenance template is intended to be agressive and "in your face". If any of them are, let's talk about how we can fix that. Rather than design a gentler version, let's discuss how we can make the only version a gentle version. --Bsherr (talk) 00:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. —David Levy 00:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I am backing out of this discussion. Tags can be annoying or can be useful. Occasionally it seems that the editor tagging the article is just saying "I don't like it", but usually not. It is hard to feel strongly about the subject. Unwatching. Aymatth2 (talk) 01:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Requesting "discuss=" parameter

Can an optional "discuss=" parameter be added to the Cleanup template? The parameter would be used to link to a specific discussion section about the cleanup, either on the article's talk page or a different talk page. That would make it a lot easier to find the discussion about the cleanup, if any. A number of other templates have this parameter, for example {{Merge}}. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 16:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Seconded.--M4gnum0n (talk) 13:30, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I also support this. I think this should be allowed as an alternative to the reason parameter (which is proposed to be mandatory). Superm401 - Talk 22:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Editprotected request involving this template

This message is to inform people monitoring this talk page that there is an "editprotected" request involving this and several other templates at Template talk:! cymru.lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 20:08, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Revert reason=null text

{{edit protected}} Please delete the contents of the conditional result if the parameter "reason" is null. These were undiscussed at this talk page. The template documentation provides that the "reason" parameter should be avoided, and it identifies good reasons. Furthermore, stating that the reason is unspecified is false when those placing the template may have very well specified the reason on the talk page, which the dicumentation for the template identifies as the preferable place so to do. --Bsherr (talk) 02:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

 Reverted. It is probably best to wait for the TfD to be closed as new suggestions are coming up all the time. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I support the reversion. My edit served only to repair/improve the change's implementation (the coding of which accidentally broke the template's layout) and should not be viewed as an endorsement thereof. —David Levy 17:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I've copied the changes over into the sandbox. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:10, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

"Quality standards"

At "quality standards" in this template, the text links to WP:MOS. I think that one of the persistent complaints about this template is people using it to mean "some kinda problem here", rather than for MOS violations (its apparent purpose).

What do you think about changing the text to say "This template may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's Manual of Style" instead? I think the change would more clearly indicate to people when they should use this template, and thereby reduce its inappropriate uses (e.g., use of sources that don't meet "quality standards"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

The reason from not doing that is that is specifically references the infrastructure of the project and a such is an even greater breach of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (self-references to avoid) than the current wording. What we should be doing is discussing moving the template usage to the talk page. -- PBS (talk) 00:47, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Bad categorical alphabetisation

See Template talk:Cleanup/doc. Best, JoergenB (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit

Template nominated for TFD. Please add TFD tag. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 15:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

 Added — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Deprecate

In light of the latest TFD, I propose that we add a (small, if people would prefer) note to this template telling people that it is "deprecated" and that they should replace it with something more specific (and hopefully those that are adding it will start using something else). Regardless of the outcome of the latest TFD, we should really start doing something about reducing the use of this template.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:32, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

At the TFD, there was an underlying consensus (from editors whose initial thoughts ranged anywhere from "Strong keep" to "Delete and salt") that some form of depreciation was the way to go. I think the best way forward now is to discuss how we should go about that. If the status quo remains, it's surely only a matter of time before we end up at TFD round 4 (or so). —WFC— 21:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that more specific is good. However there are articles where the alternative would be

{{Multiple issues|tone|spelling|capitals|[person|tense|cruft|bullet the lists}} . Lets see what we can do. Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC).

There is of course the {{{reason}}} parametr, but I have added a short hint. Would be nice if it was right justified. (Could be even shorter, of course More specific clean up messages for example.)Rich Farmbrough, 00:41, 24 June 2011 (UTC).

I left some potentially useful code in the sandbox too. --Tothwolf (talk) 01:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no consensus to deprecate.Curb Chain (talk) 23:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"Cleaning up?"

The phrase "may require cleaning up" looks really clunky. "May require cleanup" was better. Cleanup is a noun, you know. --Jtalledo (talk) 13:43, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. If "cleanup" were some sort of wiki-neologism then fair enough, but it's perfectly well-understood in the vernacular. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:25, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 6 September 2011

{{edit protected}}

There is a version in the sandbox that fixes two minor grammatical things. Also, does anyone know how to add "nocat" to this template? Because if you ck the testcases pg, the hidden categories still show up at the bottom of template /doc pgs. I don't know how to fix this yet. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:36, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:26, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 09 Sep 11

There is a fix in the sandbox that will add the "nocat" parameter, so that the auto-categorization can be turned off on /doc pgs, etc. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Would it be better to use Template:Category handler for this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The reason the request is for the "nocat" parameter is for the reasons stated above in the #Correcting to apply to all namespaces section. Apparently, cat handler will not work for this template, although I do not know if cat handler has been updated since last yr to be more flexible. --Funandtrvl (talk) 14:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, now I remember. I've got cat handler to work now. Please could you check the sandbox again? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:28, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't that just replicate the existing functionality but go through a longer process to get there? I think part of the goal was to get rid of the Wikipedia templates needing cleanup from September 2011 category on Template:Cleanup/doc, which would still need a nocat parameter added in order to do that. Or can {{Cat handler}} be made to exclude just [[Template talk:*]] articles automatically? Come to think of it, even if it can, would we want to? After all, sometimes templates need cleaning up too. – RobinHood70 ^talk 17:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the code in the sandbox will now work with the nocat option, so those examples in the /doc page can be adjusted to stop the categorisation. This functionality can be achieved without {{cat handler}} but there is some extra functionality there such as a /blacklist of pages which should never be categorised. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, okay, that makes sense then. – RobinHood70 ^talk 22:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I cked the /sandbox and the /testcases and the sandbox code looks like it is working and good to go. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay, deployed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit protected thingy

Please put a TFD template on the template, as I've nominated at TFD again. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done, cheers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Date parameter

Apparently, with this edit the date was rendered invisible in the box. It still renders the correct date in the category, but no date renders in the box. So it appears that the edit needs to be reverted, or at least rethought and get the date back in the box. The doc page and the initial template at the top still show the date in small font at the bottom of the boxes. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  21:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It appears only {{ambox}} knows how to display the date, the boxes for the other namespaces don't.
I'll ask MSGJ for input, he added the code here and the date display code in ambox.
Amalthea 21:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I should have asked Martin, but I didn't think about it until after I opened this. Thank you, AMALTHEA! – PIE ( CLIMAX )  22:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

MSGJ hasn't been active for the last few days so I've reverted the edit for now. Tra (Talk) 07:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Tra! Maybe MSGJ has ideas for a new and better way to express this template following the TfD that closed with "No consensus". The one about making the "reason" parameter mandatory is still controversial, but there may be other ways to deal with the complaints. We'll see. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  20:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Needed improvements from deletion discussion

See deletion discussion for other ideas and add numbered ideas to list as appropriate.

1. "may require cleanup" should be changed to "needs cleanup" —Telpardec  TALK  03:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
2. display a default "Needs general cleanup" reason if none specified —Telpardec  TALK  03:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose all If the page needs cleanup, then the tag will be applied. If a reason is specified, that only makes what needs cleaning more specific.Curb Chain (talk) 04:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

From that discussion, and the ones that precede it, the best thing to do would be to make the reason parameter mandatory. What to do with the ones already in article space with no reason specified is the major problem. I can only think of deleting and forgeting or to put in a some generic wording (e.g. "no reason specified"). AIRcorn (talk) 11:11, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Some people feel that. But there are some people who feel that this is not necessary, including me.Curb Chain (talk) 20:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The point is that we have had a discussion involving (by my count at this point) 159 people that have expressed an opinion on this template. While it will take a brave person to close it anything but "no consensus", 73 want it deleted. It is a good opportunity to look at ways to alleviate their concerns. 26 (one third) of the keeps specifically stated that the reason parameter should be made mandatory. A further five have said to fix it in some similar way (from making it invisible without the reason to bot notification if no reason is given). Only three mentioned not making the reason mandatory, one simply saying a reason was not necessary. It has been nominated four times already and there is a good chance it will be again. Many of those "keep but make reason mandatory" !votes are going to move over to the delete side if nothing is done. AIRcorn (talk) 02:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

They can speak for themselves. As yet, I see them explaining their position at that discussion. If they feel something needs to be done, I am sure they will opine here.Curb Chain (talk) 02:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

They have spoken for themselves, just because it is at a deletion discussion doesn't make it any less valid. AIRcorn (talk) 05:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If you think the reason field needs to be made mandatory, it has been tried and reverted. You can check in the history.Curb Chain (talk) 05:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry: A user changed the wording of the template to emphasize the reason parameter, but was reverted.Curb Chain (talk) 05:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Irony

It's ironic that the "Cleanup" template needs cleanup. :) Alphius (talk) 21:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Irony makes the bull go 'round!>) – PIE ( CLIMAX )  10:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup the cleanup :-)

Please noinclude the TfD template. It's patently obvious that there will be no consensus to delete, and a clear consensus to make the |reason= parameter mandatory to stop pointless unexplained drive-by tagging. The TfD might as well be closed right now. That said, if it remains open, there is no longer any point at all in bugging all our readers with TfD notices on thousands of pages. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 12:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Drive by tagging has not been proven. Get consensus before this template is changed.Curb Chain (talk) 19:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems not everyone's in agreement about this so I'll deactivate the {{editprotected}} for now. Feel free to put it back once a consensus has been reached. Tra (Talk) 07:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• comment i am not convinced either way about the mandatory reason, but if "mandatory reason" is endorsed, when the template is displayed in the article, can the reason be hidden behind a "click here for more" so that if vandalistic reasons are used they wont be generally seen in the article? -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

As has been said previously, the reason is the most important part of this template and should be made available so it is obvious to everyone what is wrong with the article. Vandalistic reasons should be treated like any other vandilism edits here. AIRcorn (talk) 07:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

My suggestion is that the default view of the template on the page would consist of

• "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Click for more details".

The reason, if supplied, would be right there one click away. Thus those who are complaining about unsightliness of a templated article are not faced with what might be a huge and unsightly (and potentially vandalistic) free form content. The banner stays small and uniform for anyone who isnt interested in attempting clean up that that time. The people who want to clean up the article have only to click the banner to see what reason had been supplied. -- The Red Pen of Doom 19:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Massively shrinking this template

Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_February_1#Template:Cleanup was closed as "no consensus" but with an encouragement to "be bold" about fixes, since this template has issues. My bold solution personally would be to delete this template, but not what the closer went with. It's also a (rightly) protected template, so no bold adjustments. That said, here's my suggestion: shrink this template. Something along the lines of Template:Expand section would be on point here, I believe. "This section has been marked as needing cleanup," or "Someone has requested this section be [[EDIT_THIS_PAGE_LINK|improved]]." It's still vague and kind of unhelpful as to WHAT to improve, but it doesn't dominate the page.

Quick subst'd example: Template:Ambox/core

Thoughts? SnowFire (talk) 22:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the closer meant to be bold with proposals.Curb Chain (talk) 06:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

for those who are concerned about the cosmetic appearance of flags in articles, are multiple small "section" notices better than a single "article" banner? -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I can understand the concern of some editors about the cosmetics of maintenance tags. Their usage, however, just makes Wikipedia appear as it intends itself to be: An editable encyclopedia that is always in a state of improvement. In my small opinion, two or three section notices should be followed up with a TOP-positioned article banner that has a reason of something like "See section notices below", with additional follow-up on the discussion page. The "reason" parameter should be made mandatory, and the banner should be rendered invisible or removed entirely if the reason(s) for cleanup are not given. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  20:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

There are also the editors who do not know the right template to use so but know that something needs to be fixed with the article so they use this template as a tool to indicate that. Forcing someone to use a reason parameter will exclude this population from notifying more experienced editors of problematic articles.Curb Chain (talk) 22:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

But even an inexperienced editor should have a reason for adding the template. If they have not found anything wrong with it they should not be using it. Being inexperienced they might even have a reason that doesn't fall under our style guidelines, thus allowing us to easily remove the template easily. AIRcorn (talk) 22:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

There could be a million reasons why inexperienced editors add this template, one of them being so that they give an poorly explained reason could make them feel like an idiot, or that giving a reason may not be specific enough for what they have in mind, or maybe they want to put the tag on the article so a more experienced editor can give a 2nd opinion.Curb Chain (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Any reason, even a poor or slightly ambiguous one, is better than no reason. AIRcorn (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure. You seem to forget that there are editors who do not need a reason and a {{cleanup}} tag is easy enough to suffice for improvement purposes.Curb Chain (talk) 05:21, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Editors, any editors, should have a reason before using any tag. AIRcorn (talk) 05:49, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes they should have a reason to use the tag. It needs to be cleaned up. If they their English is piss poor, I don't expect them to give a reason. The reason could be piss poor. All that is needed is them to tag the article. I can finish and clean up the article. It tells me it needs clean up, and I will read it to see what is alarming and fix it.Curb Chain (talk) 06:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

If their English is good enough to read the English wikipedia and recognise something needs cleanup it is good enough to be able to leave a reason. How will having a reason make your job any harder? AIRcorn (talk) 07:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

You are alone on this. You mustn't have seen such a case nor do you care to.Curb Chain (talk) 05:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

1. This section is about shrinking the template "massively". The tag is the right size as it is, in my opinion.
2. Aircorn is far from being "alone". The RfC more than shows this to be true. If a reason is not given, then the tag should be rendered invisible. A notice can be given to the editor in the edit preview that this will be the case. It is my belief that this will help any new editor who places the tag to both articulate a reason(s) and be bold by performing some or all of the cleanup needed. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  02:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

reason parameter

I suggest to change: "Consider using more specific cleanup instructions" to "Please, use more specific cleanup instructions or remove this template" to make it clear that slapping article Cleanup without explanation is completely useless Bulwersator (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I can live with this.Curb Chain (talk) 04:56, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I think this request is a bit premature since it would mean asking for all cleanup tags without a reason to be removed. There's still ongoing discussion about whether this should apply to articles that don't yet have the tag, or after a certain time period etc. Tra (Talk) 13:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Transclusons that don't have the reason specified

The one improvement that was brought up consistently at the deletion discussion recent discussion is to make the reason mandatory. This has been brought up in separate threads here as well by different editors. However if this occurs something needs to be done with the articles currently tagged with this template that don't have the reason specified. That is not so clear to me from any of the discussions. AIRcorn (talk) 22:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Category:Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field: "Please help by adding a reason, (check the talk page and edit history for hints), or fixing the article. If no problem can be seen, please remove the tag." Bulwersator (talk) 22:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
  • We have 25,476 articles in this category at the moment. Why not just get a bot to add "No reason for cleanup has been given. Check the talk page and edit history for hints or if no problem can be seen remove this tag." to the reason field. Then the parameter can be made mandatory without adding errors to a lot of articles and nothing is lost. AIRcorn (talk) 22:04, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
    • See #reason parameter Bulwersator (talk) 06:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
      • What I am suggesting is slightly different. A bot would add the wording to each template currently without a specified reason. Then we can change the template to only allow it to be used if someone enters a reason. Because the ones that previously did not have a reason now do it won't cause errors. AIRcorn (talk) 07:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

We should just have it expire after a year or so from now. Have a bot check the date parameter and remove stale tags, with or without a reason parameter (in the future, thus keeping existing stale transclusions). -- œ^™ 02:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that every cleanup template (reason or not) should be removed after a year or just ones added from now on? AIRcorn (talk) 03:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

