Wikipedia talk:Date formatting and linking poll/Archive 3: Difference between revisions
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::::*Thanks, I appreciate that. I've already voted, if I understand the arguments correctly. [[User:Daniel Benfield|Daniel Benfield]] ([[User talk:Daniel Benfield|talk]]) 01:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
::::*Sorry, but "''... on date linking, none of which has a consensus as to the consequences of the results''" is incorrect. Have a careful read of the comments [[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM#Proposal_1:_A_return_to_the_linking_of_dates_and_date_fragments|here]] and perhaps try to work into your future posts reasoning based on the fact that over 94% of respondents at that RfC had serious reservations with the linking of dates. Please don't reply too rapidly as it will take you some time to properly read the comments there (you can also examine a summary [[User:Dabomb87/Summary_of_the_Date_Linking_RFCs|here]]). [[User:HWV258|<b><
:::::*There ''may'' be consensus against linking ''all'' dates, although there is considerably more support for it [[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Date_Linking_RFC#Deprecating_the_current_date_autoformatting|here]]. The poll HWV258 cites is an attack on a straw man, posted by a user who began by voting against his own proposal. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 03:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
::::::*I can only reiterate that anyone interested in this should have a careful read down the list of comments posted by the 94% of '''oppose''' respondents ([[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM#Proposal_1:_A_return_to_the_linking_of_dates_and_date_fragments|here]]). Even detached from the poll question, those comments are illuminating, and undeniable. [[User:HWV258|<b><
:::::::*''we should link to dates, as to other words and phrases, when the link is useful to readers.''
:::::::*''Linking dates should stay as the exception, rather than the rule, ''
:::::::*''Date links should not be treated any differently than other links.''
:::::::These are some of the 94% which have serious reservations about linking all dates; decide for yourself if they sre reservations with the linking of ''any'' dates. Misrepresentations of this point grow tiresome. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 04:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
::::::::*No, I refer to the multitude of comments along the lines: "''Such links provide nothing useful to the reader, and only serve to confuse''". Please read the ''entire'' list of '''oppose''' comments ([[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Three_proposals_for_change_to_MOSNUM#Proposal_1:_A_return_to_the_linking_of_dates_and_date_fragments|here]]) and see if your views are still so strong (misrepresentations?). I agree that you will be tired though after reading the entire list of '''oppose''' comments. :-) [[User:HWV258|<b><
::::::::::I have done so; such comments are less than 50% of the total; many oppose the idea of linking ''every'' date, which was the question asked. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 04:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
{{Hat|Irrelevance removed, per request}}
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== Threaded discussion ==
I've removed all threaded discussion from the support/oppose/neutral columns on the poll page. I've left discussion in the comments section for now because I feel it's important (although should it get out of hand, I'll start moving things to the talk page). '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
:Unfortunately this leaves no way to address the current dynamics with 4 of the last 5 oppose voters to autoformatting (108–111) apparently thinking this is about date ''linking''. For 3 of them I have no idea how they would have voted without the misconception. I am pretty sure that this kind of thing, when uncontradicted, makes the following voters more likely to make the same mistake. There are similar misconceptions among support voters, but of course the losing side is more likely to claim the poll was invalid because of such issues. --[[User:Hans Adler|Hans Adler]] ([[User talk:Hans Adler|talk]]) 12:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
::Hans: I do not agree with the assessment that these four voters have confused formatting with linking. Voters are under no obligation to give ''all'' of their reasons. A challenge should be regarded as exceptional, and should be via Ryan, now and not after the poll closes. We do not want unseemly horse-trading on the validity of individual votes after the close. In any case, I think (1) challenges would result in very few, if any, changes by voters; and (2) there would be challenges on both sides (I can see ''plenty'' of "Supports" I'd like to challenge). Is it worth all the fuss, or should we trust voters' inner reasoning? [[User:Tony1|<
:::I am not talking about challenging voters. I am talking about ways to avoid that we get even more such votes which, while opposing autoformatting, enable certain editors' predictable attempts to declare the vote invalid. I want autoformatting to lose this poll fairly, and transparently so. --[[User:Hans Adler|Hans Adler]] ([[User talk:Hans Adler|talk]]) 15:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
:::(ec) Currently the latest support rationale reads: "Its really confusing if you're editing an article in one format and your display is in the other format". The latest oppose rationale reads: "We should stop date linking for the sake of auto-formatting. There may be other, less intrusive, ways to auto-format dates." No, we can't trust the inner reasoning of such voters. They are obviously confused to the point where they had better not bothered to vote. If we can't respond to such obvious mistakes, others obviously follow their lead. --[[User:Hans Adler|Hans Adler]] ([[User talk:Hans Adler|talk]]) 22:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
== Notice placed at top of [[Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll/Autoformatting responses]] ==
To try and clear up any confusion regarding autoformatting and linking, I've [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll/Autoformatting_responses&diff=prev&oldid=280958917 placed a notice] at the top of the autoformatting responses. It's important that people commenting are 100% sure of what they are commenting on. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
:Thanks Ryan—helpful. However, I believe that there is ''not'' the confusion of the two terms that is being assumed. The headings are clearly labelled "I support the ''general'' concept of date autoformatting" and "I oppose the ''general'' concept of date autoformatting". People know what DA is, and if there was any confusion in their minds, it would soon have been dispelled when they proceeded to Questions 2 and 3, specifically on "linking".
:Critically, I want to scotch ''now'' any sense that Locke Cole et al. will wait until the poll closes and then brand it invalid on the basis that there was such confusion. I say now to the linking camp: If you seriously believe this, you should post a query at the talk page of every voter of whom you suspect such confusion. I do not believe this is necessary, but here is your chance—'''not''' after the poll. [[User:Tony1|<
::"you should post a query at the talk page of every voter of whom you suspect such confusion" - for the record, apparently this is being done: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Sapphic here] are one editor's notes to !voters. [[User:Sssoul|Sssoul]] ([[User talk:Sssoul|talk]]) 05:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
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== Mailing list ==
I posted a note on wikien-l telling them about the poll. There may be some people who are interested who have missed our other notices. Worst case we get no extra opinions - I don't think any harm will be done by prodding people a little more :-). '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
==''Deprecation''==
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I see that Ckatz [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll/Autoformatting_responses&diff=prev&oldid=280957015 removed] a much smaller post by HWV258 earlier, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll/Autoformatting_responses&diff=prev&oldid=280974792 again], but has acted to reinstate the essay (No. 90) I earlier relocated to the Comments section.
I want to take issue with these points. Why are people being allowed a soap box to '''push poll'''? If this is not redressed, I'll be expanding ''my'' vote into a huge essay, responding to these other essays. It will lead to a migration of long discussions from the talk page and "Comments" section right into the voting sections. Unwieldy and probably an introduction of a whole lot of push polling. [[User:Tony1|<
It appears that User:Sapphic has taken to heart the idea of challenging voters on their Oppose votes, on their talk pages. This appears to be a campaign, whereas what we need is an orderly notification here that a vote is believed to be mistaken, with supervision by Ryan. As I said above, this should be exceptional. Otherwise, both sides will be encouraged to go around to a large proportion of voters, challenging their stated reasoning. It will be chaos.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dominus&diff=prev&oldid=280986568
Please note that at the above post, Sapphic admits that she edits through another account nowadays. I want to be reassured that push polling is not occurring through that other account. What is the name of that account? [[User:Tony1|<
*I echo Tony's comments above. In addition to the essay by [[User:Nyelvmark]], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll/Autoformatting_responses&diff=281025203&oldid=281025117 another one], under the apparent guise of a vote by [[User:BQZip01]] appears to by another [[philibuster]]. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 07:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
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Tony, sorry, but two out of almost one hundred "support" comments go long, and now you wish to limit what people can say? As for your comment regarding HMV258's posts, there is a marked difference between your actions and mine: you and Greg L refactored and moved ''large portions of original vote text'' to new locations. (While you didn't edit the text, you both arbitrarily split it up and relocate it, once to the talk page and the other time to the bottom of the page.) This is unacceptable behaviour, especially while the RfC is under way. On the other hand, the two sections of text I moved were both ''responses'' to votes, ''not'' the original user's vote and comment. This was identical in nature to Ryan's earlier action to maintain the stated "no threaded responses" requirement. (Note that if Ryan objects to my actions, and prefers to be the only one doing so, I'll certainly stop.) If you have a concern regarding the length of a posted vote, your response should be to notify Ryan or the original posters, not to rework it yourself. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
:But ... "sorry", you left your ''own'' "response to a vote (No. 85), which I felt so biassed I had to say something directly after it. Why one rule you and one for HWV?
