Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines

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DTTR

I believe we should codify in these guidelines that WP:DTTR is not sufficient grounds to justify removal of a post on a talk page other than your own. Though DTTR is often treated as a policy or guideline, it isn't one, there's an antithetical one called Wikipedia:Do template the regulars, and user warnings are specifically written to not be personal attacks. Thoughts? p b p 14:03, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DTTR is just an essay, which can be boiled down to "templates often treat the editor as brand new, and provide helpful links - regular editors (should) already know about all the links and what's expected of them, so treating them otherwise isn't the best idea". Regardless of if someone agrees or disagrees with DTTR, it does not give grounds to remove a post from a talk page other than your own -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 14:15, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Except that's not what DTTR means. It means don't assume an experienced editor is some cluebag who needs a warning and is probably doing something stupid or wicked; take a moment to read their edit summary, look at the page history, think about what they did and what experienced-editor reasons they might have had, and if it still seems wrong-head, have the courtesy to ask them to explain, while you give context-specific reasons regarding your own concerns. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose See WP:CREEP. While I agree this is a correct reading of existing rules, observe that 3 of us read the existing rules as already frowning on third party talk page reverts of this sort. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:16, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The arguments in WP:TTR are superior to the arguments in WP:DTTR. I have yet to see a single example of any editor (other than someone who recently misbehaved and didn't like being warned) who has read both and came to the opposite conclusion. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, meet one, and I'm not alone. TTR has its merits, but frankly they're weak. Templating the regulars is rude and lazy, and typically doesn't communicate enough information to facilitate resolution, and generally reduces things to false "do/do not" dichomtomies. Exceptions are notices that are required in order for some process to be invoked, e.g. {{Ds/alert}} (though that one needs to be WP:TNTed and redone since it almost invariably inspires panic and/or rage despite its intent) and {{uw-3rr}}; and various "high-level" warnings usually left by admins, e.g. an edit-warring template that warns of an impending block; and copyvio tags that point to specific nit-picky rules that many editors never really grok with fullness. Aside from special cases like that, I can't think of an instance of regulars-templating I've seen any time in the last year or two that wouldn't have been better done with a regular talk-page post. There're other reasons few of us do template the regulars. It often pisses people off and thus makes amicable and quick resolution much less likely; that's high on the list. If you leave a 10-year WP veteran some {{subst:uw-foo1}}, odds are you're making a mistake. Maybe not if you are intemperate and have a hard time writing a talk page without sounds like you're screaming. >;-)
DTTR does have one serious flaw, the idea that templating disruptive noobs may seem like "impersonal bureaucratic processing". That's bogus, because noobs don't know what a template is; even after they find out, they don't which thing they're seeing is a substituted template and whether it's been customized. For noobs, it's better to use the templates because they've been crafted with "noob pointers" in mind.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agree this is unnecessary instruction creep. Pretty much no one removes template notices from other people's talk pages, and if one made a habit of it, we'd take them to WP:ANI for disruptive editing. Existing rules have this entirely covered. (I would equally oppose trying to codify DTTR ideas here, not just TTR ones. Essay stuff is almost always in an essay because it's subjective essay material.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very old talk pages

On old talk pages, I find some weird layouts.

text
reply

reply

etc

What was that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nixinova (talk • contribs) 20:42, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A different style we don't use any more. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:13, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guidance against interleaving replies

Proposed text for introduction in "Editing others' comments" section:

"Generally you should not break up another editor's comment to reply to individual points. Interleaving comments like this confuses the layout of the page and obscures the original editor's intent, as well as potentially leaving text unsigned."

Version 2 of proposal (19:49, 14 August 2017 (UTC)):

"Generally you should not break up another editor's comment to reply to individual points. Mixing comments like this confuses the layout of the page and obscures the original editor's intent, as well as potentially leaving text unsigned. Instead, place your reply entirely below the original comment. You may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} template to quote a portion of the material in question."

I have encountered a few times situations where to respond to seemingly itemized multiple points an editor interleaves their reply within the post they are replying to, for example as Andrewa did here (I'm inviting them to continue the discussion here out of courtesy). It may be particularly prone to happen when a post has bulleted points which I have seen a couple times and which made a real mess of the talk page. The biggest issue is that it leaves the original post's text broken up and without signatures. If signatures were added after the fact that would, to me, definitely constitute editing another's post and changing what they intended to convey and how they wanted it to look, without improving the clarity of formatting. I think instead the proper convention should be to say something like ~~Regarding X,~~ "Regarding X," whether X is a description or a numbered point in cases where there is one, or Quoted material: with the tq template, and to do this entirely below the post you are replying to. I am proposing that some guidance be added in this regard. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:26, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Edited to correct use of tq template. 19:08, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Updated with Version 2 of proposal. 19:49, 14 August 2017 (UTC) Underlined version 2. 02:06, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The convention as I have followed it is not to break up existing paragraphs. It is in my experience easily learned and followed, and common elsewhere on the Internet. The indenting makes the authorship plain, and the interleaving makes the logic plain. Respecting others' paragraphs leaves their comments intact.

The proposed addition doesn't really make it clear that this is discouraged, and I'm not convinced it should be.

The convention I have followed is however easily messed up, either accidentally or deliberately, and when this happens it can get very messy.

I'd like a stronger statement on the mixing of colon and asterisk indenting. This is the most common way that the convention gets messed up, in my experience. Andrewa (talk) 01:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, please do not do that. Consider what might happen if someone wanted to reply to you, and then there was some back-and-forth. That leaves a dreadful mess. Talk pages are not just for the benefit of those currently participating who might know what is going on. In a year, people might want to work out why a particular decision was taken or not taken. Johnuniq (talk) 03:10, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. But the mixing of asterix and colon indenting is depressingly common, and as you say often leaves a dreadful mess... I'll dig up some examples. Sometimes I suspect it is even deliberate rantstyle (I might not give examples of that as it raises behavioural issues) but other times it is, disappointingly, experienced and respected users, to the point I sometimes suspect I'm just being grumpy to criticise it. But if we could avoid it, it would greatly increase the value of the archives, as you say, as well as making it easier IMO to arrive at and assess consensus in the first place. Andrewa (talk) 06:34, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This edit is a case in point - I fixed three problems there:

blank lines, contrary to WP:INDENTGAP (and which incidentally I have also fixed in this edit);
signature divorced from post by interspersed comments;
markup symbols inconsistent between a post and its reply which caused the enumerated list to restart at 1 instead of continuing with 3.

Mixing the three styles (asterisk, colon and hash) is not a problem per se, the problem is when people mix them incorrectly. The general principle should be that if you reply to somebody, copy the markup from the start of their post, whatever combination of symbols that might be; and add one symbol (of any type) to the right hand end. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:01, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that the protocol proposed in the above post copy the markup from the start of their post, whatever combination of symbols that might be; and add one symbol (of any type) to the right hand end would work extremely well if followed consistently. But we need to deal with bold edits by inexperienced editors as well as considered edits by old hands, and as even the old hands often depart from the relatively simple current rule of Generally colons and asterisks should not be mixed for no obvious reason, there's reason to be very afraid of a new and more complex rule. I think on balance it would be worth a try. Andrewa (talk) 13:16, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You know, Wikipedia possesses specific tools which allows one to reply to a specific section or paragraph of an other contributor's post. For instance, the template {{Talkquote}} allows one to quote the specific part of the post one wishes to reply to, complete with signature and linked timestamp, within one's own post below which one can then post one's own reply.T v x1 17:21, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly... at the expense only of brevity. But that can also raise objections, in my experience. Andrewa (talk) 22:39, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Although long posts can be troubling in themselves, interrupting their flow to reply to a specific point takes any shortcoming with the fact its a long post and multiplies that by 10. So don't do that please. In the discussion I noticed two related and somewhat side issues to which I reply as follows -

Re A) on messy format.... see WP:SOFIXIT. These guidelines already encourage stand-alone edits that only clean up formatting problems. I usually do not do that with regulars unless I get their permission first. But for newbies, don't hesitate, just do it, and give them a friendly how-to-do-better-formatting note.

Re B) on replying point-by-point.... hopefully my comment here shows how I do this. If the long post does not include numbers or letters so you can reply that way, just give the point you want to reply to a letter or number and say what you wish after the longwinded editor's signature.

In closing, I think the suggestion to not insert comments in the middle is a good one, but I don't care for the word "interweave". My brain stopped cold, I had to think, it was an obstacle. Better to just use simple third grade language, something only a bit more refined than "Don't butt in line". NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps "Mixing comments" rather than "Interleaving comments"? And how about some additional guidance like: "Instead, place your reply entirely below the original comment." and perhaps "You may wish to use the Talk quotation template to quote a portion of the material in question." I agree that keeping it simple would be good but maybe some clear advice on what to do in addition to what not to do would help. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Positive guidance, rather than negative, is greatly to be preferred. It is both far more likely to be effective and adheres to the spirit of wp:AGF. Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think those are side issues at all...

A) I would welcome strengthening the relevant guidelines to make that a bit clearer. In particular, In general... is vague. If the proposed more elaborate guideline (which is growing on me) is adopted, I hope the phrasing will be more to the point than that.

B) Yes, that works in cases like this. Another technique which I have employed is to start a new subsection on a particularly important point that is raised. I've received some criticism in the past for doing this, but generally from those who did not wish to hear what was said (at the risk of violating wp:AGF... sometimes the assumption wears a bit thin). Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Andrewa, as far as your A) on this this proposal maybe it should simply be "You should not" rather than "Generally". I wasn't sure if consensus would be behind a strong statement but it seems to be heading that direction. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I must state that I cannot stand when an editor breaks up my comment to reply to individual parts. Any time that it is done, I either put my comment back the way it was or copy and paste my signature for each part of the broken up comment to make sure that others are not confused by who is commenting. And I ask the editor not to break up my comment like that again. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose this proposal. (Placing this here, because the mess below is farcical and I decline to waste two hours trying to figure out some other place to put it.) The short version is: We have WP:REFACTOR for a reason. The long version: It's occasionally better to split up a long, muddled post that requires detailed answers to numerous unconnected questions/observations, into a series of separate points, sometimes even separate sections. This doesn't happen frequently, but there's nothing wrong with it when it does. Many of us have been doing it now and again for years, and rarely with any objection. The only trick is to copy-paste the original attribution to each of the now-separate bits so it remains clear who posted the original material. This comes up so infrequently, and more to the point is so unobjectionable when it does come up and is done sanely, that trying to add a rule about it is WP:CREEP. Especially when the "problem" identified is actually rare, random noobs doing it in a boneheaded way, for WP:POINTy reasons, and editwarring over it, not experienced editors in doing it in a sensible way, and letting it drop if they're reverted. This proposal is a throw-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater approach. The rule proposed is simply wrong anyway, in that it defies accepted practice. The last thing we need is some kind of "'Tis forbidden to make talk pages actually make sense" rule, just to protect the interests of people who are unreasonably proprietary about the exact formatting of their posts. See also WP:NOT#BLOG and WP:OWN policies: you do not own the talk pages here, not even your own user talk page. So, consider this !vote a "Not just no, but hell no." Every time I see someone lose their shit about a refactor that actually made sense, I want to slap them for riding a WP:NOTHERE hobby horse, until they come to their senses, climb down, and get back to doing something constructive and collaborative instead of lubing up and stroking their own ego. (Usually, I make omphaloskepsis references instead thinly-veiled ones to masturbation, about matters like this, but "how dare you touch my precious post" conniption fits really cross the distasteful self-pleasuring-in-public line, and they really need to stop being treated by the community as if they're consistent with a collaborative editing project. They definitely are not.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Modifying comments already replied to

This edit rather surprised me... wouldn't it be better to raise it as a new post, with a heads-up? Andrewa (talk) 01:11, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's got a time stamp. Perhaps should have been underlined if it is not clear by the time stamp that it was a change. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:03, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it complies perfectly with the guideline on modifying your own comments (WP:REDACT) as far as I can see. But it seems to me far more confusing than my edit [1] which inspired this whole section. I think the indenting there makes the signatory of the original post quite transparent, but I concede there are other views on this. But I can't see how this edit can fail to tangle the logic of the discussion. The text to which I was replying is no longer there to see, you need to go into the page history to find it. How can that possibly be helpful? And yet it seemingly conforms to guidelines. Should it? Andrewa (talk) 04:10, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, without software to manage talk page comments all we have are manually implemented guidelines. If users are to be able to edit their posts I think ~~strike~~ and insert work well enough, as well as the instruction to add a new timestamp when you've done it. On some forums where users can edit their posts the custom is to do something like "Edit: I did so and so" at the end of the edited post which I think is less clear than our strike/underscore method, but we also include a suggestion to offer an explanation if necessary in brackets. Or are you proposing that users not be able to edit posts once they are replied to? This is always an issue in forums; what it appears someone responded to may actually have been edited. Without strongly discouraging or prohibiting edits I don't see a way around it. My thinking was that it would be useful in that particular situation if the proposal were updated at the top which I believe I've seen done in other surveys. Maybe it would be useful to have clear guidance on that specific circumstance - what if you want to add another option to a survey. To me at the top makes sense as long as it is clearly marked as an edit with a time stamp. It also makes sense to include a "Survey" and "Threaded discussion" section which I wish I'd done to keep the two separate. Then any updates to the survey or !votes on it can be kept in the same area. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:22, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strike does not have appropriate semantics, see HTML5 documentation: The s element is not appropriate when indicating document edits; to mark a span of text as having been removed from a document, use the del element.; and underscore does not have any associated semantics. For accessibility reasons, we should be using <del>...</del> and <ins>...</ins> respectively, see HTML5 documentation. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:38, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tend to agree on that, but have seen debates about it. The chief objections to this interpretation are a) discussions are not documents, and (more importantly) b) <del> indicates material that has been removed or is too be removed, it does not indicate, e.g., changing ones mind, retracting an ill-thought sentiment, etc. – that is, it is intended as publication revision markup, only. I honestly don't put much stock in such semantic hair-splits, despite being a huge fan of semantic markup generally. The specs are vague (and contradict each other from version to version), there are damned near no semantic markup tags – there should be 100+ of them, but instead we have a handful that hardly anyone really cares about – and of the ones we do have, a bunch are arguably redundant and definitely disputed and disused (virtually no one agrees on WTF the exact distinctions are supposed to be between <code>, <samp>, and <kbd> in actual practice in various contexts, and consequently the last two are mostly ignored). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is no issue at all in modifying comments already replied to, unless it would invalidate something in a later comment. Even then, it's not problematic unless the change isn't annotated in some clear way. There are many ways to do that, e.g. with <del>...</del> (or <s>...</s>) and <ins>...</ins> markup, or by adding a [bracketed editorial change], or adding a note at the end of the post about changes and when/why they were made, or adding a reply to a post that indicates you changed the original comment (or proposal or whatever it was) in response to the objection that someone raised, or ... insert several other variations here. WP:ENC is not served in any way, at all, by trying to legislate exactly which of these methods people must use or whether they're permitted to use any at all. WP:NOT#FORUM and doesn't need any forum rules or forum moderators dictating posting style to people. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Version 2

Proposal:

"Generally you should not break up another editor's comment to reply to individual points. Mixing comments like this confuses the layout of the page and obscures the original editor's intent, as well as potentially leaving text unsigned. Instead, place your reply entirely below the original comment. You may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} template to quote a portion of the material in question."

1) Replaces "interleaving" with "mixing" per NewsAndEventsGuy's concern. 2) Adds a brief description of what to do in addition to what not to do. 3) A question from Andrewa is whether this should start with "Generally you should not" or stronger wording like "You should not". I thought the stronger wording may not cover every possible situation which is why I started with "Generally". 4) I felt that only a brief mention of the quote template that is most often used would be best and we should avoid putting a detailed style guide for replying in the "Editing others' comments section", but conceivably we could start a new section about quoting/replying. It could for example cover numbering or lettering points (if that's not obvious) and {{Talkquote}} (a different template from {{Talk quotation}}). That is more than I wanted to get into originally and even if that were added I think a statement in the "Editing others' comments section" against splitting another editor's post would still be appropriate. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:09, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's rearranging deckchairs. The more we look at the guideline the worse it gets, see #Modifying comments already replied to. Total rewrite required, incorporating the "add one of anything to the right" suggestion for more sophisticated users, and a far simpler protocol for beginners, example-based. And I still think that a brief interspersed comment is helpful on occasions, but I will of course go with the consensus on this. Andrewa (talk) 04:19, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There may be some issues with this page as far as providing enough detail but I think the main places to address that are Help:Using talk pages and Wikipedia:Indentation (and any other topic specific locations). Providing examples and detailed style guides here would totally change the nature of the page. It is supposed to be dos and don'ts more than detailed instructions. We can make sure the reader is pointed in the right direction for more information. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:00, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is a very welcome clarification. But I'm concerned that it is sufficiently severe in its impact as to require wider discussion. As it stands it seeks to ban or at least discourage what is a very common and IMO clear and helpful convention, one that is long in use far beyond Wikipedia. But this is a convention that I acknowledge is poorly documented on Wikipedia and often ignored here, leading to some very messy talk pages. Andrewa (talk) 17:30, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose this just as much as the original, for the same reasons. Andrewa's "seeks to ban or at least discourage what is a very common and IMO clear and helpful convention, one that is long in use far beyond Wikipedia" is spot on. The fact that some talk pages are messes is a) a problem of us not having good software for doing talk pages (and meta:Flow is hardly an improvement, causing more problems than it resolves), b) easily fixed by refactoring – the very tool which is occasionally abused to make a mess is the same tool that enables us to clean it up (and to do many other useful things). PS: If you've ever been around someone who religiously uses {{Talk quotation}} and similar templates, you realize very quickly how annoying it is, and how much space and editorial reading time it wastes. We definitely should not be encouraging increased use of it; it's for quoting when it seems really, really necessary to do so to avoid confusion. Which is, incidentally, the rational for refactoring in various ways like the one under discussion here. Leave options option, don't mandate them, don't ban them. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anchors (Version 3?)

@Andrewa, DIYeditor, NewsAndEventsGuy, Tvx1, Redrose64, and Johnuniq: In replying to or commenting on points in preceding comments, I have occasionally inserted anchors in those comments and linked to them. This way there is no need to quote in full the point I am responding to. More than that, when the discussion is already long and complex, with many replies-to-replies-to-replies-..., a reader can find the point being replied to without a potentially long and distracting search: for example, aXXXX this reference to Andrewa's comment about the "dreadful mess" that can result from mixing asterisk and colon listing. And unlike interleaving, anchors do not affect the display at all, but are visible only in edit mode.

I guess I'm making a proposal for a better (imho) way of replying to specific comments without interleaving or necessarily quoting, so I'm adding "Version 3" to my section header. I'm not ready to turn this into a guideline proposal, so I invite you all to please have a go at it (thus the question mark).

Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thnidu, I have never used anchors in that way but can't see any reason not to. I instead use a diff to refer to the comment to which I am replying, but generally quote the relevant text in italics as well.

There are many acceptable ways of structuring a discussion.

I have been involved in Internet discussions since before public ISPs were available in Australia (we used permanent dialups to form APANA that's redlink and shouldn't be, see http://www.apana.org.au/ I see it still exists, and before that there was FidoNet which also still exists of course), and was frankly astounded that the interleaving that provoked this discussion caused anyone any stress or confusion at all. My belief was (and is) that this convention is still the most common and easily followed method of structuring a complex discussion on the Internet generally. Many if not most email clients provide it automatically.

But some do have problems with it obviously. So the questions are (1) is there a better way and (2) can and should our guidelines be improved (one way or the other depending on the answer to (1)).

I have had experience before with people objecting to this convention, but previously it has always been in the context of the low-level disruption I call ranting... for example, some users will punctuate a long post with p HTML tags or with no paragraph breaks at all. Either tactic prevents interleaving, and in my opinion should be discouraged for exactly that reason. Andrewa (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You would not be astounded that many editors find interleaving to be disruptive if you had observed discussions where they were common, and where it was necessary to refute the interleaved comments. If people cannot make their point in a digestible manner they should not comment. A comment has to be made in a way that replies to the comment could reasonably occur. Further, discussions are not just for the benefit of the current participants; future editors may need to review old discussions to see why certain conclusions were reached. Johnuniq (talk) 23:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly agree with most of this.

The attempt to personalise this discussion (read the link, and discuss the contribution not the contributor please) is just plain ridiculous, as you would know had you bothered to do any check of my edit history. Enough of that please.

And I'm afraid I remain astounded. Refutation of the interleaved comments is exactly what the convention makes easy and transparent, and easy for others to follow later. Of course there comes a point where indentation is excessive, but for the first two or three indents it works very well. If it goes beyond that, probably best to start a new subsection, IMO... or outdent sometimes works well, sometimes not.

But for the rest, good points all, and I think they support the proper use of interleaved comments in Wikipedia, for the same reasons as it is standard practice elsewhere. Andrewa (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa and Johnuniq: How do you even find relevant comments in a long and heavily interleaved discussion? Especially if they're not “addressed” with {{ping}} (or one of its numerous aliases), or with simple linked mention as in {{u|Susannah Q. User}}.

In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times, and from time to time users even use this to advantage. But is there any doubt what I'm replying to here? Does it make the above post look unsigned, or this one? I don't think so. But then I'm an old hand at this, since long before Wikipedia.

So I propose to add a brief description of this anchoring method, explicitly stating that this is not a guideline but an available alternative to interleaving. If there are no strong objections I will do so. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 18:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection at all, provided it is not claimed that this is a preferred method. But I still have doubts that interleaving should be in any way discouraged. See this two-part reply as an example of a case in which I think it works well. How would you make the logic clearer? Is it necessary to do so?

But we do I think need to update the guidelines to give some help to new hands who have not seen it done previously. In particular, it's not standard practice on mobile devices AFAIK. There may even be an argument to discourage it for the benefit of mobile users, I'm not one so I would not know.

On conventional web browsers it works well IMO, if properly done. Here we're now five levels deep (perhaps we should recommend a limit to the depth of indenting), so pushing the limits, but it still works well on my browser.

Thnidu, pinging as requested. But I'm surprised that is necessary... do you use watchlist and contributions? Andrewa (talk) 22:15, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Andrewa. Yes, I do use them. The trouble is that on some pages that have many unrelated discussions going simultaneously, like the Teahouse, I get too many notifications about edits on topics I'm not interested in. This page is not such, but the habit stuck with me. Also, as I believe I mentioned above, navigating such a long discussion as this on a smartphone creates other difficulties. --Thnidu (talk) 23:02, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Making the articles available to mobile users is definitely a good thing. I am yet to be convinced that mobile editing of articles or discussions is a good thing overall. It has obvious advantages but there seem to be some drawbacks to it. Andrewa (talk) 02:47, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa: Edits like this are precisely the problem we are trying to avoid. Without knowledge of that specific edit diff, can anybody tell from the above thread that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu (talk · contribs)? It's misattribution, plain and simple. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

QED. E Eng 14:08, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is the heart of the matter, and apologies if I offended anyone by this post, but I did so as an example, and it's proving to be a good one.

Yes, I think that the indentation makes it quite obvious that the paragraph in question was written by me and not by Thnidu. I can't see how anyone can miss it, in fact. But obviously you have difficulty following the thread, so we need to do something. If there's consensus that interleaving is to be discouraged, then of course I'll abide by that decision. But I think it's the wrong way to go.

Strongly disagree that it is misattribution. That is over the top. There is no intent to mislead, and the convention I'm using is clear and unambiguous. The problem is just that some people apparently have difficulty in following it. Andrewa (talk) 14:18, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(Thnidu here.) Between the 2 paragraphs of one of my comments, andrewa inserted a paragraph including the question

But is there any doubt what I'm replying to here? Does it make the above post look unsigned, or this one? I don't think so. But then I'm an old hand at this, since long before Wikipedia.

Redrose64 responded

Without knowledge of that specific edit diff, can anybody tell from the above thread that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu (talk · contribs)?

To which I will add: Yes, as a matter of fact, it does leave the preceding paragraph (not "post", since your [andrewa] paragraph interrupted my post) not just "look" unsigned but be unsigned, since your interposition separated that paragraph from my signature. And your paragraph there is also unsigned, since the reader must scroll five paragraphs down to find your signature. You could have avoided the latter problem by typing four tildes after your interruption, but the "un-signing" of my first paragraph would be much harder to fix, if at all doable. And we certainly couldn't rely on new users, who often neglect to sign their own posts, to handle such complications.

As you say, you're an old hand at this, and that's part of the reason for our differences here. In such conversations finding the correct attributions is not a simple task at all. To make an analogy, being an experienced driver does not qualify one to teach driving, and one reason is that there are so many actions that by now are reflexive and unconscious to the "old hand" that they need to learn that the novice needs to consciously learn the stimuli (e.g., car a short distance in front suddenly hits the brakes) and responses (brake immediately but not hard at first, while checking side view, mirror and corner-of-eye direct, to see if it's safe to swerve that way; if not, check other side while braking harder). --Thnidu (talk) 16:24, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You say that Yes, as a matter of fact, it does leave the preceding paragraph (not "post", since your... paragraph interrupted my post) not just "look" unsigned but be unsigned, since your interposition separated that paragraph from my signature. And your paragraph there is also unsigned, since the reader must scroll five paragraphs down to find your signature.

That is true if but only if we ignore the indenting and interleaving convention, correct?

Or conversely, if we do not ignore the convention, that statement is quite simply false, is it not? The signatures are intact provided the convention is understood to apply here.

Agree with many of the points made in that post. But some of them are splitting hairs and ignoring the issue. We have had this convention for many years. You (and others) want to change it. That's the issue. And there may be a case.

But it seems to me that it would be much easier to discuss this and seek consensus on this if we followed the convention for now. I am refraining from doing so, reluctantly but at your implicit request. It seems to me for example that this series of edits let to an impenetrable mess and the points you make there could have been far better presented, and more easily answered, by using the indenting convention with interleaving.

I have problems with this recent edit (not by you) too, but perhaps that's enough for now. Andrewa (talk) 00:14, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How many experienced editors have disagreed with the views you have expressed on this page, and how many have agreed (put me down in the former group)? Your "recent edit" link shows Redrose64 reverting a change to their comment—why would you "have problems" with basic common sense? That is indeed enough for now, and actually it is enough forever at Wikipedia. Please do not refactor other people's comments to suit your style, and definitely do not break-up other people's comments with interleaving that the community has rejected. Johnuniq (talk) 03:41, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa: You have problems with my recent edit to my slightly-less recent post when all I did was restore my intended version to how it had been as I had left it in my immediately-previous edit to this page? Get out of here.

There is an indenting convention, but occasionally people will use one symbol (colon or otherwise) too many (or one too few), perhaps as a simple typo. Sometimes, in a post having three (or more) indented paragraphs they will indent one of the intermediate paragraphs to one level deeper than the rest, again perhaps it's a typo, or perhaps it's to emphasise it. Maybe they want to indicate that it has been copied from elsewhere: not everybody uses (or is aware of) tags like <blockquote>...</blockquote> or templates like {{tq}}. It might be an example of proposed wording for some guideline or other, there are at lease three such instances on this page alone. So the extra indent level of one paragraph will not necessarily indicate that the particular paragraph was added by somebody other than the person who added the ones above and below. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:15, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that when the convention is not followed it causes problems. Disagree that this is a problem with the convention. Andrewa (talk) 15:21, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In fact this edit above may be a classical example. It appears by the content to be replying to me, but by the indentation it appears to be replying to the post immediately above it. Probably it is simply indented one level too many. But best not to fix it now that I've replied to it.