From now on, and then on from the date of placement. -- œ^™ 03:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Granted it's holding off any real action until a YEAR from now, but still, it's making a bold change which is what many people want done. -- œ^™ 03:52, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If we are saying a year is enough time to cleanup an article why not just remove it from every article that has been tagged with this for a year. AIRcorn (talk) 04:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd think many would consider that disruptive to remove all existing tags older than a year. I was only proposing establishing an expiry date from this point on that does not affect anything currently existing, in the way the 10-day BLPPROD expiry was established. I'm saying a year is enough time for a tag to stay on an article, not necessarily that it's enough time for it to be cleaned up. If the tag expires after a year and the article still hasn't been cleaned a user can replace the tag and it'll sit until it expires again. -- œ^™ 05:34, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Bad idea, there are giant backlogs with articles tagged in 2007 (Category:Wikipedia backlog). But renoving cleanup templates without reason parameter is a good idea (using bot or without bot) Bulwersator (talk) 06:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I oppose all of these proposals because the tag can be used for editors who are not experienced enough to describe what needs to be cleaned up, but know that something needs to be done.Curb Chain (talk) 08:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

completely oppose any bot based removal there is zero actual evidence that all or most or even some significant proportion of these tags have been improperly placed. those making the anecdotal have also seem to be the ones making the equally unsubstantiated claim that the tag is only used editors attempting to increase their edit count. its a huge assumption of bad faith.-- The Red Pen of Doom 13:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the objections against bot-based removal. In many cases, it's blatantly obvious to a human what is wrong with an article (many new articles have horrible formatting) and a bot shouldn't remove the tag because it's useful to produce automated "needs attention" lists for WikiProjects, etc. I do think it would be useful to make the template show something like "NO REASON SPECIFIED" or "PLEASE ADD reason=" to encourage taggers to be more specific. It might also be useful to have a helper program that could find the username of the tagger, remove the tag, and put a note on their talk page and the article talk page saying "the reason the cleanup tag is still needed is unclear, please re-add with reason= if you have any specific suggestions". Oftentimes what happens is that the tag gets the article some attention, but no one removes the tag after the cleanup is complete. -- Beland (talk) 18:20, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that increasing the emphasis of highlighting a reason is a great idea, but adding a username and then removing the tag if no reason is specified AND mentioning a note on the user's talk page because he/she did not specify a reason is excessive.Curb Chain (talk) 22:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

User:David Levy added a slight rewording of the template which indicated more emphasis for a reason to be included. I am just bringing this to light so you editors can reflect if you wish on the change of wording of the template if you so decide to change the wording of the template. Note that User:David Levy did this while the 3rd TfD was in discussion so it was reverted.Curb Chain (talk) 22:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess we should take a step back first. Is there consensus to make the reason mandatory? It seemed obvious to me from the deletion discussion, but there is some opposition to it here. Should we initiate a RFC asking that specific question? AIRcorn (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

No. There was no consensus to add a mandatory reason. In the deletion debates, keeping wasn't even a majority.Curb Chain (talk) 23:32, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I have asked the TfD closer to clarify this point. If User:Y's judgement is that there wasn't consensus, the options are either to leave the template in its current worse than useless form, hold an RfC, or have a fifth Template for Discussion debate which is explicitly about manditory vs optional reason, and explicitly not about keep vs delete. My preference would be the latter option in the interests of transparency: RfCs on talk pages never attract significant attention. —WFC— 08:52, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I was hoping there would be enough agreement here so it wouldn't come to another discussion. I have never seen a TFD that did not involve deletion or merging and there is a RFC category specifically for templates so I would think that that would be the best forum. It would be prudent to notify everyone who commented at the deletion discussion no matter where it is held. AIRcorn (talk) 13:40, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

That is ridiculous. The discussion is perfectly normal here. Don't use another forum to try to get an outcome you want.Curb Chain (talk) 09:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

You have made a statement about the previous discussion which I believe to be inaccurate. I have therefore requested that this be clarified by the person responsible for judging the outcome of that discussion. Thank you for assuming good faith. —WFC— 11:20, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you forum shopping? The decision was clear: no consensus. The closer clearly stated that. What you are telling me you are trying to get the closer to give an additional binding action?Curb Chain (talk) 06:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm telling you to learn to read. —WFC— 17:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

What you are doing is asking the parent again. WP:FORUMSHOPPING states: "Asking "the other parent" does not work well in real life, nor does it work well on Wikipedia.". In you situation, you are not asking another parent, but asking the same parent again. What precisely is your motive for doing this other than change the outcome of the TfD?Curb Chain (talk) 22:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The above characterisation of my behavior as forum shopping is a complete, unmitigated lie. As this user's behavior is having a direct, detrimental impact on this discussion, I will take the matter to ANI if it is not retracted. —WFC— 09:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Obviously my expiry proposal was completely misunderstood. Nevermind then. -- œ^™ 04:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

They should be expired - by being cleaned up. If the people who were in the template debate all cleaned one a day, we would be catching up with the backlog. Rich Farmbrough, 15:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC).

I just noticed now that the deletion discussion has been closed. Let me state that I see a clear majority that has voted either for deletion of the template or for making the reason parameter mandatory. I assume that (almost) everyone who has favored deletion of the template would accept the latter suggestion as a working compromise. In that sense, I encourage people to implement this compromise. Regarding the issue which is being discussed in this section, I can understand the sentiment that simply removing every instance of the template that doesn't use the reason parameter may not be the best solution. Maybe it would help if we specifically encourage editors to remove the tag if no reason is provided and the need for cleanup is not obvious? Also, I would propose that the note saying that "The talk page may contain suggestions." be changed to "The talk page contains suggestions.", with the "suggestions" linking to a relevant section on the talk page, and this note only be shown when a talk parameter specifying the section name is defined. Nageh (talk) 02:44, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Once again, a majority is not consensus so there is no consensus to make the reason parameter mandatory. But your suggestion of allowing clicking of a link in the template to the section on the talk page where the concern of cleaning is discussed is a good idea.Curb Chain (talk) 06:52, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

When, in your opinion, do we have consensus? When 100% of the voters agree for the same thing? Obviously, you disagree with the proposed change. But while we had a poll before it was also a discussion, and many people argued that mandating the reason parameter was reasonable. Do we need to run through this whole thing again? What new arguments do you want to see? Or are you saying that we will never have consensus because a minority does not agree with the proposed change? This is not a workable basis for any consensus. Anyway, where are the other many folks who have commented on the template deletion discussion? Nageh (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The fact that an equal number of people !kept the template without commenting on deficiencies of this template tells me that there was nothing wrong with the template. I will state again that the discussion provided a variety of opinions. All the previous debates had the same outcome, where a variety of opinions were discussed. There is no consensus for this template or to have changes made to this template.Curb Chain (talk) 22:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I support the idea of "'suggestions' linking to a relevant section on the talk page, and this note only be shown when a talk parameter specifying the section name is defined." The parameter could also be named discuss, per this proposal. I also support making parameters mandatory, but the tagger should be required to add either reason= or talk/discuss= at the tagger's discretion. Superm401 - Talk 03:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like we are going to have to go down the RFC path. Lets work on some wording here first and then make the request:

• RFC: "Should the reason parameter for the {{cleanup}} template be made mandatory. A recent template for discussion was closed as no consensus, with the closer recommending improving the template. A suggestion expressed during the discussion was that the |reason= parameter should be made mandatory. This RFC is to determine whether there is consensus to enact such a change."
• TFD participants: You recently commented on a template for discussion involving the {{cleanup}} template. The discussion was closed as no consensus, with the closer recommending improving the template. Following from this discussion a request for comment [Link to RFC] has been started regarding whether the |reason= parameter should be made mandatory.

I am thinking the heading for both should simply be "Template: Cleanup", it should just be listed under Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia technical issues and templates and have separate "Responses" and "Discussion" sections. All the participants in the recent TFD should be notified. Thoughts? Anything missing? AIRcorn (talk) 00:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Seems good to me. Should we also ask for a vote on a talk parameter as I suggested above, or would this be a less/non-controversial change? Nageh (talk) 00:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I am wary about bundling too much into a request. The more questions asked the harder it can be to get a consensus. Your suggestion seems uncontroversial and probably doesn't need wider comment. What to do with the old transclusions and how to implement the change might be worth including, but it is probably easier to take it step-by-step. AIRcorn (talk) 01:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose The closer did not recommend improving the template. The RfC is not written in neutral language. In fact, many suggestions were proposed in the most recent TfD. Using this language is heavily skewing your desired outcome into your favor.

Do not notify the participates of the last TfD. The decision to include a mandatory reason is very specific and once again not everyone agreed with this.

If you really want a RfC question it should be phrased "Should the reason parameter for the {{cleanup}} template be made mandatory? This RFC is to determine whether there is consensus to enact such a change.".

Question: Why not initiate a deletion review? Seeing as you and another editor spin-doctored the closing admin, what is to stop you from doing that?Curb Chain (talk) 06:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

"...there is certainly room for improvement" and "this discussion should certainly result in changes" sounds like a recommendation to me. Anyway that is why I put the wording up here first so others can weigh in as to the best way to present it. This whole discussion is a direct result of the tfd so I feel it should be mentioned somewhere.

The whole reason we have to have a RFC is because you don't think any conclusions can be drawn out of the previous discussion. This is the best way to find out. If they don't think the reason should be mandatory then they can say so at the RFC.

I did not go to DRV because I would rather improve the template than delete it. AIRcorn (talk) 07:13, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't spin his/her words. It was not a recommendation; it was an observation.Curb Chain (talk) 08:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Curb Chain, what are you trying to achieve here? One minute you attack someone for asking a closer if they would be willing to go into more detail, stating that only keep/delete arguments were valid and falsely accusing them of forum shopping. The next you attack someone for suggesting that we start a discussion that specifically looks at the issue the TfD did not cover. Now you are demanding a DRV for no obvious reason. I respect your opinion on the template, your right to express it, and your right to do so in unambiguous terms, but please at least be clear. —WFC— 13:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the proposed wording. I would suggest to go ahead with the RFC. Curb Chain, you can vote on the RFC but please stop pushing your own agenda. Nageh (talk) 20:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no consensus on the wording of the rfc. I suggest you word it neutrally so as not to slant and misrepresent.Curb Chain (talk) 21:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Could change "recommending" to "mentioning"? AIRcorn (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the easiest solution is to ask the closer what he meant, if this is the issue. Nageh (talk) 00:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

No, this is unnecessary. And the closer did not mention improving the template. His/her comment was broadly construed, and this could mean improving the ISSUE by actually working on the articles and removing the tags, or could mean researching and adding a reason a parameter to the pages without one. Please stop twisting the administrator's words. He/she was very clear with the closing comment.Curb Chain (talk) 00:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I was trying to be constructive, and you respond in accusing me of twisting the administrator's words? Where did I do such a thing in my last post?? Anyway, I'm not gonna fight about the wording, so let's try to make it simple – would everyone consent with rephrasing to "...though the closer concluded that the discussion should certainly result in changes. A frequent suggestion expressed during the discussion..."? Nageh (talk) 01:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

That would work best as it directly quotes the close. Maybe just say "A suggestion expressed ...." for the second sentence so we can't be accused of interpreting the prevalence of the suggestion. AIRcorn (talk) 03:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking about this but in all sense this was the most frequent suggestion and it was a significant one. Not saying so may create the illusion that we are just cherry-picking any suggestion. I think it should stay in, and hope that Curb Chain can live with it. Thanks everyone! Nageh (talk) 10:17, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Any rfc will be posing a question, a cherry-picked question to be answered as desired by the queriers. Not to include this would be pov.Curb Chain (talk) 23:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, Curb Chain is attempting to stonewall progress by demanding that all editors jump through every hoop that he unilaterally sets, in his one-man crusade to prevent this useless crock of shite from being converted into something somewhat helpful. I propose we ignore him and launch the RfC. If the question is invalid, let the community say so. I would also suggest that we either inform contributors to the previous TfD or invoke IAR to include the RfC discussion in the template (similar to how a TfD displays). It is important that a large, representative section of the community participates in what would potentially be a major change to the template. —WFC— 19:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I am fine with:

"Should the reason parameter for the {{cleanup}} template be made mandatory. A recent template for discussion was closed as no consensus, though the closer concluded that the discussion should certainly result in changes. A frequent suggestion expressed during the discussion was that the |reason= parameter should be made mandatory. This RFC is to determine whether there is consensus to enact such a change."

or

"Should the reason parameter for the {{cleanup}} template be made mandatory. A recent template for discussion was closed as no consensus, wthough the closer concluded that the discussion should certainly result in changes. A suggestion expressed during the discussion was that the |reason= parameter should be made mandatory. This RFC is to determine whether there is consensus to enact such a change."

Curb Chain (talk) 06:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool. So can we anyone of you guys (WFC? Aircorn?) initiate the RFC? I'm afraid it would take me quite some time to figure it out. Thanks! Nageh (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy with the second suggestion (minus the typo in the second sentence) in the interests of keeping the question as neutral as possible. The only sticking point on my end is the question of how to publicise it. The more attention it attracts among those that work with and around this template, the more legitimate the consensus. For those reasons I would suggest adding something along the lines of {{Tfd-inline}}, with text along the lines of "Significant changes to this template are being discussed" and 'being discussed' linking to the RfC. That strikes me as a less controversial measure than notifying the pariticipants at the last TfD. —WFC— 07:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• I think that we should notify TfD participants and add temporary link in the template Bulwersator (talk) 07:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I would just notify the participants of the last discussion along with leaving a note at Wikipedia:Cleanup. The tfd tag was up for 16 days and most people interested in the tag would have comented on that discussion. The RFC will last for at least 30 days which is a long time to have a tfd type tag on the template. It will add an ugly note to 25 000 articles (although theoretically they should already be a bit messy). There is a {{Please see}} that could be used to keep the message completely neutral. AIRcorn (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that the participates of the previous TfD should be notified. This is an editorial decision for this template. The TfD posed a different question. As I stated, do not notify the previous participants of the TfD as this would not be neutral to do so and unnecessary. This is an editorial decision and interested participates will opine here.Curb Chain (talk) 10:21, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Noted. However as far as I am concerned that is the least that should happen. This whole discussion is directly related to that one. AIRcorn (talk) 10:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I am repeating myself again. Yes the view that a mandatory reason had been expressed, it was not universally expressed by the deleters and keepers. Doing so is not a neutral reflection of the outcome of the the TfD. This is going into canvassing territory. It was clear that a mandatory reason was not mandated. This is why you have posed a RfC. The closer was clear and I am repeating myself again. Note you already asked the closing admin on "clarification" on his decision regarding the TfD.Curb Chain (talk) 11:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The important thing is that we make users of this template aware of this potentially major change in a neutral way. In my opinion the usual methods of publicising an RfC are not appropriate: as the change would have a significant effect on the way in which the template is used, we need to be confident that the users of the template will be aware of it. Under the current wording of WP:Canvassing, informing all previous participants in discussion would probably be considered excessive cross posting. That's a pity, but that's Wikipedia. Notifying all previous RfC TfD participants is still an option if a strong case is made for it, but as I've explained above, I think a better way would be an inline notification in the template. —WFC— 12:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree and am fine with User:WaitingForConnection's suggestion. On another note, I am not aware of any rfc's regarding this template.Curb Chain (talk) 13:56, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Good spot. Too many small f's on this site. —WFC— 15:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it falls under excessive cross-posting. The number of people involved in a discussion should not affect our decision on whether to inform them of a related one. Cross-posting is more when you post in multiple forums likely to be seen by the same people (i.e. a Wikiproject's talk page and then each individual member's talk page). If we are invoking the tfd as the reason for calling the rfc it seems prudent to tell the people taking part in the tfd. AIRcorn (talk) 23:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

If we were invoking the tfd as the reason for calling the rfc, it would be prudent to tell the people taking part in the tfd, but the were not related. You are campaigning for a specific outcome. It does not matter anyway because you have no consensus to do this.Curb Chain (talk) 00:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Give it time. I accept that you are not going to change your mind no matter what, but WFC seems more reasonable. In fact his only opposition to contacting the tfd participants was that he thought it would be excessive cross posting. I don't think it is and have left my argument; it is up to him whether he agrees with it or not. The tfd is the reason for the rfc. The idea that forms the basis of this RFC was brought up independently by various editors there. The closer even says that "the discussion should certainly result in changes". This is a possibly change resulting from that discussion. AIRcorn (talk) 00:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

In principle I'm happy with either an inline notification or a notification to all TfD participants, as I think both will be equally effective. However, informing all TfD posters would be more laborious than posting an inline notification in the template, and more controversial because it is at the very least a technical breach of WP:Canvass. The main disadvantage of an inline notification was that it required a clearer consensus, as an uninvolved admin would have to perform the act. But with Curb Chain on board we're not far from that position. —WFC— 07:11, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

How would the inline notification be done? The {{Tfd-inline}} template is depreciated and it's replacement {{tfd}} links to the TFD page and I don't see a way to make a custom redirect or notice. Is there another template that could be used? AIRcorn (talk) 11:59, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

We may create link without using specialised template Bulwersator (talk) 14:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The markup would be relatively trivial. Something along the lines of <center><small>Whatever it is that we want to say [[link|text of link]].</small></center><hr>, which would produce something like:

Whatever it is that we want to say (text of link).