:If there is more push-polling via either large essay-type posts—especially in the Support section, which enjoys the benefit of being first—or by challenging users on their talk pages (without prior notification here), I believe action should be taken. I'm quite happy for dialogue in the voting zone to be removed, too. I'm still very unhappy about the two essays. These are far beyond what counts as a vote comment, and belong ''down in the comments section''. These supporters should be content with four, even six or seven lines. ''These'' are over the top—one is about 40 lines, the other nearly 50 lines. These are equivalent to more than a page each. [[User:Tony1|<
::There's only one rule, period... to be perfectly honest, I'd presumed that our dialogue had been moved along with the other comment of mine that Ryan had relocated during his cleanup of all responses to comments. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
::<big>Hear me. READ MY POST. '''Hear <i>meeeeeee!</i>'''</big>
:* I don’t oppose the practice of long- treatise-like vote comments because I think the practice gives anyone an advantage of any sort. Indeed not. I oppose the practice because it’s an ineffective form of cheating. Editors who come late to RfCs and spew gigantic comments fifty times bigger than the average Joe have, in my opinion, an overinflated sense of self-esteem because they 1) think they have something ''new'' to say, and 2) have deluded themselves that anyone ''actually reads'' these tomes. For the most part, they are wrong on both counts. It’s just a form of “hear ''me'' – hear '''''meeeee!'''''<p>Further, it’s just a desperation move by those who now recognize there isn’t a [[WP:SNOWBALL]] chance that a consensus could ''ever'' form that the Wikipedia community wants UC Bill’s “Son of autformatting” (I thought he deleted his code and quit Wikipedia) or any of the other ideas being proposed by a small cabal of volunteer developers. Ignore these long RfC comments and take satisfaction that they now perceive the need to fly their Kamikaze posts into the flotilla of inevitability. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 14:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
*Whilst there are some very large comments on the poll, they all form part of a vote. At the minute, I don't think it's getting out of hand and the comments are useful - my main concern was the poll turning into a load of threaded discussion making it difficult to navigate. I've removed a few replies from the poll, but for now I'm going to leave the vote comments. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
== Suspected [[WP:CANVAS|canvassing]] by [[User:Sapphic]] ==
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Although [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jappalang&diff=prev&oldid=280989630 she claims] she is not trying to influence the debate, it is difficult to arrive at that conclusion as the unescapable fact is that she is contacting only opponents to autoformatting, with arguments which may undermine their support. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dominus&diff=prev&oldid=280986568 According to her], she uses an alternative account which is not apparently declared. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 07:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
:Yes, canvassing seems to be a real problem. Just look at the RfC-related spamming [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Steve_Crossin&diff=prev&oldid=281028264 here], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Rambo%27s_Revenge&diff=prev&oldid=281028349 here], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:John&diff=prev&oldid=281028413 here], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Philcha&diff=prev&oldid=281028482 here], [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Donald_Albury&diff=prev&oldid=281028637 here], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Seicer&diff=prev&oldid=281028654 here], along with at least 25 other instances all listed [[Special:Contributions/Ohconfucius|here]]. The editor has even gone so far as to create and distribute [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ohconfucius/Userboxes&oldid=281027197 ''four'' userboxes] promoting his position on the RfC. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
::It seems to me that the "canvassing" by Ohconfucius was directed to those who had already voted the way he would like them to – so where is the problem, that they might change their mind or that Ohconfucius instantly radicalises them to the point where they try to sockpuppet? (Note that I don't agree with the concept of divisive userboxes, but that's an unrelated matter.) What Sapphic is doing is much more problematic. Actually I was thinking about doing something similar, but not restricted to one side, and strictly pointing out only the apparent confusion with no advocacy. --[[User:Hans Adler|Hans Adler]] ([[User talk:Hans Adler|talk]]) 11:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
:::I think some of those posts are leading to a certain POV but also some are asking for clarification (as I did with [[user:Nihonjoe]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nihonjoe#Autoformatting_support here]). The ideas of date linking and autoformatting are often confused. Hence my above proposal to "vote to discontinue autoformatting through the use of wikilinks", but no one seemed to be listening. [[User:Sillyfolkboy|Sillyfolkboy]] ([[User talk:Sillyfolkboy|talk]]) 13:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
::::I was listening, but it seems you weren't. The issue of "vote to discontinue autoformatting through the use of wikilinks" was settled conclusively in the Nov/Dec RfCs as "Deprecate". The problem that then arose was that some editors posited that those RfCs showed support for "date autoformatting without creating links". In other words, the issue of "date autoformatting by some other means" was raised. This RfC is designed to answer that specific question and not to go over old ground where the consensus is already clear. I'm sorry I've been so blunt about it, but it does nothing to help move forward, if editors continually raise questions that have already been settled. Hope that helps. --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 15:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::If this was really the case then why do we have an RFC based on autoformatting ''and'' how to link dates? If the result was deprecate then why are these two unrelated topics ''still'' coupled together? It's too late now (again, for the third time) but people will continue to misunderstand what they are voting for if we keep holding joint RFCs on these topics. [[User:Sillyfolkboy|Sillyfolkboy]] ([[User talk:Sillyfolkboy|talk]]) 09:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
::Ckatz: as you have taken an interest in this issue (by responding to Ohconfucius' post), and based on the information supplied by Greg_L below, could you please respond to the content of the original post? Thanks. [[User:HWV258|<b><
* Ohconfucius is just giving voters a lapel pin to wear as they exit the polling booth. He gave one to me. That isn’t disruptive. Sapphic is badgering Wikipedians who voted one particular way in an effort to get them to go back in and change their vote. <u>That must stop right now</u>. She should be warned and taken to an ANI if the [[WP:CANVAS|canvassing]] persists. I doubt that the effort—and the trouble she could find herself in as a result—will pay off with a change of a single vote; it’s just that she is cheating, which doesn’t impress. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 15:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
**In an actual election, providing lapel pins (which support, as Ohconfucius' do, a particular side) to those leaving the polling booth would be unlawful; this analogy needs work. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 05:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
*I've had a look at this and I believe it is canvassing. I've therefore asked Sapphic not to contact any other users on their talk page for the remainder of the poll. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
::No disrespect, but you're wrong here, Ryan. Maybe I violated some ''other'' policy/guideline/whatever (though if that's so, I can't find it anywhere) but [[WP:CANVAS]] applies to messages sent to people ''who have not already participated'' in a poll. I explain my actions in a lot more detail in the sub-section immediately below. So, unless you can point me at some policy I actually ''did'' violate, I'm going to just keep doing what I've been doing. Glad you're feeling better. --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 23:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
::*As it is common practice in WP for editors to change their votes up to the closure of polls in light of new information and arguments made, it remains arguable that your actions could be considered canvassing as they appear to be aimed at influencing a voting intention. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 07:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
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:On my reading, [[WP:CANVAS]] only applies to notifying editors about a poll ''who haven't already participated''. However, even if you want to try applying it to what I've been doing, it's ''still'' okay because I'm attempting to "improve rather than to influence a discussion." I've been contacting only those people who have justified their opposition !vote by some inappropriate (a.k.a. "confused") manner — something along the lines of "I'm against autoformatting because I hate all the bluelinks" or "I support autoformatting because I click on date links all the time" which clearly show a lack of understanding of the question being asked. It just so happens that there are no examples of the second kind, and I've only been contacting people on the "oppose" side. Maybe I'm just not reading closely enough and have missed some in the "support" side, but out of over 200 replies (at the time) there were only a dozen or so in total that seemed to be genuinely "confused" about the question. Most of them have now expanded on their reasons for their opposition (on their talk pages, but perhaps they could still be persuaded to do so on the poll page too) so if anything, I've done a favor for the opposition. But I've also eliminated one possible source of contention in interpreting the results, which was my actual goal. So will you '''please''' just cut me some slack and have a little faith? Jeez. --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 03:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
::We still haven't been apprised of [[User:Sapphic]]'s other account. Without this information, it is impossible to know whether she has voted twice, and whether she has engaged in canvassing. [[User:Tony1|<
:::I was going to ask you what the hell you were talking about, but I just now saw that part of Ohno's comment above. Ohno misinterpreted my statement. I have ''not'' been editing with another account, I've simply ''stopped'' editing with this one, which is what I said originally anyway. I may be a rude bitch at times, but I'm not ''stupid'' and wouldn't advertise being a sockpuppet, if that's what I was doing. I'm probably going to abandon this account once this date fiasco is concluded, and maybe I will and maybe I won't register a new account... but it won't be for a while, if I do, and it won't be any of your business, as long as I don't continue to use the old account. --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 14:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
::::I did not mean to offend you. You did announce yesterday that you edit on the dates issue with the "Sapphic" account and on all else with another account. I was understandably concerned, but I accept what you say. [[User:Tony1|<
:::*I'm sorry to have misinterpreted your remark. Of course, I felt it made little sense to write what you wrote, which is why I got it wrong. However, on re-reading, it ''is'' indeed what you wrote. I stand corrected that you did not say you run another account concurrently with User:Sapphic. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 14:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
::::No offense taken, and apology accepted. For once I wasn't actually angry over being falsely accused of something, just confused. The reason I was pointing out my account status was because I didn't expect to be checking either that talk page or my own, so I wanted any reply to be made on the poll page.. although I seem to be sticking around longer than I'd planned, so the point ended up being irrelevant anyway. Also, ohconfucius, I wasn't trying to make fun of your name by calling you "ohno" I just couldn't remember how to spell it (and was editing in a new subsection so I couldn't just scroll up) and for some reason thought it was "ohnoconfucius" by mistake. (I only just noticed the mistake now, and figured I'd join the merry apology-go-round.) --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 23:42, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
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And then [[User_talk:Dominus#Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll.2FAutoformatting_responses|this one]]:
<blockquote>Do you have a userbox that tells people that I do not want spam on my user talk page?</blockquote>
Pestering voters whose decision doesn't happen to suit you is a little desperate, don't you think? I see what ''I'' would take as misrepresentations at some users' talk pages, too. [[User:Tony1|<
{{archive}}
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:: Have a look at the spread of the votes as to what "some dates" means, and tell me that you could write a MOSNUM guidance based on that. You've got the whole band between linking nothing and treating dates like other links. How on earth do you distill that down? About the only thing which is clear from this poll so far is that there is no consensus on autoformatting in either direction. The other stuff is just too non-specific.[[User:AKAF|AKAF]] ([[User talk:AKAF|talk]]) 17:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
:::Isn't the MOSNUM guidance exactly what people are voting on? Each option lists what text should be inserted into MOSNUM. Am I misunderstanding your response? I think the next RfC is supposed to further clarify how to implement the guidance. [[User:Karanacs|Karanacs]] ([[User talk:Karanacs|talk]]) 18:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Arthur Rubin: You appear to be building a case to challenge yet another RFC result that you do not like. Perhaps it is time to accept the vote after more than three RFCs on this matter. Attempts thus far to query voters' reasoning, on their talk pages, have apparently resulted in no changes in their vote and, in a few cases, irritable responses. [[User:Tony1|<
:It sounds like the cases of William Penn and others. The jury found them not guilty and the judge wasn't happy with the verdicts. He said:
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Rubin's right. Barring some unlikely surge in the polls, it's pretty obvious that the result is going to be "no consensus" on the question of autoformatting (a roughly 60-40 split is hardly definitive) so ''which'' status quo do we preserve? Each side is obviously going to argue for their own preference, and absent any clear consensus from the community, I don't see how to break the deadlock. If autoformatting is kept (and fixed) the other questions are basically irrelevant, so it's really the central issue. I wish people had taken it to heart when I pointed that out last month, and if we'd gone with a simple up/down <s>vote</s> "poll" on that one issue, I bet we'd have a clearer way to proceed now. I don't mind the prospect of "losing" the poll as much as I do having the cloud of uncertainty continue. That said, I'm not going to give up my argument based solely on that factor. So where do we go from here? --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 06:22, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
:Well, that's a skewed argument if ever I saw one. Autoformatting has been deprecated since August on the style guides; it is totally absent from the Featured Content process, without a blink. It is whistling in the wind for a few people who don't like the results of this poll 38.5% (versus 61.5%) to claim that the clock should be turned back to the old days. Move on and get over it: the WP community has matured and is telling you yet ''again'' that it does not want dates messed around with. How many RFCs that say the same thing on this do we have to have? [[User:Tony1|<
::Not to throw around firecrackers but (given equal strength of argument) doesn't 61/39 give a majority? Albeit a slim majority but why are these polls regarded as "no consensus"? I know that "Wikipedia is not a democracy" but surely if there is a prevailing view out of two opposing views then we should go with that one? Why can't we just remove the current double brackets autoformatting system (as people have been blocked for) and then discuss a proposal for a new autoformatting system when a better (non-date-linking) system/syntax is created? If past polls show that "autoformatting through wikilinks" is deprecated then why can't we remove that old system? [[User:Sillyfolkboy|Sillyfolkboy]] ([[User talk:Sillyfolkboy|talk]]) 13:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
:::For some issues (such as deciding what default date format we should use, some kinds of style guidelines, etc.) a majority is fine, but when you're talking about altering core software features and editing millions of articles, there should be ''overwhelming'' support, and here there isn't. We usually won't even delete a ''single article'' (through AfD) with as slim a majority as there is here. Also, the double-bracket markup around dates isn't the autoformatting system, it's just the way of ''triggering'' the autoformatting system. We could remove (or better, just disable.. since it's one true/false setting in the config file) the existing autoformatting system, but while that would stop dates from being autoformatted, they'd still be linked and the markup would need to be removed. Just removing the markup ''without'' disabling the autoformatting software would make it too complicated when editors ''do'' want to link to a date (they'd have to use either the <nowiki>[[:15 January]]</nowiki> stynax or <nowiki>[[15 January|15 January]]</nowiki> syntax to avoid triggering the still-active autoformatting software.) The problem with removing all the markup (and disabling the software) ''before'' a replacement system is put in place is that it would result in a lot of duplicated effort, since any replacement system would need its own markup similar to the double brackets. Removing the markup is easier than adding it back (mostly because of quotations of dates, which should ''never'' be autoformatted, and which are hard to distinguish from other unlinked-but-potentially-autoformattable dates) so it's not even a matter of just "undoing" what bots already did... unless of course we kept detailed logs of all the unlinking. --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 14:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
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:* Time for bed. Goodnight. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 05:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
*Sapphic, a > 61% versus > 39% result is not what you wanted, is it, to claim that people want ''any'' kind of date autoformatting. Now you are trying to twist the result around in contortionist ways to claim that you should still have your way, as though it were the converse result. Ah ... let me think about that ... I don't think ''any''one would buy that, except for you, Cole, Katz and a few other devotees. Six months of plain fixed-text dates has rapidly convinced Wikipedians that there is absolutely no problem to solve ... as though they are concerned about "realize" versus "realise"; they are ''not''. Nor are they concerned that some people pronounce "either" with an ''ee'', and others with an ''ei'' as in "bite". It's all too silly. We do not want dates messed with; that is what people are saying, again and again and again. Now you're talking of ''another'' RFC as though you can force people through tiring them out. [[User:Tony1|<
:*Yes, a very clear sub-text to the feedback is that the community is thoroughly sick of this whole [[WP:LAME|lame]] debate. Most agree there is no problem to solve, and some have stated their annoyance at being asked their views again and again. We all know the reason for this is that the [[Dead Parrot]] is still nailed to its perch although it is "pining for the fjords". Just put the "ex-parrot" in its box, and let it rest in peace. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 08:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
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:::that's what i thought. thanks for confirming. [[User:Sssoul|Sssoul]] ([[User talk:Sssoul|talk]]) 07:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
*Sapphic's "What I'm offering in "exchange""—I myself would not presume to do "deals" that cut across the community's opinions. Please note that ArbCom deals only with behavioural issues. [[User:Tony1|<
The only people I'm "negotiating" for are the ones [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll&diff=prev&oldid=281642597 I already mentioned], namely "myself and anyone else I can convince." I happen to think that if we can work out a deal acceptible to me, Locke, etc. '''and''' the people with extreme positions on the "other side" like Tony, Greg, etc. then it would be much easier to convince the more moderate folks. If something like 90% of the participants all agreed to a common plan then we could get the software setting changed (so linked dates become just linked dates, like anons see them) and the injunction lifted right away. You get the blessing of arbcom for delinking ''less relevant'' date links, ones that were linked solely for autoformatting (and nobody except the most extreme "link everything" would disagree), anyone that argues with you can have a statement from them (with enforcement) to contend with. The pro-autoformatting side isn't allowed to harass you about your date delinking. Similarly, you're not allowed to interfere with the development process. The fighting children are each sent to their own room, and not allowed to pester each other for a while. --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 22:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
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:*Yep, while respecting the skills of "techies" and their right to have a say as individuals like all others in the community, there's a problem when programs/patches can be knocked up at a moment's notice and slapped into WikiMedia's system ... no questions asked. Ironically, to run a bot on WP, you have to go through the hoops of community input. As HWV258—himself a professional programmer—pointed out last week, ''there's something very fishy about this''.
:*Now, there's still talk here of bargains and deals. Sorry, but to repeat myself, it is inappropriate for individual editors to strike deals that cut across community opinion. Unless it's a deal like ... "I'll collaborate with you, Sapphic, Cole, and Rubin, on WikiProject working bees to fix up the lamentable state of year articles, if you agree to do so too." ''Then'' yer talkin'. Not that good year articles would change the issue of relevance and linking to them; not that it would change the fact that they are privileged in continuous main-page treatment. Worth doing, don't you think, and a damned sight better use of our time than bickering over a risky solution to a non-problem. [[User:Tony1|<
::*So, you're suggesting that Brion, Werdna, and the other Wikipedia developers just slap in any old bit of code they like into the system without thinking it through? Seems to me that "assume good faith" should be extended to the folks who maintain the system as well. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
:::I don't know what Tony would say, but I am happy to adopt your words as my own. Brion, Werdna, and the other Wikipedia developers just slap in any old bit of code they like into the system without thinking it through. I assume good faith, but I do not assume any ability on the part of developers to envision how their changes will affect the wider community. --[[User:Jc3s5h|Jc3s5h]] ([[User talk:Jc3s5h|talk]]) 15:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
:::*No, there is something which <s>neither</s> Ckatz <s>nor Jc3</s> appears not to understand about the need for checks and balances; Vibber may have gone into it with his eyes open, but he must've realised the DA software was a [[Turkey (bird)|turkey]] when he said [https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4582#c65 "My personal recommendation would be to remove all date autoformatting and let a sane manual of style recommend the fairly standard international English form …"]. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 15:36, 5 April 2009 (UTC) (refactored 09:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC) with apologies to Jc3)
::::*Please don't presume as to what I do and don't understand... I've asked previously why someone doesn't simply ask Brion to clarify whether he still holds that opinion, and how he feels about the current RfC. Instead, there seems to be a pattern of speaking ''for'' him (rather than ''to'' him), and also of interpreting his statement as best benefits the "against" cause. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
I think Jc3 is generally agreeing with us on the issue. Ckatz, your edit summary appeared to imply that I'm sticking the knife into programmers; I should not have to refute that implication. I assume good faith too on the part of programmers; but although they have their own particular skill-sets, they're not all professionals like Brion Vibber. Apart from his authority as CTO of WikiMedia, in the quote above he's just applying the normal, common-sense observation that simplicity is valuable in its own right. We don't have to read [[Edward de Bono]]'s book on ''Simplicity'' to work that out in relation to advantages of not messing with dates.
In any case, even if members of the WP community who dabble in programming ''were'' all top professionals, the community still deserves to know ahead of time what is happening, and to be able to comment. By analogy, we have an extraordinary pool of professional talent in areas that are germane to WP (prose, research fields, copyright, to name a few), and I hear no argument that the normal checks and balances and community input on their activities is somehow an affront to their professionalism. I suspect that even Brion would not mind the establishment of a proper process for notifying programming changes/innovations/requests ahead of time, in a forum in which the community can comment. [[User:Tony1|<
:That "proper process" you describe is '''exactly what I'm calling for.''' I'm just asking 1) that nobody try to derail it (which is a ''behavioral issue'' that arbcom can enforce) and 2) that any end result of the process be put to a public rfc/poll/whatever-euphemism-for-vote-you-prefer. In the meantime, you get to have DA ''completely disabled'' '''and''' you get to resume delinking on a mass scale — with the blessing of arbcom and without interference from the pro-autoformatting side (the pro-linking side might be another matter, but I'm not actually one of ''"them"'' so I don't know.) I'm pretty sure I could convince most any autoformatting supporter to go along with the proposal, and if you think you could convince most autoformatting opponents, then right there we have enough people to get Ryan (and whoever) to take the proposal seriously, and act on it. --[[User:Sapphic|Sapphic]] ([[User talk:Sapphic|talk]]) 18:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
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:*''[[Namaste]]''. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 02:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
::*Sapphic, a lot of people will find this language offensive. I have a pretty thick skin on the matter of incivility (i.e., I'm on the tolerant side); but I find the overt aggressiveness hard to take. Can you please calm down? [[User:Tony1|<
===Semi-arbitrary break===
[[Image:Peace_dove.svg|100px]] C'mon, this is just the poll about the "general idea" of autoformatting. The next step will be about its implementations. 60% does not a consensus make by Wikipedia standards, but it is entirely possible that the 40% of people supporting it will not support any of the actual implementations which will be proposed in the second stage of the RfC. This whole thread is entirely pointless. (Why the hell I am bothering to write this post after a 6.7-magnitude earthquake in the town where I study. which I was able to feel even at my parents' house about 63 km from there, at 4:41am, is something I can't even understand myself, FWIW...) --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 02:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
:(And, like Sapphic, I'd turn off the current autoformatting system, Dynamic Dates, right now. Very few of the people supporting the "general idea" support it. --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 02:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC))
::I don't quite know why we'd have yet ''another'' RFC, just because those who keep loudly pushing for their pet way of messing with plain dates think that 60% ''against'' the general concept of autoformatting gives the green light to ask everyone how to implement it. Hello? Am I reading this correctly? I think a clear majority has said it doesn't ''want'' dates to be messed with; this has to be taken together with ''how many'' recent polls that have said the same thing. It's not as though this result is a great surprise coming after those previous results. [[User:Tony1|<
:::* '''''No kidding!''''' Sapphic’s logic comes straight out of the “mebibyte” crowd’s playbook, where they kept people on Wikipedia all bubbly with the shear joy of arguing about our unilateral use of the IEC prefixes for <u>three whole years</u>: “a clear '''majority''' doesn’t want autoformatting… ''soooooooooo'' that means we ought to start ''another RfC'' to discuss WHAT KIND of autoformatting that the community doesn’t want.” “How’s ''that?!?”'' you say? It’s [http://www.therealmartha.com/WANews/duh_Garfield.jpg old{{nbhyph}}school Wikilogic.] Embrace it. Learn from it. It’s how we burn up terabytes of server space with endless arguing (but we have ''soooo'' much fun arguing on talk pages instead of editing articles). <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 03:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