That's not necessarily the fault of the convention. But perhaps the convention can be made clearer (either by simplifying it or documenting it more clearly or both) so that such mistakes can be reduced. Andrewa (talk) 02:44, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa: You're darned right it was a reply to you. It should have been obvious from my use of the phrase "You have problems with my recent edit" which was a straight person-reversal of your phrase "I have problems with this recent edit", and since that was an edit that I had made, I am clearly the person involved. Don't claim that you didn't know that.

Now, it is clear to several people here that you are getting tedious: therefore, it is time for you to WP:DROPTHESTICK. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:07, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite sure what you're getting at in the first paragraph. Yes, I understood it as a reply to me, and my post did refer to your edit, explicitly, I can't see where I claimed not to know that. It's just the indenting that is wrong, and I wondered whether that might even be deliberate, to prove a point. Was it? (Redundant signature added to allow interleaving.) Andrewa (talk) 19:55, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As to the second paragraph, see #Where to 2. Andrewa (talk) 19:55, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa: I'm fed up with trying to explain things to you. You seem quite unable to link a reply back to its question. Or are you being deliberately difficult, pretending not to understand in the hope that I will switch to using interleaved replies? It ain't gonna work, feller. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:15, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm certainly not trying to be disruptive, and if you think I am then the place to raise it is on my user talk page, not here.

And I'm finding it a bit frustrating too. You seem to see a problem with this edit. But what exactly is the problem?

Yes, I did add a redundant signature as an experiment, to see whether you or anyone else would like to try interleaving. Was there any harm in that? And, with this redundant signature in place, would there have been any harm in interleaving? I'm not really surprised you didn't, but I think it would have done you no harm to try it.

But I'm not being deliberately difficult, pretending not to understand. I'm assuming good faith on your part and think you should do the same for me.

And I still do not understand what you're getting at in the first paragraph, and you seem to have made no attempt to explain. You said You're darned right it was a reply to you. It should have been obvious from my use of the phrase "You have problems with my recent edit" which was a straight person-reversal of your phrase "I have problems with this recent edit", and since that was an edit that I had made, I am clearly the person involved. Don't claim that you didn't know that. In reverse order, I did know that, and made no claim not to. Yes, it was clearly an edit you had made, and it was your reply to me, and I said that too, and so your indenting was incorrect. Wasn't it? We all make mistakes. Let's get back to the issues. Andrewa (talk) 01:53, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Four subsections, four sub-subsections, and 70K have been invested in this. Care to go for 70K more? E Eng 02:13, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[not being very precise about indent level, per WP:DGAF] The only reason Andrewa's examples of interleaving above were confusing/objectionable is because he didn't copy-paste the original attribution from the end of the comment (now the last of the "commentlets") so that each "commentlet" identified the author. Various off-WP threaded messaging systems auto-ID who the poster of what is; they typically do this at the top instead of the bottom, but that's an irrelevant difference. That's not to say that someone being a total ass couldn't, possibly, do disruptive interleaving, e.g. by breaking every sentence up into two-word fragment and venting about each one in turn. But that would be disruptive bullshit which we'd revert and if they did it habitually, they'd be ANI'd and be made to stop or get blocked. So, not a real problem. Don't engage in "terriblizing", i.e. don't optimize for the "possible" but for the probable and the usual and the reasonable, because there is no limit in the imagination to how terrible and world-ending the theoretically possible can be. If we all just terriblized, the project would have failed the first month. WP:AGF is a policy for a reason, and "assuming clue" (don't we have an essay on that?) is also good advice almost all of the time. Those without clue get one quickly, or they get ejected (WP:CIR). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 13:25, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Plenty of us use the anchor method. There is no rule against it, there is no need for a rule to use it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Current guidelines

From above: Please do not refactor other people's comments to suit your style, and definitely do not break-up other people's comments with interleaving that the community has rejected. [2]

I have no intention of doing any of that, I still think that a brief interspersed comment is helpful on occasions, but I will of course go with the consensus on this. [3] But there are several suppositions there that I want to question.

The main one is that as far as I can see the guidelines do not currently ban interleaving, so I think it's over the top to claim the the community has rejected it. But agree that the editors involved in this discussion, apart from myself, are strongly of the opinion that it should be banned completely. I suggest therefore that an RfC should be raised with a specific proposal to do so. I think this discussion has probably gone as far as it can.

I will probably oppose this RfC, depending exactly what it says and what arguments are advanced. But if it succeeds then as said above I'll abide by it of course. I may find it difficult to walk the line between allowing others to ignore this new consensus and being pointy in enforcing a ruling I don't agree with! But cross that bridge when we come to it. Hopefully we can reach a strong consensus, that will help a lot. Andrewa (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How about if you stop wasting everyone's time and drop this? E Eng 20:23, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree this has gone about as far as it can. Disagree it was a waste of time, and there are still a few things to tidy up, see below. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was wrong about it having gone about as far as it can, you have now significantly changed or clarified your position below as to the changes you would like to current guidelines, and perhaps we can also make progress with the question of what they currently say, see #Where to 2 below. Andrewa (talk) 19:28, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This recent "my way or the highway" change to the wording in the actual guideline should be reverted if it hasn't been already. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where to now

There's obviously no desire above to test consensus on this at an RfC. There's a clear majority wanting to ban interleaving completely, but this is not the same thing as a consensus. It's not a head count, despite a recent edit summary suggesting one.

The argument seems to be that they just don't like it. Claims that this well-established convention misrepresents the original post and/or violates existing guidelines are unsubstantiated, IMO.

But obviously, these editors can boldly change the guideline and under the 3RR I can't singlehandedly stop them... and so I won't even revert once. I may support others who do, and cross that bridge when we come to it.

It would be good to clarify the guideline, but obviously I don't think that we should change it to ban interleaving. Rather it should be explicitly permitted, and some restrictions considered to control its abuse, and the abuse of indenting in general, particularly to accommodate mobile users. That's just my view of course.

I will try to avoid interleaving comments in posts made by editors who object to the practice, as I have above (with one exception deliberately used as an example). Perhaps we should set up some sort of register, either opt-in or opt-out, so that editors like me who like the practice can use it without offending those who don't.

Apart from that we may be finished here. If so we can let the discussion archive in due course. Thanks to all who have contributed. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do not avoid interleaving comments in posts made by editors who object to the practice. Just do not do it, period. If you want, create an ~~infobox~~userbox that only you will use: "This user doesn't mind if you interlard you comments inside his posts." E Eng 17:13, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was wrong, it seems there may be a lot left to say.

Just do not do it, period. I'm afraid that's a ridiculously sweeping request IMO. For example, if someone interleaves their comments with mine, I think I should feel free to follow their lead, and even that it would be a bit rude not to. Isn't that fair enough? I really think you are overstating both the problem and the solution.

The userbox (you said infobox but I think that's what you mean) is a good idea, although many of us already feel we have too many userboxes and there may be better ways of achieving the same goal.

And yes, if I'm the only one who ever uses it, then you'll have made a point.

An "opt-out" userbox (or something that better achieves the same) that says something along the lines of This user does not use the indenting convention to intersperse their comments between paragraphs of other users' talk page posts, and requests others not to do so too would also be a good idea IMO. Andrewa (talk) 02:11, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No one should have to opt out to keep others from intruding on the integrity of their posts. If you and some other editor are in a discussion and agree to interleave your comments for some special reason, knock yourself out; I obviously didn't mean to restrict the right of consenting adults to indulge in whatever perverse personal behavior together they want, as long as children aren't exposed to it and you don't frighten the horses. E Eng 02:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I obviously didn't mean to restrict the right of consenting adults to indulge in whatever perverse personal behavior together they want... That's a welcome clarification of what you actually meant by Just do not do it, period.

And this is progress. As on all talk pages, we are working towards consensus. So can I ask, do we have consensus that a blanket ban on interleaved discussions between consenting adults would be, as I said above, ridiculous? I accept that's not what you meant to say, but it seemed to be to me what you said, and what you and others have suggested above. So it's a very significant step IMO.

No one should have to opt out to keep others from intruding on the integrity of their posts. Agree. But I do not believe that the indenting and interleaving convention is quite that bad. Like your Just do not do it, period that is over the top. At worst, it makes the discussion hard to follow to those who are (for whatever reason) not comfortable using the convention.

And they should be considered, and I've said I'll avoid using the convention to reply to these people, and I am doing so. But give us a break. Wouldn't it be good to give some warning that you're one of these people? Andrewa (talk) 03:54, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have to feed the cat, change the water in the fish tank, and brush up on my differential equations before the dominatrix gets here. I hope you work something out. E Eng 04:14, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please could people observe WP:INDENTGAP, at least. This is an accessibility issue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:07, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very good point, and I have been guilty of forgetting that from time to time. It would be good to incorporate more on accessibility into the talk page guideline IMO, MOS:Accessibility is not often cited and I'm guessing not often read. Andrewa (talk) 11:06, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how INDENTGAP applies; I don't notice anyone trying to leave blank lines. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I took it simply as a pre-emptive heads-up... and a useful one. I hope I haven't blundered in that way here, but I have in the past, partly at least for reasons given in #Accessibility below. Andrewa (talk) 20:30, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DIYeditor: See this post; blank lines between every paragraph. @Andrewa: No use hoping: the evidence clearly shows that it was you who blundered. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:54, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: Ah, thanks. I actually didn't understand the accessibility reasoning or details of INDENTGAP; I had not read it carefully. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:05, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That was indeed a mistake on my part, and refactoring to remove it was entirely in order. And I have made that mistake before, for reasons set out in #Accessibility. I do make mistakes. I try to learn from them. My definition of an expert is someone who has already made most of their mistakes. That's part of the reason Wikipedia encourages mistakes. Andrewa (talk) 02:07, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's definitely no consensus on this, because people can't even agree throughout this sprawling mess what they're talking about, and the proposal (in various conflicting versions) defies over a decade and a half of actual practice, which is to refactor when it seems necessary (and to revert a refactor when one seems boneheaded or WP:POINTy). Talk pages are not magically exempt from normal WP:EDITING and WP:CONSENSUS policies. "There seems like a vague local consensus for some kind of change, but we dunno what it is" = no consensus, no change, revert to the status quo ante, i.e. before any changes were made in furtherance of what's been proposed here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility

I've just realised that there's a trap with indenting... at the first level (no indenting), you do need to leave white space. Just going to a new line doesn't make a new paragraph.

To do that, you need to leave a blank line. Andrewa (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, once you indent, you must not leave white space, as it confuses accessibility aids.

And it's not necessary. Just going to a new line does give a new paragraph once you are at first indent.

Perhaps this should be more explicitly stated, somewhere? Or is it already and I've missed it? Andrewa (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

~~No, once you're at the first : level, just going to a new line starting with : does not give a new paragraph. The right way to break paragraph once you're in the : regime is~~

~~:Blah blah 1st paragraph :~~

~~:Blah blah 2nd paragraph~~

E Eng 22:21, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I see... what I described above seems to work on my browser, but perhaps not on others. I think this is important... is it documented anywhere in guidelines etc? Andrewa (talk) 23:18, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

~~No, if you try it with and without the intervening extra line with : alone, you'll see a definite difference.~~ E Eng 06:32, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I take it from that that as far as you know this is not documented anywhere.

I've set up a little experiment in the community sandbox. I see five paragraphs, with no significant difference between the spacing of paragraphs three, four and five. What do you see? Andrewa (talk) 00:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng: You may be thinking of how vertical spacing used to work. However, MediaWiki:Common.css was changed in December 2016 (diff) so indented and unidented paragraphs on talk pages have the same vertical spacing. The issue of correct indenting is part of MOS:INDENTGAP where the colon on an otherwise blank line is necessary so the result is a single definition list for screen readers. Johnuniq (talk) 04:07, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Crikey, you're right! And I was just getting the hang of remembering to include the otherwise-blank-line-with-only-colon-on-it, and here they go and make it unnecessary. My apologies to all for sowing confusion. E Eng 04:21, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility is presently a lost cause on our talk pages, because we're grossly abusing description list markup to do things it is not supposed to be used for, namely visible layout indentation, which is a CSS matter. It's even worse that abusing tables for layout. This needs to be fixed technically, as I cover at #Proper use of the colon, below. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where to 2

As I have said above, the goal of talk pages is to work towards consensus. There is some progress above on this.

In particular, one editor has changed or clarified their position, as I see it from wanting a complete ban on interleaving to being happy for consenting parties to use it. They still want the default to be not to use it, and perhaps that can work, I'd need to see a definite proposal and I'm a bit sceptical and wary of instruction creep. But happy to work on it.

The other bone of contention is the assertion above that guidelines already ban interleaving. I think that's also over the top, but hope we can similarly resolve that one too. Andrewa (talk) 19:37, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're like a dog with a bone, except it's not a bone, it's a stick. (Note that the post concerned was added after my comment above but above it... probably not a good idea, but again don't change it now I've replied.) Nothing will be decided here IMO, it's a big enough issue to require an RfC to change it, and there's no response to my suggestion above that one might be raised.

So feel free to just drop out if you feel it's a waste of time, and allow the discussion to be archived... as I also suggested once above. But IMO, there is progress. Painful progress, but this was never going to be easy. Andrewa (talk) 20:08, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't see that you were continuing with this. I did take the discussion as consensus against interleaving so I added guidance about it to the page. I don't personally see how an RfC is necessary. It doesn't seem likely that anyone is going to support the "convention" of editing others' comments to break them up for replies. No one else has expressed support for that and several have opposed (sometimes strongly). Feel free of course to start an RfC if you think that there is some support out there for this. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:27, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, I missed this edit. A bit bold perhaps but a perfectly acceptable action IMO. It has certainly been discussed here, and your edit avoids the excesses that others have (in my view at least) implied.

The next step then is to see how this affects discussions... will people even notice it, will it help or hinder discussions. And I may add something to my sig encouraging interleaving in replying to my own posts. Andrewa (talk) 20:41, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So feel free to just drop out if you feel it's a waste of time – Some of us have this page on our watchlists in case a productive discussion arises, and we'd prefer not to have our attention repeatedly diverted by this discursive trip to nowhere. E Eng 22:25, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's another example of incorrect indenting. It replies to this post, so a single colon would have been correct. Or am I missing something? Andrewa (talk) 02:18, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In all seriousness, you're an admin? E Eng 02:21, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. And a lapsed member of Australian Mensa, and a drummer, and lots of other things.

I guess the reason you ask is that you find by behaviour here below par. And it's true that admins are held to a higher standard of behaviour, even when not using any of our sysop powers. But the rules are the same. We're just expected to follow them a bit more strictly and knowledgeably.

And one of the rules is comment on content, not on the contributor. This is not the place to discuss behavior. TIA Andrewa (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please tell me the bit about Mensa is intentional self-parody. E Eng 04:35, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is quite accurate. And you are on really thin ice. Please cease the personal comments here. If you have complaints about my behaviour, make them in the appropriate place and fashion. If you think I'm stupid, tough. Get over it. Andrewa (talk) 06:54, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't dream of doubting you belong to Mensa. It's the offhand name drop I'm struggling to understand. E Eng 12:42, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it was a reply to this personal attack which didn't seem worth raising on your user talk page. But strictly we should take it up there, and can if you wish to discuss it further. Andrewa (talk) 01:47, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be a personal attack to say that if you think the post you just linked is a personal attack, there's something wrong with you? What in the world are you talking about? I think it would be best if you stopped trying to police others' behavior, because you seem incapable of interpreting normal human interactions. This came back onto my watchlist because I answered a ping, but I'm unwatching again; I hope when I return you'll have found some useful way to occupy yourself. E Eng 04:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with EEng in this section, though we disagree in some other ones. This entire mess is all about a handful of prideful editors trying to police other editors, and it needs to be shut down. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a bad, BAD idea

Many users find this practice highly offensive, and it makes discussions very confusing to follow. We should not be encouraging it in any way. Drive a stake through this. E Eng 22:37, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If it's true that Many users find this practice highly offensive, then I'd have to agree it should be banned. End of story.

But I must ask why is it so offensive? And why is it confusing? Was anyone confused or offended by my two-part post above? Why and how?

Walls of text are one of the key techniques of rantstyle. The ability to reply concisely and clearly to a long post is vital in order to get ranting discussions back on track, and work towards consensus.

If people find this offensive, I think perhaps they're in the wrong place. In a sense even your signed contributions don't belong to you here at Wikipedia. All text is available for reuse and refactoring. There are restrictions, of course, and we should not for example misrepresent others, or deny them their chance of a fair hearing, and the guidelines seek to ensure this. But interleaving, properly done, does neither of those things.

To the contrary, it allows arguments to be easily, clearly and concisely answered. And this is not always welcome! Andrewa (talk) 00:45, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All text is available for reuse and refactoring – Reuse, yes. "Refactoring" that in any way even slightly tampers with the context, import, or connotation of an editor's post, no, and that includes interlarding your own comments in a way that neuters the original thrust. Quote a bit of what someone said, and respond to it – as I did in this very post. More than one person may want to respond to the same post, and if they all try to interleave it becomes a complete mess. E Eng 00:56, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with all of the first two sentences except the unstated implication that interleaving properly done even slightly tampers with the context, import, or connotation of an editor's post or that it neuters the original thrust.

And if a second editor inserted a comment here, it would not affect the flow or logic of my post in the slightest. Andrewa (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It does neither. Did my example above do either? It doesn't seem to have to me. Do you have examples that have? Andrewa (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll tell you why I hate it. It derives from an email/usenet practice, where correspondents inserted their comments directly into the comments of the person they responded to. In that context, it works fine, for two reasons.

First, in the email/usenet context, each response was a separate document, an email message itself. It wasn't a single document being iteratively edited, with the end result being an intermingled mass of commentary by multiple editors, where finding each editor's comments and viewpoints is much more difficult.

Second, in email/usenet, one almost always trimmed away the parts not being responded to. It was a matter both of courtesy and to keep the note from becoming ungainlily long. In contrast, on Wikipedia talk pages, we obviously don't want other editors' comments trimmed by the act of responding; again, because it's a single document, not a series of individual documents.

What worked very well for email and usenet works very badly in an interatively edited document like a Wikipedia talk page. It causes attributions to be masked or difficult to figure out.

You say "it allows arguments to be easily, clearly and concisely answered", but I don't think that's the case. Easily and concisely, sure; but clarity is a casualty of the practice. I love it in email (top-posting is the bane of modern email communication) but hate it for talk pages. TJRC (talk) 00:59, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a matter of taste to me. I have no problem following properly inserted comments; I find it easy to follow the logic (or lack of same) in arguments presented in this way. Again, have you any examples where clarity has suffered? Do you think that the example I gave above, or the original one that started this whole string, are unclear?

I'd like to respond to the detailed points you make, some of which I agree with, but others are I think at least questionable. But without doing what you hate I think it would be unworkable, so I'll just leave it at that. Andrewa (talk) 02:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

andrewa, in reply to your first ¶ above (I refuse to interleave), my comment in the previous section about the "old hand" applies here as well. As a extremely experienced editor, you are unable, without effort, to comprehend how what is so easy for you can be difficult to a newcomer. --Thnidu (talk) 16:37, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's certainly not what I meant to say. I am unable to understand how you and other old hands have such trouble with it.

I admit I haven't checked what I said, and I don't find your references terribly helpful in doing so. Interested in other views on this. But I suspect you are, perhaps unintentionally, misquoting me.

There is a learning curve for newcomers, but the convention is easily learned and so useful in many situations that it should not be generally discouraged.

There should be guidelines discouraging its excessive use. But the proposed ban on using it even one level deep seems ridiculous to me. Andrewa (talk) 00:31, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think "generally" is a good compromise wording. It acknowledges that there may be circumstances where it is acceptable, although good examples elude me aside from by mutual explicit consent. Even then to me it is a bad idea. It's messy and confusing. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:33, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree it's a good wording. Still disagree with the principle. I could be wrong. So let's see how it works in practice. Andrewa (talk) 23:24, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MOS is a good guideline where "generally" is excellent advice for two reasons. First, there are lots of exceptions in language, and one set of rules is unlikely to cover all cases. Second, the consequences of conflicting with MOS are small—the point of disagreement would often not be noticed by most readers. However, comments at a busy noticeboard (or an article talk page where conflict applies) are different. First, experience in such places shows that interleaving is a ghastly procedure—it makes it hard for those who need to follow the discussion (perhaps in a year) to see who-said-what and why a decision was made. Second, while there are a few ILIKEIT votes on this page, there are at least as many strong objections. Talk pages are where collaboration is tested, and procedures that annoy a significant portion of the participants are an immediate fail. The people here might understand that generally means "almost never", but those who like interleaving will use generally as a green light. If challenged they will reply that WP:TPG permits the procedure and their convenience required interleaving. Using generally will end up encouraging interleaving, and that would need a major RfC. Johnuniq (talk) 04:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've just gotten involved here and I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "interleaving" at this point, but your concern that we should assume bad faith and therefore misuse a guideline to make statements in conflict with fundamental principles (the right to edit and no ownership of text) is concerning. There are only two rules needed, (1) we are here to build an encyclopedia and (2) don't change the meaning. I think the second is where you've missed the departure, because it is typical when inserting text in someone else's comment to begin the insert with [insert begins here]. The big problem when inserting text in someone else's comment is when they are newbies (which in this context includes senior admins) who think they own the text. So yes, it is important that TPG make correct neutral statements that protect good edits from ownership conflict. Unscintillating (talk) 11:41, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Might be best to find out what we're talking about before commenting. E Eng 13:51, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is a refusal to discuss. Unscintillating (talk) 15:57, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's a disinclination to humor the comments of someone who starts by declaring he doesn't know what he's talking about, then goes on to talk about it at length. E Eng 17:02, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

According to my search, your first edit to WT:TPG was on 27 August 2017. Is that correct? I suggest that you and others review Archive 10 and Archive 11. Also Archive 8 has relevant material. Unscintillating (talk) 18:27, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not correct, and no one's going to plow through three archive pages you vaguely wave your hand at, looking for something unspecified. E Eng 19:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Unscintillating: It would help if you indicated what specific sections you are referring to as the archives are long. Luckily "interleaving" returns Archive 10 and 11 in a search so I understood that you meant they explicitly used the term. What section in Archive 8 are you referring to? Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 10#Reverting interruptions seemed to conclude that consensus was against interleaving and that the exceptions should not even be mentioned to avoid giving approval for the practice. Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Posting within another editor's post doesn't have clear consensus. Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Non talk page reviews and posting style did not seem to reach consensus about whether WP:TPG should cover project pages like WP:FAC where interleaving is common and mention those practices/exceptions. I am happy to leave this with the "generally" wording and even to make mention of specific exceptions (although they aren't exactly for talk pages). —DIYeditor (talk) 20:18, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Johnuniq makes some good points in their {(longish) single paragraph above but there's also some questionable stuff mixed in. First, experience in such places shows that interleaving is a ghastly procedure—it makes it hard for those who need to follow the discussion (perhaps in a year) to see who-said-what and why a decision was made - similar sweeping statements have been made, including of course in this section head. But we have had no examples of this experience, just strong statements that it's ghastly, a bad, BAD idea, and so on. If this experience is so persuasive, surely it shouldn't be hard to find specific examples? Andrewa (talk) 20:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example I posted in Archive 8:

[T]he two priorities are, we are building an encyclopedia, and "don't change the meaning". User B, or for that matter other editors, can do more by identifying where the inserts begin and end, such as with:
:Point 1 by user:A

::[insert begins here]

::Reply 1 by user:B, sig

::[insert ends here]

:Point 2 by user:A

::[insert begins here]

::Reply 2 by user:B, sig

::[insert ends here]

:Point 3 by user:A, sig

Unscintillating (talk) 03:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Posted by Unscintillating (talk) 22:13, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. But some users think that this leaves points 1 and 2 by user A unsigned; The bot has no trouble finding the sig however. On the other extreme, I find the first sig by user B redundant (but harmless), and again so does the bot AFAIK. Andrewa (talk) 22:23, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa: surely it shouldn't be hard to find specific examples I already gave an example - in my post of 08:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC). Clearly, WP:IDHT applies here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in this post you referred to an example I had deliberately provided, and which is the subject of ongoing discussion, and I'm keen to discuss it some more. It's proving to be a very good example. Andrewa (talk) 20:52, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken the behavioural allegation to the user's talk page. [4] Andrewa (talk) 21:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "this leaves points 1 and 2 by user A unsigned" – Yes; the obvious solution is to copy the end sig to the other post-parts by editor A. I've been doing it this way – when an interleaving refactor seems desperately needed – and it just doesn't cause problems. It's usually done to solve one, most often addressing a whole bunch of disjointed questions which deserve an answer but which are unrelated. Another similar but different approach is to refactor to number them and address each in turn by number. Virtually no one ever flips out when you do this. If they do, they have a collaboration and communication problem. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's not offensive to a large number of editors at all, only to a vocal handful. I've been doing it for years – when it seems genuinely necessary – and it's only produced disputes four times that I can recall: 1) a troll who later got blocked; 2) a self-declared "enemy" of mine for a while (we're on okay terms now) who was pretty much reverting everything I did everywhere and being uncivil to me at every turn; 3) someone trying to derail an RfC by shitting all over it with huge text-wall commentary inserted not just into the comments section but into the RfC itself; and 4) a non-neutrally phrased and evidence-deficient RfC that was improved, after some compromise (the fix was, of course and as I've said elsewhere herein, copying the original attribution to make it unmistakable who posted what, though this was not strictly necessary – RfCs do not actually have to have any attribution at all, and sometimes do not on purpose).

It also does not make discussions hard to follow at all, unless it's done in a intentionally or incompetently disruptive way by a bonehead. It's most often done by sensible, experienced editors and (the important part) is specifically undertaken to make a confusing discussion easier to follow.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interleave defined

The word "interleave" does not appear in the WT:TPG archives until Archive 10 in September 2013. WT:Talk page guidelines/Archive 11#Non talk page reviews and posting style shows that interspersed and interleaved are synonyms, and that the article Posting style discusses interleaving. Unscintillating (talk) 21:54, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This edit has been described as precisely the problem we are trying to avoid. [5] The edit summary of that last diff is also worth repeating I think: can anybody tell from the above thread that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu?. So there's clearly a problem to address.

I have no problem telling that the paragraph... was not written by Thnidu, less problem in fact than I have in understanding that edit summary! But with a little work even that edit summary is clearly decipherable. So perhaps with some better explanation of how interleaving works, other editors would have less trouble with it. That's not the whole solution, but I think it should be part of it.

I did always intend that edit to be an example, and have apologised to any I offended by it. I think it has proved to be a good example. It has helped me to better see what others are upset about. I think we need more concrete examples, both good and bad. Andrewa (talk) 00:49, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have never seen a good example of interleaved comments. Good examples probably exist because Wikipedia is big place and it is conceivable that an article talk page with low traffic might have someone post several questions in one comment, and a reply giving an interspersed answer for every question. If the discussion stops there, it may be ok. However, even in that ideal case there is no easy way for a third-party to see that the second comment did not alter some meaning of the original. Such checking would require careful examination of the details of the second comment. By contrast, if the second comment had been entirely underneath the original, it would be obvious that the original was untouched. The second comment could have the form: "Q1 Here is the answer. Q2 This is another answer. Q3 Etcetera." Often the second person would take half-a-dozen edits to get their comments fixed, and that complicates the integrity issue if others edit the section in the same period.

The real problem of interleaved comments concerns a page which is not low traffic. Consider a situation where person A posts five questions and person B interleaves five answers. At the same time, editor C tries to refute one of B's answers, while other editors (including A) want to add to the interleaved subthreads. The result is a total disaster, particularly in a contentious area where POV pushers and clueless editors are involved. Johnuniq (talk) 04:32, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Johnuniq, please have a look here for a version of that scenario. How would you improve on that setting out of an already rather complex discussion? Show us! I hope I'm open to new ideas. But this one still seems counterproductive to me.