---

—WFC— 16:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Sweet, so we just need to agree on the wording for this and then we can kick this thing off.

"Whether to make the |reason= mandatory for the {{cleanup}} template is being discussed. See the request for comment to help reach a consensus."

AIRcorn (talk) 02:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Script

This useful script offers a quick way to remove {{cleanup}} tags that lack a reason= parameter. Bulwersator (talk) 13:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Except that there is no consensus that that is useful. If you can't be bothered to check the article and (at the very least) add a reason it seems ridiculous to remove the tag. One might even say "lazy" as the removers have categorised the adders. "Just remove the tags and all our problems disappear in a cloud if magic pixie dust." Rich Farmbrough, 17:55, 21 February 2012 (UTC).

What about articles that have their cleanup notes on the talk page?!! How will this script parse that? RJFJR (talk) 15:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Obviously script is removing tag and human must check article and talkpage before an edit (and it is the reason why idea of removing this tag using bot is rather poor) Bulwersator (talk) 16:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Should the reason parameter be made mandatory

Should the reason parameter for the {{cleanup}} template be made mandatory. A recent template for discussion was closed as no consensus, though the closer concluded that the discussion should certainly result in changes. A suggestion expressed during the discussion was that the |reason= parameter should be made mandatory. This RFC is to determine whether there is consensus to enact such a change. AIRcorn (talk) 01:38, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Responses

• Support On a more general issue, the approach to Cleanup needs to have two features: a) yes, I've cleaned it up - and the Cleanup message is now deleted and b) the tone of the message in Cleanup is terrible. We are a lot of people trying to help each other- so more like 'help us out here' rather than 'this page has problems' please.
• Support As proposer. AIRcorn (talk) 01:51, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose An equal number of people expressed that the convenience of not being forced to add a mandatory reason is one reason this template should be kept.Curb Chain (talk) 07:30, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• The many person-hours of editor time wasted searching and trying to read your mind far outweighs the second or two it takes to add a reason.Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support as template without explanation what should be fixed is completely useless. Note that we may also need to find good way to implement this change as Category:Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field lists 24423 articles and Category:Cleanup tagged articles with a reason field only 542 Bulwersator (talk) 09:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support If this template have to exist, than the |reason= should be mandatory. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 22:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support As template without proper explanation makes it almost impossible for other editors to edit an article in order to remove the template eventually. Onkar 22:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Onkarr (talk • contribs)

  Note, above; signature are not mandatory. 05:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support If a cleanup is requested, we should know why the requester thinks something needs improvement.Saintonge235 (talk) 00:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - It will definitely make the tag less vague. What exactly needs to be cleaned up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cadiomals (talk • contribs) 01:43, 3 March 2012
• Support Back when the template didn't support the reason parameter at one point in time I eventually got so annoyed looking up the talk pages of articles tagged for cleanup just to find no reason or suggestions at all that I was pushing for addition of the reason parameter in the hope that people would be more articulate that way. It mostly hasn't worked out that way. Requiring use of either the reason parameter or a new talk parameter (linking to a relevant talk page section) is the only solution to effectively avoid such drive-by-tagging, requiring the tagger to think about the exact issues in need of cleanup. Nageh (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  This "drive-by-tagging" argument is so overdone and completely anecdotal.Curb Chain (talk) 04:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  I experienced it strongly back at the time, which was exactly why I was pushing for the reason parameter. I do admit that I see it much less frequently these days, which could be the strongest argument against my Support vote. Nageh (talk) 10:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  If drive-by-tagging is so bad and exists, it must exist for other tags. These other tags, if driven-by-tagged, would mean either the article was not fixed, just tagged, or spam tagged/incorrectly tagged. If an editor consistently did the latter, it would be vandalistic. Can you quote such a case with this tag?Curb Chain (talk) 11:13, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  Yes drive by tagging does exist, and its rise over the last five or six years does seem to correlate with the community decline Hence the theory that the decline in the community has been at least partially caused by the shift from the SoFixIt philosophy of our early years to the SoTemplateIt philosophy of today. This particular template is worse than others because the tagger hasn't even bothered to specify what they think is wrong with the article. ϢereSpielChequers 15:15, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

  But it's not a problem.Curb Chain (talk) 01:32, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. In many cases, what needs clean up will be quite apparent. On most articles there's always something needing work, anyway, so just get on it. "Mandatory" in what way? Can't save page without it? Violators subject to blocks? More likely: A reason to simply remove the tag without improving the article, an opportunity to scold someone on their talk page. The drive-by comments are needlessly hostile personal attacks. NB: this was the page that led me here. I see things needing clean up without a 'reason' parameter. Alarbus (talk) 05:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• The problem is that when it's not obvious you end up costing many editors many minutes or hours of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• See the tech section below on implementation -- it's not an issue.Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support This is one of the vaguest tags on wikipedia. What needs to be cleaned up is the question perplexing editors. Usually there is no note on the talk, but just a tag that tells nothing. If a reason is given, then upon addressing it the tag can be removed. This will reduce any disputes regarding tag removal. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 06:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm finding lots of problems in the article FBI and listing all of them would be a pain. Having a general cleanup tag is what's needed for that article. This tag serves that purpose in its current form. Pine^talk 09:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  And this article is a perfect example of drive-by tagging and/or irresponsible tagging. Naturally, every article that has not reached a featured status requires further improvements. But what on all earth is in such a desperate state of needing cleanup in the FBI article that it needs to be screamed out at the top of the article without saying what exactly? Because I do not know. Which is why I support mandating the reason parameter. Otherwise, why not tag it onto every non-featured article? And why not tag it onto older featured articles as well, 'cause for sure there will be something for cleanup, right? Nageh (talk) 09:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  I disagree completely. If you look at the edit history on that page, you can see that I've been working on that article. Tagging the article for general cleanup is not drive-by tagging or irresponsible tagging from my point of view; it alerts readers that there are problems with the article. The problems are of a different nature than if an article was short or incomplete. There are multiple problems with references and organization, the problems with references may not be obvious to the reader who doesn't check references, and I think that tagging the article to alert readers is an appropriate and responsible step, especially when I don't have time to check and fix everything on my own in one editing session. Pine^talk 11:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  Fair enough. Still, we cannot anticipate your thoughts. As an uninvolved editor looking at the FBI article I am completely at loss what exactly needs cleanup. If you do tag an article that way take your time to provide a reason on the talk page so other editors understand what is wrong with it. Nageh (talk) 12:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  And what would stop you from stating the reason you wrote above, "multiple problems with references"? --hydrox (talk) 16:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  I think you are mixing two different issues. This discussion is about the proposed deletion of the template, not about what users should write on talk pages. It may be a fair criticism to say that I or another editor should leave a note on the talk page of an article which has this tag, but that doesn't mean that this template should be deleted. I feel strongly that the template should stay. If you want to propose a modification to the template that prompts people to leave a note on the talk page, I could consider supporting that. Deleting the template is a different matter. Pine^talk 04:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually the deletion discussion has been. This is about a possible improvement to the template, in this case making the editor who uses the template leave a reason. AIRcorn (talk) 06:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Somehow I missed that. For the moment I'm opposed to making it mandatory for an editor to leave a reason because I'm not seeing this as a big problem, but I'd support having the template encourage the editor to leave a reason with the template and/or the talk page. Pine^talk 06:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Pine, I think you are one of the responsible editors who occasionally use this tag. The problem is when there are many taggers tagging many articles without a reason and by saving the tagger a second or two you end up costing many editors hours of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason when they could be making useful edits. Because you mistakenly thought that this was a deletion discussion, I think everyone would understand if you re-evaluated your original view on this. Let me know if I'm wrong, but based on your comments above, I don't think you would mind taking a second or to to add a reason, if you knew that it could save hours of editor time. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Note that this discussion is about the reason parameter, not about whether the cleanup tag should exist. Anyway, a featured article is not only an article with no problems, it's also a comprehensive article, and probably one which is somehow distinguished - interesting pictures, excellent writing that make its reading pleasing. --Chealer (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

• Weak support There are many instances where the reason for cleanup is not very clear; for example, what may need cleanup is a plot summary, or information about its history. If a reason is given, people will be more likely to fix the problem quickly. However, there are also times (like the above FBI example) that even if a reason is given, it might take too much time to list them all. Also, there are some articles where no reason is needed, since the whole article needs general cleanup. Nevertheless, making them mandatory would be of great help to articles that really need a good amount of improvement. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. What Pine said, although I'm all for maybe... making it harder to be non-specific, or something, since usually actually specifying what's wrong is indeed quite useful. But other articles do just need cleanup in general - too much wrong with an article to list it all, at least for now, or multiple issues, themselves not really bad enough by themselves to warrant listing, just add up to a not so good article, or maybe none of the cleanup-messages seem entirely right, though anyone who actually reads it could probably figure something out. Meantime the article needs fixing. Poor article. — Isarra (talk) 10:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• Pine originally thought this was a deletion request, so please don't base your opinion on his early comments. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• If you can articulate a reason as you have above, then just do it in the tag. You can save editors a lot of headaches and valuable editing time. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support The tag is utterly useless without valid reasons and strongly encourages drive by tagging.Edinburgh Wanderer 12:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Sometimes what is to be cleaned up is obvious: sometimes it is not, and sometimes it is the entire article, but in a situation I feel does not warrant the placement of the stronger "full rewrite" tag. Many times "everything" will need to be cleaned up, if a reason is asked for. Sometimes too many things need to be cleaned up to summarize them pithily in a tag. Sometimes what needs to be cleaned up is hard to describe (I know, it sounds weird, but you know what I'm talking about), but is still obvious, such as a mismatch with the tone of the encyclopedia (but without itself being unencyclopedic), a wall-of-text effect or poor formatting, or just a poor je ne sais quoi. I most strongly oppose it if it will add a field with a list of multiple-choice pre-selected canned reasons and I can not express the reasons in my own words if I need to: no list, no matter how long, could possibly cover all of the possible different reasons for cleanup. I also most strongly oppose if it's any harder to use than adding a pipe and an equals sign followed by typing text. I'm not a web programmer, and too much stuff and too many processes require either a love of government-like tax forms (maybe that's a reason for another RFC!) or quasi-programming knowledge. St John Chrysostom ^view/_my bias 13:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  Thank you for your constructive input. I sympathize with the sentiment of using a generic cleanup tag when the need for cleanup is obvious. A problem with that though is that what may be obvious to you/me may not be obvious to others. For example, this article is generically tagged for cleanup. While you may certainly find many things that need "cleanup" (basically everything related to WP:MOS) the real problem is much more profound: the article is so bad content-wise that in fact a "full rewrite" tag is almost warranted. Now if I hadn't provided a reason on the talk page for the cleanup tag when I added it would others not familiar with the topic of the article be able to tell what is wrong at its core? How do we solve this problem where people think it is so obvious that the cleanup tag is put there yet others can only spot MOS issues on the surface? Thank you, and I hope you interpret my reply as being constructive as well. Nageh (talk) 14:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  i don't see how this relates to the present discussion. presentation issues (MOS etc.) and content issues (ommissions, NPOV etc.) involve different types of expertise, and have their own specialized tags. if you think both types of tags are warranted, why not add the relevant ones? 65.88.88.127 (talk) 17:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  My question was directly related to the OP's statement, and was asking how you could make it clear what needed cleanup if you don't provide a reason at all. How is that not relevant??? Nageh (talk) 17:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  because at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup there's a whole bunch of tags that are far more specific, and can subst. for the "reason" param. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:10, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  Which seems to be an argument for not using the generic cleanup template at all. Note, I am not asking for advice on tagging, I am asking the OP how he would resolve the issue where the tagger thinks the reason is obvious but it may not be so for other editors. Omitting the reason parameter for "obvious" cases was a suggestion by the OP, not mine. A merely gave an example that what is obvious is quite relative. Nageh (talk) 18:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  well, i'm not making the argument for not using the generic template. i understood your point, but it rests on trying to divine what the tagger of such a template had in mind. who knows? i guess if one is interested and knowledgeable in the article/subject and/or its presentation then one will be able to decide whether the tag is relevant or not. i just don't think that the absence of a reason should immediately disqualify use of the tag - let's leave this up to each individual case. the concerned individuals could sort it out. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  Pretty sure JohnChrysostom wasn't taking about the obvious ones, here, but for the sake of arguing in whatever, the more specific tags do also categorise articles more specifically. This makes them easier for folks setting out to, say, do some copyediting to find the articles in need of copyediting, so if people use those, folks can come at these from both sides, article and maintenance list. The problem is the things that just don't categorise well - and muiltilisting something that needs a whole lot more than just a copyedit won't necessarily help someone looking for something to copyedit, since when fixing things, it can feel pretty pointless to just fix one thing and ignore the others. — Isarra (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• JohnChrysostom, I'm sure you'd be willing to take a minute to type{{Cleanup|reason=a wall-of-text, poor formatting, and just a poor je ne sais quoi|date=March 2012}} if you knew you could save many editors much more than that amount of time. This is all we are asking. Please --will you reconsider your opposition? Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support I don't see for which valid reason (laziness does not count) an editor should not explain in few words WHY and IN WHICH the article needs to be cleaned. Cavarrone (talk) 14:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support This is the most common unnecesary tag added to the articles and source of much confusion. I have removed several cleanup tags that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever, with no discussion and page history revealing it was maybe added by some random IP without edit summary 2 years ago, but no one dared to remove it. Or maybe the original issue got eventually fixed, but the tag remained, because the exact issue was not identified. --hydrox (talk) 16:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support This template could easily confuse an inexperienced editor who might not have the slightest idea why his or her article is being tagged. Including a reason makes it obvious to any editor "passing by" what needs to be done, and would encourage even a few brief revisions or edits from an editor interested in ensuring that our articles meet our guidelines. dci | TALK 17:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support This template is spammed in articles when specific issues should be addressed instead. What exactly is it that needs cleaning up? The issues should be stated explicitly because if you can't say what they are, then there is probably no reason to tag the article. --Joshua Issac (talk) 18:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose leaving a message on the talk page is a reasonable alternative. RJFJR (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  Yes it is. The problem is when people do neither. (Hence my suggestion of introducing a talk parameter linking to the relevant talk page section, used as an alternative to the reason parameter.) Nageh (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  • (edit conflict)Then reason may take form of "see Talkpage#Cleanup" Bulwersator (talk) 21:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

    Good point, even simpler than my suggestion. Nageh (talk) 21:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• oppose - this is a solution in search of a problem to fix. If including a mandatory field is supposed to stop "driveby tagging" - it wont. If people come to an article with a clean up tag and cannot see anything to clean up, then just remove the damn tag. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• The problem is that by saving taggers a second or two you end up costing many editors many minutes or hours of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason. And if there is a good reason for the tag, many editors spend a bunch of time looking for it and eventually one of them finally removes the tag, then you're back where you started: the problem is still there and you've wasted hours of editor time for nothing. That's a problem looking for a solution, and requiring a reason is the solution.Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose It's better to have a "generic" template than creating miniature "talk boxes" within the article itself:

- We have talk pages for a reason. Providing the convenience (and requirement) of commenting with a single line may create the impression that it's enough to avoid using the talk page altogether.

- There can be no standard for the "vagueness" of the reason itself, one can put 1 or 2 words, a link to wp:example, or something more cryptic. To the suggestion that you can simply "ask" the tagger to clarify, we shouldn't encourage moving article discussion to a user's instead of the article's talk page.

- It puts too much emphasis on the judgment of one person.

- Tone. People sound different when criticizing things, unlike the neutral tone normally used inside articles. If a tag is correct in its observations but its tone is perceived (subjectively) as improper, should you re-word someone else's comment? Untag? Write your own line? A badly written tag will make it look worse.