:::I think the argument makes more sense if you read it like this: The relatively small majority for autoformatting is no excuse to start a discussion on technicalities of implementation because no single implementation is likely to get overwhelming support from a large fraction of the minority that supports autoformatting. Perhaps this was the intended meaning. --[[User:Hans Adler|Hans Adler]] ([[User talk:Hans Adler|talk]]) 09:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
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:--[[User:Davidgothberg|David Göthberg]] ([[User talk:Davidgothberg|talk]]) 19:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
::Please calm down, and note that I left a message on your talk page explaining the situation and pointing you towards this section, where I had copied and pasted your new section in full. [[User:Karanacs|Karanacs]] ([[User talk:Karanacs|talk]]) 20:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
:This should be removed asap - it can go in the comments section if needs be. I'm on my iPod now so I can't deal with it.--'''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
:* I contacted David on his talk page and suggested how he can get his point across more effectively by working within the structure of the RfC. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 20:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
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==!Vote==
Per [[WP:DEMOCRACY]] and [[WP:POLL]], we do not vote here, even when it looks like that's what we're doing. Particularly in a consensus-building effort regarding Wikipedia convention, it is probably less than optimally productive for us to encourage users to "vote". I have changed the text ''Please submit your vote'' to '''''Please record your preference'''''. —<span style="font:bold 11px Arial;display:inline;border:#151B8D 1px solid;background-color:#FFFF00;padding:0 4px 0 4px;">[[User:Scheinwerfermann|Scheinwerfermann]]</span> <sup>[[User_talk:Scheinwerfermann|T]]</sup>·<sub>[[Special:Contributions/Scheinwerfermann|C]]</sub><small>13:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)</small>
:I've reverted your change, not that I'm supporting or disputing it, but simply because we should leave it as is given that the RfC is under way. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
::I agree. Also, this poll is a very unusual one whose purpose it is to settle the question before the community breaks apart because of this completely irrelevant detail. --[[User:Hans Adler|Hans Adler]] ([[User talk:Hans Adler|talk]]) 15:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
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== Thinking ahead.... ==
Without prejudice to the end result, the autoformatting part of the poll isn't looking as conclusive as I'd have liked to see it. I recommend we move to a second poll that breaks down autoformatting into individual sections (like we did for the year and month-day linking). Proposals would include turning off autoformatting completely, keeping the status quo, and exploring other methods of autoformatting for the future that wouldn't require date linking. I think it's going to be the only way to get a conclusive result. Whilst some may say that the poll is clear, I'd say it's far from it in the Wikipedia sense of polling/consensus. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
:What about the linking issues? [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 22:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
::They don't need discussing at this point in time in my opinion, we can wait till after the poll finishes (We can wait till after for autoformatting as well, but I just wanted to float an idea around). '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
* '''Shit'''! Don’t you think the community is sick enough of this dispute, Ryan? Are you getting paid by the hour on this? Again, the IEC prefix issue (mebibyte, MiB v.s. megabyte, MB) took <u>three years</u> to undo because of Wikipedia’s outdated sense that no action can be taken unless there is a colossal landslide of a vote. The litmus test of overwhelming lopsided vote should be applied ''only when an idea is being tried the first time.'' But, rarely is that the case. For example, Wikipedia’s use of “256 MiB” was retarded beyond all comprehension. Yet, the decision for Wikipedia to adopt that practice was made by a few dozen editors on some remote, backwater page after only ''24 hours of deliberation.'' And after all that *infinite wisdom*, it took ''fifteen'' “Binary” archives on WT:MOSNUM to finally get that fiasco reversed. And “Why did it take so long to abandon that idiotic practice since no other publication on the planet wrote that way?” you might ask? Because the propeller-headed proponents of the practice insisted that only an overwhelming lopsided vote could revert the move.<p>It’s time for the leadership of Wikipedia to get some balls here. The three past RfCs can be taken into consideration here too. Between those, and this one, it is clear that there has been ample community debate and share of views.<p>I would argue that the wisest course here is to state that{{cquote|Whenever any issue has been ''thoroughly'' and ''widely'' discussed, a clear majority is a valid consensus.}}
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::In accordance with how things have always worked here on WP, the ''[[status quo ante]]'' prevails where a consensus is not reached for the adoption of a new proposal. There is no denying that both Ryan and Ohconfucius would be happier if there was a 6% swing for a "conclusive result", but I think the only reasonable conclusion to draw at this point is that acceptance of autoformatting has not been gained by the community, and we must accept that it is about as clear it is likely to get. If we fail to recognise this inherent limitation of [[WP:CONSENSUS|consensus]], we would be rightly accused of [[Decision making|indecision]]. Whilst accepting that [[WP:CCC|consensus can change]], the next question which should be asked is whether the community is prepared to accept a prolongation of this discussion ''ad infinitum'' until it is conclusive enough for you or I? [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 02:38, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
::* I endorse what Ohconfucius has written here 100%. His logic is unassailable. <u>I ask that you, Ryan (and the other arbitrators) read it ''thoroughly''</u>.
::Oh, something else in Ryan's post which struck me upon further reflection after making my post above: I would pertinently remind all that this RfC vote is '''not''' on a specific DA scheme but for the <u>general principle</u>. However "far from it in the Wikipedia sense of polling/consensus" the poll result may be on the issue, to go and explore "other methods of autoformatting for the future that wouldn't require date linking" seems to me to be counter-intuitive and "''anti-consensus''", as it would presuppose the eventual adoption of DA when the community will have voted 60% <u>against</u> it ''en principe''. Of course, if you were to include the 'oppose' in the second poll, the outcome may be something interesting like this: <small> 'keep old DA' 5%, 'new DA with <nowiki>{{#formatnumber}}</nowiki>-style markup' 12%, 'new DA with no markup' 20%, no DA at all 58%, undecided 5%</small> - what will fractioning that vote change??? Anyway, as there is supposed to be a 2 week discussion based on these results, I think perhaps Ryan may be jumping the gun here a little... [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 03:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
*This is '''crap'''. You present some non-linking date-autormatting system and > 60% of people say they '''don't want autoformatting in concept'''. Why do you see a need to prolong this accursed issue? Just what kind of result do you ever think you'll get out of a fractionated RFC? It beggars belief. [[User:Tony1|<
:* Indeed. The trial balloon Ryan floated here amounts to “OK, we heard you. The old system of autoformatting has been dead for months. And now, as to whether the community wants some ''new'' kind of autoformatting to replace it, only forty percent of you said you do. So, just ''what specific kind'' of autoformatting technology do you want to have?” <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 05:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
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:* Sapphic: Rules are rules. Reality is reality. History is history. A review of that history is in order here:<p>As Ohconfucius correctly pointed out, the old autoformatting system was tossed on its ear by an overwhelming supermajority in Dec. ‘08. Lest anyone forget why we were all dragged here by a certain someone, it was because a bot was doing mass de-linking (and was removing all those not-so-precious links to trivia while it was at it). Since this practice was sucking the Wikipedia lifeforce from that certain someone, he teamed up with a developer and started promoting “Son of autoformatting” and the bot delinking was suspended to see if there was a community consensus to adopt this NEW™®© kind of autoformatting technology. The previous RfCs (like, there hasn’t been enough of these now) made it clear to “that certain someone” that “Son of autoformatting” didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being well received by the community so he insisted that only the “generalities” of autoformatting be run by the community in <u>this</u> RfC. So how did the “generalities” fly? The bottom line from the community is this: '''Hell no!''' There is ''clearly'' no consensus that the community wants to have anything to do with the new stuff you’re selling. Far from a “clear consensus for”, there is ''clear majority <u>against</u>.'' And as you can also see from the RfC results, the community likes the old system’s links to trivia about as much as finding ''half'' a worm in their apple core. So…<p>We’re going to let this RfC continue its course. And if/when the results conclude with results largely like they are today, bot-delinking of the old autoformatting/linking <u>must</u> continue, and the small cabal of volunteer developers will go away and stop agitating on this subject. The community doesn’t want what you’re selling.<p>And, like Peter Isotalo wrote above (06:04, 7 April): “Like others have already pointed out: start acting like normal people. Bury this issue for at least a few years and don't even think of reviving it until something positively groundbreaking has come up. Stop wasting time.” <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 16:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
::*I echo Bishonen's, Greg's, Ohconfucius's, Sssoul's and Sillyfolkboy's comments. In particular, talk of individual editors' doing deals, offering compromises, etc, seems weird when the community has spoken. Who are we to cut across community opinion in ''so'' many RFCs on this topic. (Is this the fourth? Hmmmm ...)
::*Since 50% more people oppose the general concept of DA than support (247 to 167 at the moment), there is no point in holding yet another poll (with fractionated questions about what the community by a sizeable majority has said it doesn't want? 15% want this, 11% this, 8% this, 6% that ... do they add up to 40%?). There is almost ''no'' support for the creaking old DA, and the job of auditing and removing the coding needs to be resumed (just switching it off centrally may be a good idea, but would leave the blue-linking). The resumption of cleaning up the date mess involves checking consistency and format choice for each article, as was being achieved gradually until the temporary injunction. We enjoyed the skilled, dedicated and responsive [[WP:Wikignome|wikignoming]] of users such as Colonies Chris until then. We need to move on and resume this program of detailed improvements to our articles, for the sake of our readers, our editors and the broader project. [[User:Tony1|<
:Ok, well I see people don't like this idea. I think perhaps that people could have expressed their disapproval in a more collegial manner - when people start attacking users based on something that was merely supposed to promote discussion it doesn't really get their point across well. When the poll's over I'll poke a few developers and see what their thoughts are on the results. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
:: Sadly, Ryan, I think you have put your finger on the problem in the RfAr -- a lack of collegial manner over this issue. One side is eager to enforce what it believes to be a mandate to fire up a bot & ''remove all links to dates and years,'' without consideration of opposing opinions no matter how they are expressed. Launching a systematic removal of all of those links without making any exceptions will only take us back to this same impasse, maybe with some new players. As others have pointed out, I feel that there is a flaw in this poll that the option I admittedly prefer -- linking birth & death years & dates -- is not clearly approved or disapproved. While I can accept that the consensus of the community does not favor these links, from the categories & comments I am not certain that one can objectively determine what that consensus is: the majority say they only want relevant dates & years linked, but do they consider these ''relevant links?'' -- [[User:Llywrch|llywrch]] ([[User talk:Llywrch|talk]]) 20:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
:::If you only count !votes, yes, it is obscure. But if you look at the comments, you'll see that consensus is for very few or no date links. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 21:13, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
::* Quoting you llywrch: {{xt|One side is eager to enforce what it believes to be a mandate to fire up a bot & ''remove all links to dates and years,'' without consideration of opposing opinions no matter how they are expressed.}} Wrong. The opposing side’s views ''have'' been considered. You are confusing “considered” with “bought into and adopted.” And with specific regard to {{xt|…no matter how [those opposing opinions] are expressed}}, you can paint lipstick on a pig of an idea and dress it up as a prom date, but you’re still not going to get any takers.<p>The problem is that developers have been circumventing “consensus and approval” for too long (witness Werdna's recent shoving in of the new patch without so much as a warning). You may not like it, but this has been a problem with an attitude of “I’m a lotus leaf-eating programming god and can just post my code to Wikipedia and my children will love it.” Uhm… not always. Giving a select few registered editors a view of editorial content that all the rest of Wikipedia’s readership can’t see (autoformatting of dates) what brain damaged at inception. And it was finally tossed on its ear in December.<p>As for the developers’ desperate attempts to pitch a replacement, the community has turned its back on a handful of volunteer programmer gods and said “we’re not interested in this sort of thing.” Over and over and over with RfCs, the community has said “'''No'''”. C'est la vie. The developers can simply shrug their shoulders and go find something to offer the community that it truly wants. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 22:11, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
::::Unfortunately, as the developers are the ones that actually implement any autoformatting changes that we may require (i.e. turning it off), they most certainly won't have to just shrug their shoulders. If they don't think that the poll reflects a big enough consensus, they won't do anything. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