And everyone else, do you think I've correctly interpreted the convention? Open to other ideas on it. Andrewa (talk) 07:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An artificial example could prove anything. I have never seen a good example of interleaved comments used in a discussion. Wikipedia resembles a massively multiplayer online role-playing game but everything is supposed to assist the development of the encyclopedia. Having fun on a guideline talk page is not useful, and sandboxes with meaningless examples are not helpful. The guideline should not encourage techniques which are known to irritate a significant number of editors. Per IAR, people can do anything that is genuinely useful for a particular situation, but the fact that no one has produced examples showing useful interleaved comments should be enough for anyone to see that the recent turmoil on this talk page is a gigantic waste of time. Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's your artificial example.

I agree with all the platitudes above. And agree that we should avoid techniques which are known to irritate a significant number of editors as far as possible. I suspect that avoiding interleaving will irritate editors too. We will see.

The problem with finding real examples is that they will mostly be from complex, problematical discussions. How are we to assess how they could have been helped by avoiding interleaving? I'll try to find some.

But we don't have examples of a total disaster produced by interleaving either, although it seems assumed by some that they exist. Surely they should be more easily found if so? Andrewa (talk) 07:58, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a total disaster due to interleaving. I thought you were an advocate of interleaving and would be able to produce examples of their use from your reasonably recent contributions.

Regarding the merits of breaking-up other people's comments, if I present an argument above my signature, I intend the whole comment to stand as-is. If someone breaks-up my comment they are damaging my case, making it much harder for others to follow. If they copy my signature to the fragments of my comment, they violate WP:SIGFORGE by making it appear that I presented the fragment as a comment, when in fact it is taken out of context. Do not do that. Johnuniq (talk) 09:52, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Conversely, if others are not allowed to intersperse comments, it encourages wall of text arguments, does it not?

Interleaving is rare in my experience. But in replying to excessively long posts and ones that mix in valid points among others, it is sometimes very useful. These do tend to be discussions which are already problematic for other reasons, so I'm trying to find ones that aren't a mess for these other reasons. And it's difficult to find them, I admit that. Andrewa (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

SIGFORGE absolutely does not forbid copy-pasting a sig to keep it attached to the material it pertains to. It's about sneakily changing your own sig in a vain attempt to impersonate another user. Just think on this for at least half a second, Johnuniq. If your misinterpretation were actually correct, it would be a wiki-crime to archive anything off a talk page into an archive page without first removing the sigs from it. It would also be impermissible to fix attribution in any other way, e.g. with {{Unsigned}}. And if someone wrote a post, then accientally put their sig above it so that it was attached to the end of the post of whomever they were replying to, it would be verboten to refactor it into the proper position. It would also be impermissible to quote excerpts from posts (e.g. as we do in with "what Jimbo said" at various policy pages) and preserve the sigs exactly as written. Yet all of these things are perfectly permissible; we do them all the time. Please see WP:LAWYER, WP:GAMING, WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, and WP:POLICY: WP's rules are all to be interpreted in the spirit in which they're intended, and in a way that serves the collaborative nature of the project rather than making the community subservient to rules, and in a away that reflects actual practices not a a reinterpretation that attempts to force practice to change, and never in a "to the exact letter of the law" manner, especially not in a way that exploits supposed loopholes to get a WP:WIN result in furtherance of some petty personal interest, like your "don't you dare touch muh posts in any way" grandstanding. Reminds me of the "Lighten up, Francis" scene in Stripes. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:42, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be something that prevents you from responding to the point of my comments. If someone breaks-up my comment they are damaging my case, making it much harder for others to follow. If they copy my signature to the fragments of my comment, they make it appear that I presented the fragment as a comment, when in fact it is taken out of context. Johnuniq (talk) 03:34, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's just been addressed again and again and you will not hear it. If someone literally fragments your argument to wreck your meaning or logic flow, this is disruptive bullshit, and WP:DE is something we have had the means to deal with already for a decade and half. Non-disruptive interleaving happens all the time, when someone posts completely unrelated stuff (sometime piles of it, more often just two things) back to back in a single block, and each needs to be addressed separately because they have no connection to each other but are important (or because one is a proposal that needs discussion as such in a separate section with a heading, or whatever). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As a screen reader user, sometimes I'm OK with interleaving, but in the example above it got ridiculous ... I couldn't tell that Thnidu hadn't written the comment. Graham87 14:36, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that... just the sort of input we need. How could the interleaving have been achieved in order to make it clear? Andrewa (talk) 20:32, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea, to be honest. Graham87 04:59, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have to think that if WP's been humming along for 16+ years without addressing this "burning issue", then there is no smoke and there is no fire. This is a great example of what WP:CREEP was written to address. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A concrete example

From above: Here is a total disaster due to interleaving. [6]

Very interesting, and I think I begin to understand.

This section and an adjacent section are appalling!

I'm trying to find exactly where interleaving was used, I can't see it on first reading, so a diff would be great. I'm sure I'll find it eventually, and will post it here when I do, but if you have a diff handy, Johnuniq, it might save me and perhaps others a lot of time looking.

But watch this space, there's lots going on in that example, and thanks for it. Andrewa (talk) 21:21, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, that's the whole point. Say you want to find out why a decision was made around that time. Someone gives you the above link and says that the decision came from that discussion. Now it's your job to figure out. Johnuniq (talk) 22:10, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's no doubt as I said above that this is an appalling example of a discussion off the rails. The question I'm asking is, was interleaving really to blame for that?

Or even before that, we could ask was it used at all? I'm assuming that you found a place where it was, and that you could save a lot of time by indicating more precisely where that is. Andrewa (talk) 22:26, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That discussion was archived to Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/Archive 20#Wadsworth Reference Should Be Deleted For Everything But The History Section. Johnuniq, is there any reason we need to look at the past revision, rather than the archive page? Andrewa (talk) 22:51, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can provide links but I cannot do your thinking for you. The history of the archive you just found is this. That shows five edits by MiszaBot. Not very helpful if someone wants to find out who said what as well when and why. The real history is here.

The guideline currently does not encourage interleaving. It is not up to me to find examples of bad interleaving to prove the guideline should not be changed. Anyone wanting to encourage interleaving needs to demonstrate that it is useful. Arguments that twenty years ago people used interleaving in a completely setting are irrelevant. Johnuniq (talk) 23:06, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Johnuniq is on record in Archive 8 that what is now being called interleaving is not in basic form an issue needing comment, but that adding sub-section signatures is entirely concerning. I think he elocutes the words of the concern better here. Unscintillating (talk) 01:37, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link to the talk page history. I was already moving in that direction, see here, but knowing that the interleaving you found takes place within this 100 edits is very helpful. Can you narrow it down any more than that?

It helps your case to provide an example, and you have done so, a total disaster due to interleaving you said. But if it turns out that you were mistaken in thinking that there was interleaving there, it will have done great damage to your case IMO. If it turns out that there was interleaving but it's not clear whether it was the cause of the disaster, it will be less damaging. It is agreed I think that the case was a disaster.

The history of the archive is of course useless, but the archive has some advantages over an old version of the page for searching.

I'm not necessarily encouraging interleaving. But I do want it permitted in cases where it is helpful. Andrewa (talk) 02:43, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant part of archive 8 mentioned above is here.

Re narrowing down, a clue is that I am not indefinitely blocked, but that condition applies to the editor below me on the history link I gave. I included my posts in the history because they show ("please put new posts at the bottom of each section") my response at the time. The editor whose name I did not mention is shown on the history page as making five consecutive posts (the five diffs after my two at the top). Try clicking them. Of course it is hard to see what has happened, and that is the whole point of why interleaving is undesirable. That, and the fact that the original comment is broken up and made unreadable.

Re wanting interleaving permitted when it is helpful: anything is permitted when it is helpful per pillar WP:5P5 which refers to policy WP:IAR. What is not helpful is putting wording in a guideline that would encourage interleaving by people who are not good at judging when one of the extremely rare occasions arises where it would be helpful. If WP:TPG said that interleaving was sometimes ok, the person responsible for the total disaster mentioned above would have used this guideline to justify their style of commenting. Johnuniq (talk) 04:54, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's an undecipherable mess with tragic consequences, a multibarnstarred editor indeffed (and not the first, unfortunately). And I can understand how, having been involved in it, you'd like to keep the format of talk pages as simple as possible.

The five edits in question seem to be [7] [8] [9] [10] and [11]. Agree that all are problematic, and that this form of interleaving is confusing and should not be permitted. But to argue for a ban on all interleaving from that seems rather a stretch. Andrewa (talk) 03:31, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this and this, I definitely think we need to include something about this in the guideline. Interleaving is problematic for reasons noted by others above. And "do not" is stronger wording that I support in this case. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:45, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'd certainly support the Do not wording we had [12] if someone proposes it. But remember to ping me since I'm not watching this page anymore. E Eng 00:16, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng: Perhaps: "On pages in the Talk: namespaces, do not... However on some project pages such as WP:FAC where it is accepted practice..." I tend to agree that interleaving is just plain bad but it may be tough justify a "do not" statement without widespread consensus. @Flyer22 Reborn: I am happy with "Generally" and perhaps giving the specific FAC exception. I would otherwise consider starting an RfC (possibly on a fresh subpage here to keep things clean) and advertise it around but I am not the one to do it since as a novice editor I don't have the standing or experience to make claims about what proper talk page practices should be. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:22, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I still suspect that a ban on interleaving (which is what this is) will cause more problems than it solves. But I'm a lone voice, so I guess we'll need to try it and see. I'll abide by whatever guideline is current... as I've always said... and I'll try not to be pointy in pulling up others who violate it. Andrewa (talk) 07:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, guys. I just want something on the page stating that it's problematic. By the way, DIYeditor, regarding the pings, pings only work with a new signature. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:43, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In this example it wasn't the interleaving that was problematic. It was the way the interleaving was done, which is agreed I think to have been unhelpful, combined with other even more problematic edits. Andrewa (talk) 03:58, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is incorrect. Please stop dragging this going-nowhere discussion out. The interleaving, even if it had been done "correctly", was very problematic for the reasons I have already outlined. In brief, the original comment was destroyed because readers could no longer see it, and replies to the interleaved replies could not be added without further obfuscation. There is no example of good interleaving other than those at "23:27, 7 September 2017" below concerning exceptions that are not relevant in general discussions. Johnuniq (talk) 07:12, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If a particular editor is doing something daft, that's a micro-problem to resolve with that editor. It's no grounds for a new rule, or we'd have hundreds of thousands of rules on thousands of policy and guideline pages, instead of 200-and-change pages (which is already too many; quite a few are junk WP:PROJPAGE essays that someone slapped a {{Guideline}} tag on, and which needs to be removed). People do unhelpful, idiosyncratic things all the time and we just fix them without losing our minds about it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hyperbole is totally unhelpful here. There's no "total disaster" at the page in question; all there is is a need to copy-paste the original sig and date to the separated portions of the original post so it's clear who's posting what, and then to indent the replies. Even without them, it's actually trivially easy to tell who posted what, so: WP:DGAF. This kind of bone-headed "I don't know how to reply right" thing comes up rarely, and only with noobs, so it's a non-issue. It certainly doesn't rise to "we have to have a new guideline" level. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Establishing better expectations in WP:TPG to protect proper inserts

My premise remains that the biggest problem in interleaving comes not in the unusual occasions where it is appropriate, but when editors violate WP:TPO to restore their non-existent "ownership rights" and disrupt discussions as a result of not having their expectations sufficiently set in WP:TPG. Unscintillating (talk) 01:37, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Separating portions of a comment from its original context and signature is the real violation of TPO it seems to me, in that it potentially changes the meaning. You believe an editor would be in the wrong to restore their comment to its original form? Now I did just remove three levels of indentation in your post in a new subsection which does not change its meaning. But if I partitioned it out that would - who is to say two distinct sentences or paragraphs weren't meant to provide context for each other? What guidance would you suggest for TPG on this matter? —DIYeditor (talk) 02:34, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My belief remains that the biggest problem is that people do not understand and follow the indenting convention. And this is not just a problem when interleaving might otherwise be helpful. It creates awful messes even without any attempt at interleaving.

I haven't yet found the interleaving referred to in #A concrete example above, but the links so far provided do lead to some awful ancient trainwrecks. See this diff and don't waste too much time trying to work out what is going on, it's a mess. But note that in the edit being restored, two colons are being used to set out an inline quotation.

If this is normal on that talk page at that time, then those accustomed to it are going to hate interleaving, and find it confusing and even misrepresenting the flow of discussion. The two conventions are not even remotely compatible. So it's starting to make sense to me.

But I say two conventions with some reservations. It seems to me possible that those involved in this particular discussion were making the rules up as they went along. Andrewa (talk) 03:55, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa: Another tangential problem I see with the indenting convention is when, as you did correctly above per the Wikipedia:Indentation essay, a reply is indented only one more level than what is being responded to even if there is an intervening reply from another editor. To avoid confusion in this circumstance I do indent only one more than what I am replying to regardless of who else has responded, but I put a {{Replyto}} template at the start of my reply, because it definitely looks as if multiple comments are combined into one unless you make careful note of signatures (which naturally comes after reading a good portion of text). If I didn't want to ping a user for some reason I might just do "@User:" manually. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:22, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't find that remotely confusing, and think that it's reasonable to expect editors to learn some basic conventions of which this is one. The help page at WP:THREAD has only one very simple example, but links to the essay at Wikipedia:Indentation which has four examples of increasing complexity, and their example #2 describes this situation precisely. That essay has over 1000 incoming links, so it's fairly widely read and quoted and in the absence of anything better should be regarded as the standard IMO.

So there is no ambiguity. But there is obviously confusion.

The conventions need to be made clearer and/or more readily available.

And possibly also modified to allow for mobile computing and page readers, neither of which were considered when I started editing. There has been little change since then, and even what change there has been has not been effectively communicated to some of the participants in this discussion. Andrewa (talk) 01:25, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And it seems that even those involved in this discussion can't follow the most basic example, so there is much room for improvement. And before when I have pointed out that indenting here was in error, the only response was a personal attack.

I say again, it seems reasonable to me to ask that people learn a few basic conventions. Andrewa (talk) 01:58, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter if ~~you know~~ one knows the convention or not, I find it hard to believe that you do not initially parse multiple comments at the same indentation level as coming from one person. You're saying the first thing you do when you look at a new indentation level is scan for signatures before you look at the beginning of the sentences to get an idea of what each paragraph is about? Really hard to believe. Especially since 95% or more of the time comments at the same indentation level are from the same person. That flies in the face of the premise that indentation without a preceding signature in the case of interleaving should make it obvious that the indented portion is from someone else - what exactly is the cue if not indentation? And you don't see the problem when that cue is lacking? Believe me, I agree with the logic behind replies to a comment being only one more indentation level over but it trips me up every time there are responses from different people and I can't imagine what process you are using to read comments where it doesn't happen to you. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:09, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting... No. I have no such problems. But I'm not saying the first thing you do when you look at a new indentation level is scan for signatures before you look at the beginning of the sentences to get an idea of what each paragraph is about at all. As I read through a post, if I come to a sig, I know it's the end of the post, and until I do I assume there is more. It seems to work most of the time! It only fails when correct indenting is not followed... such as in the appalling trainwreck claimed as due to interleaving but in which I'm increasingly doubting that there was any interleaving at all. Maybe I'll still find it. Another pair of eyes would be welcome, see #A concrete example.

I find it equally hard to believe that, reading a post, you would not notice that there was a sig at the end of it, but would continue reading on the assumption that the text following the sig was by the same person just because it's at the same indentation level. Is that what you're saying? It makes no sense at all to me. What am I missing? Andrewa (talk) 02:36, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Speed reading. I don't think most people read word by word, sentence by sentence, left to right, top to bottom. Not initially or exclusively. Having to look for signatures at the same indentation level disrupts the normal process of skimming and scanning. Especially since almost all the time the same indentation level is the same post. I would say we are getting pretty far off topic except that the only defense of interleaving I've seen is that indention is an expected cue - almost always for a different author. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:09, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aha... my initial reaction is, that is your problem... you are using a completely inappropriate technique and it's no wonder you have problems! Speed reading is great in its place but making sense of a complex and/or controversial talk page discussion is definitely not one of them.

But if a significant number of editors do this then yes, I guess we will need to accommodate them, unless we can talk some sense into them. Andrewa (talk) 07:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It now appears that the interleaving in question was five edits [13] [14] [15] [16] and [17] by a now indeffed user, which are indeed interleaving but do not follow the normal conventions, and I agree that they are problematical... using outdent in an interleaved comment is a bit bizarre, and I have never seen it done before that I can remember. Andrewa (talk) 07:28, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Repeat: If a particular editor is doing something daft, that's a micro-problem to resolve with that editor. It's no grounds for a new rule, or we'd have hundreds of thousands of rules on thousands of policy and guideline pages, instead of 200-and-change pages. [...] People do unhelpful, idiosyncratic things all the time and we just fix them without losing our minds about it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I hate to add to the confusion here, but I'm going to. I understand completely when a discussion is on content, but a discussion on wording of a passage following a GOCE copy-edit is slightly different. I often leave detailed comments after I complete a copy-edit on the talk page of the requester. I always number them and try to include the precise location in the article of the sentence in question, including a link to the section. I often copy a sentence, group of sentences, or short paragraph for easy reference. We then go back and forth, working on that sentence, group of sentences, or paragraph, sometimes proposing slight changes in wording or sentence construction. Each version, and the accompanying remarks, really need to be one after the other to see the differences between them. When we resolve it, we go on to the next item. The discussion is almost always only between myself and the editor who requested the copy-edit. We usually use the colon for progressive indentation, but sometimes I suggest alternatives using either the bullet or (a), (b), and (c). I have copy-edited hundreds of articles, and I haven't had any problem with this method. Whenever someone replies to all my concerns at the bottom of the page, I have to go back to the top to see what the original comment or passage was, then back to the bottom to add a new comment or version. It would take a lot of time and space to repeatedly "quote" previous versions in order to add them to the bottom of the page. It makes things more difficult. I really think that if you implement this, it should be a recommendation, not a requirement. – Corinne (talk) 17:16, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, and doing what is best is the whole point of WP:IAR and the fact that this page (WP:TPG) is a guideline and not a bright-line policy. If there are situations where interleaving is useful, of course people should do that. However, interleaving is not useful in most discussions, particularly those on a noticeboard or on a contentious topic where multiple people may want to offer an opiniion. Another example of desirable interleaving is at feature-article discussions such as this long example. Johnuniq (talk) 23:27, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I know exactly what the concern is of those who are saying that interleaving comments often creates confusion, if not total confusion. One editor replies to a comment right after the comment, even if it's in the middle of a long discussion, and others reply at the end of the discussion. I think it is particularly necessary that comments not be interleaved – that is, that new comments be placed at the bottom, after the last comment – in places like ANI, Rfc's, and in contentious talk page discussions. Perhaps an example of a well-organized discussion should be given in a link at the top of these pages with a suggestion that editors take a look at it, and a note strongly recommending that new comments be added at the end, and not in the middle, of a discussion be placed at the top of the page (or even at the top of a section, as a reminder). Examples of how to refer to an earlier comment could also be given, something like:

[[User:AnApple|AnApple]], you wrote above that Quoted comment here. I strongly disagree because...

I agree with [[User:AnOrange|AnOrange]] when s/he says Quoted comment. New comment here...

One more thing that could be done is when someone interleaves a comment is for someone to remind that person politely that it would lessen confusion if s/he moved his/her comment to the bottom of the discussion. (I have to admit that I haven't read the entire discussion, above, and have no suggestion regarding what to do about careless use of the colon. I just know that, for many people, graphic layout is not their strong point, and no matter how many suggestions, examples, or requirements you make, they are not going to get indentation right.) – Corinne (talk) 15:57, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Except that when people interleave a comment for a good, clarifying reason, and don't muck up the attribution, then moving their comment to the end will have an opposite, "increase confusion", effect. WP and its talk pages do not exist for people to "police" each other about posting style or how it is "permissible" to engage in conversations or help other people. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of editors who would like to be notified when this discussion is closed and archived so they can add the page back to their watchlists, having removed it for the time being so as not to be annoyed over and over by this pointless waste of time

E Eng 23:33, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'll second that. This should be closed immediately, as no consensus and a total waste of time and editorial attention. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proper use of the colon

I said above I was beginning to understand. Here's part of that.

In one of the edits I stumbled upon while investigating the claim that #A concrete example had been a total disaster... (which it was) ...caused by interleaving (which it was not), two colons are used to cite the text of a policy. This rang a warning bell.

This to me is misuse of the colon. If we allow it, then the interleaving convention I have followed does become ambiguous and confusing. One or the other does need to be banned.

But there are far better ways to cite someone else's text. Andrewa (talk) 04:20, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For an example of how the two are incompatible, see this edit which makes it appear that TomSoybean affirms that Ryde really reeks of rotting rhubarb, and RichardTheLyingHeart denies this. In fact it's the other way around. IMO this confusion is because IvanTheTerrified has used nonstandard indenting. Andrewa (talk) 04:45, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Made-up examples are useless. When editors actually get engaged in long discussions in a variety of topics (real topics, not make-work commentary in Wikipedia namespace), they find a variety of opinions about colons. A majority understand that the indent level indicates which of the above comments is being addressed. However, many are unhappy with the visual cliff that results if several people respond to one post. A minority of good editors will not be budged and they believe that it is better to use indents to show where the next comment starts (no cliff). They are wrong, but collaboration is required even with people who misunderstand the point of indenting. The bottom line is that what the guideline says is totally irrelevant because the dissenters will not notice WP:TPG and would not agree with it even if it were drawn to their attention. Is there an example of a real discussion about a consequential topic where misuse of colons was a big deal? An example which would be helped by further beating this talk page? Johnuniq (talk) 07:23, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is the solution I have found: When I want to respond to someone at the same indent level that someone else has, I interpose a line that consists of the appropriate number of colons followed by  . That makes a visual separation between the two responses. See the source of this comment to see what I mean.

I used to use <br> but I got concerned that it might be messing up screen-readers; the explanations of what happens with those are a little hard to follow completely. By the way, is there any way to get literal <br> inside <code> tags? I couldn't figure it out. --Trovatore (talk) 08:24, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Trovatore: Not sure what you mean by "a literal <br> inside <code> tags"; do you mean a line break in a code block when that block is visually rendered, a line break in the source that doesn't show up when the block is rendered, or the string "<br>" appearing in the code example, or something else? Best taken to my user talk, since it's off-topic, but I've worked out pretty much every code formatting thing to be worked out by this point (I edit a lot of template documentation). It should be <br />, or you'll be breaking people's syntax highlighters in source mode (never mind the fact that HTML5 does technically appear to permit <br>, without the /; gotta work with the tools we have). On topic: I've used the same :  trick, but find just adding a <br /> to the end of the previous comment before starting mine is more expedient. I'm unaware of any problems this could cause, and from a WP:ACCESSIBILITY perspective, it should be much better, because it's not creating a bogus, empty <dd> list item in the <dl> structure. (Which is all markup that MediaWiki shouldn't be generating for this stuff anyway; see outdented comment on this below.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Most of this subthread is unintentionally absurd, since our use of wikimarkup : "indentation" for the purposes of threaded discussions is a gross misuse of the underlying <dd>...</dd> HTML markup, which is for (and only for) the definition or explanation of a term or other entry previously given with <dt>...</dt> (; in wikimarkup). The solution to this is technical and should have been proposed and implemented years ago: convert any : indent into a CSS-indented <div>...</div> when it is not immediately preceded by a ; (or explicit <dt>...</dt>). Our talk pages should not be using <dl>...</dl> structures at all, other than for creation of actual description lists we intentionally want to be formatted as such. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:29, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, and I hope you will make it in the appropriate forums. But meantime, what should we do here? Andrewa (talk) 23:27, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Opened at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Fixing abuse of list markup (talk page accessibility, etc.). I don't think there's anything to do here about this sort of thing at all; this is a software fix, not a rules matter. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:14, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. Part of the idea of a wiki is you should not need any knowledge of the underlying HTML to edit it, whether by WYSIWYG editor or by wikitext.

But I still think that the example given is or should be contrary to guidelines, and it would be helpful if it were to be avoided. Not sure whether you regarded that assertion as unintentionally absurd. Andrewa (talk) 11:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, just the futility of arguing about the invalid markup problem here, when it can't be fixed here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:37, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RfC?

I think it's RfC time. SMcCandlish clearly strongly opposes any caution against interleaving, but it's clear that most other editors that weighed in support caution against interleaving. I don't see this matter as WP:CREEP. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think things were fine before this mess of a thread was opened. Let's let this lie. E Eng 04:29, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but perhaps someone can present a choice or choices for discussion in this section, so you have a well looked at/amended proposal, before an RfC. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:19, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. An RfC is probably overdue. One of the advantages of putting one together is that it encourages the proponents to be specific in what they are proposing and why. Andrewa (talk) 17:22, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll leave starting the RfC up to one of you or someone else involved in the discussion (unless no one ends up starting it). I'll do the heavy advertising. I'm sure that many Wikipedians have something to state on this topic, and, in this case, it's best to see what the community in general thinks. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:43, 12 September 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:45, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am un-involved in the above discussion, so it won't be me (I think it unfortunate, that no brief guidance on the do's and don't of editing someone else's comment - otherwise, called "interleaving" - came out of it, though). Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:48, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But "interleaving" and "editing someone else's comment" are not at all synonymous; the former is an uncommon though sometimes legit subset of the latter (which also has various other subsets some of which are sometimes helpful, and some of which are not; e.g. fixing broken links or mangled HTML in a comment is routine maintenance, while "typo policing" others' commentary will get you reverted and yelled at.). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:59, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interleaveing is editing someone else's comment, it is rearranging what they wrote by inserting breaks in their editorial flow and inserting additional text. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:12, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a subset of, not an equation to, editing someone else's comment, exactly as I said. Glad we agree. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:40, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the issue here is that people are talking about different things, including (among others) a) what they do or want to do or are used to, b) what disruptive people do or might do, or c) useful refactoring that may involve "interleaving", without any thought to how these things relate. The result is that most respondents seem to want a "someone pissed me off once, so we should have a new rule regardless of the fallout it causes" result or even an "I can imagine someone doing something disruptive so we should have a new rule regardless of the fallout it causes" result. Fortunately, WP is not voting-based.

The WP:RFC process – which consumes a lot of editorial productivity cycles – is not invoked to WP:WIN. "I'm not getting an answer I want, so I'm gonna RfC it" is just WP:FORUMSHOPPING. We've already talked this "issue" to death, without any clarity emerging. Given that the above mess proves that people are already talking completely past each other about unrelated things, there is some obvious work to do to even identify something to have an RfC about and whether doing so makes sense:

Demonstrate there's a real problem to solve, and exactly what that problem is and how frequent it is.
Show that existing rules and procedures do not already address it.
Formulate a proposed rule to address it, which has no negative effects on actually accepted practice, and which will actually be efficacious.