- Considering that templates are not signed, scrutiny from a single (unidentified) editor placed inside a standardized template that is used across thousands of pages, gives the impression of text being reviewed (in bold text no less) on behalf of Wikipedia itself. Along with the phrase "to meet our quality standards" and the fact that it's most likely to be stamped on the contributions of newer or inexperienced editors, it can show a rather imposing or unfriendly image. - Skullers (talk) 23:15, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Then reason may take form of "see Talkpage#Cleanup" Bulwersator (talk) 07:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• The taggers reason is only shown on the page they are tagging, not throughout every page. Plus, taggers can add comments now anyway, all we are asking is to require a reason. The problem is that by saving taggers a second or two you end up costing many editors tons of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support Providing why the tag has been placed in certain article enables editors to know which is the specific problem for the page. I already suggested this in the previous discussion for the deletion of the template.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 00:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose As a regular page patroller, I often see articles that need cleanup in more than one area, and a generic "per Wikipedia guidelines" is the best you can do; it's often very difficult to describe every thing that needs to be cleaned up. Of course, providing some guidelines for cleanup in the article's talk page is recommended, and editors often do that. Most editors who perform cleanup can generally assess what needs to be cleaned up to improve the article without specific instructions. Finally, if a cleanup tag is on an article and shouldn't be there, editors (especially article patrollers) will simply remove it. Truthanado (talk) 01:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

  It is much less difficult to take the time to describe what is wrong, even if it is just, "many issues too numerous to list, for example..." When there is no reason stated, editors don't know if it is a specific issue or a general issue. If the tagger has identified something please say what it is. Otherwise, it ends up costing many editors many minutes or hours of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason. Plus, how do know when to remove the tag? When the article becomes a GA or FA? It only takes a second or two to state the reason, and it saves much more than that for others. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose What if the article is completely f**ked (pardon my French) in all areas? NPOV, citations, etc? This template is a catch-all for article issues. If the reason is made mandatory, then it would be simpler to use a specific template (like this one) to tell people about the faults of the article. Agent 78787 ^{talk contribs} 02:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. All this will do is frustrate and annoy editors. -- œ^™ 03:26, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Look at WP:TC if you want another reason there are plenty of Clean-up templates, this one is one is just a very vague one. JayJay^{Talk to me} 04:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The vagueness of it is why I am suggesting we make people leave a reason when they use it. AIRcorn (talk) 06:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support—clearly the English Wikipedia is collapsing under the massive cleanup backlogs, and only a few cleanup tags (mostly copyedit and wikify) are getting the attention they deserve. One of the reasons the general cleanup template doesn't get such attention is that if you click a random article that needs cleanup, it's either in a very very poor state, or it's not clear what's wrong with it. In the first case, it would be helpful to convert it to "multiple issues" and then that can be categorized, among other things, for copyedit and wikify (there will be a greater incentive to do this for the tagger if they must work extra to add a reason anyway), and in the second case, the mandatory reason parameter would go a long way to clarify the problem. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 10:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. There is being a good example for what happens when no reason is provided or there is not explicit link to the talk page. For the example article I have given, there are so many things wrong that I pointed out that almost a full rewrite is needed and posted so on the talk page. Yet, someone in this discussion comes along, changes a bit of the wording, and removes the cleanup tag. It seems that it really is necessary to explicitly point out in the template what is wrong with an article rather than expecting another editor to guess. Also, as I had pointed out before what may be obvious to me as requiring cleanup may not be obvious to another person. Nageh (talk) 11:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support The current template is ineffective. If the requestor does not take the time to put a reason in the template or on the talk page, how are future editors to know when the request has been fulfilled? (Maybe the banner should not be displayed unless the template is complete) 66.87.2.85 (talk) 17:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I wonder if the supporters of this initiative have actually seen how poor some of the worse articles are? The onus should be on those writing articles to make them decent in quality. At present I often add a cleanup tag if see something truly dreadful while on an AWB run; if I am forced to write a reason I will probably not. How will that benefit the project? --John (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

By leaving a tag editors are basically saying I don't have the expertise or time to fix this so can someone else. Surely the onus on them should be to give the person who will eventually clean it up as much information as possible. How does applying a vague tag (with AWB no less) which already has over 24 000 unreasoned transclusions help the project? AIRcorn (talk) 22:37, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That's why we have article talk and user talk pages, no less. I challenge you to do a random trawl through some of our articles and come back maintaining your position. If a tag is added and you genuinely can't figure why it was added, and you message the person who added it without result, you can happily remove the tag. --John (talk) 08:44, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

If you are using the talk pages to explain the use of the tag then there is no problem. All the reason in the tag would have to be is "see talk page". If someone has read an article and thinks it needs cleaning up then it should not be a problem for them to say why. I would rather the person applying the tag takes a few seconds to put in their reasons than the person who potentially might clean up the article taking minutes to work out why it was applied. AIRcorn (talk) 10:02, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

It is obvious there are some editors that who, like you, feel that an article cannot be cleaned up without a reason. It is also obvious there are articles that can be cleaned up by other editors even when no reason is provided and this tag is useful for these people as it sorts out articles that taggers felt had at least some/one kind of problem.Curb Chain (talk) 20:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support Templates like this need reasons as to why the article needs cleanup. Otherwise it could be subtle vandalism. And people can add rationales saying why they really think it's a bad article. C3F2k (Questions, comments, complaints?) 18:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. If a reason is not given, then the template should be rendered invisible until a reason is included. This should be made very clear to any editor who tries to use the template with no reason included. During the edit preview, a notice to the editor that the reason= parameter must be filled in with the specific reason the editor feels that the template is needed or the template will not be visible in the article, should be specifed. This will, of course, give rise to bogus reasons by a few editors, however it does drive home the fact that just placing this template in an article with no provision as to what needs cleanup is inadequate use of this template. I disagree with the ideas regarding the inadequacies of new editors. It might even prompt them to become more experienced editors by performing at least some of the cleanup themselves. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  02:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

that's not a good enough reason. the readers of the article (a population far in excess of editors or contributors - two separate functions that people confuse with abandon) should not have to suffer through a badly rendered article just because someone feels like learning on the job. we are making assumptions about the readers' reactions to a visible tag without any basis or real data, other than it annoys nominally experienced users who are by definition dilettantes and therefore likely to be concerned with aesthetics readers may ignore. others have made assumptions about editors' possible use of the generic template without a reason. dont' assume; if the generic template is being used extensively without a reason, then there's a reason for it.65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Enlighten me: What is the reason that a generic template is being used extensively without a reason that warrants the current state of not providing a reason? Note, I don't think folks here are complaining about the addition of the tag on aesthetic grounds, we are complaining about its addition without any seeming reason. It is not obvious to me what is needing cleanup in this version of an article. And certainly it won't be obvious to a reader, either. Neither would a layman know what would be wrong with this article if I hadn't provided a detailed reason on the talk page. So why is it so bad that we require the tagger to at least add a link to a relevant section on the talk page? Nageh (talk) 19:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

"that's not a good enough reason"? Maybe not. At least it is a reason, which is more than a poorly rendered Cleanup tag has. Just goes to show that a reason that might not be good enough is better than no reason at all. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  09:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

methinks you misunderstood. if, notwithstanding the easily applicable alternatives, the tag is regularly used without a reason, then this regular, actual use is its own justification. neither you or me or anyone else need know the editors' rationale and whether it has logical basis or adheres to a particular editing philosophy. to repeat, hopefully for the last time: if you are interested in the specific article and subject, you will take the time and make the effort to find out how to properly respond to the tag - else you're as much a drive-by editor as anyone.

Nageh, i will check the articles you pointed out, and the statistics behind them. cursorily, i noticed that you are the most active recent editor and contributor to Forward error correction. i assume that the size of your contribution and the frequency of your editing signify both relative knowledge and willingness to get involved. then why not resolve the issue there and then? why come here and discuss theory when your favorite article needs action?

(again, imo markup ie editing and content ie contributing are different, but interrelated things. some markup is generic and universal such as grammar. other markup is so dependent on knowledge of the content that only specialists can handle with accuracy). 65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Articles are regularly vandalized, yet this regular, actual behavior is certainly not its own justification. Your logic is a bit strange. We do need guidelines so as to be effective in what we are trying to achieve ("an encyclopedia collecting the sum of human knowledge"), and in a sense we are discussing one such guideline.

Regarding the Forward error correction article, you misunderstood. Did you check my talk page comment? The article needs such a huge effort in rewrite or cleanup that I explained I'm not gonna tackle this anytime soon, alone. There are other articles awaiting my contribution. ;) The best I could do for the moment was to explain what was wrong with the article. Btw, I didn't know I was the most active contributor to that article until you told me so, considering my few edits, so it is certainly not my favorite article. Nageh (talk) 19:22, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

are you equating applying a tag with vandalism? the comparison you make is broad enough to be indeterminate, and therefore not a basis for action. as i said it was a cursory look to Forward error correction, a highly technical issue that in my non-expert eyes mainly needs specialist, not just generic editing. i saw your comment on the talk page, and seems knowledgeable. i also understand your reasoning above. you do understand, i hope, that by you making an involved comment on the talk page, and then deciding to do nothing about it (for whatever reason) is akin to supplying a cleanup tag without a "reason" parameter. you are perfectly within your rights to do either. the thing is, you are denying others the same right. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 20:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I was not equating, I was pointing out the incoherence in your arguments.

How can you say that fixing an article not by one self while leaving detailed commentary on the talk page is the same as not providing a reason parameter?? My detailed comments inform both readers and other editors about specific problems in the article. This does not oblige me to fix all the issues by myself in an instant, even if I would like to, but time is just finite. Nageh (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

ok. i think i made my position clear, and i see yours. i don't think there's anything to be gained by continuing in this fashion. good luck. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 21:07, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

There was no misunderstanding. You seem to feel that editors are mind readers just like those who readily apply this template without giving a rationale for its application. Then with your "drive by" comment, you further go out of your way to make it appear that those of us who cannot read minds are no better than those who think we can read them. Why anybody would be opposed to more clarity in editing is beyond my ken, especially when adding that clarity would take seconds as opposed to the time involved in an attempt to figure out the tagger's rationale. – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  03:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

is it possible to stop assuming? don't assume that clarity is guaranteed by the presence of a reason. don't assume that it will take "seconds". don't assume that there can be no conceivable reason justifiyng the continuing presence of editors' choice. don't assume that clarity is guaranteed by the presence of a tag. don't assume to understand why anyone uses the template and why. don't assume that opposition to the proposal is the same as opposition to providing a reason for cleanup. it's not. if things stay as they are, anyone can provide a "reason" param. if the proposal passes noone will be able to do differently. imo, this requires a much, much higher bar than the comments you provided. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, much is assumed, and you say that as if it's a bad thing. Unless it's possible to render actual facts by showing study(ies) of the usage of the maintenance tag, then we are bound as editors to make the best decision possible based on the information that we have at hand. To some, it may look as if this discussion is chock full of hasty generalizations and assumptions. However, when you look closely at the arguments, you find several experienced editors who both Support and Oppose making good arguments for both sides. This is why we have such an interesting controversy, here, not because everybody is making hasty arguments based upon assumptions. The particular assumptions that you addressed are not made lightly. In essence, what you say about how "anyone can provide a 'reason' param." will apply whether or not this proposal passes. The only difference will be that everyone will be compelled to take some time to "reason out" why they are applying this tag. For me, it is a case where a person reads an article and decides that it needs to be cleaned up. That person adds a tag to the article while it is still clear in his or her mind what they feel needs to be done. BAM Here is the crux of this discussion. Most editors still just add the tag and move on. Those of us who feel that a reason should have been given are searching for a way to get that editor to type in his or her reason while it is still clear in his or her mind. If you have a better way than what has been proposed, let's hear it! – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  13:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

i don’t care at all about controversies. they are far too common and predictable to make any single one of them "interesting." as for this unneccessary and time consuming "controversy" about procedural minutiae, it indicates (imo) far more serious problems with wikipedia. but i'm not interested in pursuing that either. without wanting to be or to appear rude, i'll exit this discussion, restating my position: you propose to exchange the possibility of clarity with the certainty of reduced choice. that's a lousy trade. no deal. you need zero experience as an editor to accept or reject this. take care and thanks. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

If you don't care about controversies, then why are (or were) you here? If you're not interested in pursuing your perceived "serious problems" with Wikipedia, then why do you respond at all? I propose to exchange the possibility of clarity with the hoped for improved clarity of this maintenance tag. As for your rudeness, too late. If you feel so strongly that Wikipedia has serious problems, then you must obviously have a rudeness agenda to come into this discussion, which you consider to be about "procedural minutiae", and make waves like an earthquake. So your rudeness is a given, not that that's a bad thing. If it takes some rudeness around here to finally fix this ratty tag, then so be it. You are welcome to leave or stay, your choice. And whatever you do, you must realize that in spite of your words above, your attitude and position are at the very heart of this controversy. – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  17:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• oppose for the reasons i stated in above discussions.65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• I think you meant Support and wrote oppose by mistake (based on your previous comments). If not, let us know. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:58, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Clearly not. How can you even.. Skullers (talk) 10:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• I scanned his/her comments and saw this: "well, i'm not making the argument for not using the generic template. i understood your point, but it rests on trying to divine what the tagger of such a template had in mind. who knows?" and other comments that looked like (s)he supported, but looking over it again now I see statements contradictory to that. Others here have gotten confused about this, opposing it, thinking it was a proposal to delete the tag. I want to make sure if (s)he really supports or opposes it. Sparkie82 (t•c) 15:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• (dab) from the 65.88.88.127 bot -

are there mechanisms to resolve good-faith reason-less tagging? yes

are there mechanisms to resolve abuse of such tagging? yes

is the proposed action (per the RFC) neutral? no

is the proposed action restrictive? yes

what is the restriction? universally diminishes editor options

is opposition to the proposal neutral? yes

what is the neutrality recourse? editors can easily use a number of other tags that are narrowly specific to reason

decision? oppose 65.88.88.127 (talk) 19:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support - "Cleanup" is a generic term that requires more specificity to address properly. Providing targets for clean up will accelerate the process. Jojalozzo 23:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - (1) Often, an article is such a mess (e.g., [2]) that the problems are obvious. There is no value-add in listing a reason. (2) Many of these article have multiple issues, and enumerating one or a small number of issues as "the reason" will server only to hide or downplay the several other issues not listed. (3) For new u or less experienced users, the acceptable wikispeak reasons may not be easy to find or document. (4) even for experienced editors, in the case of a particularly messy article whose issues are apparent from the face of the article, chasing down a specific reason is just an unproductive use of that editor's time. (5) I foresee a lot of frustration as a "custodian" of an article with lots of issues addresses the enumerated items, removes the cleanup tag, only to have it reinstated with a new reason. An open-ended tag invites discussion on the talk page of the issues. TJRC (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

  Hm, depending on the outcome of this discussion, maybe a middle ground is to encourage editors to remove the cleanup tag when no reason is provided and the issues are not obvious to that editor. A tagging guideline could state that should the original tagger wish to re-add the template he must provide a reason. This is not intended to permit pointy removal of tags as we have our WP:Disruptive editing guideline for this. Nageh (talk) 01:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• The proposal doesn't say that the tagger needs to enter a narrow, specific reason; it asked that the tagger specify a reason. If the problem is that the article has multiple issues, then say so. The problem is that by saving taggers a second or two you end up costing many editors many minutes or hours of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason when it is not apparent. Requiring the tagger to give a reason saves many hours of editor time on WP, put doesn't limit the use of the tag in the situations you mentioned. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:50, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• • I don't agree with the opposition, but do feel that your points are valid and worthy of response.

    A common theme of opposers is "what if the article is clearly, at-a-glance, terrible in all aspects?" I would suggest that a possible compromise here is to have a default reason (along the lines of "the article requires substantial cleanup in all aspects"). That reason would be consistent with the raison d'être of this template: to act as a simple, general tag for articles that are simply crap. It would also address your first, second and fourth point. At the same time, it would prompt editors who can't/don't want to remember every template to describe the specific issue they are using the template for.