::::*Ryan, perhaps you could rephrase your comment above as it appears to imply that developers have a veto on community consensus? Whilst it could be a mere statement of fact that their cooperation is necessary and desirable, they are not the guardians/[[supreme court]] of the consensus; if they were, I am certain the community would have something to say about that. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 02:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::*What I'm saying is that the developers don't act unless they have consensus for a change. I'm not 100% convinced that the developers will see our current poll on autoformatting consensus for anything so won't act. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<
::::::*If all it is is your fear, we can work on that. But we are agreed that they cannot and should not stand in the way of consensus, right? [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 11:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
*"''In a month or two (or however long it takes to develop the new software) we have one last poll to either adopt the new software or drop the issue once and for all''"—to the programming community: please be very careful with this approach. This strategy smacks of the approach that was taken many years ago—the one that delivered the current problem-riddled date formatting and linking system. If you want to get your programming teeth into something beneficial, then get consensus for a replacement system from the community <u>before</u> any coding takes place. At the very least, create a page that has the specifications for what is being developed so that there is transparency and the possibility for comment. The best programmers that I've seen in my career are the ones that don't want to operate in secrecy from their end-users. A happy and safe Easter to all. [[User:HWV258|<b><
Every here needs to chill out and discuss this calmly and stop bashing the clerks, who are only trying to do their jobs in a neutral manner. Yes, consider this is a final warning. <span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif"> — [[User:Rlevse|<b style="color:#060;"><i>R</i>levse</b>]] • [[User_talk:Rlevse|<span style="color:#990;">Talk</span>]] • </span> 22:40, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
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*If I am guilty of [[Shooting the messenger|clerk-bashing]], please forgive me. I would once again reiterate my polite opposition to Ryan's recommendation as well as Sapphic's suggestion, for the reasons already stated in this section and the [[Wikipedia_talk:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll/Archive_3#Exit_strategies|one above]] respectively. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 02:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
With respect to the Werdna thing, why is anyone bashing him? From what I can tell, all he did was address a bug request that had been around for years, and that had been actively discussed. There was community input, and it had to be approved by other developers before being incorporated into the software, so it's not as if he "went rogue" or anything like that. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small
*With all due respects to Werdna's contribution to WP, I would say that that little piece of code was probably relatively harmless, and I'm sure he was confident it wouldn't crash anything. However, if he were my IT Director, I'm sure I would have had words with him about it for potentially risking the stability of my live servers by running a test piece of code. Although a bug-fix request may have been lodged a long time ago, it was a completely new piece of code and not a "[[bug fix]]" by any meaningful/commonly-accepted definition/interpretation of the word. If in fact it was done after adequate testing, then I would apologise, but add that the process is lamentable for its completely opacity. In contrast, [[Special:Contributions/UC Bill|User:UC Bill]] did the right thing by running his code 'Son of DA' thingy on a test server, completely off-wiki. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 06:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
::* I find GregL's plea for calm language disingenuous. Your response to me above at 22:11 shows no sign that you bothered to read my statement, or tried to even understand what my concerns are. '''I don't give a rat's ass about autoformatting!''' Further, I find your confusing my interests with that issue offensive. What I refer to is the same single issue I have brought up before, & still stand on. Last summer I asked a question about making an exception over linking dates of birth & death on the MoS -- & had a slab of the MoS tossed at my head while you lot giggled over who "Harvey J. Wallbanger" was. Not a "yes" or "no" -- just the equivalent to "RTFM", a response which still leaves me angry. When I brought a related issue up some time later -- that the MoS is advisory, not mandatory -- Tony responded again with a curt dismissal. Discussing a matter, & losing the argument is one thing; but you lot are acting as if only you understand how Wikipedia works, & the rest of us are in need of correction. The whole point of a Wiki is for people to discuss issues; consensus is rarely permanent; & if you cannot provide a convincing explanation for your edits, they will be reverted. You bunch simply don't get it. -- [[User:Llywrch|llywrch]] ([[User talk:Llywrch|talk]]) 05:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
:::* Quoting you: …{{xt|had a slab of the MoS tossed at my head while you lot giggled over who "Harvey J. Wallbanger" was.}} I don’t know jack about who or what Harvy J. Wallbanger is nor could I ''possibly'' care less. I don’t know what you are talking about. Don’t care either. I frankly don’t even recognize your majuscule-deficient name (llywrch) although that doesn’t mean we hadn’t cross paths before. It sounds like you’ve got an axe to grind. If I offended you in the past, I’m sorry; it wasn’t personal. I see you’ve voted in the appropriate places in the RfC; that’s nice.<p>As to {{xt|if you cannot provide a convincing explanation for your edits, they will be reverted}}, again, I don’t know what you are talking about (which is probably a good thing) because I might make one date-related edit ''per month.'' But I note, from your pledge/threat to revert, that you seem to have an {{nowrap|''*extra special*''}} attitude about how [[User:Greg_L#The_perils_of_collaborative_writing_.28stress_reducer.29|collaborative writing]] works. As to {{xt|Tony responded again with a curt dismissal}}, I’ve had an epiphany here. I will not respond to you anymore. Goodbye and happy editing. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 22:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
**CKatz, no one is "bashing" developers; for heck's sake, we ''need'' them. What people are nervous about is that major technical changes can be made by anyone without reference to the community. I don't even see ''one mention'' of Werdna's response to the three-year Bugzilla discussion. What I ''do'' see there is a pointed message from Brion Vibber in relation to UC_Bill's program strings: "Since this tweaks around markup, it really needs some parser test cases." Well, yes. Development needs to be more open to community comment, just as bot running is. You cannot blame us for feeling more caution and step-by-step community input is required ... this is now not even world-best practice: it's ''standard''. What company board or public organisation would allow people (no matter how skilled) to come in and make changes to their programming without due process? [[User:Tony1|<
== Addition of 1346 to Background statement about year linking ==
[[User:Wrad]] has added "[[1346]]" to the background statement about year linking. Adding this particular year link may lead readers to believe that year articles generally follow that format. This is misleading, as it is unrepresentative of the vast majority of year links. As Wrad has been reverted by three users now (me; [[User:Coren]], an arb; and [[User:Tony1]]), I suggest we discuss this addition first. It took weeks to decide on the wording of these statements, adding things to it after those discussions—and when it is clearly disputed—is, as Coren said, "not proper". [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 15:06, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
:Your statement has been added to plenty of times since this discussion started, so let's not apply a double-standard. People need to see what a year article ''can'' be if they want to make a fair judgment on the issue. It's a very important thing to point out. What an article can be is almost more important than what it is at the moment. Some people in this poll seem to think year articles shouldn't exist. Would they think that if they knew about what they could be? I think that fewer would. People have a right to know. [[User:Wrad|Wrad]] ([[User talk:Wrad|talk]]) 15:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
::I agree that it's misleading to add it. However, I congratulate Wrad on bringing a year article into some useful kind of semblance. If year articles were generally as good as this one then I would have no problem encouraging a few more links. However, this is not the case. Perhaps one problem is that when IP editors see the usual "list" style year articles, they only add to the list and don't try to create a more logical, useful prose style article. Year links may have to be re-evaluated in the future if they significantly improve in standards. [[User:Sillyfolkboy|Sillyfolkboy]] ([[User talk:Sillyfolkboy|talk]]) 15:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
:::It is misleading not to at least mention it. People need to know that there is some hope! Stop trying to hide this from people! This just seems silly to me! Why are we making a "special" rule about linking years when it was a "special" rule that caused problems in the first place! Mark my words. This poll is going to backfire big time down the road. Pretty soon there will be almost no links to year articles, and year articles will never improve once that happens. [[User:Wrad|Wrad]] ([[User talk:Wrad|talk]]) 15:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
::::You have this nice little summary of the debate about year links, but you don't even mention [[1346]], which brings a very important point to this debate: ''Year links can actually take you somewhere! There is hope!'' Why shouldn't this at least be mentioned, with it's own point and counterpoint? [[User:Wrad|Wrad]] ([[User talk:Wrad|talk]]) 15:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::I appreciate the sentiments but I'd be inclined to stick to the original, especially as there are only 3 days left on the poll. I don't think all those editors will review their responses within this timeframe. It will be worthy of discussion once the poll is closed. [[User:Sillyfolkboy|Sillyfolkboy]] ([[User talk:Sillyfolkboy|talk]]) 15:44, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::Exactly what SillyFolkboy said. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 16:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
*It is misleading ''to'' mention it. It's totally unrepresentative of what year articles ''are'', and moreover what they all ''could'' be. Much of the information in that year article would need to be duplicated in the surrounding articles; it sucks out the available information. However, this ignores the fact that you cannot possibly change the text like that after the voting has started. [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 18:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
::In principle, I would have been in favour of adding a link to [[1346]] in the statement, to show that articles such as [[1987]] don't ''have'' to suck; they ''happen'' to suck. But so late, I agree with Coren that changing the statement ''after'' the poll has been opened would be "not proper". As for ''[i]t's totally unrepresentative of what [...] they all ''could'' be. Much of the information in that year article would need to be duplicated in the surrounding articles'', this might be the case for articles for years far in the past (which, as for me, I would rather merge to one article per decade), but as for more recent years, I can easily imagine a [[1968]] article and a [[1969]] article with no more overlap than, say, between the [[Quark]] and [[Electron]] articles. --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 18:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
* Linking [[1346]] is a '''pathetically minor''', trivial detail that isn’t going to materially affect the RfC. Let them have their way. The past three RfCs can’t be affected at all. Moreover, ''this'' RfC is quite clear that the community has <u>not</u> asked a handful of volunteer developers to run to their basements and dream up new ideas on this issue.<p>So much disruption caused by so few. If they want to keep pushing it after this is over, they can do so in a less disruptive fashion; they can just submit their ideas to Wikipedia’s Chief Technology Officer. If someone comes up with an idea on how to make it so I.P. users have a preference setting too, or some other improvement that addresses a key community objection, and if our CTO thinks someone has finally come up with something worthy, I’m sure he would be more than pleased to advance it to the community for consideration. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 19:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
On 10 March 2009, I [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll&diff=prev&oldid=276157938 suggested] that year-linking might offer this advantage: "Allows for the possibility that at some future time, year articles may provide a useful background to an article." As it was not specifically included in the final draft of this poll, I can only assume that it was left out for a reason. I'm afraid Wrad will need to ask Ryan or who whoever drafted the appropriate section why. Considering the amount of effort that has been put into setting up this poll, it is clearly inappropriate to attempt to bring in further wording now, particularly as something similar was proposed and rejected already. --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 01:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:Until July 2008, the article 1346 was like any other year article: a fragmentary, incomplete and culturally biassed collection of factoids. (I say this as a member of the WikiProject Years.) Wrad then embarked on a major exercise in writing a running-prose introduction. After nine months, It's quite good (although ignores several continents and many other parts of the world (meso America and Ceylon and Cambodia had MAJOR low-density cities at that time, for example); however, I suspect it was done to prove a point: "this is what all year articles could be like". Perhaps it's true, but there are two impediments:
#Multiply this effort by a thousand or two, and you realise that this is not going to happen in even 10 years. This would be the case even given a concerted effort, which I've called for at the WikiProject page, but which hasn't been taken up as a strategy.
#There's the "suck-in" phenomenon, where much of what is treated in such a large, broad article, pertains to the surrounding years as well; would 1345 be largely similar? I think so. This is why I called for ''year'' pages in the pre-modern period to be merged into ''decade'' pages; again, a bit of discussion, but no progress.