This is a dependency chain (no. 3 happens only after no. 2 which happens only after no. 1).
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:50, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Starting an RfC is not about winning. It's about this matter affecting Wikipedia as a whole, with numerous editors citing interleaving as a problem, and editors not being able to settle this matter without all of the debate and unnecessary drama that has ensued thus far. If one or more person is holding up the addition of sound guidance, it is something to take to an RfC. It is a hell of a lot better than debating and debating, and fighting, with nothing being resolved. Even if the RfC resolves nothing, which I don't think will be the case, it will have shown that the community as a whole is divided on the issue and that we likely should not add anything to the guideline on the matter or take a more conservative approach to wording the issue in the guideline. Starting an RfC is not WP:FORUMSHOPPING in any sense of the word; it's WP:Dispute resolution. One can call an RfC dependency, but we are dependent on it for valid reasons. And except for those who fear "losing," an RfC for a matter like this is nothing to shun or be afraid of. So I still support a widely-publicized RfC on this issue and will follow through with starting one if no one else takes up the mantle. We can work out RfC wording proposals here first; whatever gets the ball rolling toward resolution. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:27, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See points 1, 2, and 3 above. Asserting there's a real problem "affecting Wikipedia as a whole" is something neither you nor anyone else has actually demonstrated. A tiny number of people just keep going on about it, often in mutually contradictory terms. It's a bunch of emotional hand-waving about a "problem" that from all appearances is simply imaginary, and if it might actually happen in a disruptive way would already be addressable as disruptive like any other form of disruptive editing. There is no dispute to resolve, there's just a train-wreck of a sprawling thread of people miscommunicating subjective feelings without evidence of anything, and mostly not even agreeing amongst each other what they're actually talking about. That's not an RfC topic. It's a waste of time to drop, in favor of something more productive. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:53, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That you are against an RfC in such lengthy of postings, just demonstrates that an RfC is a good idea per WP:DR. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:55, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, Alanscottwalker.

SMcCandlish, I saw your points, and I clearly disagree. You talk about "a tiny number of people," when it is a tiny number of people crafting our policies and guidelines every day. Interleaving is far more of an issue than dictating that someone should not use "and/or" via MOS:ANDOR. And per the issues with that, I'm glad that I started an RfC on it. There was no bickering. Just editors assessing the issue and weighing in. That is the way that RfCs usually work. Of course, there will be the occasional heated discussion. Okay, more than occasional. But that's the nature of Wikipedia. Disputes, including heated disputes, happen all the time on this site. When such disputes are leading to nothing, as is the case now, we turn to things like an RfC. And the RfC usually does resolve the issue, even if partly or temporarily in some cases. A number of editors have demonstrated a problem with interleaving, and no one (nope, not even you) has demonstrated a significant benefit to interleaving. Any benefit to interleaving is outweighed by the problems. A well-publicized RfC will pull in a lot of editors. This may also be a "tiny few" compared to Wikipedia as a whole, but most Wikipedia editors, especially the newbies, are not concerned with watching our guideline and policy pages and/or (oops, there's that use of "and/or" again) being a part of a WikiProject (at least not for a number of years here anyway). This is not a WP:DROPTHESTICK issue. It's an issue that needs attention from those outside of the disputes on this talk page and resolution, and seeking that is productive. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:12, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving

"Interleaving" or "comment splitting" is harmless and sometimes quite useful, as long as the attribution is copy-pasted to avoid any confusion about who said what, and the motivation is topical clarity and separation, not being an ass. It's unfortunate that the discussion above has been dominated by ideas about disruptive comment-splitting and interleaving, which is rare, and is not a discrete issue of any kind (it's simply WP:DE and can be addressed at ANI, etc., like any other form of DE).

An example that illustrates one of various indications why someone might want to split and interleave (with attribution preserved), and additional stuff they might do in the process:

I agree. – SnorkelWeasel, 12:34, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Can you be more specific? BTW, what's the story behind that username? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

Then:

I agree. – SnorkelWeasel, 12:34, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Can you be more specific? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Per WP:NOT#WEBHOST and WP:ENC, the user in question shouldn't be using their userspace for posting hundreds of pictures of their cats with cutesy captions, even if a handful of them might be encyclopedically useful. Those can be uploaded to Commons and used in actual articles (without anecdotal captions). – SnorkelWeasel, 12:54, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

BTW, what's the story behind that username? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
"Snorkel" and "weasel" seem like the funniest words ever to me, and their combination conjures a hilarious visual. Let's use user talk for any further discussion of this. :-) – SnorkelWeasel, 12:54, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

or even:

I agree. – SnorkelWeasel, 12:34, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Can you be more specific? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC)
Per WP:NOT#WEBHOST and WP:ENC, the user in question shouldn't be using their userspace for posting hundreds of pictures of their cats with cutesy captions, even if a handful of them might be encyclopedically useful. Those can be uploaded to Commons and used in actual articles (without anecdotal captions). – SnorkelWeasel, 12:54, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

Off-topic
BTW, what's the story behind that username? – TheQuestionizer, 12:39, 30 February 2112 (UTC) "Snorkel" and "weasel" seem like the funniest words ever to me, and their combination conjures a hilarious visual. Let's use user talk for any further discussion of this. :-) – SnorkelWeasel, 12:54, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:35, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How is the above "interleaving" - it doesn't break up anyone else's post unless I'm missing something. What I've just done is what is in question. —DIYeditor (talk) 01:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing something — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:19, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you when you first just said[18] only "you're missing something" I was still feeling stupid and couldn't see it. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:37, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(namely that "Can you be more specific? BTW, what's the story behind that username?" was originally a single post, which the replier split, to interleave a comment on the first half separately). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:19, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand now that you think it's ok to split up someone's post sentence by sentence (or in this case piece by piece?) as long as the signature is copied. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:37, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It might be or it might not be, depending on context and intent, and effect on original poster's intent. In short, it is something we have never had a rule about, do not need a rule about, and for which a rule-thumping approach will never work because it requires common sense and human judgement. (In your latest and borderline POINTy example, I'd probably revert the splitting in a less meta context than this, because "(namely that ...)" doesn't make any sense as a stand-alone post, and your apparent goal in the split is to dwell on feelings [real or illustratively inserted] that I was being sarcastic, while the obvious intent of the parenthetical was to make clear that I wasn't. I.e., you're trying to change the nature and interpretation of my content, not to aid discussion clarity by splitting juxtaposed but confusingly unrelated material into separate packages for distinct discussion. People doing potentially disruptive split-and-interleave on WP is rare, since it's a WP:Use common sense matter and anyone would be apt to revert it when it's not actually helpful. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:17, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do the kind of helpful interleaving illustrated above quite frequently, and of the four cases I can think of where someone blew up on me about refactoring, only two of them involved this sort of thing, so my success rate with it is around 99% over a decade and more.

I do think that on WP in particular, people have a case to make that doing it without copy-pasting the attribution (even in absence of something like a collapse-boxing or a re-sectioning) is apt to be confusing and should be avoided (i.e. by copy-pasting the attribution). Not because it's impossible to figure out who said what, but because it takes work to do so, and because the only-one-sig-at-bottom-despite-interleaving style simply isn't the "tradition" here, it's not usual, it's not part of "the way we do stuff". The occasional refactoring of posts and their responses to them – or even entire threads – to make them more useful is actually well-accepted, though as with everything there are a few naysayers. Most of them are not thinking through the implications of some kind of generalized "interleaving ban". E.g., it would invalidate hatting off-topic sections, and splitting threads into sections (either subtopically or with convenience breaks), and refactoring lengthy back-'n'-forth from !voting sections to extended discussion sections in RfC, etc., etc.

Let's look at a disruptive example. If someone habitually takes posts like this:

I oppose this proposal, on the basis of WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:ENC. – SnorkelWeasel, 11:14, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

and does something like this to them:

I

Yeah, you, you, and more you. You've been harping on this for months.

oppose

See WP:NOTAVOTE.

this proposal,

It's not a "proposal", it's an RfC question.

on the basis of WP:NOT#FORUM

Look who's talking; all you do here is argue on talk pages.

and WP:ENC. – SnorkelWeasel, 11:14, 30 February 2112 (UTC)

Try actually reading that policy and applying it to yourself. Only 10% of your edits are to mainspace. – AckJass 09:22, 31 February 2112 (UTC)

then User:AckJass is headed for a block if they don't stop. Even aside from the fictional user's tone, this is disruptive because it makes it harder for other people to parse or follow at all, and its clear intent is to render the original commenter's post into fragmented gibberish, to deny that editor a voice. This is radically different from constructively splitting apart unrelated comments in the same post, which need to be separately addressed, into separate but self-complete pieces (sometimes they're even split into new sections if they're important). The abusive kind of split-and-interleave stuff is very rare.

It doesn't make any sense for us to enact crazy "control freak" provisions in TPG to prevent such things (with the fallout of outlawing constructive refactoring) since doing disruptive monkeying around on talk pages is already addressable by extant policy and procedure, and there thus is no actual problem to solve. It's a classic example of WP:CREEP. Cf. WP:If it ain't broke, don't fix it, one of our shortest but most sensible essays.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:35, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So is what I just did above to your post disruptive or confusing or just fine? —DIYeditor (talk) 01:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That was potentally confusing, because you didn't copy-paste my original attribution (now fixed). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:19, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So who is two decide if two sentences should or should not have been split from each other because of needed context? Since apparently at some point it would justify a block... Could an editor restore his refactored post to its original form if s/he felt it was needed to preserve meaning? —DIYeditor (talk) 02:44, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. WP:BRD, and just the nature of what refactoring is: You make a structural change to the discussion you believe is helpful, and hope that other editors agree that it is and run with it; if they didn't agree, they'd be free to revert it, whether a party to the discussion or not. There's no magical "once one refactor has happened, the page is now stuck that way forever" principle. Why are we even arguing about this? It just doesn't arise as an issue with any frequency, and it's going to default to doing what the original poster wants, per it being their material to being with, and per the status quo ante principle of what to do with content when a dispute arises. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:25, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as being argumentative. I was genuinely trying to work out with you how this can be a constructive element of discussion. I think I have come closer to agreeing with you as a matter of fact. I don't have the experience to have seen this many times. —DIYeditor (talk) 05:29, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. Argumentative is okay anyway. >;-) "Why are we even arguing about this?" was a commentary on the entire thread. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:45, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Block based on which policy or behavioral guideline? (I'm new I don't know) —DIYeditor (talk) 02:44, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Disruptive editing. Like a lot of WP principles, it's not a list of exactly 129 "do nots", but a general principle about effects on collaboration and productivity. A lack of years of WP experience may explain why you opened this thread to begin with, in that why WP has worked fine for a decade and a half without micro-management rules about posting and editor interaction might not be apparent without being deeper steeped in WP's workings, especially if you're used to environments that do have lots of such netiquette micro-management. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:45, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A proposal

Despite the caution above about micro-management, I think there's a protocol suggested above that has merit, and might be the basis of an RfC, or even a bold change to the guideline without one if we can get clarity and consensus here. Watch this space. Andrewa (talk) 00:09, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, editors did seem to be okay with the addition that was added, except that (as the diff link shows) a dispute arose over whether to use "Do not" or "Generally." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:13, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Except that multiple editors here object to it. Please do not play WP:ICANTHEARYOU. I know that you know that it doesn't go over well in policy editing disputes. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:05, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where? I've only seen you objecting. All over the guideline talk page. I've only seen you vehemently against an RfC, no doubt because you fear that most editors will object to people breaking up others' comments. By contrast, I have barely responded on this issue. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not be silly; Andrewa has been objecting the entire time, and this thread was already enormous by the time I arrived. In this very section (a little below) AngusWOOF provides an example of useful interleaving, and others have as well, including in the eventually-launched RfC, albeit their turnout was low and the RfC is a WP:SNOW. I've actually asked WP:ANRFC to close it as such. I know when a cause is lost. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, in #Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving SMcCandlish suggests that interleaving may be useful on occasions, but that on these it's necessary to duplicate the sig on the interleaved comments after every inserted section, and also the sig with timestamp of the original poster before every inserted section. This would remove the confusion some have experienced as to who said what, but (as was pointed pointed out previously) it introduces another possible objection in that it means that a user's sig is being posted by someone else, which might be seen as impersonation, or at least as opening the way for it.

Is that perhaps worth a try? Andrewa (talk) 12:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's already regularly in use, and in practice virtually no one ever objects. The "impersonation" thing is a non-argument, or it would be impermissible to use {{unsigned}} and for bots to fix unsigned posts, or for people to move discussions from one page to another, etc., etc. Whoever you're paraphrasing is probably the only person in WP history to suggest something as weird as the notion that correctly identifying and attributing posts – a routine part of WP talk and noticeboard maintenance – is "impersonation". Given that the page history shows who posted what, it's not actually possible to impersonate anyone by such means. "Impersonation" on WP means using an ID that's nearly indistinguishable from someone else's and posting your own material in a way that others will think was posted by the one you're masquerading as. That's already against multiple policies, and it gets shut down immediately. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's necessary to duplicate the sig on the interleaved comments after every inserted section, but this usually does not happen. I've seen it time and time again. And when it happens to me, I'm always the one who has fix my and others' comments by signing each piece. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As one of the repeat offenders I have now changed my practice. I don't know whether I have ever interleaved in your posts, but I have done so to many other editors over the years, normally without duplicating my signature or anyone else's (I have occasionally duplicated my own when it seemed to increase clarity). It seemed a good thing to do at the time. I still find it amazing that anyone found this post confusing, and it proved to be a very good test and example, in that I at least learned a lot from it and most especially from the response it evoked. Andrewa (talk) 06:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An example of useful interleaving would be perhaps a peer review or something where items could be presented from a bullet list, but this should be preceded with whether the reviewer would want their comments broken up or present a duplicate of it as action items. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:04, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Already expressly permitted by TPO

WP:TPO already expressly permits several forms of refactoring which may (sometimes necessarily) involve interleaving, including at the line items named "Removing prohibited material", "Removing harmful posts", "Off-topic posts", "Sectioning", "Removing duplicate sections", "Hiding or resizing images", "Hiding old code samples", and "Removing or striking through ... comments of editors ... blocked as socks", among others (sometimes also including "Fixing format errors" and "Fixing layout errors", depending on the nature of the correction[s] involved). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:03, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that any of those examples involve interleaving comments in response to the comment being modified. That's the kind of interleaving that should be discouraged. The guideline should make this clear. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:49, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A diff of a specific edit of the sort that should be discouraged would help IMO. Andrewa (talk) 11:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I think diffs of examples would be good. Andrewa (talk) 11:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

People eventually provided a couple in the RfC below, but all they show is either a) noobs who are treating the talk page like their e-mail program and will be disabused of that behavior probably on their very first day or, or b) jackasses being obnoxious, which is just disruptive editing we already have the means to deal with. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Reflist-talk

I was going to boldly add a paragraph to the page, but because of the warning at the top—

You are editing a page that documents an English Wikipedia guideline. While you may be bold in making minor changes to this page, consider discussing any substantive changes first on the page's talk page.

— I'm posting it here first for discussion:

References on talk pages

If your comment includes references that will create footnotes, use Template:Reflist-talk^[1] at the end of your comment section. This will force your references to appear in a box at the end of the section, rather than at the foot of the page as they would in an article. Like this:

References

^ Also useable as {{talkref}} or other names; see list here

Comments, please! {{Ping}} me.--Thnidu (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, this page is complicated enough as it is. Refs on talk pages are fairly rare (usually they're there by accident – copied in with some other text, and of no importance at all) and it's not the end of the world if they get rendered at the end of the page. Some other more experienced editor might come along and add {talkref}, or not, and either way it's not a big deal. I'd skip it, and let it be something people learn by example. E Eng 19:09, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Thnidu: I agree with the proposal. I see this about once a month and while not necessary, I'd like to see the practice formalized. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
EEng (Ye gods, I just wasted at least half an hour in your "museums". Fun but dangerous!) Um... As I was saying... Yes, I still think it's a good idea. It can save a lot of scrolling (→ time → spoons), and make it a lot easier to compare the references with the text. I'mma put it in. --Thnidu (talk) 21:53, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying it's not useful to have it where it applies. I'm saying that I wonder if it's worth adding to the crushing weight of detail on this page, which is one of the first we recommend newbies absorb. Anyone can come behind an initial post and add {reftalk} when they recognize that it would help so I'm saying let a more experienced comes-along-later editor do it -- no harm done by the delay -- instead of adding one more thing a newbie thinks he has to try to remember. E Eng 22:02, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

EEng is correct. It would be nice if every editor could be given a pill that allowed them to manage talk pages, but that's not going to happen, and they certainly will not read this guideline before dumping refs in their comments. Learn-by-example is best for {{reflist-talk}} and the guideline should focus on basics which are much more important. Too much detail makes it impossible to see essentials. Johnuniq (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You know, I think there's a place for an essay WP:LEARNBYEXAMPLE on erring on the side of relying on learn-by-example instead of stuffing every detail into long intro pages no one can possibly read. The Help: space is a trainwreck because its builders (who, I gather, simply dropped dead of exhaustion one day) couldn't decide whether to make it a set of for-dummies quick-start pages, or a full regurgitation of every consideration and feature, drawn out with numbing examples for each and every point. Favorite examples: WP:How_to_make_dashes, Help:Footnotes, and (my all-time favorite) WP:Picture tutorial. That word tutorial in there was someone's idea of a joke. (Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax is even more indigestible, but at least it doesn't advertise itself as a tutorial or help page.) E Eng 23:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC) P.S. Sorry, I momentarily blocked on the absolutely, positively, worst help page every: Help:Table.[reply]
@EEng: I just saw that you'd deleted my paragraph from the page. I wish you had at least mentioned that action in this discussion. --Thnidu (talk) 18:55, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would have if there was anything that needed saying beyond what's in my edit summary. You're expected to keep pages you care about on your watchlist. E Eng 20:04, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if there might be a technical solution to this. It is an annoyance, especially when trying to manually archive, collapse or remove something, and you can't find where those refs at the bottom belong. On a crowded talk page in need of archiving, it can be quite difficult to find which section to stick the template in after the fact, so it would be nice if it could be either automatically generated in the first place or added by bot soon after. Beyond the scope of this talk page, I guess, but I thought I'd see if anyone thinks it's feasible before finding a place to request it. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 05:19, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I see no hope of some automated solution. But I really feel this is a search for a solution which, when found, will then be in search of a problem. Sure, it's cleaner if each talk thread ends with its own refs, but if they refs end up at the bottom of the page, so what? They're still there, and when a thread is archived the refs move properly with the thread itself to the archive page, appearing at the bottom there. Sometimes the refs are in the thread accidentally anyway e.g. got copied in as part of some text under discussion, and no one cares where they appear or indeed realizes they're even there. If it really matters that the refs be in the thread proper, someone will have the sense to add {talkref}. Otherwise, no big deal. E Eng 05:29, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Rivertorch: It's very easy to work out which sections to add the {{reflist-talk}} to. Assuming that you are starting with all the refs displayed automatically at the bottom of the page:
Have a look at the first of those refs; it will have one or more backlinks close to the start of the line (if there is one backlink, it will be a caret "^"; if there are two or more, they will be lowercase letters).

Click the first of those backlinks, this will take you to some point further up the page, almost certainly in one section or another.

Edit that section, add {{reflist-talk}} to the bottom, and save.

Return to the bottom of the page, check to see if there are any remaining automatically-displayed refs; if there are, return to step 1.
and you're done. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:25, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's quick and simple! Another approach would be to just not worry about on exactly what part of the page the refs display. E Eng 12:02, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Redrose64. That's more or less what I already do, and it almost always works, but a while back I encountered a talk page where all bets seemed to be off. I don't remember exactly what I eventually found the problem was (hatted sections? an improperly closed tag, maybe?), but it just stuck in my mind and when I saw this thread it occurred to me that it might be feasible to address the problem through automated means. @EEng, I appreciate that you consider it no big deal. I certainly don't think it's a big problem, but I also think it's often worthwhile to at least consider addressing minor issues that make the interface more confusing than it needs to be, especially for new users. I'm no perfectionist, but I also dislike the "good enough" approach when something might be easily improved.

Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 18:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree about considering, and that's what we're doing now, but to me the answer is that it's not an improvement to add these instructions to this page. A big problem in editor retention is the learning curve, and by adding this we've made that curve a little steeper in order to get a slight cosmetic adjustment to 1 in 1000 talk pages – maybe (i.e. if this new instruction is remembered and heeded by newbies). And in many cases someone else will make the slight adjustment anyway. E Eng 18:27, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(At ten levels of indentation the text is virtually unreadable on a smartphone.)

@Chris troutman, Johnuniq, Redrose64, Rivertorch, and EEng:
Clearly I left out a crucial point in my proposal: Using {{Reflist-talk}} on one's own comment requires making sure that all previous comments with references have it as well. And that does complicate it, so it would be important to note that this is an option that you can use, but you don't have to.--Thnidu (talk) 19:28, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great – yet more complication to an instruction that solves a tiny use case in the first place. Until five years ago {reflist-talk} didn't even exist, and we got along fine. It was invented for a the very few times where, for some special reason, it really clarified things to emit the refs accumulated to a certain point (usually how-to pages, MOS pages, etc., on which the mechanics of refs are being themselves explained). You mean well, but this whole thing is a bad use of novice editors' very limited ability to absorb our already complicated rules and guidelines. I suggest we remove it completely. E Eng 20:04, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Honest question: would you say this guideline should be primarily for newbs? Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 23:27, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

First and foremost it's a reference for OK and not-OK behavior, for when arguments flair up. To the extent possible, it should present that in a way calculated to allow newbies to absorb it readily. That's a hard balance to strike, and way down on the list is technically complicated oh-and-in-this-rare-case-also-do-this minutiae. I'll say it again – leave this for learn-by-example. E Eng 00:12, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The practice of putting citations in a talk page comment doesn't happen all that often on a single talk page, so I understand EEng's argument. I often insert this template and I feel that including it in the guideline moves my practice of adding the template beyond being my personal preference in not having citations ride the bottom of the page, but makes it a general norm which is why I support the inclusion. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:36, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have never seen an argument about whether reflist-talk should be included in a talk page section—it's part of referencing and does not need a "this is a good idea" guideline. The text is out of place here because WP:TPG is a behavioral guideline (don't use a talk page to express personal opinions on a subject or editor). If a reflist how-to belongs anywhere, it is at Help:Using talk pages, which is WP:TP. Further, adding how-to information anywhere will not help the problem of editors pasting refs into talk pages because the editors (often newbies) will not see it. They will only learn how to fix the issue when they see someone else add the correct reflist. Johnuniq (talk) 23:54, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great point about behavioral guideline vs. tutorial/help page. Talking about {reflist-talk} here makes it sound like you could get dragged to ANI for not doing it. I think the added text [19] needs to be removed as failing to have gained consensus. E Eng 00:33, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This notion that this is not a common problem is misguided. I think a help page updates would help....but agree no need for this How-to info in guidelines .....add disputed text to [[[Help:Using talk pages]] ....Wikipedia:Talk page layout.....Help:Introduction to talk pages/3.--Moxy (talk) 15:26, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've removed it here -- and look carefully [20] -- there was already text on the page about {reflist-talk}! E Eng 17:26, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

~~Agreed with the proposal.~~ This is simple, but people don't do it, and its lack often causes confusing messes. I disagree with the idea that refs on talk pages are rare and usually accidental; in the areas I edit, the opposite is true. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Changed my mind after looking over the page again, and I now agree with the "let people learn by example" idea. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:36, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting bot notices

After chasing one link to another to find an answer, the question can only be asked here:

Q. Can bot notices (such as the InternetArchiveBot) be deleted from Talk pages? If they cannot be deleted ... can they be collapsed to use less page space?

Q. If there is a guideline somewhere about deleting bot notices from talk pages ... where is it because I didn't see it in WP:GTD, WP:NOTIFS, and WP:BOTPOL.

Thank you. Pyxis Solitary talk 00:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an example of a talk page which is suffering due to bot notices? I'm not sure what the problem is. I do not know of any bot notices which are unhelpful, so they should be visible for easy review. The problem with deleting them is that other editors will see that someone has removed text, and they may feel obligated to check that the removal was desirable. It's much less hassle for everyone if there are no deletions unless necessary, such as with spam. That has the benefit of not lighting up watchlists with unnecessary edits. Johnuniq (talk) 04:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Talk pages don't "suffer". But they can become cluttered. What I understand by your answer is that when IABot edits have been checked, the notice needs to remain on the Talk page. If that's the case, fine.

Now ... say there are two or three IABot notices, one after the other: can they be folded within a collapse box? Pyxis Solitary talk 06:29, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No authoritative answer is possible I'm afraid because as you say, there is no guideline. My answer would be that if someone is monitoring a particular topic and making substantive edits to the articles concerned, they might feel that some bot notices were intrusive and collapse or even delete them. However, editors who merely notice such bot posts should leave them alone mainly because an edit on a talk page can cause a dozen editors to feel they check what happened. That particularly applies for contentious topics where people might feel they need to inspect the talk history and check the diff of the removal to see that no other change occurred, and whether they agree with the removal. In short, I leave IABot notices but I do whatever it says about closing its request. Keeping the notice might also be a helpful record for anyone in the future who wonders why a certain edit occurred. Johnuniq (talk) 07:34, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We need a guideline. I may have voiced the question but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking about it. Pyxis Solitary talk 03:14, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My solution is to archive them after they start to pile up. We do have talk page archives for a reason, and that reason is now-useless talk page items that people don't need to see unless they have a reason to dig up "old business" on the talk page. :-) Outright deleting them as if spam or personal attacks isn't helpful for anyone. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:39, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd thought about archiving them but didn't want to flip any norm on its head. Thank you for making the suggestion. Pyxis Solitary talk 03:14, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to WP:Bots/Noticeboard § InternetArchiveBot notices about nothing but archive-url additions

Off-topic here; this isn't a bot-changing venue. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Pyxis Solitary: I've actually rethought this in tiny part; the archive-url notices of InternetArchiveBot in particular are actually completely useless, since what the bot does to talk pages is redundantly tell us that it added an archive-url to a citation, which anyone watching the page already saw on their watchlist. These notices serve no legit purpose on article talk pages, and don't need to be archived. I've filed a Phabricator request to have that bot in particular stop doing this. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:49, 2 October 2017 (UTC), corrected missing word 22:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree:

On the talk page the bot suggests that a human editor checks the bot operation:
1. Not all of these eligible human editors need to have the page on their watchlist;
2. If someone else edits the article on an unrelated matter, the mainspace bot edit is no longer directly visible in the watchlist;
The bot suggests to notify in the template on the talk page, after checking:
1. If the parameter in the template is changed to checked, other editors know they no longer need to check, unless they want to double-check, or unless archivebot's operation was marked as unsuccessful (and the first editor who checked doesn't know what to do next to get it sorted): in either case best to keep the message on the talk page, at least until the next round of talk page archiving (if any: a talk page of a largely unproblematic article may have too little content to archive, so, in that case, the bot's communications won't bother anyone either)
2. Sometimes a website is off-line accidentally when the archivebot does its thing, or, more often, the website is restructured or moved to another domain, in which case the "archive link" is not the best solution, although the first editor checking may have duly confirmed archivebot's operation as successful. So best to leave the archivebot's message on the talk page, even after someone has marked it as successful: someone else may come along who figured out where to find the page that was linked from Wikipedia (without needing to go to the Web Archive). In such cases the bot didn't make an error, but a better solution may turn up after some time.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 08:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have to revise; yes, IAB does leave some useful notices, including about problems to fix, and about changes it made that may need human examination. "I added an archive-url" is not among these, and its instructions that we need to go look at what it did are basically wrong (especially since anyone watching the page will have already seen it; the notice that "I did X" where "X" is trivial, routine, and virtually unbreakable is equivalent to the watchlist notice of the edit itself, and the talk edit makes another watchlist hit, so that's three notifications about an edit that will never be dangerous. "Not the best solution" is some rare, odd case isn't sufficient. The cite still works, so WP:V remains satisfied. That objection only applies, anyway, to a case where the bot added an archive-url AND a dead-url=yes. We have bot adding archive-urls to non-dead URLs on purpose to prevent link rot. Not just harmless but desirable; and also something we don't need talk page spam about. This whole "notify upon archive-url" grossly violates the spirit if not the exact letter of WP:COSMETICBOT. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:51, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree about the reasoning that interaction should never exceed what policy describes as a strict minimum. I think that the messages the bot leaves on the article talk pages are useful. They could be a bit shorter. Maybe. But in general, I don't see the problem: I'd rather have them than not. In my view they may be even useful after having lingered some time on the talk page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thread opened about this at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Run_around.2C_re:_InternetArchiveBot. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:37, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This page mentioned at ANI

This page has been mentioned in the title of a section at ANI. FYI, Unscintillating (talk) 23:51, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#EEng's editing at WT:TPG - links help as they would've above when mentioning sections of talk page archives. Since you are already looking at the page(s) in question it's easy and polite. FYI. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:51, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is a talk page, not a page on which to name names of editors involved in discussion at ANI. Editors can easily enough find the discussion with the information I gave if they choose, without the information being found in a page search. Unscintillating (talk) 02:10, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Much like above when you vaguely mentioned talk page archives, it is possible to find the information, but it is easier if you are specific. Why should someone have to spend the time looking without even knowing what it's about when they could easily be linked there? I don't know about you but I prefer clicking once to typing, manually searching, scrolling, etc. I think vague references waste people's time. —DIYeditor (talk)

The puzzle is why it is a priority to you to report here and include in a Wikipedia page search the names of editors in a discussion at ANI. Unscintillating (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note that due to quiet edits, see the edit history for the entire sequence of edits. Unscintillating (talk) 03:04, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Huh??? And you really, really, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need to stop trying to control what and how others post [21][22]. E Eng 05:00, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I'm thrilled for people to know that Unscintillating's opened a thread about me. I fear no scrutiny. E Eng 02:26, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to be as blunt as I can here. Unscintillating, you are wrong, drop the stick. Should you continue, it will not end well for you. --Tarage (talk) 08:37, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Also agreed with the original objection that posting ANI-related stuff on a page like this is not cool; it smacks of grudge-matching and canvassing. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:41, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Conduct here in general

Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that this talk page, which is the talk page on the behavioural guideline concerning talk pages, is such a good example of poor behaviour on a talk page?