    To point three, I would simply say that all good faith attempts to help out are welcome. Sometimes newbies place tags inappropriately and these tags should be removed, but a tag should never, ever be removed simply because valid concerns were not expressed with the latest jargon. Finally, on point five, surely an effective way of promoting continuous improvement of articles is exactly what supporters and opposers alike want? —WFC— 19:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support - If one feels strongly enough that an article needs work to tag it, then one should be quite willing to assist in fixing things up through a statement regarding the problem or problems.Pauci leones (talk) 02:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. What needs doing will be obvious to those best equipped to do it. Rothorpe (talk) 02:31, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• What needs doing is to have the common courtesy to take the two seconds and enter a reason that saves the many editors who follow a lot of wasted effort. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:50, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• I wouldn't say it's "2 seconds", it takes more thought to word it properly (in the judgment of the tagger). People sound and perceive differently. Though there is no standard for vagueness/tone/etc, by its nature it necessitates a negative one. Not everyone is that bold. To those pressured not to sound rude and/or discouraging to the original writer you may well be denying its use. Skullers (talk) 10:28, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

  Being bold enough to tag an article with a template but not being bold enough to say what is wrong with it doesn't sound right to me. Nageh (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Sorry about the tone of my post above, I was a little hot last night on this subject and moving quickly, while trying to avoid edit conflicts on this busy page. Normally, I'd self-censor that stuff. I understand what Skullers is saying. Some readers are generally timid about criticizing others. I've made a suggestion below about changing the reason field to a comment field, maybe this will solve the problem. Sparkie82 (t•c) 16:24, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Strong support - The proposal doesn't say that the tagger needs to enter a narrow, specific reason; it asked that the tagger specifyareason. If the problem is that the article has multiple issues, then say so. If the problem requires more explanation, then say, "see the talk page". If the problem is poor writing, then that's what you put down as a stated reason. This isn't rocket surgery, by requiring a reason, you save many WP editors many hours of time searching articles and talk pages looking for a reason when it is not apparent and it costs the tagger next to nothing. So what's issue? Do it. Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:50, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

(Had an edit conflict, so the timestamps on most of my previous edits are off -- for the record.) Sparkie82 (t•c) 03:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support - If the problem with the article is "everything" then just type "everything." If there's too much stuff to list type "See talk page." As someone who's tried to clean up various articles, even these two reasons would help. They would certainly save time having to dig through edit histories for summaries to see if the tag is relevant or attempting to discern someone's rationale from out of thin air. I don't buy that editors will be confused either, they can read, you know. --Jtalledo (talk) 12:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - When I see an article with this template, I have to go through the all of it figure out what needs to be cleaned up. If I have a target, I can get right to work. I'm sure that I am not the only one who would be assisted by this. ReelAngelGirl Talk to me! Tea? 14:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support It would be better to get rid of this template altogether, but if we can't do that requiring a rationale would be progress. Perhaps some that use it will find it quicker to use a more specific template and hopefully a few will actually fix the article instead of template bombing it. ϢereSpielChequers 15:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• A suggestion - Change the reason parameter to comment, but still require its use. Much of the objection to using it revolves around coming up with an specific reason. If it's a comment, instead of a reason, maybe there would be less reluctance to using it. Taggers would feel they didn't have to be precise or overly critical, yet still give guidance to editors. I don't know if this makes since, perhaps it's just semantic but maybe if those who support could give this little bit, we could reach a consensus. Sparkie82 (t•c) 16:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with this assuming it would make any difference to those who oppose the proposal. Jojalozzo 19:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• What now!! Eh, uh, of course! Support!! Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 16:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support If this template has to exist, then the |reason= should be mandatory. I can't understand what's so difficult about being required to put down a reason Tom B (talk) 18:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support Again, repeating what was said above... it would make the template more effective. I think that Wikipedia is having enough problems with templates being put up and then sitting there for forever with no constructive changes being made that having to put a reason could really help with stagnation... /-\urelius ♠ |)ecimus _What's^{up, dog?} 18:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - This is still largely an open wiki - anyone can edit, and there is no systematic review. Unsurprisingly, we have lots of articles with quality issues. As a reader, I appreciate being warned when I'm about to read an article with issues, so that I may decide to read something else, or to read with extra vigilance. I imagine that is even more true for readers who are younger, less educated and/or less knowledgeable about Wikipedia.

As a reader, I do not need to see the problems. This is not to say that reviewers shouldn't be encouraged [more] to enter a reason, to use a more specific template, to communicate with editors introducing issues, or to directly fix issues. This is also not to say that it should be tolerated to revert without justifying after someone removed a cleanup tag which didn't specify a reason - just like any other unjustified revert shouldn't be tolerated. This is also not to say we shouldn't make it easier to identify what prompted the addition of such a tag (either by pointing to an edit identifier, the contributor or a more precise tagging time). This is simply to say that we are badly missing both quality, and quality assessments. --Chealer (talk) 23:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

• An oppose followed by two paragraphs of reasons to support the proposal? WTF??? Sparkie82 (t•c) 02:25, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

• Reasons should be included unless it's obvious what the issues are. Sometimes, it's quite obvious what they are. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I see only good in the proposal, even after reading the oppose arguments above. Nurg (talk) 00:03, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Extremely Strong Support - As someone whose main wiki activity involves working through tag backlogs, I waste hours doing work that would have been completely unnecessary if tags were limited to cases where they will actually contribute to the improvement of the article involved. While there is certainly a small amount of potential value lost in the inexperienced editors who won't be willing to go to the trouble, it will be far outweighed by the savings in editor-hours. The 5 minutes it takes an experienced editor to decipher an ambiguous tag are much more valuable than the 5 minutes it takes an inexperienced editor to figure out how to tag properly. -- LWG ^talk 03:03, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
  • • • Attempting to assume good faith here, but the only way I can interpret this comment is "My five minutes are more valuable than some n00bs five minutes". I find that attitude extremely offensive and potentially harmful to the project in the long term as recruiting newbs and taking advantage of any positive contributions they can add will be essential. -- The Red Pen of Doom 15:58, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

That's not my attitude at all; I think the barrier to new editors is one of the few valid arguments against this proposal. But I think we should encourage new editors to contribute constructively. If all an editor does is generate tasks for other editors without doing anything to help accomplish those tasks, then their contributions are actually a net loss for the community. The cleanup tag in particular is very much a WP:SOFIXIT issue: if an editor understands wikipedia well enough to use the tag, they should understand it well enough to go ahead and fix the problem, or at least provide useful information that will make it easier for others to fix it. -- LWG ^talk 17:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• • When has it ever taken five minutes for an experienced editor to decipher a properly placed {{cleanup}} tag? If such a tag is used properly, it should not take more than ten seconds to identify issues. Otherwise, the tag should simply be removed. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:29, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Properly placed tags are fine. The problem is that it takes time to confirm that a tag is improperly placed before removing it. Requiring a reason parameter would, if nothing else, at least confirm that the editor placing the tag has actually given a few seconds' thought to the issue. Even just "poor paragraph organization in several places" would be infinitely better than nothing. Without a reason, an editor has to check for all of the potential problems before removing the tag, which is a big waste of time and brain cycles. -- LWG ^talk 04:07, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
      • As I understand it, the cleanup tag is a general tag; an editor should not have to check for all potential problems (because it is expected that a more specific tag would be used if there was one specific problem). My personal usage of the tag applies to articles that have multiple, obvious problems. If an article has poor paragraph organization, then I, and hopefully everyone else, would pick a more appropriate tag, such as {{cleanup-reorganize}}. Again, in my experience, it has never taken me more than ten seconds to identify a problem in an article, even if it is very long (as the problem usually becomes length!) and I simply remove a tag when I can't easily identify an issue. Of course, this is just in regards to my own encounters with the cleanup tag, but I have never found it difficult or vague in the slightest. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:16, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Here are the first five random articles I got that have this tag. Could you take 50 seconds and tell me what you think the reason for tagging each article was, and whether that issue is now resolved so the tag may be removed? -- LWG ^talk 16:40, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
        • One of the more convincing arguments at the tfd was that this tag is useful for newer editors that know something needs cleaning up but don't know all the different tags that are available to use. A kind of catch all. It should be easier for a casual editor to just remember this tag and leave a reason than to hunt through all the clean-up tags for one that matches the situation. I would hope the more experienced of us would use more specific tags. AIRcorn (talk) 09:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - As a GOCE member, I can attest that the most annoying thing for a guild member is reading through a page tagged with "copyedit" and finding all of three comma usage errors and "color" spelled "colour" (which is, by the way, a technically acceptable alternate spelling). It oftentimes feels like people go around "stamping" anything they think could use a little proofreading. This, it seems, is a similar issue. Most people will only notice blatantly bad formatting/style, and neither know nor care about MoS guidelines or the consistency of our "house style". Stamping the page just calls attention to it. Nobody's going to bother looking for Waldo unless we inquire as to his location. The purpose of this template should be to mark specific things you know are wrong but don't have the time or know-how to set right, so that someone else can come along and fix it quickly. I think sometimes people get a little template-happy, and then we get huge backlogs that leave Wikipedia so slapped-up with tags over long periods of time that people start losing faith in the quality of our content. Mandating the reason template will reduce this sort of misuse. It's better to have a few errors in an article than to have a big sign up for a month requesting that someone fix the bad formatting before anyone else notices. Bronsonboy ^H_Q 03:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. If a more specific template cannot be used, then a generic one should explain the concern. The tagger should know and tell why the generic tag is necessary if they cannot use more specific ones, and subsequent editors shouldn't be guessing what they meant. Poor articles are poor articles and tagging them hardly helps the backlog. Addressing specific issues one at a time helps backlog. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:45, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Agree with a lot of the previous support statements. We can pretty much assume every article under GA requires some form of cleanup. Use of the tag at the moment simply conveys a vague notion that an article may need cleanup without properly specifying use. Even if some taggers do actually post their concerns on talk pages, this tag is so easy to abuse with drive-by tagging that will leave editors somewhat at a loss as to exactly what needs doing. -- Sabre (talk) 13:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I agree that it makes it easier for editors to identify the problem if a reason (or even just a word like 'References') that directs the editor to where they need to clean up. If the clean up is required throughout the article, then something like 'General cleanup' should be written. Kinkreet (talk) 17:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I haven't read all the responses to this, but my feeling is that I shouldn't be forced into typing a reason for cleanup. I use the cleanup tag to indicate that the article has many problems. The "reason" I would enter is, "this article is a mess". That's what the cleanup tag means, at least in my mind. Also it is a nice simple tag for newer uses to use. Let's not make wiki-speak more complicated than it already is. Yes, there are many articles tagged with this. And we'll probably never clean it all up. So what? We'll never be done writing the encyclopedia anyway. There will always be cleanup to do whether or not it is specified with a "reason". --Fang Aili ^talk 19:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

  "this article is a mess" would be perfectly fine by me, and vastly better than nothing. The main benefit of this requirement is to give me as a backlog worker some idea of why the tag was originally placed, so I can easily determine whether the issue is now resolved. If I know that the original reason was just "this article is a mess" then I am free to remove the tag when I no longer deem it be a mess, whereas with no reason specified I am left wondering if I have missed something. -- LWG ^talk 20:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Fang Aili, for being up front about the way you use this tag. When you use this tag, but you don't specify a reason, not even a "this article is a mess" reason, I would be interested to know what you expect. Do you expect other editors (who often check the category and come to these articles with a desire to fix what's wrong) to read your mind? There you are, with the types of edits necessary to clean up the article fresh in your mind, and yet you don't leave a reason so that other editors will know why you added the tag? What's up with that? Do you at least open a discussion on the article's Talk page to give other editors at least an idea of what you feel is necessary to change? (Please note that it is very important to me that I do not in any way make you feel badly about this. I would just like to understand the reasoning and logic of adding this maintenance tag without showing or listing the things you feel need to be cleaned up.) – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  22:54, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I do not want to have to add a reason for all articles that require cleanup, because sometimes there are many issues with an article, it would take too much time, and it could reduce or constrain editor creativity, making them less open-minded and focusing them on solving one problem when there are many. There are other more specialized templates out there, and currently this is in a general "catch-all" usage which is necessary for articles with many problems and articles that don't necessarly fit into one single problem/reason. BlowingTopHat (talk) 21:09, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

  Attempting to determine why an article was tagged where no reason is given is also a huge waste of editors' time. An article tagged "cleanup" without a reason is no easier to fix than an article with no tag at all, and given the sheer number of articles with that tag it does little to help editors find articles in need of fixing. -- LWG ^talk 21:16, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support In some large and complex articles it is sometimes nearly impossible to find why or where it needs cleanup. Plus I personally feel that this template is being overused on articles that do not need cleanup at all. Requiring a valid explanation will reduce the unnecessary use.Charles Dayton (Talk) 12:36, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support If there is a problem worth tagging, the person responsible should make it known why there's a problem, plain and simple. -Kai445 (talk) 16:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support per my previous comments at TfD and this talk page. What I would stress to the doubters is that we are not dictating particular standards for the reason parameter. As has been stressed above, "this article is a mess" would be appropriate for articles where the problems are numerous and obvious at a glance (in theory these are the articles this template should be used on). More descriptive reasons for less obvious problems would save massive amounts of time for the people attempting to do the work, and ensure that tags are not inappropriately removed. —WFC— 19:43, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support Not everybody knows more specific templates, but people can at least type a few words saying what they found wrong with the article. With a mandatory reason, an experienced editor might use a script that looks for key words in the reason parameter and suggests more specific templates. Without it, nobody knows what the tagger meant. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 23:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support A brief list, some major points, some minor. Other editors can shorten the list as items are addressed. Varlaam (talk) 06:31, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support I agree with most points listed by supports above. Although I do admit that it can be tiresome to have to list small things that need to be improved, on the other side it would be possible to specify the need for a more general cleanup. Making the reason tag mandatory would ensure that they're used the way they should be - not as flaming instrument but as a somewhat objectively understandable request for improvement on a specific problem. This would also make it a lot easier to remove the tags (sometimes I've read or edited articles where I've wondered whether I should remove such tags or not).Erget2005 (talk) 09:16, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Hyacinth (talk) 11:24, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Please provide a |reason= for your vote :p Skullers (talk) 20:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Ahem, we've got WP:TC for specifics; and same reason as placed by TJRC and others in opposition. All reasons requiring a cleanup can easily be placed on talk, we do not necessarily need to clutter the article with more bigger tags. Again, it will not stop tag by drive, because one might readily place the string, "a lot of reasons, and it is completely a mess" or similar strings to the param, reason. Having the parameter "reason" is helpful, and often really be necessary, but making it mandatory does not work. My best insight is that, reason parameter be used in such a way that, an editor can place a link to the talk entry describing and discussing cleanup; that would rather speed up improving article than simply pasting notes on article about how to cleanup. » nafSadh did say 17:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

  That would be wonderful if taggers would point to a specific section on the talk page. Yet, so many times I find nothing on the talk page, niente, nada. At least, when you are forced to provide a reason it becomes obvious whether the tagger has given some thought before tagging or not. Nageh (talk) 17:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