:But this is all beside the point: year pages are not generally going to be like 1346, in its incomplete and unrepeatable uniqueness, any time in the next few decades—not as we see the situation now. If it ever changed, in a future world, bots could easily link year pages with a minimum of human oversight. At the moment, linking years in unlikely and distant hope is whistling in the wind. Year pages are hardly orphaned when one is highlighted on the '''main page''', if you please, every day. [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 04:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::"any time in the next few decades" - pretty big words for someone who's been with the project for less than four years. There are a lot of things here now that we would never have expected back when I signed up. — [[User:Hex|<span style="color:#000">Hex</span>]] [[User_talk:Hex|<span title="Hex's talk page"><span style="color:#000">(❝</span>'''<span style="color:#900">?!</span>'''<span style="color:#000">❞)</span></span>]] 14:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::But Hex, you ''do'' agree with the gist of my thread, don't you, and you accept my good faith towards year articles? [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 14:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
== You know you've been partecipating in this discussion too long when... ==
...you take more than fifteen seconds to realize that the three letters in the middle of the registration plate of the moped in front of you are <tt>DWY</tt>, and not actually <tt>DMY</tt>. (It really happened to me. Ya think I need a break?) --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: 'that all true believers <s>start their dates</s>break their eggs at the convenient end.'''.</small> 19:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
* It’s like going on a three-day-long prairie dog hunt. For a while after that, a ''lot'' of stuff at 300 meters looks like a prairie dog. Brain training. Yeah… “moped”. There are a ''<u>lot</u>'' of those in Italy. Like overweight Americans at Wal-Mart: don’t have to wait long for one to go by. I guess weight loss is on my mind a lot. That’s the medical technology I’ve worked on the last four years. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 21:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
== Statistics needed. [[Cui bono]] ("Who benefits?") ==
Statistics needed relating to [[cui bono]] (translated as "who benefits?"). Please see: [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#How_to_count_number_of_editors_that_actually_set_date_preferences.3F|Village pump (technical): How to count number of editors that actually set date preferences?]] I am amazed that we don't have the information already. [[User:Lightmouse|Lightmouse]] ([[User talk:Lightmouse|talk]]) 12:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
:I'd be very interested to know this too. [[User:Sillyfolkboy|Sillyfolkboy]] ([[User talk:Sillyfolkboy|talk]]) 15:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
From statistics provided at the Village Pump (link above), it looks like for registered editors only:
* 7,242,868 have it set to the 'No preference' option
* 84,787 have it set to the mdy option
* 72,480 have it set to the dmy option
* 4,702 have it set to the ymd option
* 17,876 have it set to the ISO8601 option
Autoformatting is therefore only set for about 2 registered editors out of every 100. The article [[Wikipedia:About]] says Wikipedia has 684 million visitors per year. That implies another factor of 100 i.e. autoformatting set for 2 users out of 10,000. [[User:Lightmouse|Lightmouse]] ([[User talk:Lightmouse|talk]]) 12:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
: All {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} registered users benefit from it, plus all the unregistered readers, since autoformatting would ensure consistent date formatting in an article. --[[User talk:Amalthea|<span style="font-family:Verdana;font-variant:small-caps;color:#823824;font-weight:normal">Amalthea</span>]] 14:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
::How many of those 7 million editors are actually active? I'd guess only a percentage, possibly less than 10%, are actually active (if you want an actual definition of active; made edits in the past three months and made over 150 edits to article space). If we go with my 10% guesstimate, that's 724,287 active editors; editors who have a preference set consist of 42%. Go find out how many editors are actually active and aren't simply accounts that were created and subsequently abandoned, used for spamming, or blocked trolls abusing anonymous proxies. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 16:42, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:::I don't know how many are active. Nor do I know how activity relates to reading. Nor do I know how setting a preference relates to activity. If you have better evidence, it will be useful to inform the debate. [[User:Lightmouse|Lightmouse]] ([[User talk:Lightmouse|talk]]) 17:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
::::Because reader accounts are indistinguishable from sleeper vandal accounts. Active editors and the percentage that use the feature are a better metric for determining how many use the feature. As an aside, I note [[Cui bono]] (read the lead of the article) seems to be an [[WP:AGF|assumption of bad faith]] on your part; it's not like I'm SELLING the Foundation super sekrit code to enable date autoformatting for some lucrative sum of money (or for some other reason besides improving the experience of those who read this encyclopedia). —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 03:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::FWIW, according to [[Special:Statistics]] there are 160,436 "active users", defined as "users who have performed an action in the last 30 days". So your guesstimate is off by at least one order of magnitude. (I can't understand why it matters, anyway: we're talking about ''readers'', so why would you exclude users who don't edit?) --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 19:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
::::There's no reliable way to determine how many are readers. Many accounts are created by vandals/trolls and kept as sleeper accounts to be used/discarded at some later date, and there's likely no way to tell the difference between a genuine reader and an account being held for ''other'' purposes.. hence my focus on active editors/contributors. This is not to say we shouldn't resolve this for readers (even unregistered readers), but trying to determine what percentage use the feature (again, amongst readers) would be fraught with problems. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 03:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::PS: [[Wikipedia:Editing frequency]] has more detailed data about that, but they date back to last September. --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 19:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand. Autoformatting doesn't work unless it has been set. [[User:Lightmouse|Lightmouse]] ([[User talk:Lightmouse|talk]]) 14:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
: Not yet, but adding a magic word <nowiki>{{DEFAULTDATEFORMAT}}</nowiki> similar to <nowiki>{{DEFAULTSORT}}</nowiki> would be easy. See also [[WP:Date formatting and linking poll#I support the general concept of autoformatting|Anomie's support #1]] and the comments at [[rev:48249]]. --[[User talk:Amalthea|<span style="font-family:Verdana;font-variant:small-caps;color:#823824;font-weight:normal">Amalthea</span>]] 14:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Ah. You are talking about 'Son Of Autoformatting' which doesn't exist. This section is only about how many people use autoformatting today. [[User:Lightmouse|Lightmouse]] ([[User talk:Lightmouse|talk]]) 14:36, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:This shows the laughably small proportion of registered editors who use the DA. The default is "No preference", and many people wouldn't know about the function or bother to change it. It took me almost a year to realise its existence. It is good that registered editors ''don't'' usually choose a preference, since they then see exactly what their readers do. This WYSIWIG situation is the best one for the project and should not be jeapordised by messing around with templates and tags and patches. [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 17:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
'''Comment''' Lightmouse, no disrespect, but this data is utterly and completely ''useless'' without some form of proper analysis. In order for it to have any value at all, you would have to go through and filter out everyone who has registered and then abandoned their account (i.e. vandals with "final warnings"), SPAs who were blocked, dedicated vandals who created dozens, hundreds, or thousands of accounts (Grawp, Serafin, EverybodyHatesChris, and others come to mind, and that's just my experience). Beyond that, the "684 million" figure appears to represent ''all'' Wikipedia sites, not just the English Wikipedia; while EnWiki is by far the largest, you would certainly have to adjust for that. Of that number, can you also identify how many are ''distinct'' users? The "2 out of 10 000" is nonsense. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small>[[User_talk:Ckatz|<sup style="color:green;">chat</sup>]][[Special:Contributions/Ckatz|<sub style="color:red;">spy</sub>]]</small>'' 20:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
A way to find out the information Lightmouse want would be setting up an array of six counters (one for each of the five possibilities in "Special:Preferences#Date and time", plus one for "not logged in"), and have the rendering engine update the ''n''-th counter each time a HTML page is generated with the ''n''-th preference in effect. Let it run for two weeks or so. As a bonus, numbers will also be weighed according to how many pages each person reads. (Dunno if it's feasible to implement that, though.) --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 20:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:We are going through all this to satisfy the whims of 180 thousand editors with preferences out of 7 million editors and 684 million readers. '''Arbcom''' take notice!
:According to Alexa [http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org] 54% of Wikipedia traffic is to the English site. For all sites, the United States is the largest source of readers, 22.6% from the US verses 4% from the United Kingdom. (And we allow those Brits to use "colour"!) Here is something to think about. What if the largest source of en.wikipedia.org readers is from the United States, should the default dates follow US customs? -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 23:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:<s>According to Nielson Online, Wikipedia had 56 million unique visitors in April 2008. Thats 56 million readers without preferences set verses 180 thousand with preferences. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 23:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)</s>
:According to Nielson Online[http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_080514.pdf], en.wikipedia.org had 56 million unique visitors in April 2008. It appears that around 275 thousand users in the history of Wikipedia have set a date preference. It is unknown how many of these people are still active and log in when '''reading''' Wikipedia. (If you are not logged in, date autoformatting doesn't work.) The '''best''' case with these numbers is that 1 out of 200 readers benefits from date autoformatting. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 17:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::Yes, but by Locke's estimate, 90% of registered accounts are inactive, therefore there would clearly be only around 18 thousand active with preferences set :D --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 23:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:::Yes, whatever way people try to spin it, all roads lead to one inescapable conclusion: a vanishingly small proportion of users. [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 03:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::::Yes, whatever way people try to spin it, all roads lead to one inescapable conclusion: this is irrelevant, and yet another ploy by those on the other side to minimize the value of something they fiercely oppose. As per usual, all logic and reason have flown out the window for this. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 04:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::I've never known a vandal or SPA to bother setting their preference, but obviously your experience differs... —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 04:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::::So, Locke, how many vandals or SPAs do you know and how did you tell what preferences they set? Personally, I would have guessed that most inactive users simply stopped editing WP, but who knows? Is there any evidence that inactive users are any more likely or not to have set preferences? Of course not. You brought up the 90/10 inactive/active and I know you are able to accept rational arguments, so why not accept that is the best statistical estimate we can make, absent any other evidence? --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 14:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Locke, if you or anybody else can get statistics on active registered users, please let us know. I started this thread because I wanted data on actual choices made by users rather than opinions. The truth will set us all free. [[User:Lightmouse|Lightmouse]] ([[User talk:Lightmouse|talk]]) 10:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
*Oh hell, to have had these statistics when there was the great big hooha when Greg posted that 99.9% of WP users did not/would not benefit... Stats solely on 'registered users' are meaningless because they are but a fraction of all users. These are figures which are clearly inconvenient to certain parties' push for 'son of DA', so I'm hardly surprised at attempts to rubbish it. Most of thes real users don't vote in WP polls about date formatting... [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 16:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::Greg was wrong about 99.9%, the number might be as low as 99.5% do not benefit. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 17:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::Greg was indeed wrong. Only 160,436 out of 9,418,752 registered users are "active" (1.7%) and only 179,845 out of 7,422,713 registered users have set preferences (2.5%). Without further evidence that demonstrates any correlation between activity and setting preferences, the statistically "best" estimate is made by assuming independence. That yields a likeliest estimate of 3,887 active users with preferences set (0.04%) or 99.96% not benefiting. --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 18:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC) <small>I had a proof that 4,000 benefiting out of 56,000,000 readers gave 99.993% not benefiting but this margin was too small to hold it.</small>