(And yes, I'm painfully aware that I stand accused of being one of the culprits.)

The goal of all talk pages is to arrive at consensus decisions. But to do that we need to listen. That is, really listen and try to understand not just the motivations but also the merits of what others are saying.

Have a look at the essay at wp:bullying. The string at #Guidance against interleaving replies provides I think examples of several of the bullying behaviours described, and some others not even mentioned there. Is it any wonder that consensus is not achieved under those conditions? Andrewa (talk) 18:51, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at the essay at WP:STICK. The string at #Guidance against interleaving replies provides I think examples of several of the sticky behaviors described, and some others not even mentioned there. This very thread is worth considering in that light as well. Is it any wonder that consensus is not achieved under those conditions? E Eng 20:56, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there were several allegations of that behaviour. Do you think these allegations were helpful? Andrewa (talk) 21:51, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Based on what you're doing right now, I'd say they had no effect at all. E Eng 22:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

They did not get the response from me that they sought, agreed. But the question I'd like to ask is, if I had dropped the stick as requested, would that have improved Wikipedia? How? Andrewa (talk) 22:28, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By ending the colossal waste of time that has been this discussion. E Eng 22:41, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Firstly, there have been some useful points made since the first request that I drop out. Secondly, I don't think the discussion would have ended just because I dropped out. I could be wrong about that, it's a matter of judgement.

Agree that there has been some time-wasting conduct, that's the whole point of this section!

How can we do better? Andrewa (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What have you achieved apart from wasting the time and energy of several editors? The traditional response to myself and EEng would be that we should just suck it up and take this page of our watchlists if we don't want to participate in the never-ending banter. However, WP:TPG is important and some of us feel that it would be undesirable to be driven away to allow pointless navel-gazing with who-knows-what outcomes. Start an RfC or stop beating the horse. In answer to your question, we could do better by respecting WP:NOTFORUM. Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously in your eyes I have achieved little. The discussion is of course ongoing, and its outcomes still to be decided. But two points must be made. Firstly, you are obviously involved, and one of the reasons that you don't like what I say is simply that you don't agree with some of it. Secondly, even if you do have valid criticisms of my behaviour (and I'm not perfect but I am seriously trying hard) this is not the place to discuss that, for many reasons... policy and commonsense being the most important of these. The first port of call is my own user talk page.

Agree that this is an extremely important page, and that is why I (and others) are prepared to volunteer so much of our time here. Andrewa (talk) 23:49, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility 2

Non-actionable discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

SMcCandlish observed in #Accessibility above Accessibility is presently a lost cause on our talk pages... (diff) which I think is a far more important issue than anything in the string of which it is a substring, and deserves a top-level section.

I have already confessed to being confused by the provisions for accessibility on talk pages, violating them unintentionally on occasions, and I turned out not to be the only one confused.

(I've added the "2" to the section heading to avoid duplicate section headings... I don't think that is covered in any guideline, have I missed it? But it can be very confusing and should be.) Andrewa (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And now we have "strings?" E Eng 20:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Section and subsection if you prefer. Sorry if you found the terminology confusing. Andrewa (talk) 21:49, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's cute when philosophers make up new terminology so they can abuse it. E Eng 22:09, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the last two comments by EEng#s, and my replies (that's including this one), should probably be hatted... any volunteers? And any other comments? Is there really a problem with the terminology? Andrewa (talk) 22:26, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you didn't see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive964#EEng.27s_editing_at_WT:TPG. Are you never going to get a clue? E Eng 22:38, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did see that... surprised that it got as far as it did, as I didn't see the required previous discussion on your user talk page (but perhaps I missed it), and it was a rather waffly request anyway. Taken to your user talk page. Andrewa (talk) 23:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I say again, someone please hat this, unless you think there really is a problem with my terminology that requires clarification. Andrewa (talk) 23:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? #1

Collapsed first RfC attempt

Recently, there has been substantial discussion at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Guidance against interleaving replies about whether or not interleaving should be discouraged. The discussion has also concerned defining interleaving and benefits to interleaving. Editors have defined interleaving as breaking up another editor's text to reply to individual points; some editors have argued that this is problematic because it confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. There has also been the argument that breaking up an editor's post like this is not an issue if the editors' posts are signed for each point. Further, editors have discussed if "Do not" or "Generally do not" wording should be used if the guideline is to discourage interleaving. See Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Interleave defined and Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving, and other sub-threads of the discussion for more details.

So the questions are: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? If so, how strict should the discouragement be? Below are some options based on points of the discussion:

Voting and wording options

1. No. Do not discourage interleaving.

2. Yes. Discourage interleaving. Use the following wording: "Do not break up another editor's text by interleaving your own replies to individual points; this confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. In your own posts you may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} or {{Talkquote}} templates to quote others' posts."

3. Yes. Discourage interleaving. Use the following wording: "Generally you should not break up another editor's text by interleaving your own replies to individual points; this confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. In your own posts you may wish to use the {{Talk quotation}} or {{Talkquote}} templates to quote others' posts."

4. Use some other wording.

I will alert the talk pages of various WikiProjects, policies and guidelines, and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) for wide input. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Mu Close this RFC as malformed and restart in binary format (and my answer will be Discourage). This FRC shares with its own question the major problem: chaotic divergence of discussion into endless disagreement when many things are discussed at the same time by many people. However trivial the ussues are. (Wikipedia is a ~~laughing stock~~ often criticized for this). Staszek Lem (talk) 02:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Staszek Lem, what binary format do you suggest? I asked about how to format the RfC above. When formatting it, I took in all of the points noted. I didn't see any other way to format the RfC than to give the backstory and present the options that were debated. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:56, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Probably that the RfC may get clearer results if it were of the form "should WP:TPG discourage interleaving" which would lead to yes or no opinions. Johnuniq (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, the current format leads to the same options as well. With the new format, how would you suggest providing backstory? By this, I mean providing information so that editors know what has been at dispute and why? Or do you think that the RfC shouldn't provide any context at all? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I had promised myself to ignore this page for a few days but I have to enthusiastically endorse the lucid remarks by Staszek Lem. Thanks! Johnuniq (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This is what the RfC looked like before the collapse. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Should the guideline discourage interleaving? #2

I want to make it clear that I fully understand where each person is coming from and that this is a heated discussion; however, consensus cannot be ignored. The question posed by the RfC is whether or not interleaving (defined as "breaking up another editor's text to reply to individual points") should be discouraged. The overwhelming consensus is that interleaving should be discouraged. While some participants sought to outright ban interleaving entirely, I did not find enough support for it (I also find the distinction unnecessary in light of the exceptions mentioned below). Many of the "no" !voters supported discouraging excessive interleaving rather than a general discouragement, but there were only a couple of them. The "yes" !voters argued that it causes confusion, is not normally received well by those getting "interleaved", and that it is unnecessary in light of quotation templates such as {{tq}}, {{talk quotation}}, and {{talkquote}}. Use of common sense also has consensus in this (its use it also recommended by me); cases where interleaving is explicitly permitted (such as by users making long comments that state it or by the process itself, such as WP:GAN) would not be effected by any addition to WP:TPO. That being said, I was unable to parse from the comments the exact wording that such an addendum to this policy would have, so I recommend that the participants work towards a wording that adheres to the consensus achieved here. Nihlus 00:42, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There has been substantial discussion at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Guidance against interleaving replies about whether or not interleaving should be discouraged. Please refer to that discussion and its subsections for in-depth details. Editors have defined interleaving as breaking up another editor's text to reply to individual points. One argument is that this is problematic because it confuses who said what and obscures the original editor's intent. The other argument is that interleaving can be beneficial and that there is a difference between useful and disruptive interleaving.

Thoughts? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:18, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Yes (the guideline should discourage interleaving) - My reason is pragmatic, and based on my personal experiences as a wiki editor: in every instance that I have ever seen anyone interleaf their replies, it has muddled the discussion, made it confusing to follow, and made it extremely difficult for someone who is joining the discussion at a later date to catch up/follow along. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - This is problematic because it confuses who said what. After years of editing, I've recently spent significant time trying to comprehend such a series, eventually reaching that understanding only by reviewing diffs in the page history. It's ridiculous to require readers to do that in order to make sense of a dialogue. I've yet to see a case where interleaving was the only way to preserve/restore context. We have the {{tq}} template, a common way to refer back to part of a previous comment, or we can simply say, "Re the x question,..." or something similar. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I though it was just common sense not to break up someone's comment, but apparently that needs to be explicitly stated. Stickee (talk) 04:39, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I have never seen a good example of interleaved comments used in a discussion, except for specialist cases such as WP:FAC. My comments are intended to be considered as written. If someone breaks them up they destroy my argument, and if they copy my signature underneath each fragment, they make it appear that I presented the fragment as a comment. Some editors object to interleaving, so editors who like it should desist in the interests of collaboration. Regardless of the outcome of this RfC, WP:IAR would allow interleaving in rare cases where participants agree it is useful. Johnuniq (talk) 05:06, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes: The guideline should discourage interleaving. Interleaving has proven to be a Really Bad Idea going back to the days of FidoNET and USENET. It encourages picking apart minor details and discourages presenting a logical argument. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:28, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. The guideline should discourage excessive and confusing interleaving, but not interleaving in general. There should be a guideline as to exactly how to do it, along the lines of the proposal already being developed above. Andrewa (talk) 06:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes An edit like this illustrates this problem precisely. Several people have confirmed that in the subthread Anchors (Version 3?), without prior knowledge of that specific edit diff they cannot tell that the paragraph beginning "In a long discussion, it is hard work to follow the threads at the best of times" was not written by Thnidu (talk · contribs). It's misattribution, plain and simple. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:29, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter in the end. While the community engages in rule-making over obscure cases, the Wikimedia Foundation keeps working on the Flow extension (now renamed mw:Structured Discussions), which they want to use to eventually replace talk pages, and where interleaving will be impossible. What we need is to open a debate on assistance tools on top of wikitext, to help keeping the structure of discussions, that makes it simple to create threaded comments which are easy to follow for newcomers and veterans. Interleaving wouldn't be necessary if a tool made it easy to quote parts of the comment you're replying to, for example. Diego (talk) 08:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

if a tool made it easy to quote parts of the comment you're replying to - I have quoted a part of the comment I'm replying to. It took me about ten seconds, which I would call easy enough. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:50, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but you're not a newcomer anymore; and you knew how to use the {{tq}} template to highlight the part that you were quoting. The point is that talk pages should remain accessible to new and casual editors (i.e. those who come to comment from time to time), without requiring that common features be memorized, by providing a GUI for them. If you require specialized knowledge to perform simple tasks, you're giving arguments to the WMF to replace the current software with their preferred toy. Diego (talk) 09:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I see, thanks for the clarification. I submit that any such assistance tools would also involve a learning curve. In any case, there is nothing wrong with addressing the environment that we have today, when there is so little effort required to do so. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:12, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I agree that interleaving is not a good idea; you can always copy the original comment and interleave the replies on the copy, without destroying the structure of the original post. What I was pointing at is that we shouldn't take the environment that we have today for granted, since the WMF seems to have an unclear path to change it somewhere in the future.

BTW, the learning curve for using a toolbar to access available functions will typically be lower than learning to use templates, because of the recognition vs recall distinction. Diego (talk) 09:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, not "interleaving" in general. See #Already expressly permitted by TPO above for why. Discourage excessive and confusing interleaving (if saying so is thought necessary – we do already have a policy against disruptive editing, and no lack of ability to enforce it). See #Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving, above, for examples. This proposal is very ill-considered, and would effectively ban WP:REFACTORing. It's a solution in search of a problem, and a WP:ICANTHEARYOU exercise, given all the above discussion of why a generalized anti-"interleaving" provision is a terrible idea. Disruptive interleaving is a rare and mostly noob behavior, rapidly corrected by community norms, and already addressable under extant rules in the odd case that someone persists in it. Constructive interleaving (e.g. to split unrelated questions into separate subthreads, and to collapse-box off-topic material (or remove abusive material) is a necessary and long-accepted talk-page maintenance process, and is not confusing or otherwise problematic as long as attribution is preserved, and it's not done in an incompetent manner. This proposal seems motivated by possessive WP:OWN sentiment, along "how dare you touch my posts!?!" lines. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:01, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
PS: See this ongoing ANI for an example of the wikilawyering, bad-faith bullshit that is going to be terribly magnified by this RfC's outcome if what is written as a result of it is not very narrow and targeting specific, disruptive behaviors only. (Summary: accusation by editor A that editor B has been "altering" other's posts and should be punished for it, which has turned into a total WP:BOOMERANG on editor A.)
Relevant essay: Don't help create more pointless "Asshole John Rules". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 01:50, 30 September 2017 (UTC), updated 07:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, far more often than not, interleaving only makes discussions more unintelligible. And I strongly disagree that the edits described at #Visually illustrating the difference between useful and disruptive interleaving are in any way "useful". older ≠ wiser 10:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Better to just use bullets or paragraph letters in your own comment and start by saying something like

(A) Re About interrupting the flow... I think blah blah
(B) Re About too long didn't read... I think blah blah
(C) Re About too many RFCs on the same point... I think blah blah

and in this way, 50 gazillion other people can argue with me via proper threading (aka indentation) without having to pile on at a point where the original post was interrupted.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:55, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as a mild suggestion only We don't need more rules for the wiki-lawyers to use, but a bit of guidance as a mild suggestion would be nice. North8000 (talk) 12:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as a mild suggestion only as per North8000 as a compromise, although I would prefer to support SMcCandlish's No. This a cultural problem. For those who come from a newsgroup background interleaving is the usual way to comment on comments (Posting style#Interleaved style). For those come from a background of office emailer and the like it is uncommon to interleave comments. Personally I prefer the news group style (when I first worked with MSDOS and Lotus Notes I hated it, having been familiar with UNIX workstations with integrated news and email clients). I think it is tedious to have to quote people and leads to disjointed conversations as follow-ups may be way down a page. If interleaved threading was to be the norm conversations could be more succinct and probably briefer. However I do appreciate that the Wikipedia talk pages are largely inhabited by ~~quiche eaters~~ people, who probably have never seen a newsgroup (and interleaving) but are familiar with email, Facebook et al and prefer what they are familiar with a non-interleaved style. -- PBS (talk) 13:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PBS: Even in newsgroups, the new comments are interleaved over a copy of the original post, not altering the initial post itself. Until WP:Flow becomes a reality, discussions at Wikipedia take place over a single page shared by all editors; if you interleave replies, you are destroying the initial shape of the original post. The conventions of a different discussion software can't be applied here unchanged. Diego (talk) 13:48, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not in practice, because what happens in a newsgroup is dependant on the time a message remains in a newsgroup. After a pre-set time the older comment disappears and all one is left with is the reply. In very active news groups (with therefore a short time to live for comments) the original comment my not make it across the relays to the news server one reads. I understand that talk pages are not a similar construct to a newsgroup but, for example, you expect this comment to come lower down the page than yours because that is how we do it on Wikipedia. New editors more familiar with the Lotus Email style tend to post new comments in new sections at the top of a talk page. It is not the technology that limits how we commonly use talk pages it is self-imposed rules. -- PBS (talk) 14:00, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No kidding! Even the idea that newsgroup and mailing list people are all used to bottom posting isn't true; that's matter of newsreader and emailer software, much of which is configurable. I'd been in top-posting mode most of my online-life (which dates back to before the Web existed) when I arrived here, and I hated WP's bottom-posting style. I still think it's terribly inefficient but we're stuck with it.
One thing we could change fairly painlessly that would be tremendous utility improvement is top-posting new threads, even if we bottom-post inside them). It's frustrating and frankly stupid that we have to page down and down and down to find current discussions, even if an argument can be made that we should wade through a particular discussion before commenting on it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PBS: In my opinion, the "newsgroup norm" line of reasoning is an example of how we create Wikipedia:Systemic bias. If we're really trying to make a global inclusive encyclopedia, we should operate without any assumptions about people's prior digital experiences. Shoot, just last week some new editors might have been corresponding by snail mail. Then there's the old farts (like myself), who after posting 20 lines of unbroken text return two weeks later somewehat forgetful of exactly what we said, and we want to see our 20 lines of unbroken text. Otherwise my type of old farts end up adrift. No doubt some of my fellow older editors have more pliable brains than I, but the calcification is an exponential process, it seems. Pardon the digression.... another common experience among the antique NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes with common-sense exceptions, specifically when we're talking a list of "action items" as one would find at GAN/FAC, which is generally going to end up as a back-and-forth discussion between two or three editors.. If an editor has replied back to you with a list of bullet points, interleaving your actions to resolve those makes a lot of sense; though out of courtesy to new editors to that discussion, one should indicate they are interleaving with so-and-so's list. Interleaving in any other case is generally inappropriate. --MASEM (t) 14:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Guidance should be to generally avoid and perhaps seek agreement (or for comparatively rare, pre-arranged, structured processes). Smcandlish examples are not interleaving as described (breaking-up and inserting text - inside another's comment) they are hiding, removing, sectioning discussions, minor spelling, etc. But even if they were, (and I can only think of one that's close and it is removal and replace with a template WP:Personal attack, which is usually quite brief), because they are so particularly specified, it implies that others not described are not allowed by guidelines. The general principle is still, generally don't edit other's comments (period), or by breaking them, and then inserting your own text, as such can be confusing and/or annoying, or worse (misrepresentation) to others, unless specialized considerations are agreed. Also, what I think the few 'no's' are missing is that we Wikipedians leave comments and then walk away for weeks/months/years, with the expectation that if we ever come back, it will be the same as when we left it - and shocked if it were to be changed. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Except that "don't edit other's comments (period)" is not a rule here; we permit it for a variety of a reasons, most of them technical. The list refactor I did here just today in the course of addressing an edit-protected request is a perfect example. It is not different in any salient way from an interleave refactor, in which a bunch of unrelated stuff was mashed together and badly needed to be split up into separate posts or even separate sections to be addressed; it's blind coincidence that they were all simple matters that did not need extensive item-by-item discussion. If they had been the only approach difference would have been copy-pasting the original attribution to the separated-out points so it was clear who posted them. While the need to do such as split-up refactor to interleave questions/resolutions/discussion on a point-by-point basis is rare, we absolutely should not forbid it. If you see the history of my own talk page, you'll seem me do this pretty often (I usually use "refactor" or "split" somewhere in the edit summary), and as far as I can recall not one single person has ever objected to it. Outside my own talk page, as I noted elsewhere, objections have only been raised a handful of times, and either were either quickly resolved, or were just ranty noise by someone being a WP:JERK. No new rule needed. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:17, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your response is nonsense, as I wrote nothing about "rule" - and your example that you seek to make a point with does not make your point. There is overwhelming Consensus that the interleaving being discussed is and should be discouraged - so best to inform people, in guidance - equally there is overwhelming Consensus on the general principle from which this guidance would flow. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:56, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. We are all accustomed on talk pages to seeing a signature at the end of a block of text, which demarks the end of an editor's comment, and identifies the editor making that comment. Any interleaving destroys that simple relationship between comment and identity and leaves us searching through the edit history to ascertain who said what. It would start to become unusable if A's comment were allowed to be split by a series of interjections by B, whose comments may in turn be fragmented by C or even by A replying to B. No, that way lies madness. Let's make it crystal clear that interleaving on talk pages should not happen. If you consider other pages, such as FAC, each commentator has a block with their name in the "heading", so the author of the first level comments is already clear – even then, it is not acceptable if interleaved replies to those comments are themselves subsequently interleaved, and I have never seen that done on any FAC or similar page. --RexxS (talk) 17:04, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Exactly per RexxS. (and let's hope this talk page will soon stop being the most featured entry in my watch list every time I refresh it). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes It is confusing. Expecially when sometimes people mess up on indenting. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:30, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes ......but in no way should new or old editors be chastised about this.--Moxy (talk) 20:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Moxy: To clarify: If this passed, would a gentle reference to the guideline be chastising? If so, I don't see how the guideline would be worth the space. For the most part, people learn about guidelines by seeing them linked, not by spending hours upon hours browsing guidelines. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:49, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

yes under the general principle of not messing with other people's edits. Jytdog (talk) 20:58, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I do not want anyone chopping up my comments for the reasons already expressed above. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:47, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Other people's comments should generally not be interfered with without very good reason. LK (talk) 23:11, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes It is editing and changing someone else's post to break it up. Pasting their signature to every segment, proposed as a solution to the orphaned text, leaves each segment even more obscured from its original arrangement and makes it appear as if the user in question actually made that many different posts. This could only be unraveled by looking at the page history. It is not appropriate for subsequent editors to determine what the context is for individual portions of someone else's posts or to wholesale re-arrange the post for convenience. {{talk quotation}} and {{talkquote}} are adequate to serve this purpose and already used as a matter of convention. On Usenet and other circumstances where it is common to interleave responses to quotes of portions of the original it is equivalent to using {{talkquote}} to break it up, not breaking up the original post. WP:FAC is not really a "talk page" more like a project page but any guidance here on TPG could mention that there are some places where interleaving bullet points is accepted such as FAC, or the guideline could be explicitly applied to the Talk: namespace. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:01, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - whenever my comments are interleaved I get the distinct impression it was done to alter the meaning of my comment. Recently EEng interleaved my comment with an image without signing it, making it appear as if I had stated these things. Interleaving should be extremely discouraged or even completely banned. Bright☀ 09:28, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the guideline should discourage it, per all of the above. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:36, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I haven't seen it often but it is annoying. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but - the guideline should discourage interleaving, but should recommend best practices for when it might be necessary (such as providing a note or diff to the original comment, or wrapping the interleaved comment with some kind of notice) or alternative best practices for replying to lengthy comments that perhaps should be sectioned. For example, a bulleted list referring to selected parts with brief quotations, or something. Also this should be carefully worded so as not to suggest that interleaving is forbidden, which will lead to unnecessary drama. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:17, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, we should not have an outright ban. There are some times when it's appropriate, such as interjecting with a single sentence or a working link in the middle of a very long wall of text. I expect an outright ban to result in unnecessary disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It definitely will. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:27, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are no outright bans at Wikipedia, even in policy. Therefore that can't be what is being proposed here. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:43, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Mandruss I think you comment is disingenuous, as it is not a retort to WhatamIdoing comment "I expect an outright ban to result in unnecessary disputes" as an outright ban will cause people to dispute an action under the grounds that is is not "unnecessary" but following policy/guidance. If that is not true why support a change in wording as quickly and as vehemently as you did? -- PBS (talk) 10:23, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I !voted as soon as I arrived at this RfC, which happened to be second. Was I supposed to wait? My !vote was not vehement by any sense of that word. I'm sorry you feel something I said was disingenuous. And I can't make sense of the rest of your comment, sorry. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:31, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps more to the point: We all know full well that when someone says "ban" in the context of a WP rule (short of a WP:OFFICE legal requirement) that it means "strongly discourage"; no one here is under the impression it means "make a rule that is uniquely exempt from WP:IAR and WP:COMMONSENSE", so pretense that someone is making such an argument is a straw man. Some might think that qualifies as disingenuous (and that pretending that you need this explained does too, LOL). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:15, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, we do have rules that are exempt from IAR. Consider the spam blacklist and WP:COPYVIO. If you want to speak in terms of the community's actual practice, rather than its written rules, then I invite you to think about whether you've ever seen an admin engage in a WHEELWAR and get away with saying "I was just ignoring all rules". We simply do not accept IAR as an excuse for a substantial amount of rule-breaking.
More to my point, you should not create "absolute" rules when you expect IAR to apply every single day of the year. I've no objection to this page saying, "Sometimes, some editors will be angry if you break up their long wall of text to reply to part of it inline." That's reality-based, because some editors will be angry, even if you double-indent and your comment is benign and helpful to anyone else reading the comment, like "I think you meant to link [here] instead." But I do have a problem with saying "Do not stick your own comment into the middle of another editor's long comment" in the guideline, and then excusing this overreaching, WP:CREEPy rule that goes against actual, daily practice by saying here, "Well, if there's a really, really, really good reason for it, then you are welcome to try to spend all day at ANI trying to tell our increasingly rule-bound and increasingly bureaucratic editor base that IAR is still a policy, and you thought it was reasonable to invoke IAR in that particular instance". To add such a rule that when we already know that multiple long-established processes (including FAC, PR, GA reviews, and DYK) are regularly doing exactly what some editors would ban or "heavily discourage" – well, either those editors don't know much about how the rest of the project functions, or they don't know how to write a good policy. But I don't think that we should cater to their judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but expressly allowing for unenumerated exceptions. I've done it a few times when alternatives seemed even more awkward. No one complained. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 03:36, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - Almost any complex situation can be handled with a brief restatements of the points being responded to. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:00, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes (except, "Almost any complex situation can be handled with a brief restatements of the points being responded to." can lead to complaints the response is "too staccato", something I've been tapped with after using several clipped-out quotes & bullet points, to clarify what I was responding to...) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 01:43, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Allowing editors to arbitrarily (or worse, with a purpose) separate the points raised by another editor isn't consistent with WP:REFACTOR. Reworking a single comment as multiple mini-comments can drastically change the apparent meaning. Triptothecottage (talk) 03:33, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Interleaving is not a great thing to do. Edaham (talk) 07:59, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Discourage or prohibit There are countless ways to respond to individual points in another's comment, from quoting passages to starting sentences or paragraphs with "regarding you assertion that..." to (politely!) adding a numbered list to the previous comment and mimicking that list on your own, to simply adding bullets to your own in the same order as points were made in the previous comment. Interleaving has, in my experience, been absolutely nothing but disruptive, and I've seen it done for pointy reasons about as often as I've seen it done for the sake of isolating and responding to individual aspects of a comment. As to the learning curve that comes with using features like ordered or unordered lists or quoting; there's a learning curve just to finding the talk pages. If an editor can find a talk page, edit it, and sign their comments, then they can learn to precede lines with # or *, or to use {{tq}}. If an editor cannot do those things, then they have no business editing. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:12, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No to adding "discouraging" or "recommending" language to guidelines or policies. Policies and guidelines should explicitly forbid or allow actions, period. As soon as you add flimsy wording to the guideline, you encourage fights between people who think it is okay to juggle the wording of comments around and people who think it is disruptive. The proposal should be to explicitly disallow interleaving. If interleaving absolutely needs to be done, there is IAR and explicit exceptions already mentioned.Holbach Girl (talk) 02:37, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the guidance should discourage interleaving. What seems clear is that it cannot be stated when it would be of definite benefit -- so do not make an unclear guidance. I tend to think it would break up a users post and conflict with the clear WP:TPO "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page.". Ease of the next poster is not in doubt -- but will the first poster feel his text has been messed with and confused, and perhaps intentionally so ? Markbassett (talk) 00:52, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - Summoned by bot. Interleaving should be discouraged but not necessarily punishable as an editor who does break up a conversion has good intentions - it just makes lengthy conversations much more difficult to follow. Meatsgains (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Couldn't the replying editor make judicious use of {{tq}} and paragraphs to highlight the specific points they are a replying to. For example:

Because A causes B, C. But D, therefore E and F. <editor 1 signature>

Because A causes B, C. No, this is completely wrong

But D, therefore E and F. I agree <editor 2 signature>

Of course, in a realistic discussion the quotes and responses would be longer. Sizeofint (talk) 04:09, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is suggesting breaking into a paragraph such as the post of editor 1 above, and agree that should be strongly discouraged if necessary (but it seems commonsense to me).