  From my point of view as a backlog shoveler, the main benefit of this rule would be to distinguish between drive-by tags and legitimate issues that just weren't obvious to me at first glance, allowing me to remove the former without fear of removing the latter. Currently, when I see a cleanup tag which lacks a talk page clarification I cannot easily tell whether it is safe to remove it. -- LWG ^talk 18:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Support – I don't find these boilerplates at all informative. If an article is fishy I don't need some hastily plopped-down box telling me such. If you're going to cast aspersions on an entire article at least have the courtesy of enumerating your concerns. Vranak (talk) 18:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Support - As i said at the TFD this template is useless without a mandatory reason.Edinburgh Wanderer 19:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC) Duplicate vote.Edinburgh Wanderer 23:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly support – It is so annoying when you see this template with out a reason parameter. People who are too lazy to add them should know that the rest of us cannot read your mind, and it's not that obvious to us why the article needs cleanup if you don't add a reason. Adding a reason should be strongly encouraged by having a bot be created that posts a message on people's user talk pages telling them they added a {{cleanup}} tag but failed to provide a reason why and that they are strongly encouraged to do so. —Compdude¹²³ 04:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Editors should be encouraged to give a reason and/or explain the tag on the talk page, but not mandated to do either. In fact, I would prefer editors to be encouraged to discuss things on talk rather than adding reasons to the template, but that doesn't really fit with the AWB culture of rapidly tagging large numbers of articles. I don't see a reason an editor shouldn't be allowed to place a generic cleanup template on an article accompanied by a discussion on the talk page. Sławomir Biały (talk) 10:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  This is exactly what we are proposing with this RFC. The tagger should provide a reason either inline (reason=This is the reason.) or within a section on the talk page (reason=See Talk:#Section), but not use the tag without providing any reason at all, which happens too many times, IMO. Nageh (talk) 12:53, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  This isn't what he is proposing. He says that people should not be mandated to do provide a reason. That means people should not be forced to provide a reason.Curb Chain (talk) 14:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  Please reread Slawomir's last sentence. I don't think we are asking too much if we request the template to be accompanied by a pointer to the relevant section on the talk page. Nageh (talk) 14:52, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  I think you are asking too much and this is beyond the scope of this rfc.Curb Chain (talk) 14:58, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  Then obviously you do not understand what all these discussions are about. Nageh (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  Really? What test do you have to prove so?Curb Chain (talk) 05:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support - I am mainly a reader of Wikipedia and do editing as part of maintaining a resource I find useful and as reciprocity to give freely since I have received freely. Cleanup tags are distracting and ugly when I come to an article. They do not help me find the information I need. Though I see their utility, I consider them unencyclopedic; Encyclopedia Americana, Britannica, and World Book all lacked cleanup tags. Thus cleanup tags should be removed as soon as the problem is cleaned up. However, without a reason, it is not clear why the tag is present. This has prevented me from removing them in the past. I have read articles and they seemed fine to me, but with the tag there, I wondered if the other editor saw something that I didn't and I didn't want to take the time to go through the voluminous talk page. Having read this discussion, I believe that the solution to my personal problem is just to be bold in removing vague cleanup tags. However, for the sake of my fellow casual editors, requiring the reason and/or a talk page pointer could reduce the number of still-around-after-4-years cleanup tags. BrotherE (talk) 15:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support alternative – Simply put: I support solving the problem, not making the reason= parameter mandatory. The problem is that Wikipedia has an unimaginably huge room for improvement while it lacks sufficient enthusiastic bold editors; in fact, it is losing them. Most of the existing editors or visitor see the problems but do not dare to fix them. Fleet Command (talk) 17:08, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support The template is infinitely more useful when a reason is given.165.123.24.44 (talk) 19:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Strong oppose I'm sure this point has been made in this rather lengthy discussion, but the ambiguity of this tag is its real strength. Specific complaints can be addressed with other templates; this one serves as a warning to the reader that the article doesn't represent Wikipedia's best, and an exhortation to editors to make it otherwise. It is difficult for me to see why we should retain this template if more specific complaints are always to be listed. Keep in mind that WP:RESPTAG is just an essay. --BDD (talk) 22:24, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

The primary purpose of cleanup templates (which I mean generally) is to help people clean up Wikipedia. We have a general warning to readers, Wikipedia:General disclaimer. Superm401 - Talk 22:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. However, I would support requiring either reason= or the proposed discuss= at the tagger's discretion. `discuss=` would simply link to a talk page section. I've used {{cleanup}} without a reason, believing in good faith that the issues would be mostly apparent to other editors. However, I accept that we all view articles differently, and even a brief reason or talk page comment is useful. Superm401 - Talk 22:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  If this is your opinion then please change your vote to support. See #Transclusons that don't have the reason specified, where I suggested a talk parameter, and this discussion, where it is suggested to simply state reason=See talk section.. The specific implementation, i.e., adding a talk or discuss parameter, is a trivial case. Nageh (talk) 23:52, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  I don't support the proposal as stated by Aircorn. Right now, the template says, "The talk page may contain suggestions.", so I can post on talk, then tag with just {{cleanup}}. I support changing the second step to require a discussion link, but I don't think editors should have to make their own phrasing and link. I think I've made clear that I would support a different proposal. An easy link to an individual section would be very useful on busy talk pages.Superm401 - Talk 03:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

  No, sorry, I don't understand. You said you would support requiring either the reason or the talk/discuss parameter. This is what this proposal would effect. Nageh (talk) 18:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

  I understand that people have suggested a talk/discuss parameter elsewhere on this page. However, that is not part of Aircorn's proposal at the top of this section. I would support a new, reformulated proposal that allowed both reason= and discuss=. Superm401 - Talk 22:59, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

  While this proposal asks for the reason be made mandatory, it doesn't say how this is to be achieved. A possible solution might be to have default text in the template saying "See Talk:Pagename#Cleanup" and if possible a bot could then remove tags that contain this text but no corresponding talk page section after a day or two. The aim is to only have cleanup tags with reasons on articles. I am open to any ideas on how to accomplish this and if this succeeds it will probably involve another long discussion or two on how to implement it. AIRcorn (talk) 00:22, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support. The template is very broad and so could therefore be added to half of the articles on WP. I want to see a day when there are no longer any big banner templates strung across the top of an article, and forcing an editor to add a reason is one way of achieving this goal. I have added the template using Twinkle on occasion and not always added a reason when Twinkle asked me to. That is sloppy editing behaviour in my opinion. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. It would be much simpler for many beginner users to be able to tag simply as {{cleanup}}, than to have to understand how the "reason=" parameter works, and what the possible reasons are. This would keep those users from becoming discouraged, and possibly not tagging an article that required cleanup, while a cleanup template that is not tagged as reason can probably be fixed most of the time simply by an older member asking why the cleanup is needed, and then correcting the tag.14jbella (talk) 01:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

  Could this be set to alert someone whenever one is created without a reason tag allowing someone to quickly message the user who tagged it to figure out why it was tagged.14jbella (talk) 01:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support as per proposal. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and presumably ugliness is too: when no reason is supplied, it's often not obvious what can be done. I rarely improve pages with no reason for their cleanup tags simply because I don't know what to do to resolve the objections of whoever placed the tag. 14jbella's objection can easily be overcome by simple instructions: the warning message resulting from the lack of a reason could include really basic instructions on how to fix the problem. Nyttend (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - A ridiculous proposal that seeks to sacrifice the readability and functionality of the encyclopedia, and its hope for improvement, to an aesthetic criteria that only experienced editors grow to hate. If the article's bad enough to warrant a cleanup tag, then the aesthetics of the tag are the least of its worries. To say otherwise is brushing the issue under the rug. Shadowjams (talk) 09:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

  Whoever in this discussion said the proposal's rationale was based on aesthetic grounds??? And sacrifices functionality? On the contrary, it is aimed at improving functionality by providing a reason somewhere, either inline or at the talk page, but not no reason at all. Sigh. Nageh (talk) 13:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - seems to serve it's purpose rather nicely, in my eyes, for those circumstances where an article needs attention in many different ways. I'd rather see one of these on a page than multiple tags listing specific areas of concern when it's pretty obvious what they are. Nikthestoned 10:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
• It didn't get deleted in February? How disappointing... Well, in that case making "reason" mandatory is the very least we could do. Alternatively, I propose renaming this template to {{IdontlikethisarticlefixitnowcauseIcantbebothered}}. Support.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 14, 2012; 13:22 (UTC)
• Support. the template is essentially useless without the reason parameter. --TorriTorri(^talk/_contribs) 00:22, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support Useless without a hint as to why article was tagged. Nobody Ent 01:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. In most cases where cleanup is required, the reasons are evident, and are multiple. If any specific problems exist in the article, templates exist to report them. Cleanup is used by editors when there is no specific problem to be reported, but the article is obviously of low quality. Geeteshgadkari (talk) 12:26, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

  Most the wiki is of low quality: That is what we have rankings like Stub, Start, etc. Cleanup should be reserved for articles with serious issues such as misuse of formatting code, disorganized lists of information, etc. -- LWG ^talk 20:53, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support. The inclusion of a tag - especially a drive by tag - is simply a copy and paste exercise. Making useful suggestions perhaps on the talk page would be much more useful. It might even be better if the editor who puts the tag down were to spend some time fixing the identified problem(s) instead of simply moving on.
• Support. I can see a variety of opinions on this matter here. I suspect that those that are opposed are those who place most of the tags and those who support this idea are those who add the most content. While this last statement is likely to be a gross over simplification I suspect it may in essence be correct.DrMicro (talk) 13:59, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - If the article sucks badly, then it is seen without template, so in this case its purpose AFAIK is to list the page in the category, to be scheduled for mopping. For a lazy drive-by tagger, this demand for reason is easily circumventable: just put "reason=it sucks". A reminder bevore saving about the missing reason can be a good idea. But the anticipated formal removal/disabling of thousands of old tags is not so good. A dubiois template may be just as easily removed, as placed. If diligent, leave a note in the talk page. If nobody objects within reason, then done with it. Lothar Klaic (talk) 19:59, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

  The hope is that drive-by taggers will just say "reason=it sucks". If they do, then it is super easy to go through the list of tags and remove the drive-by ones. As it is, it takes a significant amount of time to distinguish between frivolous drive-by tags and legitimate tags whose reasons just weren't immediately obvious. This is time that backlog works don't have to spend fixing more articles. -- LWG ^talk 20:47, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Note: the following three replies have been moved from the section "Technical Implementation", as they belong in this section.

• Oppose the reason for the cleanup tag will be obvious 95% of the time. While use of |reason= should be encouraged, it should not be mandatory. The only significant impact making this field mandatory will make is create a humongous cleanup backlog where we have to cleanup the cleanup backlog, and a bunch of people will remove the tags without doing any cleanup. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

  Here are five random articles that are tagged with "cleanup". Can you please give me your take on what the obvious reason they were tagged is? (also, this section is for technical implementation. You probably meant to post in the support/oppose section above.) -- LWG ^talk 19:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

  Indeed that's what I meant. As for the core of the question, bad invocations of the template should obviously be removed, and so are dated use where the concerns no longer apply, but that's not an issue with proper use of the template (e.g. Anticuchos (no solid lead, lack of wikification, single-sentence paragraphs, etc...). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

  So you're saying that you feel it would be uncontroversial to just remove any use of this tag where the issues are not immediately obvious? Because that would satisfy my main concern, which is about the blight of tags where no one is sure what the problem is and no one wants to take time for a thorough check before removing. -- LWG ^talk 00:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  No. I'm saying that there's no problem removing a tag if you can't figure out why it's there after spending a reasonable amount of time looking at the article. For example that Kanako Maeda article, which you consider to 'not be immediately obvious', had several pretty obvious cleanup issues, such as several spacings mistakes, bare links for reference, one empty section, a tiny 'bio' section which should have been incorporated in the lead, a lead with irrelevant facts about the series rather than facts about the actress, no stub template, unitalicized titles of series, etc... Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

  Well, I'm representing the viewpoint of a backlog shoveler here. If the tag had had "poor lead, multiple formatting errors" as the reason it would have taken me about 3 seconds to determine that yes, there are problems, and whether those problems are ones I can handle or whether they should be left to someone with more interest in the article. As it is, if I have to spend "a reasonable amount of time" just determining what action is required, the task of working through 20,000 backlogged articles becomes insurmountable. Making the reason parameter mandatory would involve several extra seconds of thought for the tagger, and would drive some percentage away from tagging, but would greatly streamline the task of actually addressing the problems, which is, IMO, more important. I'd rather see more articles actually being fixed while some go untagged because it is too much trouble for the tagger than see all problem articles tagged and few fixed because it is too much trouble for the fixer. -- LWG ^talk 15:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

* Support as per proposal. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

• You have already commented at 01:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC).Curb Chain (talk) 13:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• And based on the time stamp that is this same comment, which I did not add. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• I think I may have accidentally duplicated your comment when I moved several comments from the "technical implementation" section to here. Sorry about that. -- LWG ^talk 19:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Strong Support - the template is too vague to be of any use unless there is a reason for the tag provided. Wer900 (talk) 04:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support for the same reasons I supported this in the AFD. I read all of the oppose comments above, but find them not convincing at all. 83.87.4.157 (talk) 23:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support — I have often seen this template with no reason and no discussion on the talk page. I find it difficult to take seriously people who criticise others for sloppiness but cannot be bothered themselves to write a line or two describing the problems that irk them. I would favour this approach: upon seeing problems in an article, (1) try to fix them; if you cannot or do not have the time, (2) report them on the talk page (you don’t have to list all the problems, by the way; just do what you can); if you cannot even do that, please relax and do not feel so important that you must tag the article right now; if the article is so problematic, someone else will take care about it, so please just leave it alone. In fact, I would favour making the proposed discuss field mandatory so that discussion becomes a pre-requisite for tagging. When finding many fundamental problems with an article, the first impulse (shy of fixing) should be to discuss. When the talk section itself becomes substantial enough, then it becomes judicious to tag the article, with a link to the discussion.
  — Wlgrin 07:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support — I believe that if someone has already used time to find problems within the article, they should specify those problems. Otherwise, the second to come would have to (upon seeing the tag) search the article a second time to find the problem themselves, thereby negating some effort of the first to come. Even a general description of what is wrong would help increase efficieny of time and work. Shirudo talk 08:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Comments: 1) Several have commented that an article may have too many problems to list. But, as others have pointed out, we aren't looking for a laundry list, just give a general brief reason to point us into the right direction so we aren't looking for one thing when you were looking at another. 2) Some have commented that, with some articles, the reason will be obvious. As already said, what may be obvious to one may not be obvious to others. 3) An example of a situation where wasted time could have been avoided. A user added a cleanup template with no reason listed. With other editors baffled asking each other on the Talk page if they saw any problems, she was asked (3 days later) on her User Talk what the issue was. She replied that the article (which was about a British neighborhood) is full of spelling errors such as every use of the word "color" being spelled "colour." The cleanup template was soon removed. 4) I try to add an edit summary to every edit I make regardless of how many changes or how obvious the changes may be. I haven't found it difficult to explain what I've done in the few characters permitted for an edit summary. The times I felt a clearer explanation was needed, I followed up with a comment on the article Talk page. IMHO, if it isn't too difficult for us to explain what we did in an edit summary (yes, I know some people don't seem to bother with edit summaries), I don't think it would be so difficult to give some kind of a reason. And, since adding this template to a page, by its own purpose, will affect other editors, and since a given reason will help save those editors some time, I feel, IMHO, that the reason should be mandatory. — al-Shimoni (talk) 11:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I think comment 3 is particularly important. One advantage of this is that we will be able to quickly decipher tags that have been missapplied. I suggested it in a discussion above, but it was purely hypothetical. An actual example of this is great evidence for the usefulness of this proposal. AIRcorn (talk) 14:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support - Wikipedia is littered with stupid little templates which clutter articles and make them look less reliable than they really are to our readership. We make it far too easy for someone to say "Cleanup!" and then just wander off and let others bear the load. Requiring them to (at the very least) give a reason why they think it needs cleaning will slow down the people who seem to delight in littering our articles with pointless tags and encourage people to fix the problem themselves - or at least give others a clear indication of what needs to be done. It's also a lot easier to remove a ridiculous cleanup tag if the reason for it being there is explicit and demonstrably wrong. SteveBaker (talk) 12:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Apart from many other good reasons mentioned above it makes removal of the template a less hit and miss affair. At the moment it is usually unclear exactly what requires cleanup so, after an editor has done some cleaning s/he may either: Remove the template before all required cleanup has been performed or leave the template when no further cleanup is required. The only alternative to leaving vast swathes of spurious templates is to be bold and remove them and assume someone will put them back if they still feel the article needs work. PRL42 (talk) 13:00, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support vague templates like this help neither readers nor editors. Tagging an article with such a banner should at minimum give a good hint as to which areas the article is lacking and provide sufficient links to appropriate guidelines to help inexperienced editors learn how to write better articles. The banner is overused and encumbering its use will encourage more thoughtful application. Arsenikk ^(talk) 15:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support I'm not convinced by the 'drive-by tagging is no problem' rationale, as someone who works on a similar backlog, it's my opinion that drive-by tagging with no reason given for a tag like this hides the articles which actually do need action, but the tagger themselves didn't want, or know how to fix it. If your reason why cleanup is required is too long and complex to go in the reason parameter, then put it on the talk page, how else are people meant to decipher why cleanup is needed. This change will mean that a little more time will be required to tag an article, but it will reduce the number of person-hours required to clean up the an article, that seems like a plus for the project in genreal. Quasihuman | Talk 16:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - editors need to be provided at least a basic feedback on where and how to improve the article. Whether that's on the template or in the talk page I don't care; a mandatory |reason= or |discuss= or |whatever= parameter will do in any case. – Kosm1fent 17:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Support - Most of my edits are done by looking at clean up lists, which means most of them are made to articles I'm not an expert on. A generic 'clean up' tag usually results in me just moving on to the next item in the list. Also, given how often 'merge' tags aren't accompanied by a new section in the talk page, I don't think that's an acceptable alternative to this proposal. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose silly bureaucratic non-sense like this debate and over complication of a simple thing like a cleanup tag is part of the reason why my edit count has dropped from thousands of edits a year to almost none. People wonder why there are a lack of editors and why people retire, this conversation sums it up nicely. It's a simply self explanatory tag, don't over complicate the mater. Ridernyc (talk) 02:46, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