*So basically, the stats say that approximately 180,000 accounts actually care enough about autoformatting to have turned it on. (We don't know what percentage of this is "active" accounts nor whether this amounts to double-counting of editors due to sock-puppetry/SPA/etc.) That leaves a large, large number of editors who may not mind that other people like autoformatting but who don't consider it important enough to turn the autoformatting on themselves. I wish we'd had those stats at the beginning of the poll. In my opinion, that is such a small percentage of editors and potential editors that it would be difficult to justify adding/keeping any complexity to the editing process. [[User:Karanacs|Karanacs]] ([[User talk:Karanacs|talk]]) 17:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:*These stats are flawed and incorrect. Further, the question is irrelevant because auto formatting could be made to work for all editors. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 18:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::*I completely understand that it ''could'' be made to work for all editors. The key point of these statistics is that only a relatively small proportion of readers cares enough about autofomatting to want to turn it on. Why make editing more difficult when most readers don't care enough to use it now? [[User:Karanacs|Karanacs]] ([[User talk:Karanacs|talk]]) 18:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
== Recent talk page posts regarding this RfC - is it canvassing? ==
This question is for Tony1 and Lightmouse, in light of the objections to Sapphic's recent posts that were described as "canvassing"... recently, I noticed a post of Tony's encouraging another editor - who had previously opposed DA in an earlier poll - to vote in the RfC. As it turns out, that was part of a series of similar messages, samples of which include:<blockquote>''"To get to the point of my message, I notice that you participated in an RFC late last year on date autoformatting, and wrote of clutter in edit-mode. I'm afraid this issue is the subject of another RFC, with a new proposal to add long template strings to edit-mode dates."''</blockquote><blockquote>''"People are overwhelmingly against the blue-link date autoformatting, but now there's a push to add a template string to each date to re-introduce autoformatting for WPian editors who want to select a different dispaly for themselves."''</blockquote><blockquote>''"However, I'm afraid this issue is the subject of another RFC which proposes among other things the addition of long template strings to dates."''</blockquote><blockquote>''"I notice that you participated in an RFC late last year on these matters, and expressed opposition to the concept of date autoformatting and to overlinking... You may wish to make your views known again on this same issue, whatever your opinion now. It's open until Monday, I think"''</blockquote>
Further to this, it also appears that Lightmouse has been contacting dozens of editors who have used his date-delinking script (ostensibly people who would already oppose autoformatting) to encourage ''them'' to vote. Now, this may or may not be legit - that's up to Ryan to decide - but given the concerns expressed about Sapphic contacting people who had ''already'' voted, I'd just like to know why they think this is acceptable. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small>[[User_talk:Ckatz|<sup style="color:green;">chat</sup>]][[Special:Contributions/Ckatz|<sub style="color:red;">spy</sub>]]</small>'' 09:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
*(edit conflict) Pardon me, that is a ridiculous accusation. The injunction was put in place because dispute resolution is in progress. I was asked to tell people about the injunction; I contacted only a few. It would be bizarre to tell someone about the date linking injunction but not to mention the date linking RFC that is intended to resolve the injunction. This is a particularly strange complaint given the demands by your people that Lightmouse place a warning at the top of the script (which he did). FAC and FLC nominators and others ''need'' to remove DA on an occasional basis; it is not reasonable to complain when likely users and manual delinkers are warned to be cautious in the light of the injunction. I note that there have been blockings for minor instances of delinking (quite outside the scope of the injunction, but nevertheless in its name). [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 17:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
* I think it is also more-than OK to contact Wikipedians who voted in previous RfCs and tell them about ''this'' RfC, Ckatz. The only prerequisite is that Wikipedians <u>be contacted equally off a given list, using the same criteria, '''''regardless''''' of ''how'' they voted</u>. Scores, if not hundreds, of people voted in the previous RfCs and naively thought that the issue was settled. In fact, they are now all disenfranchised voters.<p>It’s hard to know the precise extent to which the arbitrators are considering the previous RfCs, but it is clear that ''this'' RfC carries a lot of weight. In fact, according to people like Locke, two out of three of the previous RfCs were fatally flawed and should be completely disregarded. So it is crucial that we get the widest possible participation in this one. It would be manifestly unfair if all those who had participated in the previous RfCs—regardless of whether or not their vote as “for” or “against” on the various issues—were not advised that a strong case was being made here that their previous votes no longer mattered. They need to be told that they must now come here and vote (again) to have any say in the matter. If these editors chose to ignore the invitation, that’s fine. But at least they are making a fully informed decision to turn their backs on this issue.<p>Now… I’ve advised both Tony and Lightmouse of precisely this point and they both understand the message. Moreover, they have been contacting Wikipedians ''out in the open'' on their talk pages to ensure there is complete transparency. I can’t prove what {{nowrap|Sapphic ''et al.''}} might or might not be up to. But there has been a suspicious pattern to the last handful of “support” votes on autoformatting as evidenced by a curious similarity to the vote comments. Now, over this suspicion, I’m not going to allow myself to get dragged down into a link-fest with you, where you try to seize the moral high ground by citing “[[WP:Good faith|failure to assume good faith]]” and I counter with [[WP:Snowball]]. I think you and I both know what’s probably going on here, Ckatz. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 17:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
::To Tony: No, it most certainly is ''not'' a "ridiculous accusation". You've done something that I felt was questionable, so I'm asking a question about it. Your response does little to ease those concerns, especially given that you were sending essentially the same DA-is-bad-vote-against-it message under such unrelated headings such as "Admiralty Islands, etc.", "Your detailed maintenance work", "Pictures, for once!" and "MilHist article for the Signpost".
::To Greg: Greg, your veiled comments aside, it ''is'' pretty obvious what is going on here. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small>[[User_talk:Ckatz|<sup style="color:green;">chat</sup>]][[Special:Contributions/Ckatz|<sub style="color:red;">spy</sub>]]</small>'' 19:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
::* Quoting you, Ckatz: …{{xt|it ''is'' pretty obvious what is going on here}}. Sure: a bit of what happens in every RfC on Wikipedia. All you can do is try to keep the playing field as level as possible and reign in conduct that is beyond the line. And if you take away the effect of the borderline canvassing and Sapphic’s arm-twisting of people who have already voted, the overall effect on the outcome of the RfC is negligible to none. The ratios haven’t changed more than ±2 percentage points since day-one. It’s clear that the community has not requested that Sapphic, UC Bill, ''et al.'' come back with a smorgasbord of autoformatting ideas to chose from; far from it, they’ve said “don’t like it—come back two years from now.”<p>As I mentioned above, if they want to keep pushing their cool{{nbhyph}}beans ideas after this is over, they can do so in a less disruptive fashion; they can just submit their ideas to Wikipedia’s Chief Technology Officer. If someone comes up with an idea on how to make it so I.P. users have a preference setting too, or some other improvement that addresses a key community objection, and if our CTO thinks someone has finally come up with something worthy, I’m sure he would be more than pleased to advance it to the community for consideration.<p>As for date ''linking'', the RfC results are a cream. I ask that the arbitrators rescind their injunction on bot delinking activity ASAP so we can get the whole of en.Wikipedia delinked. The community couldn’t be clearer that links should always be germane and topical to the subject matter. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 23:58, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
:It most definitely meets the definition of canvassing, and was one of the reasons why I suggested to Ryan that he block all involved for the duration of the RFC. It's unfortunate he didn't heed the suggestion as now these results are tainted by the misbehavior of editors on the other side (editors who already overstate things in their "statements", but now resort to calling out the troops to try and skew discussion further). —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 03:56, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:* You are ''soooo'' predictable, Locke. {{xt|Tainted}}: That’s a metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Where were you when Sapphic was arm-twisting voters to change their votes? You were conspicuously silent. She even bragged about how her arm-twisting worked. This RfC's results have been 59/41 ±1 against delimiting all along. Deal with it. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 04:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::* Continuing discussion is not "arm twisting", and what Sapphic was doing doesn't meet the definition of canvassing (unlike what's been done here). Tony and company, on the other hand, are trying to vote stack this by soliciting !votes from people they know will vote their way (people who haven't voted at all yet, unlike Sapphic, who merely contacted editors ''after the fact'' to discuss things further with them). No sir, you have only your compatriots to blame for tainting this RFC, and I sincerely hope ArbCom sees this disruption for what it is and acts accordingly (since none of you seem willing to back down from disruptive behavior or personal attacks). —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 04:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::*Locke, you can claim "tainted" all you want, but the public opinion <u>will drown you out</u>. It is very simple: <u>The community has clearly rejected date linking and there is at the least ''no consensus'' on autoformatting.</u> Go ahead, cry wolf. Try to start another RfC, and see what happens. "Tony and company" won't have to do anything but watch the community angrily put down another attempt to stall the inevitable. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 15:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::::*Dabomb87, the results have been tainted by this canvassing. It's unfortunate that when a ''supposed'' landslide victory on those two points was taking place, Tony and company decided to canvass for additional support. The problem is, the issue of auto formatting is still, at best, no consensus. My personal read is this: there was consensus for auto formatting years ago when the feature was developed and turned on, and that consensus has not been overturned (RFC2 and ''this'' RFC (RFC3)) are both showing ''no consensus''; so we remain at the status quo). What that means for those insistent on delinking dates is that you can't do it. You don't have consensus, because delinking dates also removes the auto formatting. Where we need to go from here is to decide if we want to turn off the linking (but leave the formatting) and allow the devs to address the bugs in the auto formatter, or if we want Tony and company to try for another bite at the apple with ''yet another RFC'' to try and force their way. Personally I hope ArbCom sees reason here and gives us the former, not the latter... —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 18:30, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::::*:Locke, there is no consensus either for or against the ''general concept'' of autoformatting, but there appears to be a somewhat strong consensus against its ''current'' implementation (Dynamic Dates). So I'd propose that for now we just turn Dynamic Dates off (''i.e.'', <code style="white-space: nowrap"><nowiki>$wgDynamicDates = false</nowiki></code>). If and when someone implements a new form of autoformatting, and there is consensus for using it, we'll turn ''that one'' on (although, with about 59% opposing the "general concept", it seems quite unlikely to me). --<span style="font-family: monospace; font-weight: 600; color: #00F; background-color: #FFF;">[[User:A. di M.|A. di M.]]</span> (formerly Army1987)<small> — ''[[Special:Contributions/A. di M.|Deeds]], not [[User talk:A. di M.|words]]''.</small> 18:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::* Just as much was on my mind Dabomb, thanks. [[User:Thunderbird2|Thunderbird2]] endlessly made ''<u>exactly</u>'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AThunderbird2&diff=273248315&oldid=273243905 the same arguments] about how the community’s abandoning our proprietary use of “[[mebibyte]]” (in preference for the “megabyte” everyone else on this [[pale blue dot]] uses) was [http://www.hollow-hill.com/sabina/images/authentic-drama-queen.jpg horribly, horribly flawed] because {{xt|personal attacks}} prevented a rational discussion of the issue and the consensus was invalid. [http://createbusinessgrowth.com/marketing/how-to-bore-people-in-five-simple-steps Same shit, different sandwich]. I saw his post several hours ago but was going to ignore him. I suggest we all ignore him because he’s just taking us in circles. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 18:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
::::* If I'd had any sense I'd have ignored the trolls at MOSNUM months ago, but here I am, still taking the abuse... —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 18:30, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::Trolls using bully tactics dont just restrict themselves to MOSNUM, FAC has a reputation due to the inability of those same trolls to communicate in a reasonable and calm fashion. Sometimes you just have to either walk away or stay and fight. '''[[User:Seddon|Seddσn]]''' <sup>[[User talk:Seddon|talk]]</sup> 02:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:I should disclose that I came here after I was emailed to contribute. I'll let the emailer own up. [[User:Peter Ballard|Peter Ballard]] ([[User talk:Peter Ballard|talk]]) 11:01, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::Lest I be accused of unfair practice, it's clear that I need to provide an explanation. First, I have email contact with many WPians on a regular basis. Naturally, I have discussed the issues of DA and date-fragment linking for some time with wiki-associates. Although Peter and I had not previously emailed, his [[User:Peter_Ballard/olduserpage#Don.27t_overlink|explicit opinions]] on his talk page, headed "Date links suck, but at least WP is onto it" and "Don't overlink" had come to my attention some time ago. I believe he has put his vote in perspective in [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll/Autoformatting_responses&diff=prev&oldid=283540364 his vote]: "I was contacted privately to contribute after expressing an opinion last year, and would not have seen this discussion otherwise". I see that he had indeed voted on this matter ''already'' (as many voters have pointed out with a degree of irritation). In this case, there was every reason for us to communicate as WPians, since we are fellow countrymen and share strong beliefs on a number of issues, some of them pertaining here.