The usenet/fidonet convention referred to above (and still an integral part of many email clients and recognised by at least one of our own bots) is to intersperse between paragraphs, using one more level of indentation, and signing only the last of the added paragraphs. But it seems this is confusing to some, so it's been suggested that each paragraph needs a signature.

But I would have no objection to others replying inline to my first and second paragraphs above provided the convention is followed, in fact before this discussion I just assumed it was good and normal practice. Andrewa (talk) 06:53, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Examples

Several editors above have referred to their negative experiences of interleaving. It would be good to have actual examples. The only ones provided in the previous discussion were five very similar instances of which this is typical, and I agree it's a terrible edit, but it doesn't even remotely follow the convention as I understand it. Andrewa (talk) 07:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one, although not the one I was referring to. The other was even more confusing due to creative use of indenting, but it's harder to locate.
In this example, who wrote the comments preceding each of JFG's comments? Was it one editor or multiple? How much of your life did you spend answering those questions? How long would it have taken you if you were a less experienced editor? Is this the only way JFG could have responded to the multiple points separately? No.
Bottom line: (1) Editors are conditioned to expect all text between consecutive signatures to be from the editor in the second signature, and that convention keeps things clean and simple. Readers' mental energy should be spent understanding the words, which is usually difficult enough by itself, not trying to reconstruct who said what. (2) Making copies of the other editor's signature would be an improper modification of their comments, since it would misrepresent their actions. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why should the con interleaving side have to provide more than one example of bad interleaving when the pro interleaving side have failed to produce a single example of good interleaving? Is there an example of good interleaving in general discussion (not WP:FAC)? Actually, one example would not be enough because, per WP:IAR, this guideline does not need to allow interleaving if it is only rarely useful. Johnuniq (talk) 07:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"How much of your life did you spend answering those questions?" is itself a key question here. I'd bet good money that the grand total of all time all editors have spent answering such a question on rare mangled threads like these examples is grossly exceeded by the amount of editorial productivity already squandered on discussion about it on this page just in the last few weeks. The closest thing to a new rule we need here would be ... actually, I'll just open it as an alternative proposal, below. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:26, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IMO this is already covered by WP:TALKO when it says "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning". As someone has pointed out, splitting a comment by another editor can be easily seen as a way of changing its meaning, since the editor posted everything together.

I think the guideline could contain advice in the opposite sense: if sometimes editors want their post to be interleaved by replies from others (e.g. in the question/answer scenario), they should make it splicit in the structure of the post, by laying it out in different subsections, either with bullet points or section headers. Many editors may not have thought of this possibility, and I believe it covers the case for which interleaving is useful. Diego (talk) 10:37, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's classic confusion of content and presentation, of function and form. I agree that TALKO already obviates most hand-wringing concerns about "interleaving", and demonstrates that we don't really need a new rule to address disruptive refactoring. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When the original poster didn't think to do this, you shouldn't be interleaving comments in the middle of the post, anyway.

That's classic confusion of content and presentation - Human speech is not a formal languaje or program, the rules of design don't apply to it; meaning is inferred both from form and content. Diego (talk) 12:09, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Understanding the difference between them is not a rule of design, it's a basic reasoning tool. Korzybski wrote a lot about this, and it's worth reviewing (or see any overall work on general semantics). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:46, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why should the con interleaving side have to provide more than one example of bad interleaving when the pro interleaving side have failed to produce a single example of good interleaving? [23] They don't. Nobody does. The goal of us all here is to work towards consensus. Consensus isn't actually a Wikipedia invention, it was arguably invented by the Platonic Socrates and it has been used by others since. But it would help if we had examples, both ways. That's all. I've provided an example of what I think is good interleaving but it has turned out to be controversial. Andrewa (talk) 13:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think interleaving can be done well, but if you want an example of it being done badly, see this recent discussion. Bondegezou (talk) 11:31, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that's a terrible mess. Andrewa (talk) 16:56, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Diego Moya: In this firehose of a thread, I missed your "if sometimes editors want their post to be interleaved by replies from others ..." ruminations, and agree. Some of us already do indicate if we actively want something to be interleaved upon reply, either by just saying something like you suggest, or by pre-splitting and signing material into micro-threads. I just did the latter the other day, in a template parameter overhaul discussion. Rather than post a "solid" bullet list of parameter line-items, I made each a separate post (though not a separate page-save) so each could be commented on (or ignored) as people saw the need. Editors are always free to do this. What many people commenting here want, though, is for it to be some kind of wiki-crime to touch in any way someone's horribly confounded post and make it parseable, and this is frankly an insanely bad idea. It's totally against our community norms, even if the need to do this is infrequent, and of course can always be BRDed. When it's done because it's needed it is rarely BRDed. The entire nature of this proposal is to decide that talk pages do not exist for collaboration or getting work done any more, but are records of individual creations of art and genius that are inviolable, short of them transgressing a policy like WP:NPA or WP:COPYVIO. This approach will itself violate multiple policies, including WP:OWN, WP:EDITING, WP:NOT#WEBHOST, and the WP:5PILLARS meta-policy (pillar 3), and arguably also WP's own CC licensing terms. It also turns the intent of WP:TPG on its ear, and effectively invalidates WP:REFACTOR (while a how-to, not a guideline per se, it's a central part of how WP has operated the entire time). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example of am absurdly disruptive case. This user has unusual levels of difficulty with organizing his thoughts and this is exactly why I think we need to discourage the practice. Of course it's not just the splitting of the post that's problematic, it's that subsequent formatting in a complex (or disjointed) situation turns it into an undecipherable mess, but I think that is part of the fundamental issue. Splitting up a post necessarily creates a break in the usual indentation-signature cues for what post starts where. And it doesn't take much to turn it into a pile of spaghetti. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"This user has unusual levels of difficulty with organizing his thoughts" is a WP:COMPETENCE problem that can already be addressed; it's the opposite of a need for a new rule with likely wide-ranging negative consequences. For a user with competence problems, a new rule will not help, since they won't read, understand or obey it. This is a scenario of "We need a new rule because someone's not following the rules." Or "I got attacked on the street last Tuesday night. I wish there were a statute against night-time Tuesday assaults." — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:45, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to add [this edit] as an example of why this practice should be actively discouraged. In this case, the editor responding to me actually emphasised certain phrases in the parts of the discussion he was responding to. I removed the emphases in my subsequent edits, and I absolutely assume it was all done in good faith, but it can be seen the interleaving worked hand-in-hand with the bold text to change the emphasis of my original discussion. Triptothecottage (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We already have rules against changing emphasis and other content in others' posts (without really good reasons, like removing personal gross personal attacks). You're making an argument of the form "because fleas are bad, and dogs sometimes have fleas, we should kill all the dogs." — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative proposal

Offer useful advice that actually reflects practice, instead of trying to force a new practice. Use wording familiar to everyone; reserve "interleaving", the meaning of which has been arguing about here for weeks, for a single line that directly addresses the particular (rare) behavior considered disruptive.

In summary (and presented as a detailed bullet list for easy examination – this could be markedly compressed, since WP:TALKO, etc., already address some of this):

Split apart or otherwise refactor a previous comment only for good reason, when doing so is an aid to understanding and resolving the discussion.
Properly attribute posts when doing so (e.g., copy-paste the original signature and date if a long comment is split into two shorter ones).
Some examples of good reasons (if we need to include examples):
- Separating unrelated questions or proposals into separate discussions.
- {{Collapse}}-boxing material that is off-topic.
- Redacting a personal attack found in the middle of a post, and leaving behind a note about the redaction.
- Converting a confusing series of questions or points into a list, to aid editors' ability to follow and respond.
If someone objects to their comment being refactored, do not editwar to maintain your change to it. (We probably don't need to say this; it's already inherent in TPG and BRD.)
Avoid splitting or reformatting a post in a way that makes it difficult to read or understand, or that subverts the intent of the poster. (This is really already covered by TALKO)
Some examples of poor reasons and approaches (if we need to include examples):
- Interleaving point-by-point responses to various details (instead, you can sparingly use {{talkquote}} in your own reply).
- Especially, attempting thereby to mock or to deny a voice to another editor (this is disruptive).
- Attempting to derail a proposal by fragmenting it (also disruptive; you can make your own proposal).
- Trying to replicate the threaded reply style of your favorite e-mail program or webboard (WP has its own discussion-formatting norms).

I think that should cover it. It also happens to accurately describe long-standing practice. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Split apart or otherwise refactor a previous comment only for good reason, when doing so is an aid to understanding and resolving the discussion" is a problem. everybody who does this, no matter how disruptive, believes that they had a good reason and that doing it was an aid to understanding and resolving the discussion. I suggest "Nevar split apart or otherwise refactor a previous comment in order to insert your own comment" instead. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your alleged examples of good reasons:

Re: "{{Collapse}}-boxing material that is off-topic", that isn't interleaving, it is refactoring, and is already allowed per WP:TPOC

Re: "Redacting a personal attack found in the middle of a post, and leaving behind a note about the redaction", The only note you should leave behind in the middle of another editor's comment is "[redacted]". This is already allowed per WP:TPOC. There should be no interleaved comments about why you redacted it. If you feel a need to explain, post a note under the comment where you inserted the "[redacted]".

Re: "Separating unrelated questions or proposals into separate discussions", No. It is not for you to decide that another editor has combined unrelated questions or proposals and "fix" the comment. Instead, post your separated list below the original comment, using "Re:", as I have done here.

Re: "Converting a confusing series of questions or points into a list, to aid editors' ability to follow and respond", No. It is not for you to decide that another editor has posted a confusing series of questions or points. Make the list in your own comment, posted below the comment you are responding to. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:19, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The collapseboxing I illustrated absolutely is interleaving, and yes it is permitted, and that's the entire, obvious point about why the RfC above is misguided.

Please cite the policy or guideline that prescribes that only and exactly "[redacted]" must be used. (Hint: this guideline itself disagrees.) Then go look at what people actually do when they redact.

It is indeed for any editor to make such a decision, per WP:REFACTOR and standard practice for 16 years. (And it's also any other editor;s prerogative to revert or question such a refactor; WP:BRD is a norm here for a reason.)

Ditto. I have no idea where you're getting this command-from-on-high shtick from, but it's pretty silly.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:33, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I like the general idea behind this proposal.

Unlike Guy, I think there are times when we need to split up long collections of unrelated things. I don't think that every rushed/inexperienced/drunk/thoughtless comment needs to be carefully preserved. A ban on interleaving would also make worklists much harder to manage. Consider a long list of pages or users that need to be processed that someone posts at ANI or WP:CCI. We'd be declaring it a violation of this guideline to mark off the ones that you checked or to leave an inline note that identifies the result, even if the most efficient result is to mark the items you've processed as

Done or

User blocked. In a list with more than a couple of items in it, "I cleaned up Example" is not nearly as efficient as marking the actual list item. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the fallout of the self-selecting "you cain't touch muh posts" trainwreck above is going to be wide and far-reaching, with all sorts of pointless negative side-effects and fighting we can't even predict yet, unless whatever emerges from this is extremely carefully and narrowly written to only address the rare but actually disruptive practices people have legit concerns about. This is quite simply the collectively most boneheaded WP:SNOW I have ever seen in 12 years on WP; it's a groupthink/mobrule WP:SPITE case of people doing a reflexive kneejerk vote from emotion without thinking this through. As I've warned several times. But whatever. I'm just going to let this ride off the rails, and will laugh ruefully from a safe distance while it explodes and lights wildfires all over the wiki-countryside. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:39, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is pure evidence-free FUD. Everyone on this page knows that the fifth pillar means that anything which is useful is fine. That means good interleaving is good. However, I still have not seen anyone post a non-artificial example of good interleaving, other than for specialist cases such as WP:FAC. Johnuniq (talk) 03:15, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hardly FUD. Read this actual discussion. It's full of outright denialism that good interleaving could possibly exist. The good example I posted in a section for it (and a contrasting bad example), before the RfC, is a fictionalized example of what I do regularly. It seemed much more politic to me than providing an actual diff that singles out someone else's post as a confused mess, just to use them as an example. (The fact that people have been doing this on this page as a form of public mockery actually raises some WP:CIVIL concerns.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:46, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think interleaving is pretty common at GA reviews, too. I don't think that "specialist cases" really describes it.

And while we might like to hope that "everyone on this page knows" that IAR is still a policy, it has gotten harder to do that in reality. (Really: People cite MEDRS to revert additions that include citations to top-quality peer-reviewed research in highly reputable journals, and that guideline doesn't actually ban such sources. That kind of edit is not about what's best for the article; it's about Following The Rules.) And even if someone still thinks it's easy to do what's right for the project even if it contravenes some unimportant general rule, I think we can all agree that "everyone on this page" is a tiny fraction of "everyone", and that quite a lot of the people not on this page don't know which rules can and should be set aside under which circumstances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing: Of course GA reviews are special cases. The reason we don't interleave in the general case is that it beaks the relationship between a block of text and its attribution to a signed editor. In GA reviews (and similar), there is one reviewer whose list of comments are already incontrovertibly ascribed to them. Interleaving a list such as that does not break up the already obvious attribution of each point to the reviewer. However, you won't find GA reviews where the replies to the reviewer are themselves interrupted through interleaving by a third editor because that would cause the same sort of confusion that this guidance seeks to eliminate.

In brief, where the attribution of the original text is crystal clear, and the block of text is composed of a list of individual points, interleaving makes sense. Otherwise it should be strongly discouraged as rude, disruptive, and most importantly, thoughtless. --RexxS (talk) 12:13, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[Addendum]: And while I'm here, a six-person pilot study can be published in a "top-quality peer-reviewed" journal like the Lancet, but it doesn't mean you can use it in Wikipedia to claim that a new miracle cure for cancer has been found. We have MEDRS for a Well Thought-out Reason™, not just to Follow Rules. --RexxS (talk) 12:20, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed on MEDRS, but the idea that all interleaving is "rude, disruptive, and most importantly, thoughtless" is just plain counterfactual. Those of us who do it (and, duhhh, preserve attribution while doing it) are doing it very carefully, to improve the conversation and help the original poster get the answers they want, and for clearly-thought-out reasons. Your characterization only applies to people being stupid or assholes. We all know the difference, and stupid assholery is already addressable by current remedial processes, ergo a new rule about this is CREEPY and ill-considered. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:28, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how you preserve attribution without forging another editor's signature, but leave that aside for now. The real fact is that for every one person who might interleave (while preserving attribution) carefully, thoughtfully and for the best reasons, there are 999 stupid, careless, thoughtless arseholes who wouldn't know an attribution if it was rolled up and inserted into their jacksy. I think I'm prepared to inconvenience the former to save the rest of the encyclopedia from the latter. --RexxS (talk) 21:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On the "forging" stuff, this was already addressed (search this page for "impersonate" and "SIGFORGE" for details). Copy-pasting the real sig so it remains attached to the material to which it pertains isn't forging a sig. Your 1:999 ratio hyperbole is silly. Andrewa and I have been asking again and again and again for proof, and all we've been offered is a tiny handful of cases that are either a) noobs used to emailer and webboard mode, who get disabused of randomly interleaving comments very, very quickly, and b) rare "gonna tear your post apart because I'm an asshole" disrupters, who can already be dealt with per WP:DE per long-extant process. This RfC is a solution in search of a problem, being supported primarily by people blindly in favor of a "hammer" rule, who don't understand the ramification; by people who want to see a very narrow and "light recommendation" version to reasonably address actual disruption (which I hope the closer understands is the real consensus that will emerge); and by "don't you dare touch my posts!" control freaks who know damned well what the costs of this will be and don't care as long as their ability to ego-stroke is protected. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where are some examples of good interleaving? I do not want someone to break up my comments and post my signature under a fragment as if I had posted that fragment. Anyone interested in collaboration would understand that 27 yes responses versus 3 no means that interleaving should be avoided. Johnuniq (talk) 03:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Given the SNOW above, I'm not going to spend several hours digging up examples no one's going to look at. If you want some, search my own talk page for "refactor" and "split" in my own edit summaries and you'll seem many cases of it. Do the same at WT:MOS and other MOS subpages and you'll find more, though much further apart (usually months). It's not something anyone does every day. But it shouldn't be banned by people who get red in the face over the idea that their stunning and perfect talk page works of art do not belong to them but to the community like every single other thing on this site. As for the your smug assessment of the RfC above, actually read it. There is no monolithic, unqualified "yes", but a lot of very different opinions – many of them moderate, cautious, qualified, and urging both "only a suggestion" language and a limited scope of quasi-restraint, but in favor of saying "something" about it. It's not at all a sign of consensus for coming down hard on "interleaving" (which means multiple different things to different people). I trust the closer to see that and to close accordingly. When this inevitably comes back around for clarification after people wikilawyer other editors half to death over this stuff in a tedious WP:OWN manner – be that in a month or 6 or 18 – then I'll be happy to drop an enormous pile of diffs that prove my case, if it's not already self-evident. I'm not going to burn the rest of my night doing it now. I've already outlined enough cases, and illustrated an example one in great detail (the split out off-topic commentary, reply to it, and collapse-box it example), and pointed to where people can diff dig on their own if they're having such cognitive dissonance that – despite all this discussion, examples, and explanation of exactly when this sort of thing is useful – they willfully refuse to actually picture it in their heads without seeing it with their own eyes. It's not my job to deal with reality-denial that thick. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:28, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Finally an example

Have a look at this edit which interestingly took place at AN/I.

Now note that what we are interested in here is the form of stringing, not the merits of the argument. I find it very easy to understand the way in which this comment relates to the longish post to which it is a part reply, and have no problem seeing who the various authors are. And it's far more concise than any alternative yet suggested.

There will be many more examples over a period of time. It's not that common, but it's useful on occasions. Andrewa (talk) 06:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Are you offering that diff as an example of helpful interleaving? It might be better to find an example not by a now-indeffed user. A permalink showing the ANI section is here. The sixth paragraph starts "Please do not do this". The text beginning "if I wrote leverage" was inserted between the first and second paragraphs of the comment. That text interferes with the original comment, making it harder to see the point and harder to see who-wrote-what. Copying signatures would be misleading as it would make it appear that the author offered the first point as a complete comment. The problems are not severe as the interleaved text is very short. It would be much worse with longer text, or if people replied to the interleaving. Johnuniq (talk) 07:12, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No way is it helpful interleaving. MfortyoneA (talk · contribs) dropped their post into the middle of Bonadea's post causing the preceding paragraph to be misattributed; if placing at the end of the thread was unsuitable, they should have put the reply after the entire Bonadea post. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And this is exactly the issue. I can't for the life of me see how this edit made the first paragraph misattributed. The only explanation yet offered for this failure to interpret a very simple and explicit convention is that one user (it may even have been you) uses speedreading on talk pages.

My only objection to your method is that it makes already long and complex discussions longer and more complicated... and for those of us who don't use speedreading on talk pages, harder to follow the threads. But it's a strong objection, and there's no significant upside I can see. Andrewa (talk) 17:22, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It made the previous paragraph unattributed. It doesn't matter one jot how short the interleaving is, because (following normal conventions) other editors may add replies directly below that interleaving, adding any amount of extra text. One of them may decide to outdent, and yet another may insert a sub-heading like "Arbitrary break". Eventually the unattributed paragraph may become detached from its signature by an arbitrarily large amount of text, and that once again leaves readers scrabbling around the page history to see who wrote that unattributed paragraph. Far from being an example of "useful" interleaving, it is merely yet another example of a practice that is rude, disruptive and thoughtless. It needs to be strongly discouraged. --RexxS (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The attribution is quite obvious to me, but you're saying that you (and some others) have difficulty following it, even in this simple example, and that is certainly something to take in to account.

Hypothetically, if other users answer the reply, it could indeed eventually be separated by an arbitrarily large amount of text. But that's not just a problem with interleaving, it's a problem with stringed discussions generally. My post of 17:32, 2 October 2017, below, is being separated from the post to which it replies by an increasing amount of text. In a complex discussion, the strings get complex. The question is just how to best structure them so as to make them most intelligible. Some commonsense is required, and we will never all be happy with the conventions used.

But thanks for the contribution. I'm sorry that you see the example as rude, disruptive and thoughtless. I think you're being a bit harsh there, but it's important that we hear all opinions on the matter. Andrewa (talk) 21:57, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am offering that diff as an example of helpful interleaving.

Agree that It might be better to find an example not by a now-indeffed user. And I'll keep looking, as I said, and I expect we will gradually gather them. It's not all that common, as the failure of both sides to quickly provide examples demonstrates.

I note that the paragraph six you quote reads (in part) Please do not do this ever again. Adding an emphasis to somebody else's post is a form of changing the meaning of that post - maybe it is what the original poster intended, maybe not, but the only relevant thing is that if the poster didn't choose to add emphasis, nobody else should either (certainly not without clearly stating that they have done so). The longer quote rather changes the meaning, and I think your more selective quotation above is misleading.

But what is relevant here is, how does the interleaving in the example I gave facilitate or hinder following the discussion? I think it makes it clearer what is going on, particularly when it becomes an archived discussion, and that the alternatives so far offered only make it harder and more time-consuming to read the thread correctly. And this is true whether or not we agree with what the writer is saying, or whether they were rightly blocked for other reasons.

You say The problems are not severe as the interleaved text is very short. No, the problems are non-existent in this example. You speculate It would be much worse with longer text, or if people replied to the interleaving. Examples? I'll keep them coming. Suggest you do too. Andrewa (talk) 17:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Even this very simple example shows an obvious problem with interleaving - the first paragraph being responded to is left unsigned. This is a case where you would have to do some "speedreading" yourself to make sense of it if you were reading straight through otherwise you wouldn't know who had written the first paragraph when reading it and the reply - you have to scan down to find the signature below. Further if the signature were forged - I mean copied to the first paragraph - the intent of "But this" in the second paragraph would be obscured without analyzing the timestamps of the replies. Regarding your suggestion, and assertion with the section heading of "finally an example", several cases of bad interleaving were already offered in your examples section above. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems another very good example from that point of view... it's good interleaving and we're not likely to find better, IMO. I note your edit summary dead horse... yes, this RfC seems likely to be closed as consensus to do something to discourage interleaving.

But I'm hoping that examples like this will clarify exactly what is to be discouraged and how, and how strongly. Despite the ANI discussion and subsequent indef, this particular interleaving didn't draw any criticism that I can see at the time.

What we most need is third-party examples of disputed interleaving... ones that users of interleaving (such as myself) see as good, and opponents of the practice see as bad. This seems to me to be the best yet.

The examples of bad interleaving given by the opponents so far have all been undisputed. They've been appalling edits for reasons other than the interleaving. Andrewa (talk) 18:45, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Andrewa it seems to me very obvious who wrote the first paragraph, but to address you concern User:DIYeditor would you object to the person who interleaves such a comment copying the signature from the end of the block (now the second paragraph) to the newly terminated first paragraph? In which case the author of the first paragraph would be explicitly stated, but it has the disadvantage of making it look like the division into two paragraphs was intentional. Another option would, like the start of bullet points in an RfC, to add an initial word in bold eg Interjection, Insertion or Comment or some other word in bold to be agreed (and placed in a guideline) so it is explicit that the comment was in an interjection?

That specific conversation that Andrewa highlighted is now archived, and in that case the comment could have directly followed the posting as no other comment did. But let us suppose that someone wished to comment on a comment on the paragraph that Andrewa wrote at the start of this sub-thread that is nothing to do with anything in this sub-thread. Let us take the paragraph that starts: "I note that the paragraph" as an example. Is it any more clear to add the comment after this one with an indentation of ":::" quoting the whole paragraph again or to interject directly under the paragraph to which the comment is attached. An alternative is of course to describe it as "paragraph 3 of Andrewa 17:32, 2 October 2017" with or without a link to an {{anchor}}, but is that really a more elegant solution than simply interjecting a comment? Or suppose you (User:DIYeditor) reply below here to something I have said in this paragraph but someone wants to comment on the first paragraph of this posting if you have used six "::::::" is it clear for them to add a level six comment after yours about my first paragraph or to insert a comment between my paragraphs? OR is it forget about clarity "rules is rules" and as I did not sign the first paragraph no-one should ever ever interject a comment between them? -- PBS (talk) 11:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It may seem fairly obvious in this case but it's a very simple example; what of a situation with multiple interjections between several paragraphs (3, 4, 8?) with multiple subsequent replies to each? I think it leads to a mess. As to signing, if the first paragraph in the example is signed by copying the signature and new comments are inserted between, what would "But this" in the beginning of the second paragraph be taken to mean? To make any sense of it you'd have to analyze (compare) the timestamps of the separate signatures and see they're the same and make the inference that they were originally part of a single post. I think that leads to confusion and more work for the reader. And yes I object on the grounds that it implies it was intended as a single or separate post by the author and that the author left the timestamp. As far as whether to insert new comments directly below ones you're replying or at the bottom of the page, I would have to gauge the chances of the comment being lost in the shuffle and decide whether to put it immediately below or at the bottom of the page with a brief {{tq}} of the first few words, or other reference to it, and with the appropriate corresponding indentation. To me either approach is valid. If someone after me wants to respond to your first paragraph only I would say that yes the appropriate way is to place the comment after mine by quoting or referencing the material. What does it matter whether they are responding to the first paragraph alone or your whole post? If I have replied to your post as a whole and it is broken up by someone else subsequently, how would a reader make sense of what my post is responding to (unless I've made it very clear)? The context would be split and obscured. —DIYeditor (talk) 12:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting comments. First things first. It may seem fairly obvious in this case but it's a very simple example... exactly. Now, what made this example more difficult to follow? I have no trouble with it. But others do. Do you? Andrewa (talk) 08:25, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. Some editors indent within their own comment, either as a mistake or for some reason that makes sense to them. Coming to the discussion cold, how can a reader know whether the first part of your insertion was written by Thnidu?
2. You didn't sign the first part. This is supposed to make things clearer? If you had signed it, point 1 would apply with the change of "Thnidu" to "you". The bottom line is that indentation is far too unreliable as an indicator of change-of-speaker—especially considering that change-of-speaker does not always increase indent level, per WP:THREAD.
3. As for I have no trouble with it, I can only shake my head in dismay. This discussion is not about whether an interleaving creates a potential problem for he who does it. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:04, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Exceptions

WP:SNOW; BEHAVIOURAL

Closed as having too little chance of going anywhere as a guideline update in the foreseeable future (OP proposed to change guidelines so that their own controversial edits might be sanctioned as acceptable); Also closed so that threads on behavioural aspects could be opened elsewhere without becoming a duplicate of an open discussion here: this guideline talk page is hardly suitable to settle behavioural issues (see suggestions below to go to WP:ANI if behaviour continues). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have thought of a few good exceptions to these guidelines:

Other user’s comments should only be edited if the another commentator made a mistake. There is nothing wrong with correcting someone else’s mistakes. You’ve seen many people do this on various articles.
If a user said something stupid and doesn’t want to see it, he or she needs to get permission from the first person who replied before removing the thread entirely. This happened to me at Talk:Grand Theft Auto III when I removed a whole section and it was reverted by Rhain and X201. I started the section “Xbox version” over there and I wanted to remove it because it sounded stupid, but they wouldn’t let me remove the section.
If another user received an unwanted notification in an article’s talk page, it is considered embarrassment and must be removed by anyone on sight. These comments should be placed in the user’s talk page instead. I’ve seen Dissident93 do this at Talk:Splatoon#August update info edit warring and Kintetsubuffalo did this to me at Talk:All Star (song). Meters and Boomer Vial reverted my edits once for no reason at all.
If a user made a mistake about your life in a comment (such as your age), you can correct it yourself. Lugnuts got my age wrong at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film and Doniago reverted my edits, even though I did the right thing: correcting a lie.