So you are saying that because people discuss the operation of Wikipedia - in a manner that in no way forces you to take part - you reduce your editing activities by several orders of magnitude and go to the effort of not only commenting but voting on something that you do not appear to believe should even be being discussed in the first place. Not wishing to be rude but you seem extremely confused. Why not simply ignore discussions that are of no interest to you? PRL42 (talk) 10:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Because if I ignore the conversation then the simple act of putting a generic cleanup tag on an article become needlessly bureaucratic and complicated. Not everything needs a 15 step notarized process to work and be effective. If you see an article that has no obvious problems remove the tag, if you see problems fix them then remove the tag. I'm extremely confused as to why this very very simple and elementary system is not understood by people who want to make it more complicated. Ridernyc (talk) 17:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that what is "obvious problems" to you might not be obvious to me or another editor trying to fix articles. For example, earlier I posted these five randomly selected articles that had the tag. While I saw no "obvious problems" in any of them, another editor was able to find several problems. So if we follow the "just remove the tag if no obvious issues" advice, there's going to be a lot of tags removed when they really shouldn't be: I would have removed all five of those tags, without the original problems being fixed. This proposal isn't calling for a huge bureaucratic process, it's just asking that when to put the tag on an article you at least give us a few words worth of insight into your brain so we can tell the difference between an annoying drive-by tagger and a helpful editor who saw a problem we missed at first glance. -- LWG ^talk 17:41, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Again if you don't see an obvious problem remove the tag. People are making a mountain out of a molehill here. Ridernyc (talk) 18:58, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support (subject to graceful implementation, meaning avoiding things like red error messages that would be conspicuous to readers as opposed to editors). Placing a tag like this on an article is saying you'd like someone else to do some work. It seems to me only fair to whoeve eventually does that work that you tell then what you wanted, rather than expect them to second-guess you. --Stfg (talk) 16:33, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support - I never liked this template in the first place and voted for it to be deleted, but if it's going to stick around then a reason must be mandatory. Much more useful than "something's wrong here". QueenCake (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support–(USE NDASHES) To clarify stuff. --J (t) 19:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support; Many times I've run across articles where editors have placed cleanup templates yet have left no indication of what must be improved. A reason, whether specific or general, should be supplied in the best interest of the article's improvement. Prayerfortheworld (talk) 00:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support: A short reason would help enormously. I tire of finding this tag and then wondering why it is there. Drive by tagging needs to be discouraged. HairyWombat 03:12, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Almost always the article this tag is used on needs obvious, cleanup. If there's no obvious problem, just go ahead and remove the tag. By necessitating a mandatory parameter, it's making another tiny step towards editing harder for inexperienced users. Plus, as others have discussed, sometimes ambiguity is a plus and it can be with this tag. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
• Very Strong Support. If someone can bring up the effort to find pages that need to be cleaned up, they can also put in a little bit of extra effort to actually type down why they think the page should be tagged with the template. 84.198.56.170 (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I think people are supporting forcing a reason because this helps themselves improve an article but forget that there are editors who are not experienced enough to use a more specific template, or ignorant of the right template to use.Curb Chain (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It is an unconvincing argument that editors may be aware of this cleanup template but not of others, or are not "experienced" enough to use another template. Even if so we can expect them provide a reason for why they think cleanup is necessary. Nageh (talk) 02:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

as an experienced editor, i have spent 20 minutes or more trying to find a specific tag that I knew existed and still wasnt able to locate it.-- The Red Pen of Doom 21:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is not about using other templates, but making this one more useful. An editor might not know about {{Over-quotation}}, but they can use this template and then as a reason say "there are too many long quotations in this article". AIRcorn (talk) 23:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Well then they can use {{Over-quotation}} instead of having to use {{cleanup}} and being required to type "there are too many long quotations in this article".Curb Chain (talk) 04:43, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I find it hard to follow your logic. At the top you said that these new editors might not know about the other templates and now you are saying that they should use them instead. AIRcorn (talk) 06:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not only my logic you should consider. It's rather the logic of all editors you should consider and not just how this template should be useful to a certain segment of editors.Curb Chain (talk) 07:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't follow you, either. Aircorn says, ". . . An editor might not know about Template:Over-quotation, . . .", and then you propose that, ". . . they can use Template:Over-quotation instead of having to use Template:Cleanup . . .". Please explain to me like I'm a six-year-old, how can editors who don't know about a template be expected to use it? – PIE ( CLIMAX )  03:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the reason parameter should remain optional; if an editor feels a page needs cleanup, some other editor can go to the page and at least improve it, regardless of weather or not the improvement solved the issuedissue that concerned the tagger.Curb Chain (talk) 04:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Curb Chain, I understand that you are among the editors who do not support the need for editors to give reasons for their article tag, or at least, that they should not be made to do so. That does not address my question, though. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  04:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

"(Consider using more specific cleanup instructions.)" points to the page listing more specific templates, apparently {{over-quotation}} was missing from the list. Skullers (talk) 21:19, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I would not think this discussion would be necessary if people would use these tags in a reasonable way. The FBI article mentioned above is a prime example for what is wrong with the tag. Of course, something needs to be cleaned up in the article, and as an experienced editor you will always find things for improvement. Heck, after all this is true for every article not at a featured-article state. But what exactly did the tagger want to point out needing my attention that he put a tag on top of the article, screaming aloud that the article is in need of cleanup? Curiously, the talk page doesn't elucidate that at all, saying that the article "needs cleanup because it is so important". I do find many articles important, should I start plastering them all with generic cleanup templates without specifying a real reason? Nageh (talk) 10:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I clean up featured articles everyday; fixing things they passed with. It's a low, uneven bar. Alarbus (talk) 11:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

So let's tag every single article for cleanup, or what is your argument? Nageh (talk) 11:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

That would be WP:POINTY. I already made my 'argument' above; you are making yours everywhere. Kindly stop badgering everyone. Alarbus (talk) 12:32, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I have rarely met a person assuming so much bad faith like you do. I am attempting to discuss constructively, you accuse me of "badgering everyone", "personally attacking people", and "battelgrounding". Please apologize! Nageh (talk) 12:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Add to this that you accuse me of "making my argument everywhere" when I honestly try to understand what are the problems at core and to find a reasonable solution. I assume this should be obvious from my postings. If others feel the same I invite you to speak out. If efforts to constructively participate are met with only hostility then it is time for me to leave Wikipedia editing as well. Nageh (talk) 12:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Don't hold your breath. And go work on FBI rather than edit war over the cleanup tag; someone might think you've a point to make. Alarbus (talk) 13:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I count your ID 19 times on this page; badger much? Before you go, read meatball:GoodBye. Alarbus (talk) 13:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Participating constructively in a discussion is badgering??? Nageh (talk) 13:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

See how easy it was to find things needing cleanup in FBI??? Alarbus (talk) 13:10, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Great, Alarbus! You have changed lots of "Cite" template names to "cite"! Now go ahead and tag each and every single article on Wikipedia with a cleanup tag because it is so easy to find something to complain about rather than trying to be constructive in a discussion like this. Thank you! Nageh (talk) 13:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

More in there than that, and you saw it. Go badger someone else; better yet, go edit an article instead of trolling a template talk page. Alarbus (talk) 13:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Not for anything, Alarbus, but as I look at this discussion, I see that editor Nageh initiated this part, and then you responded. Then Nageh responded, essentially asking you to elaborate. And all of a sudden, Nageh is badgering you? I don't see that. I do see two editors who might want to step out of the discussion for a time to perhaps gain a better perspective of the actual problem with this template? Just a suggestion. Good, solid improvements seldom take place while two good editors gnaw away at each other. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  03:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if an (optional) user preference that would warn users if they did not provide a reason would work, similar to that user preference that would warn about blank edit summaries. But it could just annoy the heck out of people, people would probably not use it, and there could be problems with implementation through code. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The more I think about it the more I think WP:RESPTAG should be upgraded to a guideline in order to avoid such discussions. I have only dealt with one persistent drive-by-tagger in my early wiki carrier (a lasting experience, it seems) but I have since learned that most editors practicing themselves in excessive tagging are simply newbies who do not yet have a feeling for when tagging is appropriate and who never get educated in this regard by more experienced editors. Nageh (talk) 12:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

You need to not use the term 'drive-by' that way; it is a sweeping personal attack and indicative of a WP:BATTLEGROUND approach you're taking. And that essay seems a 35kb rant. Alarbus (talk) 12:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

If you feel that WP:RESPTAG should be a guideline, I encourage you to to proposal so although determining weather someone has tagged vandalistically is in my opinion one of the hardest things to determine.Curb Chain (talk) 04:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is not vandalistic tagging, it's unconstructive tagging. If an article has legitimate problems, tagging it with "general cleanup" does nothing to aid editors who are trying to fix the article, does nothing to bring specialist editors to the article, and is hard for backlog workers to determine whether to remove. With a reason, editors working on the article are pointed in the right direction, editors who specialize in specific areas can see at a glance whether they are needed, and it is easy to determine when the issue is resolved. -- LWG ^talk 21:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

just because some people are annoyed by a reason-less tag is no cause to forcibly alter everyone else's behavior. that is petty bureaucracy and rulemaking. if a tag has no reason it will hopefully cause a much more thorough review by those who really care about the appearance of the tag on said article, i.e. its readers, editors, or contributors. anybody else could be considered a tourist. i realize that stating "hopefully" is a projection, but so are most of the arguments here. people want to translate personal wikipedia experiences into universal guidelines, and at some point this has to stop. i would be annoyed by a reason-less tag in any article i am interested in. however i would deal with the issue at hand immediately and specifically and keep dealing with it until the issue was resolved one way or the other. because i'm interested in the article, not in editing guidelines or proposals. imo, the general use of the tag without reason is as valid as my specific opposition to it. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 19:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

We are not asking for much. The tag should not be applied without a reason in the first place so it should not be hard to leave one. AIRcorn (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

you are asking for a whole lot. you are trying to mandate the actions of every editor who uses the template. your proposal is restrictive and final. its utility is dubious, at best. i haven't seen a compelling reason for such restriction without recourse. the whole thing looks like legalistic micromanagement. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure how many responding here are familiar with the recent deletion discussion, but about one third of the respondents there made this suggestion. If we can't improve the template there will most likely be a fifth nomination and this time the Keep but make mandatory !votes will carry less weight. AIRcorn (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

i think there should definitely be more attention paid to resubmissions. i think that any resubmission of a tfd should carry a weight, unless new reasoning is provided. for example, an added weight of 10% per non-original resubmission. so if the submission needs 50%+1 votes, the 1st resubmission without new rationale should need 55%+1 vote, the 2nd resub 60.5%+1 vote etc. since the merits of the template have been discussed and decided one way or another in the original submission, this would help expand the discussion towards the proper area: the merits of the resubmission. this can be applied retroactively. in this instance a tfd for the generic cleanup template would need about 74%+1 vote if it was determined that the resubmissions did not provide new reasons. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

This whole proposal is an end run around TfD where it was quite clear that there was no consensus for a mandatory reasoning.... this is an attempt to convert the deletes at the TfD (who had a completely untennable position) into "pro mandatory" votes now. This is cynical even by xfD standards. Shadowjams (talk) 09:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The question at the tfd was not to make the reason mandatory but to delete the template, the person who nominated it was quite clear about that in his responses. Even so a lot of comments included that in their keep reasoning. Now that this specific question has been asked we can see what the consesus is. It is not a run around, it is a transparent attempt to improve a template whose existence has no consensus. AIRcorn (talk) 10:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

And closure was "I think that the outcome of all the extended tl;dr below is that while there is no consensus for deletion, there is certainly room for improvement. Drive-by tagging of articles has always been a blight. Slapping a template on the top of an article runs opposite to our core value of WP:SOFIXIT, and this template tends to stay on for so long that its use really loses meaning. This discussion should certainly result in changes, and I would urge some of those who expressed an opinion below to be WP:BOLD about it. " Bulwersator (talk) 17:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

65.88.88.127, are you aware that this discussion is not about the deletion of the tag (since the result of that discussion was No Consensus), but about a particular change to the template which had strong support among the editors at the TFD? I think what Aircorn is saying is that, given that a large percentage of those who voted "Keep" did so under the condition that this change be made, if there is no consensus for this change to be made then the next TFD will have to take that into account. -- LWG ^talk 17:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

correct. imo this RFC has nothing to do with a hypothetical "next tfd". this proposal will be decided here. whether it is passed or defeated, i don't see how it figures in any future discussion of the template as a whole. as for my comment, it was addressing tfd resubmissions in general. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 19:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy and we reach consensus through reason, not by counting votes to any arbitrary percentage. Skullers (talk) 21:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

please don't say these things. all consensus decisions involve polling. all of them. decisions may not arrive with formal voting but with informal procedures: "it seems that most people [support/oppose]" "it is clear that..." "the most common argument..." etc etc. all these statements, to be true, involve polling of some sort, implicit or explicit. voting is just a practical, short-hand expression of opinion. it is also easier to tabulate than scanning all opinions and saying things like "i think consensus has been reached...." consensus does not happen by osmosis. it always, always involves polling by this or any other name. the text in the pages you linked includes some of the most insulting english in wikipedia. by twisting rudimentary logic about the actualities of consensus, they insult everyone's intelligence. please stop referring to them.

as for my comment regarding resubmissions, it was just an example. imo, resubmitting a tfd without new reasoning is profiteering, and damaging wikipedia. editors' time is a limited resource. some resubmissions waste this time on issues that have been exhausted. their resubmitters take valuable editor resources (time) without providing any benefit as "payment"; i think a tax, in the form of a weighted vote, can redress the profiteering, and potentially free editor time towards more pressing wikipedia needs. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Alright then, point taken.

• The first TfD closed as Snow Keep.
  
• The second as Keep: 42 Keep, 23 Keep and make the reason mandatory, 20 Delete
• The third as No consensus: 14 Keep, 7 Delete, 6 Deprecate
• The fourth as No consensus: 74 Delete, 69 Keep, 27 Keep and make the reason mandatory

(the threads are rather long so the numbers may be off by some amount)

During the first TfD, the template looked like this. Since then, the wording has been revised several times, and as of the latest it's almost twice longer. Depending on your screen resolution and browser setup it may take between 1 and 4 lines, assuming no |reason= is specified. Now people suggest adding yet more verbiage to it, so it ends up as some words of judgment of the content and the rest as instructions for usage of the tag.

While a TfD is different because it's about outright deletion, any change implemented as a result of this might be difficult to revert without more or less negating this entire process. Would we hold another rfc over it? A resubmission it would surely not be! Skullers (talk) 09:26, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Technical implementation

How is this supposed to be carried out technically? A grace period asking editors to supply a reason=, and then remove tags without a reason? By a bot, or by skimming through all the pages? How have changes like this been implemented previously? --hydrox (talk) 16:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I started asking that question above. Two options I see are to either simply remove any ones without the reason or to put some sort of default reason on those old ones. There are over 25 000 transclusions of this template with no reason so it will be a bot task either way. Then we need to apply some code here to only let the template work if a reason is given. AIRcorn (talk) 23:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is precisely what would happen if we can reach a consensus. The code will include the encoded option of generating an {{Editnotice}} in accordance with WP:Editnotice. This will inform taggers of the need to include a reason(s), or else the template will not be visible in the article. If I'm not mistaken, there are also ways to encode this template to stay invisible until and unless the reason parameter is engaged. When this is done, those several thousand tags that are sans reason(s) will automatically disappear until a reason is added. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  04:51, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

ABSOLUTELY OPPOSE any bot based removal of tags based on the fact that are missing a reason tag without a specific RfC on that process. Just because there is no reason listed in a tag DOES NOT MEAN there is no issue within the article. -- The Red Pen of Doom 04:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Bots are sometimes good, sometimes not. That may depend on the type of bot and upon the job it's asked to do. I did not suggest doing the job with a bot, though. I think it can be done entirely by coding this template. As for your issue that "just because there is no reason listed in a tag does not mean there is no issue within the article", again, if an editor takes the time to read an article and decides that it needs to be cleaned up, then there is no good reason why that editor shouldn't take a little more time (since he or she obviously doesn't intend to do the cleanup themselves) to give a brief description via the reason= parameter as to what they feel needs to be cleaned up. And I ABSOLUTELY SUPPORT that a reason should be given or the cleanup template should be rendered invisible until and unless a reason is given. – PIE ( CLIMAX )  10:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

"absolute oppose" seconded i'd like to add that there's already some very dubious bot activity on wikipedia. my experience with bots has been uniformly negative, mostly countered with "well it works most of the time" or "in 99% of the cases," which i think are particularly specious arguments. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 18:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

"Absolute support" for invisible templates (without reason) per PIE Ncboy2010 (talk) 16:34, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Currently there is no fixed decision on how to implement this this change. If it is successful then that will be the next discussion. AIRcorn (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The way to do this would be to set a cut-off date for new tags. Any added, for example after March 2012 would need a reason field. The action if no reason were given could be one or some of the following:

• List in a (possibly dated) category
• Make invisible
• Remove by bot
• Notify the tagger on their talk page
• Remove by bot if the bot can't identify clean up reasons.
• Use an edit filter to prevent saving.

The default reason is already "no reason given" or something similar, so there's no need for a bot to retrofit that, if a different wording were chosen. Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC).

That is roughly what I was thinking. I wouldn't mind adding "If no reason for this tag can be found it may be removed" (or something similar) to the default wording. I like the edit filter idea. We will see what comes of the discussion, it could go either way at the moment. AIRcorn (talk) 23:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Also if a bot were to remove the template I believe the bot should run every 2-3 days removing any clean-up templates with no reason supported. If that were the case I would Support JayJay^{Talk to me} 03:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps for existing tags that came before the cut-off date, the bot could delete them if a more specific clean up tag was found within the same section of the article? To remove redundancies. Zangar (talk) 16:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Alternate solution If a tagger doesn't give a reason, we could put a big red error message on the page saying "Error, no reason provided for cleanup tag. To specify a reason instructions go here. If you fail to provide a reason, this tag will be removed.". This would be similar to the broken citation errors or the missing reflist errors. A bot could delete such error message tags after a couple of days. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 14:50, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
• irrelevant why doesn't everybody wait until the issue has been decided? it is one thing to find out whether this can be technically implemented. it is a whole other thing to drill down into the (uncertain) implementation. pls rm this section from the discussion, it is jumping the gun. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
• If we're talking about technical solutions, then all needs to be done is have a (normal message, none of that big red "ERROR" crap, saying no specific reason were given, but that the talk page might contain hints, and that if people can't figure out why the tag is there, it's fine to remove it). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Related issue

Participants in this discussion may be interested in reviewing the following threads: [3], [4], [5]. There are probably several other templates to which this might apply. 86.176.208.137 (talk) 03:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Close?

I think we've stopped covering new ground here. Jojalozzo 21:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

There's no rush to close this rfc. Wait until the 30 days please.Curb Chain (talk) 14:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, there ought to be some rush. The template for deletion tag is ugly and confusing to readers. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Notification

Could the following code be added to the template.

<center><small>Whether to make the {{para|reason}} mandatory for the {{tl|cleanup}} template is being discussed. See [[Template talk:Cleanup#Should the reason parameter be made mandatory|the request for comment]] to help reach a consensus.</small></center><hr>

It was decided above that this would be the best and most neutral way to advertise the RFC. It should display this on the template.

Whether to make the |reason= mandatory for the {{cleanup}} template is being discussed. See the request for comment to help reach a consensus.

---

Thank you AIRcorn (talk) 01:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done, but with slightly different markup cribbed from {{tfd}}. Anomie⚔ 21:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I am removing this text to "advertise the RFC".N It is bad enough that this maintenance template (used for an editor to editor communications) appears in article space and not on the talk page (see Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation/article#Most maintenance templates should be placed on the talk page). But this latest additional message (whatever one thinks of amber boxes) is a clear breach of the guidance in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid: "Mentioning that the article is being read on Wikipedia, or to Wikipedia policy or technicalities of using Wikipedia should be avoided where possible."

Just think about it for a moment a reader looks up "widget makers in Ruritania" to find out about widget making in that country and in the middle of the information about that comes the comment "Whether to make the |reason= mandatory for the {{cleanup}} template is being discussed ..." that is just confusing for that ordinary reader. As it happens the first article that appears in the links list to this template it is called Alternate history and the template appears in a section called "Cross-time stories". So a reader who knows little about Wikipedia and cares less searches on "Alternate history" and clicks on the TOC entry for "Cross-time stories" the first thing they read in that section is "Whether to make...". Whoops!

The problem here is that some editors are getting to wrapped up in the process of providing information and not in the presentation of that information. -- PBS (talk) 11:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

How is this different to a tfd notification? AIRcorn (talk) 12:01, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid: "Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions." - editors should be notified about change that may affect more than 24000 pages Bulwersator (talk) 12:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

There appears to be a little controversy surrounding Anomie's edit, and I think it was wrong to revert without first discussing the reversion. The edit was a good edit, in my opinion, and the RfC notice really needs to be added back in as soon as practicable! – PIE ( CLIMAX )  02:18, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I, also, don't agree that this causes a problem with self-references as described, since the notification would be formatted differently to the rest of the article. In my view, PBS should really consider putting it back. Tra (Talk) 03:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

PIE, it was not wrong to revert it (WP:BOLD -- an edit was made revert then discussion). Tra please read what I wrote about being involved in the process of creating an encyclopaedia rather than in the information contained within the encyclopaedia -- The edit in my opinion crosses that threshold and is against guidance.

"editors should be notified about change that may affect more than 24000 pages" (Bulwersator) At a technical level, if this change was to trigger a change in the watch list of editors who monitor any of the 25,000 pages, there might perhaps be a case for it, but this change will only trigger a change in the watch list of those who monitor the template not the pages on which it is placed, so it is a very inefficient way to inform interested editors of the change to the template and as an infringement in guidance that places a sentence that is not directly relevant to the information contained in 25,000 pages, so I will not revert my reversion. AIRcorn I had not appreciate that {{Tfd}} placed a message in article space, and I think that is a mistake as well (for the same reasons). If another administrator having read this conversation reverts my revert to this template then I have no objections to them doing so. -- PBS (talk) 08:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I did read that bit but, in my view, the edit is the other side of that threshold. And this notification is to appear on articles not watchlists so it would still be visible. As for Tfd putting messages in article space, I still think it's a reasonable comparison to make. I would put the message back myself but I feel I'm getting a little bit too involved given that I'm expressing my opinion here and PBS's wording is somewhat ambiguous as to whether 'another administrator' refers to me or not. I'll leave this request open. Tra (Talk) 13:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

There was clear consensus from editors on both sides of this discussion that a major change to this template should be discussed by as many of those that work with it as possible. There was an acknowledgement that TfD was not the ideal environment, but agreement that notification equivalent to that at TfD was necessary. This consensus has been unilaterally overridden (in good faith perhaps) by a technicality within the Manual of S***e. If the notification is not restored within 24 hours, the above discussion will be superseded by a TfD. —WFC— 19:55, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the CAT:PER queue doesn't get a huge amount of traffic so you would need to raise this somewhere that would get more interest. TfD is one venue but this generally isn't recommended unless you actually want to have the template deleted. There's also WP:AN to get attention from other admins. To be clear, I still (weakly) support the notification but I'd rather back off from putting it up myself. Tra (Talk) 20:35, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Restoring the the notification would be much more agreeable than converting this to a tfd. Some editors have already come here thinking it was a discussion about template delteion and that is likely to happen more often if it is held at tfd. The tfd notification is worded "The template below is being considered for deletion", which would only add to the confusion. At any rate PBS claimed WP:Bold for his edit. The next step in the process is "revert" then "discussion". The discussion has been done twice now (here and before it was implemented). The only thing stopping the revert is that most of us can't do it. Even if it is claimed that the first edit was bold and his was a revert the discussion is clearly in favour of having the notification. It is no coincidence that comments at the rfc have stalled since the notification was removed. AIRcorn (talk) 23:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Revert_requested_on_Template:Cleanup Bulwersator (talk) 23:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Restored per above. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 00:16, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I won't belabor the point, PBS, but it was indeed wrong to revert before discussion in the sense that this is a protected page, and any edit that might be controversial is expected to be discussed first. I've been chewed out by admins in the past just for adding an Editprotected template prior to a discussion. That WP:BOLD is appropriate when a page is not protected and all editors may be so bold. When an admin has already made a change that another admin does not agree with, it is common courtesy for the disagreement to take place on a talk page prior to reverting that admin's edit. Am I wrong? – PIE ( CLIMAX )  10:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I came here because I thought that there was a bug that caused this thing to appear. Seriously, at first it looked like somebody screwed up a template because of the large horizontal rule and all the visible wiki-gibberish. It's really rather unsightly. I would suggest throwing away the horizontal rule, but then it could be argued that the reader's eyes would not be drawn to the unnaturally small notice nestled above the big yellow box. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 04:26, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

It was formatted this way to replicate the tfd notice. The assumption being (at least from me) that this was already an acceptable way to advertise changes to templates. I admit that it looks particularly bad when the template is in a section. I have no objections to improving the look of the message (it could possibly lead to a bigger discussion on how to advertise tfds too). I guess it could be argued that since this template should only be applied to aticles that are already considered messy it will not make that much difference to its overall look, but this type of message would be particularly bad on Good or Featured articles. AIRcorn (talk) 14:41, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: Hidden sig

Quite often the reason for the cleanup (and whether it was fixed) is unclear, especially if it sits for a year.

I am wondering whether it would be useful and technically feasible to implement automacical signing the template with the username of the tagger, so that one may ask for the original cleanup reason when in doubt. If possible, I would sugget to implement it similarly to hidden categories, so that it will not increase the clutter for a random reader, but seen for a dedicated editor with the corresponding option turned on. Lothar Klaic (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

This would be awesome. In addition to helping with addressing old tags, it would help us identify chronic drive-by taggers and encourage them to be more specific, thus reducing the amount of backlog coming in. -- LWG ^talk 20:22, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

This is not necessary. Even if you did ask the tagger for the reason s/he put the tag on s/he is not sanctioned by policy to answer you.Curb Chain (talk) 07:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you, CC. The tag is dated, so if an editor wants to know who tagged the article, it's not that big a deal to go to the history page and focus on the date of the tag. However, I have found that even experienced editors become so involved with other things that they don't remember such things even a short time after placing them. So taggers are not usually able to remember why they tagged an article two years ago. This is yet another good reason to make the reason= parameter such that the maintenance tag will only be visible if that parameter is completed. – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  12:48, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:CIVILITY is a core policy on Wikipedia. Even if someone is not forced to respond to talk page inquiries not attempting to cooperate at all is a clear violation of this policy. Nageh (talk) 13:26, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

@PIE. Bit of a side note here, but I have found the date to be too broad with just the month and year. Many times tags are applied during a period of heavy editing and it can take a while, especially if the article is large and the edit summary is not obvious, to find the edit or editor that actually added the tag. A sig would help, but so would making the date narrower or some default message in the edit summary saying a tag has been added.

@Curbchain. I would think most editors would take a dim view of someone tagging an article with any tag and then refusing to explain why they have done so when specifically asked. Not sure it breaches civility, but it is good justification to simply remove the tag and if it is a pattern could lead further. AIRcorn (talk) 14:23, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would support either a more focused date or a default message in the edit summary. – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  18:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

@Nageh: Not answering someone has nothing to do with WP:CIVILITY and everything to do with WP:CHOICE.Curb Chain (talk) 07:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it's a mixture of both. While you are free to ignore an inquiry you cannot constantly ignore any attempts for collaboration. Personally, if someone would never respond to good-faith questions I would consider this as incivil behavior. Nageh (talk) 10:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

PIE, you have mentioned a few times that the tag should be invisible if there is no edit summary. I have thought about this, but can't work out what advantage that would give. It might make articles prettier, but how does making it invisible help decrease the backlog or help the cleaners? We would probably just end up with a lot of templates on articles that would only be seen when somoene tries to edit the lead. AIRcorn (talk) 14:30, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) An invisible tag that's left in an article, together with a category listed that indicates the tag, will still key editors that something is needed without messing with the readability of the article. A maint. tag should be dealt with within a certain period of time or removed, and I'm told there are bots that do this. A bot won't care if it's invisible or not. If it's in the code, and it has not been dealt with, it will eventually disappear from the code, as well. The time limits still need to be discussed, but that should probably wait until the proposal above passes or fails. If it were up to me, though, maintenance tags would go elsewhere, perhaps the talk page. I've never liked them to be placed directly in an article. And that <sigh> is yet another issue. <grin> – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  18:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Let us focus on why this sig will be useful, rather than why it will be useless. Here is another usefullness of it: some time ago I came across a obscure article which was cleanup-tagged a year ago with the specific reason, something like "layout does not conform wikipedia style". I spent 2-3 minutes trying to figure out what's wrong with the layout and came to the only conclusion that I am probably too stupid to edit wikipedia. Most probably the article was gradually fixed, but the tag was not removed, the editors being modest, just like me :-)

If I quickly knew who posted the tag, I would have asked them are they happy now. Otherwise my only option was to post the question in article talk page, to sit there unanswered, since the article was edited last time 4 months ago.

By the way, questioning tags is talk page is always a proper way to handle the question which is being addressed in the current discussion about "cleanup-reason". But I begin to suspect that the real goal of this discussion is to find a way to handle tags quickly, without much thinking and talking, click teh AWB and done with it. Pity, then, if cleanup will turn into a war of bots.

(P.S. is there a wikipedia term for those who drive Twinkle, AWB, etc., you know, like in sci-fi/games those operators of walking/fighting machines?) Lothar Klaic (talk) 18:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I probably would not remember, after a year of editing Wikipedia and doing many other things, what my reason meant. – PIE ( CLIMAX! )  18:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• I disagree with this-- you can find when the template was added in the page history and contact the user asking him why he/she added the template. This would do nothing to solve the problem with years-old cleanup templates; the user who added it might not be on WP anymore, even if they were they probably wouldn't even remember why they added the template. —Compdude¹²³ 18:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
  • re: "you can find" this was laready explained: it will take pains to find when. Lothar Klaic (talk) 19:41, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
  • re: "I dont remember why I added it" - then you will answer so, and the template will be happily deleted. This way you kill two hares: you get rid of tags nobody remembers about, and you do not accidentally delete something which is important enough to be remembered. Lothar Klaic (talk) 19:41, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

If a tag was added to an article — without a reason given — a year ago (especially an article which gets lots of editing attention), and there is no obvious issue with the article, shouldn't the cleanup template be dropped anyway? With an article that gets edited a lot, it is quite possible that whatever issue prompted the tag would have been fixed in the meantime without people actively having been prompted by a cleanup tag. — al-Shimoni (talk) 01:08, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

If the article is heavily edited, it means people have an interest in the topic, and of course they will try to minimize the number of ugly tags on top. The main issue is with neglected articles, where nobody cares and nobody knows what's going on Lothar Klaic (talk) 21:33, 17 March 2012 (UTC)