Feel free to share your opinions on any of these exceptions. DBZFan30 (talk) 02:58, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose. When a user like DBZFan30 repeatedly and steadfastly makes childish edits in conflict with Wikipedia policy, confronting their childish, poor editing on the talkpage is most warranted.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 04:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need any new exceptions, especially ones that do not actually reflect what Wikipedians do on talk pages. If someone's edit makes a mistake or is using a template in the wrong place ask them to fix it. If they don't, really no one cares. If someone habitually misuses templates, and this is causing disruption, open a WP:ANI thread about it. Posting stupid stuff and realizing it's stupid is part of the learning experience. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@DBZFan30: Your initial problem here was that you left blank lines which created four lists instead of one (see WP:LISTGAP), which is also an accessibility issue. Your subsequent fix broke the list semantics, creating a second accessibility problem; I have fixed your post in accordance with WP:TPO#Fixing format errors. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In May 2017, DBZFan30 was warned about WP:HOUNDing by Lugnuts, for following Lugnuts' edits around and hitting "thanks", and that if DBZFan30 continued, they would face being blocked indefinitely. @NinjaRobotPirate: was pinged for information. Now DBZFan30 is doing the same to me, and I would absolutely support an indefinite block of this troublesome and childish user.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Kintetsubuffalo: Whilst we can easily find out that they thanked you eleven times today, we cannot see which edits the thanks were related to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to screencapture it. Even now they are editwarring at All Star (song).--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 10:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There'sNoTime warned him. If he keeps up, I guess post a thread at ANI, and one of us will see it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Interleaving revisited

I recently ran into a situation where an RfC was posted with the usual Support/Oppose sections and with a threaded discussion section at the bottom. Most editors commented in the designated sections, but two editors decided to post signed comments supporting their POV right in the middle of the header, thus giving their opinions more prominence. They did this after multiple !votes were cast, thus making it so that the later !voters were essentially voting on a different RfC than the early !voters. Is this an example of inappropriate interleaving? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:34, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, its just inattention to layout and formatting and the existing TPG already provides explicit OK for us to fix such things. I fix them like this.... leave the bold part of their vote with a cut and pasted signature in the right section and move the comment with original signature to the right part of the discussion section.... plus I explain what I did and and why in the edit summary. Making such corrections is encouraged by the existing TPG and though you did not ask, consider the fixing editor... that ed is not "interleaving" either, since by definition interleaving is making our own comments in the middle of someone else's, and following the existing TPG to fix someone else's layout and format errors is something else.... of course, we have to be careful to just do the fix in one edit, and make our own comments in another. As for the intention of an ed in not following the layout, well sure it might be intentional to gain advantage but who cares? AGF means we assume it was an accident and the most constructive response is WP:SOFIXIT.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:09, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably unintentional disruption (which is still disruption). But why don't you link to the RfC so we can see? Andrewa (talk) 23:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Δ/2017 Advisory RFC. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:23, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Wow, what a mess. Definitely disruptive. And yes, you could call this "interleaving"... just as the previous example of undeniably bad interleaving mixed with outdents was interleaving. But it seems agreed that these are all examples of bad interleaving, and already discouraged as disruptive editing. And they don't follow the convention that I and others have followed and want to continue to use. Not at all.

To discourage interleaving generally just because it can be used so badly is akin to discouraging the drinking of water because it's a component of beer, in the hope of reducing drunkenness.

It would be good to provide guidance as to exactly how interleaving can be used. Even the strictest teetotallers say that water is OK if it's not part of an alcoholic drink. We should follow their example. Andrewa (talk) 09:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed it's disruptive, probably unintentional, and that it isn't "interleaving". It just bonehead, and the fix is to refactor the posts into the proper order. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:30, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It was definitely intentional. When an uninvolved editor attempted to refactor the posts into the proper order. The editor who posted in the wrong place reverted him. When I objected I was told in no uncertain terms that this comment must remain in the lead of the RfC because the author considered his opinion to be more important than the opinions of the proles in the comment section. I am not talking about a mistake. I am talking about deliberately disrupting an RfC because you don't want that particular question to be asked. I may be wrong, but I think it is interleaving. I posted something -- in this case the heading of an RfC -- and another editor posted his reply right in the middle of what I posted, ignoring the comment section where everyone else was responding. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:43, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is "interleaving" of a sort, but not the sort that anyone is proposing should be allowed, which is the sort we are discussing here, or trying to. See my (now properly signed) comments above. Andrewa (talk) 09:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually under certain circumstances adding a comment to the start of an RfC is permitted, I added the possibility years ago to the RfC page: "If you feel an RfC is improperly worded, ask the originator to improve the wording, or add an alternative unbiased statement immediately below the RfC question template. Do not close the RfC just because you think the wording is biased." (see the section "Suggestions for responding"). This was added to stop closewars over an RfC that had a perceived (or real) biased (non neutral) introduction, and a lack of goodwill between two parties. -- PBS (talk) 12:09, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Editing talk page archives

It seems to me there should be explicit guidance of some sort on whether/how editors should be allowed to edit talk page archives. In particular, should contributors be allowed to edit other editors' comments per the exceptions listed in WP:TPO, e.g. by removing personal attacks, hatting off-topic posts, or removing comments by banned editors? This thread arises from a discussion I had recently with Guy Macon, who re-piped a bunch of wikilinks in talk page archives to reflect that a redirect had been deleted (example). This was all innocuous, good faith stuff, but I do believe that a consensus would likely support at least partially restricting the editing of talk page archives.

In my view archives should not be edited at all, even to perform housekeeping tasks of the type Guy was engaged in, except to perform housekeeping on the archiving process itself. That way the discussion is fully preserved (the primary purpose of archiving) and editors can see exactly what it looked like prior to archiving, without being misled. The alternative would require editors to review archive page histories, which would be unduly burdensome and unreasonable. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:51, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DrFleischman makes a good point, but there is a downside to his proposed explicit guidance. Here are some example cases showing the downside:

Example one: WP:BU was deleted in 2004.[24] There are still multiple comments that link to it, saying things like "For banned users see WP:BU."[25]

Let's say I write an essay tomorrow explaining that some things are not allowed in the sandbox and suggesting that the user edit his sandbox to get the formatting right using the preview button but instead of saving he should make a local backup.

Let's say I give my essay the shortcut WP:BU. Suddenly I have changed the basic meaning of WP:BU from "banned User" to "Back Up" and thus changed the basic meaning of the comment "For banned users see WP:BU".

And I have done so in such a way that the user who made that comment sees no edit to his comment.

Example two: WP:ZIMFF was deleted in June of 2017.[26] There is still a comment that links to it, saying "The page is nothing but a WP:POINTy attack on the folks who drafted WP:ZIMFF".[27] (BTW, I am the one who drafted ZIMFF.)

Let's say that tomorrow I re-use the now-redlinked ZIMFF redirect for an essay on Zimbabwe Freedom Fighters.

Suddenly I have changed the basic meaning of the comment "The page is nothing but a WP:POINTy attack on the folks who drafted WP:ZIMFF". Now it makes no sense. And I have done so in such a way that the original author of the comment (in this case DrFleischman) sees no edit changing the meaning of his comment.

My conclusion: In general, when a redirect is deleted and thus open to be re-used, it benefits the encyclopedia to fix any redlinks to the deleted redirect. And there is nothing special about archived discussions that cause them to be immune to the meaning-changing side effect I describe above. That being said, any efforts to fix the redlink must never introduce even a hint of a change to the meaning of the original comment. We want to avoid the meaning changing, not introduce new problems. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:49, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your rationale, but I think your approach could lead to more problems than it solves. A redlinked reference to a WP-space redirect in a talk page archive is easy to understand. If you're unsure of what was linked to, you click through the redlink and the relevant deletion discussion will usually pop right up in the search results. In any case, I'm talking about more than that sort of housekeeping, I'm talking about all of the WP:TPO exceptions. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:49, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DrFleischman, your good faith suggestion sounds like instruction creep to me. We should not tie the hands of level headed eds who try make reasonable tweaks, and leave a note saying what they did and who they are. And for people waging a campaign by tweaking archives, there's probably plenty of straightforward WP:DISRUPTSIGNS for an admin to take action. In particular, this last group won't be hindered from doing what you are complaining about, just because we add some lingo, and the existing DISRUPT language is sufficient for blocking them. To sum up then, such text would tie hands of level headed eds making reasonable edits, but do nothing to prevent or halt disruptive behavior from others. Though well intended, its a good example of instruction creep.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:31, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't quite understand your argument here. I thought WP:CREEP was about adding instructions that would complicate the guidelines. I'm proposing that we come up with a simple rule on an issue that isn't currently addressed. I'm not belaboring the technicalities of existing guidelines, or about people waging campaigns where WP:DE would apply. The main point would be to address good faith edits to the talk pages archives that would inadvertently interfere and possibly confuse editors who come along later and want to know what was discussed.

Take a hypothetical example that isn't far-fetched to anyone who's been around the horn here. Let's say you have a dispute with Editor A. The dispute is resolved and archived. Later, Editor B, who is sensitive to mild personal attacks and a strict rule follower, is browsing through the archives and comes across your dispute with Editor A and takes it upon themselves to remove your personal attack without a strike-through. The issue then comes up in a later discussion, say after you get into another dispute with Editor A and it ends up at ANI. Now you have a whole bunch of editors who are all confused and possibly misled because no one would think to to check the archive page history, right? What a mess, one that could have been avoided if Editor B had been instructed not edited the archived discussion.

I'm not suggesting this sort of thing comes up often, but that's not what WP:CREEP is all about. It doesn't come up because there's an unwritten community expectation--a norm--that people won't edit the talk page archives. When they do, it's disruptive by its nature, regardless of whether it's done in good faith. I'm suggesting that we make that norm explicit. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page archives almost invariably have a note saying something like "This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page". That ought to be sufficient to stop inexperienced, good-faith editors from editing the archive. The problem with writing rules to reinforce that instruction is that the very people that you claim to be trying to influence are the least likely to actually read WP:TPG. The most likely use for the explicit guidance that you envisage is to beat folks like Guy over the head for doing sensible maintenance on archives. Archives are meant to be static records, yet they rarely are because every included element, templates, images, etc. is dynamically rendered on the page as it is now, not when the archive was made. Unless you're prepared to subst: every template and find a way of fixing every image when archiving occurs, you really ought to be accommodating of maintenance edits whose effect is solely to keep the content as true to the original as possible. In my experience, it's rare that people actually edit archives, and rarer still that they do without really good reason. Hard cases make bad law and we're better off dealing with any genuine problems (like your "Editor B") on a case-by-case basis. --RexxS (talk) 22:03, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. And FYI I'm not trying to beat Guy over the head! --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't think for a minute you were. But if you create a club, you'll find that other editors will pick it up and use it (Rexx's First Law of Guidelines). --RexxS (talk) 22:16, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, DrFleischman is doing exactly what a good admin should do. Too many times I have seen admins assume that someone who is doing something unusual is Up To No Good. DrFleischman (correctly) assumed that I am someone who wants to improved the encyclopedia, but may have chosen the wrong way of doing so. I am not convinced that I have chosen the wrong way (see my examples and the argument posted by RexxS above) but I could be wrong and it is worth discussing. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DrFleischman is not an admin. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:57, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, not only am I not an admin, but after you explained your rationale on your talk page I stopped particularly caring about your particular edits. I was just struck by your accurate observation that there's no rule against doing these sorts of edits, and how that clashed with my own understanding of community expectations, as well as, as Rexx rightly notes, language that appears in ubiquitous archive page templates. There seems to be some incongruity there. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Plus "is doing exactly what a good admin should do" is entirely valid praise even if someone is not an admin. People who exhibit that quality are those who become admins eventually. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 23:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DrFleischman... By distilling WP:CREEP to whether it creates complexity, I think you're not fully grasping that guideline. As stated in the nutshell at that page " Guidance that is too wordy and tries to cover all the bases and every conceivable outlying case tends to become counterproductive"; as you yourself admit, "I'm not suggesting this sort of thing comes up often..." Rarely occurring problems adequately covered by other tools is precisely what is meant by the full guideline's title "Avoid Instruction Creep". I do appreciate anyone's effort at suggesting improvements, however. Thanks for your interest and willingness to propose things! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled onto a fairly recent, closely-related discussion that spanned WP:VPP and Template talk:Talk archive navigation and got a lot of interesting feedback. I haven't digested it all. I'll probably ping the participants in that discussion at some point, see if they have anything to say. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Fixuture, Martin of Sheffield, Mandruss, ansh666, Xaosflux, MarnetteD, Iazyges, TransporterMan, Robert McClenon, Johnuniq, isaacl, WhatamIdoing, Kudpung, NeilN, Agathoclea, MRD2014, JJMC89, Redrose64. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the fence here, there are merits on all (3?) sides. But the above-linked discussions were about allowing discussion to continue on an archive page, which was a non-starter, and I'm not sure what relevance they have to this issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that earlier discussion is relevant, as it was about continuing discussion on an archive page, after the discussion has been archived, or providing a one-click solution for restoring the discussion to the current talk page. isaacl (talk) 06:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Highly relevant, as the earlier discussion was also about whether and how editors should be allowed to edit talk page archives. No matter, if you're not interested in opining here then sorry for bothering you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:45, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are very different considerations, though. Continuing discussion on a talk page archive means a complete change in standard practice, requiring archive pages to be monitored, and users to be contacted. Making maintenance edits is a question regarding preservation of the original comments, something that isn't an issue when continuing a conversation (all previous comments would remain unchanged). So none of the points put forth in the previous discussion apply to this discussion. isaacl (talk) 07:03, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that I can agree that the primary purpose of archiving is fully preserving a previous discussion. I know that sounds odd, but my primary use of archived discussions for the last few years has been finding bug numbers. In that context, a working and accurate link is much more useful to me than a perfect copy of the original discussion on whatever arbitrary date it was cut-and-pasted away by a bot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For those who do want a a perfect copy of the original discussion as it existed on a particular date, bringing up that version from the history is trivially easy -- not a burden at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:31, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Except that all of the dynamically generated content (templates, other transclusions, Lua calls in infoboxes, JavaScript, css rendered elements, etc.) will all display as they are rendered now, not necessarily as they were on that particular date. --RexxS (talk) 13:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do not have an opinion on this case as I don't have the patience to work out the backstory. However, in general, archive pages should not be edited. There are rare exceptions such as WhatamIdoing's point about fixing typos in important links such as to a Phabricator task (phab:T170039 is an example of a working link). One problem from editing archives is that it sets an example that other editors might emulate. Let's say that an experienced editor could correctly see that changing WP:ZIMFF in an archive was desirable. An unfortunate consequence may be that other editors, possibly less experienced, may invent a job for themselves and routinely "fix" links or other archived text that they think is problematic. While it is always possible to analyze the history of a talk page or its archive to find the original text, doing that can be irritatingly inconvenient. If people start fiddling with perceived problems, scanning an archive to see what happened may no longer be useful. For example, I might have seen the original discussion and recalled it had links to WP:ZIMFF, then later searched ten archives for that text—it would be frustrating to discover that my time was wasted because the text had been adjusted. Everything at Wikipedia should be focused on supporting the encyclopedia and fiddling with archives is an example of an unhelpful activity. Another point is that while fixing a Phabricator link would be easily defensible and probably uncontentious, other less obvious cases (such as changing WP:ZIMFF) will lead to hours of wasted time as seen in this case. Johnuniq (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Slippery slope argument. I would encourage you to at least examine the two examples I gave above. They contains diffs to every edit I talk about, and specific examples of how redlinked redirects can change the meaning of a comment. I would also note that when I fixed the redlink, I simply changed WP:ZIMFF to WP:ZIMFF -- so your search would still work just fine. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:58, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since I was pinged above: as far as having actual "discussions" continue on an archive copy - I'm not seeing any wide support for this, primarily as they won't be on the same watchlists. As far as housekeeping goes - I've made housekeeping cleanups on archive pages (such as resolving Special:LintErrors/self-closed-tag) that due to software changes can impact reading of the page. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:21, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add that continuing discussions that have been archived is already given treatment in the existing TPG, in the section WP:TALKCOND. If it was archived while it was ongoing, we're told to restore it. If it effectively closed, we're told to start a new thread (and when I do that, I always include a WP:DIFF pointing at the archived thread). This is another reason why the good faith suggestion is CREEP. It's already covered! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While I recognize the good-faith positions of everyone here, let me just say that even without citing CREEP that I just don't think this is needed. And if it were done, needed or not, we might need (a) two or more different sets of rules for, for example, article archives vs noticeboard archives vs noticeboard talk page archives vs MEDCOM case archives, (b) a clearer definition on when and how pages are to be archived in the first place so as to avoid the "can't edit archives" rule becoming weaponized (for example, does the can't-edit rule apply only to archives performed by a archive bot of x days duration or does it also apply to manual or one-click-archiver archivings, and (c) are there some kinds of edits (e.g. de-archiving vs modification or vice versa) which would be exempted from such a rule. The more you chew this the bigger it gets and to what end? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: As seen with this case, I have moved archived material, as to keep the related discussions together for easier reading and coherency (such as when editors are pointing and/or linking to an aforementioned discussion), and I have moved archived material when one archive barely has anything in it. In the latter case, I do this because, for example, there is one discussion in the archive, while the next archive may have packed in more. I don't think it's usually beneficial to have an archive with only one discussion; so I combine the latter archives. The empty archive will eventually be filled with new material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:12, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I still think that editing talk page archives is a non-solution in search of a problem. Carrying on discussions in talk page archives would simply spread discussion across more places, which is not useful. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:59, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of my edits, though, I didn't truly edit them...content-wise. I moved them, and I do think the moves were beneficial. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:03, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When we manually archive, we are touching the archives, but we are not editing the existing material. That's how I view moving material to an archive when it's not a matter of moving fresh material to an archive. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:06, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I also feel that a such a codifying is WP:CREEP. Editing of archives has a real world equivalence where for example a birthcertificate gets changed due to parents getting married/adoption ect. We normally would not change somebodies active discussion contributions, so we would not change their archived contributions. There are exceptions to the former, makes sense that there are exceptions to the latter. The only real difference is, that the discussion does not continue in the archive. Agathoclea (talk) 06:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No new rules that enable control-freaking. Moving stuff in archives for practical reasons is fine (e.g. correcting mis-ordered posts; this can happen when noobs top post and people don't notice then archive stuff in the order in which is appears on the page rather than the order in which it added to the page). There are all kinds of other legit edits people make to talk archives, e.g. fixing links that have become broken (the "nice" way to do this is with a piped link so that in rendered mode it reads as written, but takes people to the correct place); fixing code errors that booger the page display; replacing a template that's been merged out of existence without a redirect, to use the merged-to template, if the template is needed to make sense of something in the archived discussion; fixing one's own typo if it's really important (e.g. if it reversed one's intended meaning by leaving out a "not"); redacting personal attacks, per permissible WP:REFACTOR; striking !votes by proven socks; adding {{talk archive nav}} headers; removing spam and vandalism; reverting errors made by bots or AWB runs; posting pointers to relevant later discussions (especially if they overturned a previous RfC or other consensus discussion); unarchiving a recently archived post, e.g. to close an open RfC (some admins even do this directly in the archive page!), or because a bot auto-archived something that still needed further discussion; and so on. I do many of these things, and no one objects.
It's a WP:COMMONSENSE and basic maintenance thing. WP has been doing just fine without any rules about this. Adding them 16+ years after the fact is blatant WP:CREEP and WP:BUREAUCRACY, unless there's proof that we have a serious problem on our hands and that it cannot be addressed by normal, existing remedies. See also WP:AJRULE. As for the OP's example, yes Guy Macon's re-piping of links to no longer be broken is permissible and normal. The fact that opposition to this basic maintenance is inherent in support for this proposal in the first place raises my opposition to it by several orders of magnitude. PS: Yes, it is pointless and silly to try to continue to have a discussion in an archive page. We don't need a rule about it because no one competent does it, and doing it won't result in an actual discussion. We need don't need a law against talking to yourself in the basement. If someone posts something that is worthy of discussion, refactor it to the live talk page so it actually gets discussed. If someone is going around adding "the last word" to a bunch of archived discussions, take them to WP:ANI on a WP:DE charge. We have process for this already.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC), revised 23:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Moot due to revision of above comment

SMcCandlish, I do not begrudge you of your position on this and you are entitled to your opinions, but would you please consider striking or at least scaling back your unwarranted accusations about my motives? There's no basis for your assumptions about my motives (undercut by my various comments here, if you had bothered to read them), and I'm straining not to see your "!vote" as an oblique personal attack. I really do not know where this is coming from. You could have made the same points without biting. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DrFleischman: Done. Wasn't the intent; I'm commenting about rules of this sort in general and types of misuse/abuse/drama they generate (and this venue is unusually prone to "There oughtta be a law ..." thinking – frankly, if I could WP:TNT any WP:P&G page we have and replace it with a very short list of points essential for the project to function, this would be the page). No implication of personal motive was intended. Hell, I just said above you'd probably make a good admin. ;-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 23:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguating or fixing links -> Fixing links

The section "Editing others' comments" contains a subsection entitled "Disambiguating or fixing links" . I'm proposing that this be changed to "Fixing links", because a) disambiguating a link is a subtype of link fixing and so it's at best redundant; b) the section enumarates several types of link fixing but does not include disambiguating links. Disambiguating links on talk pages is generally not done and it is explicitly recommended against at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. – Uanfala 15:36, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links#Disambiguation --Guy Macon (talk) 20:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Changing section headings

If a section heading is changed, it breaks existing links to that section. This can be very simply fixed by adding an {{anchor}} using the old section name, which preserves these links.

This came up with this edit, which is problematic for several reasons. But changing the section heading in that way does not seem to violate the guideline.

I suggest that the guideline should state:

If you change a section heading, check whether this will break any incoming wikilinks, and add an {{anchor}} template if it will or if in doubt.
The new section heading should be unique on the page. It should not exactly duplicate any other section heading (at any level) or any existing anchor.

Comments? Andrewa (talk) 23:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Part oppose/part support Opposed to saying "check whether this will break an incoming wikilinks" because that sounds like it is setting up a precondition to fixing problems with headings, and I'm opposed to creating procedural obstacles the wikilawyers can turn into clubs. In addition, if people correctly add the anchor then this "check step" would be superfluous. Support that some helpful guidance would be beneficial but stopping short of making anchors a requirement. I'm speaking as one who does change headings when they are non-neutral and though I was vaguely aware this problem might arise, I had no idea this simple coding could solve it. The only down side I see is that problematic language in an original heading would be preserved at least to eds looking at the wikicoded text in the edit window... but doesn't that mean everyone who chooses to comment? For most things an anchor is easy and prevents anyone from getting lost. But for really outrageous headings, its probably better to accept the low risk/low impact possibility of broken links than tolerate the certain/highly visible original outrageous text within the anchor codes. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adding advice good, adding new guideline rule bad. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:39, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Before we embark on another endless discussion trying to dissect, taxonomize, categorize, and legislate against all manner of hypothesized problems, can I ask for a diff of an actual example of a problem caused by a changed section heading? Yes, we all know it can happen. Yes, we all know it has happened – somewhere, sometime. But humor me.... do you actually have such an example handy? E Eng 03:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I would refuse to respond to that on minor-WP:POINT grounds, honestly. If we already concede that it happens, it's a pointless waste of another editors' time to try to arm twist them into posting examples of it happening. Most of us do not keep running logs of "stupid stuff I see on Wikipedia"; we just fix the stupid and move on. The issue is whether we consider this a frequent enough problem to address, and if so whether we want to do it in "please" or a "do/do not" manner. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- This is an actual example. Andrewa (talk) 12:19, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not. It's just an example of a section heading being changed. Where's the problem created thereby? Where's the broken link? Someone adds a thread to an obscure article's talk page, and twelve hours later someone modifies the title of the thread to be a bit clearer, and we're supposed to run around fretting about whether, maybe, someone somewhere had linked to the thread in the meantime. Another giant waste of time. E Eng 15:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can provide the diff of the broken link if you like.

Agree this was Another giant waste of time. And that's because most of the comments above seem to be by people who have not read the proposal, and none of them seem to have read the existing guideline any more carefully than I did. Had someone linked to the relevant section earlier it might have been a little waste of time, but see my comments below... there is still room for improvement. Simmer down and let's improve Wikipedia. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with Guy Macon; having some advice about this is probably a good idea, but do no insert more rules. This page should dump about half the rules on it as it is. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just because "talk" is in the title of this guideline does not mean we have to keep talking forever. Imagine if WP:TPG were perfect and covered all points showing how editors could avoid breaking things. How would that actually help the "with this edit" example in the OP? Only tragics have examined this guideline and there is no way its wording would influence what happened there. This is another of a "learn by example" situation where if an editor has good reason to believe the edit was unhelpful, they should revert or fix it, with explanation in edit summary or talk. The corridors of Wikipedia are full of misguided and confused people and tweaking guidelines to point out the obvious will not help. NewsAndEventsGuy is correct that WP:TPG should not include a club to impede the correction of dubious section headings. Johnuniq (talk) 06:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I certainly was not suggesting a club to impede the correction of dubious section headings, in fact my suggested addition did not provide any restriction to changing section headings, none whatsoever. Rather it suggested that when headings are changed, and anchor should be added to avoid breaking links, and the section heading should be unique. Nothing more than that. Andrewa (talk) 12:24, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't this already covered at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Section headings? – Uanfala 16:43, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thus we find that this is yet another completely useless, half-baked thread wasting time on something already handled. I wonder how many more we have in store. E Eng 17:58, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I propose opening up an extensive discussion on the topic of completely useless, half-baked threads wasting time on something already handled. Hey! Why is everybody throwing things at me??? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's an excellent idea although made in jest. The above discussion is simply appalling. Do we really expect to retain editors when we carry on like this? Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a bit unfair, and not in the spirit of collaboration, especially considering how many others also missed the paragraph in question. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent point, thank you Uanfala, and I had somehow missed that (as have several others above). Perhaps it needs to be a bit more prominent... the anchor doesn't appear in the TOC of course, and the section is Editing others' comments, and says in part no one, including the original poster, "owns" a talk page discussion or its heading, so changing a section heading is arguably not Editing others' comments at all. Maybe that's why so many of us missed it. Andrewa (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this needs to be more prominent within this guideline. The need to be mindful of breaking links to sections is not specific to talk pages, if anything it's even more relevant for other namespaces and it's already explained at the most general level possible at WP:HEADING and Help:Section#Section linking. – Uanfala 18:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also good points. But I do make the point that the guideline already reads In order to ensure links to the previous section heading (including automatically generated links in watchlists and histories) continue to work, one should use one of the following templates to anchor the old title: {{formerly}}, {{Visible anchor}}, {{anchor}} (my emphasis added) and, until you pointed it out, none of us seemed aware of that. So I wasn't actually proposing anything new except adding an option of not using the templates if there were no incoming links (which I now think was a bad idea anyway).

(That part of the guideline seems to have been written before the current system of notifications was implemented, which is now also a plentiful source of automatically generated links to section headings, but the point is just that these incoming links may well exist and it's not easy to find them. Which is why my proposal to weaken the guideline by allowing the option of checking for incoming links was a bad idea.) Andrewa (talk) 07:48, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So still think it might be a little more prominent. Andrewa (talk) 19:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You could say the same about every bit of advice in the TPG, since each point is overlooked by someone, somewhere, at least some time. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:32, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Let's put the whole page in bold. That way it will all be more prominent. E Eng 13:43, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why stop with bold? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:12, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why indeed? E Eng 16:05, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the humorous attempt to illustrate the point. We now return to our regularly scheduled high noise to signal ratio. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:33, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Not sure what to do about it, but it would be good to do something. Instruction creep is not the answer. We have too many bloody rules already. We need to somehow make attitudes a bit more collaborative, they seem to be deteriorating to me. And both wp:AGF and wp:NPA have largely gone out the window, we only intervene when it's already in danger of starting world war three. Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As badly and consistently as in the above? I think not. Thankfully. Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not a complete waste of time

Thanks again Uanfala for your to-the-point contribution, which answered my first point and enabled me to progress the issue concerned.

I think I should give up on the second, about duplicate section headings. It's also covered in our maze of rules, just not as well as I'd like. But I see no chance of improving it by discussion here. I might just make a bold change and see what happens.

Thanks to all who have contributed as able. Andrewa (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Last line of lead

The last line of the lead states that this guideline applies to all discussion pages. However, I think there is one exception... our WP:Reference desk pages are an exception, because they have their own separate guidelines. This needs to be noted. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not separate: WP:RD/G#Talk page guidelines. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reference desk pages are not for discussions, they are for answering queries. They may bear some superficial resemblance and that is acknowledged as in RD/G, but a person isn't an ostrich just because both have two legs. Your 'please discuss' would be rejected at a reference desk because at a reference desk 'We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.'. Dmcq (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As used here the word "discussions" indeed includes the Ref Desk. I noticed you didn't provide a wikilink to any definition of "discussion" that could arguably be read to exclude "queries" at the Ref Desk, and interestingly, the Ref desk appears to not use the word "query". Bubble up to 45000 feet and we're simply talking about how to simply talk. Dive down to 600 fathoms and the Ref Desk guidelines refer to what happens at the Ref desk as a "discussion". For example, the Ref Desk guidelines, has a section titled "Do not offer answers on topics on which you are not qualified", and under that heading says "If you are unfamiliar with a topic, it's recommended to stay out of the discussion..." NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:10, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Existing All guidelines here also apply to Wikipedia discussion pages, such as WP:articles for deletion.
Alt 1 All guidelines here also apply to Wikipedia discussion pages, such as articles for deletion, with the exception of Wikipedia:Reference desk pages (which have their own set of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines)
Alt 2 These guidelines apply to all discussions anywhere on the English Wikipedia, as modified or supplemented by local consensus, e.g. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines.
Alt 3 These guidelines apply to all discussions anywhere on the English Wikipedia, though for some areas they may be modified or supplemented by other guidelines, e.g. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines.
Other your ideas????

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like #3 captures the comments and edits so far. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

3 would work, but link guidelines. Too many wikiprojects and other little gaggles of editors keep declaring their WP:PROJPAGE essays to be "guidelines" when they are not. The danger with this entire "make an exception" direction is that it's liable to encourage others to demand special pleading exceptions from the rules for their little fiefdom, without any community consensus for such a thing. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 04:29, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose any "modified by" language. Local consensus should not be allowed to override core policies such as WP:TPOC. See WP:LOCALCON. This very week I have read comments by editors on the refdesk arguing that the following are valid reasons to delete a question: "This is garbage". "That was disgusting". "Any negative comments about Donald Trump's public statements can be deleted under WP:BLP". "The question contained no citations". "The discussion was hatted days ago, but I don't want it to be in the archives". Seriously. All of the above were justified by claiming that the refdesk guidelines override WP:TPOC and that on the refdesks you can pretty much delete anything you don't like. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:50, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose all of the above, per Guy Macon; I didn't realize there was this much of a problem. I think the RefDesk "guidelines" need examination and re-normalization; as with some recently demoted pages, it may not be a guideline at all, but just a WP:PROJPAGE essay that was tagged with {{Guideline}} without any WP:PROPOSAL process. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 11:31, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that’s because the RD guidelines predate the WP:PROPOSAL process. Many of our older policies and guidelines never underwent a formal PROPOSAL process (including our Reliable Sources and Notability guidelines... and I doubt anyone would seriously argue that these guidelines are not valid because of that.) Blueboar (talk) 11:57, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If I were to post RfCs asking the community to approve our Reliable Sources and Notability guidelines, the !votes would be well over 95% in favor, which means that under WP:SNOW posting those RfCs would be a waste of time. If I were to post an RfC asking the community to approve the actual wording of the refdesk guidelines, I don't really know which way it would go, but if the RfC was somehow able to address the way the refdesk guidelines are actually being used (see my list above) the !votes would be well over 95% against them being used that way. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's my sense of the matter, too. When people make WP:PROPOSAL observations about old pages it does not mean "remove the guideline tag right this instant!" it means "consensus that this really is a guideline is iffy". I.e., that if it were subjected to a proposal or RfC today that it's questionable it would be accepted. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No change. They aren't project pages. People with queries on the them are not Wikipedia editors. I really don't see why people here seem to think they are talk pages. They are not supposed to be discussions, some are but queries are not supposed to be for discussion like this discussion here. I think perhaps some people here just want rid of them and so are just talking them down and trying to fit them into something they are not. If so the right place to discuss is at WP:VPP#RfC: Should the Reference Desks be closed?. Which is an actual discussion amongst Wikipedia editors. Dmcq (talk) 12:15, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
They most definitely are Wikipedia editors. They became editors the first time they clicked Save changes - if not at the exact moment that they first clicked an "[edit]" link. If you mean that no "content-creating" Wikipedia editors post to the ref desks - well, that's demonstrably untrue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I hoped I was conveying a meaning rather than talking about a mechanical action, I do not normally mean to include all the trolls for instance when I talk about Wikipedia editors. I realize this talk page talks about editors and I'm happy for everyone on a reference desk to be addressed as such for the purpose of following these guidelines. You were not trying to edit Wikipedia articles or discuss improvements but querying a reference desk for an answer. Dmcq (talk)

Question Is there a forum other than the RefDesk where the interaction between TPG and some other purported "guideline", or other "thing", is an issue? Or have we really just teased out a possible conflict between RefDesk at TPG to focus upon? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

They are not a forum - "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate". Responses according to WP:RD/G should be factually correct and preferably cite Wikipedia articles or other reliable sources. It isn't a talk page or a page for discussion. I know there are some discussions -that does not mean they are discussion pages any more than some rant on a article's talk page stops it from being for discussions on improving the associated article. Dmcq (talk) 13:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't answer the question and you mis-read the word "forum" in the question. Compare meaning of that word in WP:FORUM and WP:FORUMSHOPPING Forum = venue = place = page = namespace etc. Again, are we only talking about RefDesk & TPG, or are there other "forums"/pages/venues/whatever that present a similar issue (applicability of TPG)? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:39, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You are using forum in a style which implies what is there is discussions because it is on the internet and internet forum in its first line says "An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages". They are not discussions and therefore it is not a forum. Dmcq (talk) 18:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the question asked, I do not believe that there is any other place other than the reference desk where the interaction between TPG and some other purported "guideline", or other "thing", is an issue. For example, the help desk works just fine while following the TPG -- no "house rules" needed. I would argue that the results clearly show that the help desk has far fewer problems with trolls, off-topic question, poor-quality answers, etc, than the reference desks. In my opinion, the refdesk guidelines are a major contributor to the toxic environment of the reference desks. To put it bluntly, the TPG are not broken and do not need fixing with house rules that are claimed to override the TPG. --Guy Macon (talk)

What part of the reference desk guidelines do you think overrides the talk page guidelines in a way that promotes problems? What I see is a lack of enforcement. Dmcq (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are actually two problems here. The first problem is that there are direct contradictions between the two policies. For example, "The basic rule—with some specific exceptions outlined below—is that you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission" (followed by a list of what you are allowed to delete) in WP:TPOC vs. "Any answer that provides medical advice, whether the question sought it or not, should be removed" in WP:RD/G/M.

The second problem is that some refdesk regulars ignore the actual language of WP:RD/G/M -- it says that the answer can be deleted but one refdesk regular is using it to delete entire threads -- and has support for doing that from certain other regulars. This isn't just limited to the refdesk guidelines; a significant number of refdesk regulars think that the question "Is Donald Trump saying outrageous things a clever tactic meant to manipulate the media into not focusing as much attention on his actual policies?" should be deleted under WP:BLP, which is just plain nuts.. Another example: deleting an already hatted thread because "this should not be in the archives" is defended by saying that the refdesk guidelines override the talk page guidelines (even thouth nothing in the refdesk guidelines authorizes such a deletion). --Guy Macon (talk) 02:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Guy Macon: thanks for taking time to understand and answer the question. Sounds like this is issue is specifically related to Ref Desk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:26, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The root problem is the "I can delete anything I don't like and gin up an excuse if anyone challenges me" attitude. The refdesk guidelines are the symptom, not the cause, but changing them from policies to being explanatory supplements to the talk page guidelines will make it harder to gin up an excuse. There is a precedent in the way that Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is an an explanatory supplement to the Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Be bold pages rather than being a policy. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of the two problems that Guy Macon said were in the reference desk guidelines

the first about medical advice in RD/G - that just reiterates WP:MEDICAL. The talk page guidelines are simply not complete in that respect. If anything it is the talk page guideline is in conflict with policy but putting in everything verges on WP:BEANS.
The second is as I said a problem with enforcement. As they said some regulars are ignoring the reference desk guidelines. and nothing is done about it despite complaints. Is for instance anything going to be done at long last about the complaint at WP:ANI#Proposal: Topic ban for Medeis / μηδείς? The question about Trump for instance could be seen as provocative by some but it should not have been hatted as a BLP violation. For controversial questions people should just closely follow the guideline and provide references to sources that have discussed this very problem. At most for an addition I'd have a marker that a question was controversial or trollish and to encourage people to give replies that referenced a good source for an answer not just personal opinions. Dmcq (talk) 10:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that hatting would have been appropriate for the trump question. As for your other claim, please quote the exact wording of WP:MEDICAL that mentions deleting other user's comments or in any way implies that WP:TPOC does not apply. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did not say I thought hatting was appropriate for the Trump question and I don't think it was. I said it would be appropriate to put some marker on to let people know answers should be strictly in accordance with the guidelines.

The appropriate line in WP:MEDICAL is 'WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE'. If an editor gives medical advice they are violating that. At best they should point to a Wikipedia article or some reliable source - rather like what I was saying in the previous line about following the guidelines strictly and the same marker could be used. Dmcq (talk) 15:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So you don't know the difference between asking for medical advice and giving medical advice in an answer? And you don't know the difference between "this is not allowed. Keep doing it and you may be blocked" and "this is not allowed. Any editor may delete this on sight. There is a list of what you can delete at WP:TPOC"? Again I ask, please quote the exact wording of WP:MEDICAL that mentions deleting other user's comments or in any way implies that WP:TPOC does not apply. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you think you're very clever with your word play but may I point you at WP:POLICY#Adherence "Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken". We should not give medical advice. If editors were able to keep to the guidelines and just point to reliable sources or article when asked for such advice that would be good and we could allow such question - but currently they don't and persist in giving their own advice. I would like a way to coax/push/enforce adherence with the guidelines in such cases but it is not done. Dmcq (talk) 17:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Try posting an RfC to see if the community prefers what you want the policy to say over what the policy actually says. If that RfC shows a clear consensus, I will instantly switch over to advocating following the policy that is in your mind. Until then I will continue to advocate following the policy as it is written. Please don't be offended by this; its just that there are other editors with other policies that exist only in their minds, many of which cannot be reconciled with each other. That is why I stick with the actual written policies that have been shown to have community consensus. Your "common sense" and "spirit of a rule" can be shown to contradict other editor's "common sense" and "spirit of a rule", and it would be unfair to pick yours and reject the others. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:12, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How about a bit less Socratic dialogue thanks and more directness? How do you think queries involving medicine should be dealt with, do you agree with the reference desk guidelines that advice should not be given and requests for advice should be removed? Do you believe this is against the talk page guidelines? Which guideline do you think is more in line with WP:MEDICAL? Dmcq (talk) 10:36, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would not remove the question (we have no rule against asking for advice)... but I would remove any answers that actually gave medical advice (replacing them with a polite note containing a link to WP:MEDICAL). That said - simply linking to an article or pointing to a source is not medical advice. There is a distinction between pointing someone to a source for medical information and giving them advice. Blueboar (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well that is how I would like things to be, however many editors just cannot shut up and not give advice when asked for it. Policies and guidelines are supposed to document accepted procedure and hatting or removing queries that provoke that behavior on the reference desks is the accepted procedure for stopping medical advice being given there. And that is what the guideline says in accordance with WP:POLICY. People don't go around asking for medical advice on talk pages. If we had a better procedure for marking such question so people knew they had to only refer to reliable sources then that would be a way of avoid a difference in that area but arguing should against reality is pie in the sky and disruptive without such a plan. Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a problem with someone giving medical advice, collapse the answer and post a warning on their talk page. If they do it again, report them at WP:ANI where, if the admins are doing their job, they will face a series of escalating blocks.

If anyone deletes an answer, question, or thread that is not specifically listed as being OK to delete at WP:TPOC, revert the deletion and post a warning on their talk page. If they do it again, report them at WP:ANI where, if the admins are doing their job, they will face a series of escalating blocks.

If, as you have indicated above, you think that it is acceptable to delete comments for reasons not listed in WP:TPOC, go to the talk page guideline talk page and post an RfC asking that your new reason for deletion be added to WP:TPOC

If the admins are unwilling to do their job, take it to arbcom.

It really is that simple. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:43, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Striking through a user's own talk page, wr to WP:TPO?

If a user is given a warning that they specifically disagree with (and it's not one of the mandatory unremovables, such as a refused unblock request), they are clearly permitted to blank it. Are they also permitted to ~~strike it through~~ instead? This is re: [28], and this warning given in response. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:26, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(1) This question is based on a fallacy. The DS/alert template that kicked this off is not a warning. Prior to the DS overhaul in 2013-14 or therabouts, DS indeed used a "warning" system following an edit that raised others' ire. The receipt of such a warning was perceived as a rebuke, and so under the old system there were frequent dramas and disputes over the giving of them, and whether the receivers' edits merited them in the first place. Under the new system, the "alert" is emphatically nothing more than an FYI. I give them to myself the moment I enter a topic area to which DS applies. I give them to others, even people who have made stellar edits or comments to be proud of. They are nothing more than an FYI, after all. And so the question here is based on a fallacy. The edit that was struck out was not a warning, just an FYI.

(2) So can we add strike out to others comments on our own talk page? Or are we limited to just three options (a) archive (b) leave alone (c) delete entirely? In my view, if an editor gives someone else a bit of helpful advice, they should put it out there and WP:DROPTHESTICK. The receiver can do whatever they want with helpful advice. We don't really need to say in our TPG that adding strikeout is tantamount to giving someone the finger, or is a no no or any such thing. See WP:CREEP. Eds who get the idea of respectful collaboration don't need guidelines for the obvious, and for others, who don't understand that concept, yet more micro rules won't make a whit of difference. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:15, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is not possible to have a guideline that covers all the ways people can be silly, but the example given is as bad as it gets. That's because there is a strong convention that the author of a comment may strike their text after reflection—the striking is to avoid misleading future readers who might spend time analyzing the comment when in fact the author has now withdrawn it because it was based on incorrect information, or they changed their mind, or whatever. In the example given above, the recipient of a discretionary sanctions notice struck the comment, which makes it appear that the comment's author had struck it. The author was correct to assert the striking violates WP:TPO. Johnuniq (talk) 01:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to disagree with that. If this "violates TPO" and especially if this violates TPO to the level of being blockable, than TPO has to state that clearly beforehand. Now I don't disagree with the implications of such a strikethrough or any questions of "fingers". But if we're going to be blocking editors for breaches of policy, that policy has to make itself clear. I cannot find any such in TPO as it stands. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:28, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

People are not blocked for striking someone's comment (done once or twice), and there is no reason to think that occurred in this case. I see no indication of that in the block log or the user's talk. Johnuniq (talk) 02:44, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And yet they are blocked. And were also threatened for being blocked, on this basis of TPO. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:26, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bullshit. John (talk) 13:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Johnuniq for a perspective I had not considered. Yes formatting others remarks may give the appearance that the author of the comment did the formatting and could be read to change meaning. In the present example its at a users own talk page, and the added formatting does not change the tags set in the server log for purposes of invoking DS (specifically, the criteria used to determine if the editor was "aware" DS applies. So in my view taking whatever dispute to the users page and continuing the tit for tat, first by the hosting editor adding strikeout (perhaps under a misunderstood reading of WP:OWNTALK) and then by others worrying about this drama on a usertalk page when it doesn't really change anything tangible at least raises the possibility that there is enough meta:Don't be a jerk to go around. Elsewhere, though, I guess I can see how specific circumstances might create enough genuine disruption that admin action is needed to prevent further problems, which is the only legitimate basis for such action. In sum, I don't think the present example exposes a gap in the TPG, only in the judgment of the ed who added the strikeout and others who complained about it. Are ya'll sure taking the spat to user talk in this manner was not an extension of a WP:BATTLE, as opposed to writing good article text? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A related question is whether generally it's alright to strike other people's (good faith) comments. I occasionally do that with blatantly inappropriate templated messages on the talk pages of newbies. – Uanfala 09:44, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do that myself, not infrequently (and often to Cluebot). I think it has a semantic difference though: TPO has always taken the line that "an offender" may remove a message indicating that it has been read. When a 3rd part strikes a warning, that's an indication that they not only disagree, but see the warning as inapplicable to an unarguable level (and presumably would say so at ANI, if it went that far). Such a warning could still be a GF error.

In this case, can the accused remove the warning by striking it, also indicating that they dispute its validity completely?

As this hinges on the semantic difference noted, and TPO has never extended that to the accused, then I have to agree that they can't do this. But in which case, we need to clarify TPO. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fact that you speak of "the accused" suggests you really didn't understand the first paragraph in my first comment in this thread. DS Alert templates have nothing to do with "accusations" zip none nada. They're just an FYI "Please be advised that..." period, nothing more or less. Attempts to make them more or less likely indicate WP:BATTLE mentality motivating the person who is trying to add this negative connotation. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well I understand how you might use them, but in the case linked here, they're being used (repeatedly) to bully editors with whom the poster has a disagreement. There's a thread on ANI to this effect.

I can't imagine a neutral poster of such notifications really caring too much what happens to them, but in this case they (and the strike-through) are being used to call for a block: " their very poor approach to striking comments from others on their talk page, which is a blockable offence in its own right". Andy Dingley (talk) 23:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bullshit squared. --John (talk) 00:36, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Andy, Re your comment that .."they're being used (repeatedly) to bully editors..." did you just say that DS templates are being posted on editors' talk pages in an effort to bully editors into submission? If that's the real issue here, then see "Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned." Also, the template text itself has some language about decorum and how they are to be used. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:46, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think Johnuniq has it right. Strike-throughs should only be done by the author on their own comments. An editor is welcome to archive or remove a DS notice on their talk page but making a strikethrough seems to violate REFACTOR. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:06, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Technically I agree, but the user page formatting in this example does not alter the way DS is applied. The server still has a record of the notice, and that's enough to apply DS should the need later arise. This is an example of the behavior coming to our attention through a non-issue, in my opinion. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:21, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It does make it look like the original poster was responsible for striking the notice, as they were the last one to sign it. Either the talk page's 'owner' should have added a 'striking' note and their own signature, or it should have been collapsed. –Sb 2001 01:10, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree striking out what another editor says is changing it and only the original editor should normally do that. They could have added their own comment or removed it. I see no need to change anything in the guidelines. I see nothing blockable about it in itself - the person should just be asked to change it or the whole thing removed. Continually doing it in a PITA way could be blockable but then so can practically anything. Dmcq (talk) 17:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dope! For at least two years the section of TPG titled "Editing others' comments" has included "Striking text constitutes a change in meaning, and should only be done by the user who wrote it or someone acting at their explicit request." So this issue seems to be explicitly addressed already NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:03, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with those who say don’t strike others comments. This is because I don’t see what a strike through accomplishes... if you don’t like a comment or a notice placed by another editor on your talk page... you can simply remove it. (Yes, we have a few exceptions to this, but what we are talking about isn’t one of them.). Just delete the notice. Blueboar (talk) 22:08, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussing ed behavior at article talk

At the current version of WP:Dispute resolution we have a couple places that talk about content vs conduct disputes and where each should be discussed. Its possible the current text can be read to say it is OK to talk conduct at article talk. I don't think that's consistent with our intent and would like to discuss it. Below I have quoted the relevant text and marked the questionable text in red. The red text came to my attention in this talk thread. Since the sections are basically explaining the TPG I came here to get a wider review.

I'll start by quoting the two sections of the DR project page, tell you about the bold edit I tried, and will wrap up by comparing the relevant language in our TPG.

Subsection "Focus on Content", which is familiar to most of us as the target for the commonly cited redir WP:FOC. The current text reads (entire)

Focus on article content during discussions, not on editor conduct; comment on content, not the contributor. Wikipedia is written through collaboration, and assuming that the efforts of others are in good faith is therefore vital. Bringing up conduct during discussions about content creates a distraction to the discussion and may inflame the situation. Focusing on content, and not bringing up conduct, can be difficult if it seems other editors are being uncivil or stubborn. Stay cool! It is never to your benefit to respond in kind. When it becomes too difficult or exhausting to maintain a civil discussion based on content, you should seriously consider going to an appropriate dispute resolution venue detailed below; but at no juncture should you lose your temper. Wikipedia is not like the rest of the Internet: we expect editors to be polite and reasonable at all times.

---Dispute resolution project page, subsection "Focus on Content"

Subsection "Resolving user conduct disputes". With red added by me, the relevant part of current text reads

If the issue is a conduct dispute (i.e., editor behavior) the first step is to talk with the other editor at their user talk page in a polite, simple, and direct way. Try to avoid discussing conduct issues on article Talk pages.

---Dispute resolution project page, subsection "Resolving user conduct disputes" (red added)

This red text is the focus of the dispute At the project talk page (thread link in first paragraph at top of post) Fluous (talk · contribs) commented that the red text implies it is OK to discuss conduct/behavior at article talk, just not favored. Fluous seems to think our rules already prohibit conduct discussion at article talk and I agree. I tried a bold edit to eliminate that alleged inconsistency. My edit changed the section with the red text to

If the issue is a conduct dispute (i.e., editor behavior), per an [[WP:FOC|earlier section of this guideline]] do not discuss it at the article talk page. Instead for conduct disputes, the first step is to talk with the other editor at their user talk page in a polite, simple, and direct way.

However, Stickee (talk · contribs) reverted, saying in his edit summary that my edit was changing policy, and saying at that talk page that the sections are not inconsistent. ("it's not at odds with FOC. FOC also gives guidance, and not a rule that discussing conduct is completely prohibited. That's why it says 'focus on content' and not 'only discuss content'.")

So that's the issue at that other venue. But to be consistent overall, I came here to look at the TPG, because this is the main guideline on the topic. Our TPG says

Talk Page Guidelines-

Section heading - Good practices for all talk pages used for collaboration

Hatnote - These guidelines apply specifically to discussion pages which are used for collaboration, which includes just about all talk pages other than user talk pages. The application of these guidelines to user talk pages should be governed by common sense and should not supersede guidelines and policies specific to those pages.

Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page.

--- Current TPG, bold in original

One of these wikilinks points right at WP:FOC, which I quoted at the top of this post. So they're all tied to together and should be as clear as possible.

SUMMING UP - I think our TPG and WP:FOC are trying to say we ~~should~~will not talk conduct at article talk, and I think the red flagged text quoted from the DR project page could be improved by making that more clear. In particular, I do not think my attempted edit was changing our rules, only making them clearer and more internally consistent. Anybody? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:17, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the long opening post but thanks for reading this far. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think the most permissive interpretation is the correct one - long discussions of editor behavior should be discouraged at article talk, but it doesn't make sense to forbid them completely in the general case. Making short assertive comments on user behavior, and polite requests to behave following WP:CIVIL (e.g. "I have concerns that you are too involved in the topic, please calm down and let other editors develop their arguments") may be helpful at refocusing discussion and smooth collaboration. Requiring that all these comments be moved to talk pages would make the discussion harder to follow, and would prevent other editors from noticing them. There are times when comments on editor behavior are forbidden for good cause (very heated topics subject to arbitration remedies), but this should not be the default. Diego (talk) 15:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note the last bold text in my opening post. That's a bolded quote in the current TPG that says "Comment on content, not on the contributor". Are you saying that actually means "Comment on content, (mostly) not on the contributor"? That's what it sounds like. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying that "try to avoid" is better here that "do not". "Comment on content, not on the contributor" is good advice, but if someone makes a remark at an article Talk page addressing the behavior of some other editor, we wouldn't want someone else saying "hey, you've commented on the contributor's behavior, you've breached policy!" as a throwing weapon. There will be extreme cases where doing this and failing to WP:GETTHEPOINT will be disruptive, but these will be already covered by WP:UNCIVIL. Better keep this policy to provide advice about civil dispute resolution, and leave enforcement for other dedicated policies. Diego (talk) 08:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some clarification could be undertaken, but we cannot ignore the fact that the reality and the norm is that editorial behavior that directly affects a particular article or attempts at consensus formation about the article are routinely discussed, at least in short, at the article talk page. This is never going to change. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 08:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@NewsAndEventGuy: It's a heading. Headings aren't meant to be comprehensive. Just like the 3rd pillar that says "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit" doesn't mean literally anyone - if you're banned or blocked you can't. There's always nuance involved, just like in this case. Stickee (talk) 08:28, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Centralized versus forked discussion

We should probably cover the principle that discussion of the same topic/issue should be centralized on a single page, rather than forked to multiple venues; it's even advisable to point participants in one discussion to another that is at the more appropriate venue, and close the one that isn't. We should cross-reference WP:FORUMSHOP and WP:CANVASSING, but make it clear that even accidental discussion forks are not productive, and can even result in conflicting outcomes. Good shortcut to use for this: WP:TALKFORK. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:04, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Already got this, WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:34, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rather paltry and easy to miss. I've set up WP:Content forking/Internal (supplement essay) to cover this in more detail, along with policy forking. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 16:38, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Also useable as {{talkref}} or other names; see list here

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