::In the interests of openness, I have mentioned the poll as part of larger communication with seven users who have now voted; these are all people I would have communicated with about other matters; in particular, the FAC Delegate, [[User:SandyGeorgia]], asked me last week to hunt for copy-editors to assist with the FAC process (I have regular contact with FAC and FLC nominators, on- and off-wiki). Two of the seven have responded on my talk page, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATony1&diff=283536159&oldid=283371353 here] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATony1&diff=283143931&oldid=283081199 here]. In all seven cases, I warned of the need to exercise caution in unlinking, per the injunction. FA nominators often unlink, and are largely unaware of the injunction. It is bizarre that even a mention of an open poll on the same issue should be an offence.
::I think this is far more reasonable than Sapphic's aggressive canvassing on wiki and no doubt off wiki, in which one user even responded by asking whether there is a "do not spam" template. By contrast, my communications were small in number, polite (extremely so), involved other matters, and were non-partisan. I do not believe my actions constitute unfair practice, unlike the attempts of Sapphic (and possibly other users) to change editors' votes. [[User:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">'''Tony'''</span>]] [[User talk:Tony1|<span style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</span>]] 16:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::Tony, be realistic about what was going on. The posts clearly show that you were making a direct appeal to people who held the same view as you did with respect to the poll, in an attempt to pull in more votes for your position. Why is it that you expect Sapphic to follow one standard, yet you hold yourself to a different one? --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small>[[User_talk:Ckatz|<sup style="color:green;">chat</sup>]][[Special:Contributions/Ckatz|<sub style="color:red;">spy</sub>]]</small>'' 17:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::* Well, Ckatz, what started this was Sapphic’s stunt of going straight to people who voted “oppose” on autoformatting and trying to get them to change their vote. I will stipulate that what she did isn’t “canvassing” as defined by Wikipedia, but it was <u>clearly</u> intended to influence the results of the RfC in one particular direction. There shouldn’t have to be an explicit rule covering ''everything.''<p>But I agree with you that we don’t need to have any conduct that could undermine the legitimacy of this RfC. The RfC results have held steady at about 59% “oppose” and 41% “for”, ±1.5% for the entire duration of the RfC.<p>It’s now 4:30 AM Sydney time (Tony’s time) and he’s gone to bed. I strongly encouraged him that if he wakes up before the RfC ends six hours from now, to stay out of ''anything'' related to this RfC until it’s over—completely off Wikipedia if he can. He agreed to abide by that restriction.<p>I hope we can have some squeaky clean behavior from ''all'' parties for the last six hours? <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 18:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::*Unfortunately at this point it's irrelevant. The entire thing has been called in to question, after all, how do we know the canvassing is just a recent thing? That it's happened at all makes me wonder if canvassing wasn't happening earlier in the RFC, or perhaps before it even began. And it's frustrating that these good faith efforts to try and resolve this continue to be disrupted by the same group of people. As for Sapphic, well I've said it enough places, but why not one more: what she did was, in my view, entirely appropriate. Discussion is good, obviously it's best if the discussion is performed on the actual RFC, but Ryan seemed to want to avoid threaded discussions, so direct contact was the next best thing. But all of her communications, as far as I am aware, were on-wiki; totally transparent, and not an attempt to undermine the process (just continue it through discussion). What Lightmouse and Tony have done is not in the spirit of good faith discussion and instead seem intent on skewing the results their way. This is disruptive, pure and simple. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 18:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::* Yeah, we know what you want: To call the whole RfC into question and claim we need a whole ’nother RfC. Ain’t gonna happen. You sound ''exactly'' like [[User:Thunderbird2|Thunderbird2]] and his arguments about how incivility invalidated previous RfCs so there needed to be continued discussion of the matter. No there doesn’t. Not in the case of our going back to “mebibyte”, and not with regard to date linking. In case you haven’t been keeping score, the community has consistently been tossing date linking ''and'' autformatting on its ear. It’s the end. All the double-bracketed date links have got to go. The community has ''clearly'' spoken enough times already. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 18:41, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::*Perhaps we need to reduce the scope here. As I pointed out somewhere else, it's clear that the canvassing has been focused on autoformatting, as evidenced by the 2:1 ratio of votes on date autoformatting to date linking. Perhaps, if we must have another RfC (or a "Phase 2"), we should concentrate on autoformatting, and make the questions more detailed. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 18:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::::*I will not participate in another RFC until the conclusion of the arbitration case. The editors who consistently disrupt these discussions must be dealt with before anything resembling reasonable discussion can occur. And another RFC will just be another opportunity for Tony/Lightmouse to engage in stealth canvassing to try and stack the vote again. No, the ArbCom case needs to go to voting and hopefully remedies there will make it possible to discuss this again some time in the future ''without the disruption''. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 18:54, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::::*Then we have found a common complaint. I, just as much as you (although for different reasons), want to see the case closed and finished. For whatever reason, ARBCOM seems to be taking unusually long on this one. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 18:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::*You don't understand Greg. I'm not trying to call it in to question, '''it is called in to question'''. What's been done cannot be undone, and the results of this RFC are irrevocably tainted. I'm not even interested in another RFC, because I expect the parties will simply engage in this stealth canvassing more carefully next time. I think the arbitration committee needs to start voting on sanctions on these disruptive editors, and only then we ''might'' be able to move forward with reasonable discussion. As for the rest of your comment... more garbage. —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] • [[User talk:Locke Cole|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Locke Cole|c]] 18:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::::* I see. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 19:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::::* Like Dabomb87 wrote, the RfC results regarding deprecating date linking was an '''''utter slaughter'''''. The past RfCs made that clear. This one did too. No amount of canvassing could possibly have influenced this RfC’s outcome on linking. And, more importantly, no canvassing has even been alleged with regard to date delinking, much less proven. Just because you can write a metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium about how the Arbitration Committee should disregard the RfC results with regard to date delinking, your arguments have to pass the ol’ *grin test*, which they don’t. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 19:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
*Since Locke decided to repeat the same bollocks here as he wrote on Lightmouse's talk page, I repost this for everyone's benefit: "''Campaigning is an attempt to sway the person reading the message, through the use of '''non-neutral tone, wording, or intent'''.''" (bold type my emphasis) Notwithstanding the voters' awareness of the poll, all the people contacted by her were on the 'oppose' side, and although some of the posts started off being neutral, others were not - some of the follow-ups were not neutral and could be considered 'badgering' those contacted to change their vote. As to there being "absolutely nothing wrong with what Sapphic was doing": [[WP:BOLLOCKS|nothing at all wrong my foot]]. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 19:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
*We have had 4 RFC on date linking and formatting; all have shown the community does not want a sea of blue links. The results are not what Locke desired so every RFC was disruptive, confusing, tainted, stacked, and so on. We need to have a continuous stream of RFCs until one reaches Locke's desired results. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 21:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:* COLLEFMODTH! (Chuckle out loud, loud enough for my old dog to hear!) So true, too. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 01:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
:*I forget, could it be considered "forum-shopping"? [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 05:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
*Just my perspective: yes, Tony emailed me. I would have preferred it if he had instead used my Talk page (which is open for anyone to see). If he had used my Talk page I would certainly have seen it. Although my User page says I'm on a break for Wikipedia, a look at my contributions will show that I've been unable to stay away :), with edits to 12 different articles over 6 different days during the time of the RfC. Despite this level of WP usage, I was unaware that the RfC was happening - if there was a banner at the top of the WP main page, I missed it. So while I think canvassing is a bad thing, I am nevertheless glad I was notified. As probably would be most contributors to earlier discussions, both for and against. I think the solution is, for future date-formatting-related RfCs, for a bot to automatically notify (via their Talk pages) all contributors to previous related discussions. [[User:Peter Ballard|Peter Ballard]] ([[User talk:Peter Ballard|talk]]) 00:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC) ''(Fixed 2nd sentence [[User:Peter Ballard|Peter Ballard]] ([[User talk:Peter Ballard|talk]]) 01:23, 14 April 2009 (UTC))''
*Don't worry Peter, there will be another RFC. Perhaps someone can set up a bot that will cast our desired vote. Then we can have a monthly RFC. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 04:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
:*ROTFL. Thanks, Swtpc - I haven't been so tickled in quite a while. I'm sure plenty of people will support that automated voting scheme so we can be done with this nonsense perpetuated by arbs and clerks lacking [[cojones]]. Haha! We will need a [[WP:NAME|naming convention]] just for the date-linking RfCs alone. [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] ([[User talk:Ohconfucius|talk]]) 05:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
== Closing time? ==
The heading reads:
"The poll runs from 00:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC) and concludes 23:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)".
It may now be 13 April 2009 UTC (GMT), but is it 23:59 yet?
My date stamp below reads 06:56 (UTC).
(By the way, best wishes for Easter, Passover and whatever other spring holidays editors may be celebrating.)
[[User:Shakescene|—— Shakescene]] ([[User talk:Shakescene|talk]]) 06:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:Hey! Poll has closed early! Why can't I vote? [[User:Peter Ballard|Peter Ballard]] ([[User talk:Peter Ballard|talk]]) 07:29, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:It was supposed to run for 2 weeks, so the cut off should have been 23:59, 12 April. Given I made a mistake with the dates, we'll leave it open for another day. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<span style="color:green;">Ryan</span> <span style="color:purple;">Postlethwaite</span>]]<sup>See [[Special:Contributions/Ryan Postlethwaite|the mess I've created]] or [[User talk:Ryan Postlethwaite|let's have banter]]</sup>''' 09:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
== Canvassing ==
If anyone's been contacted off wiki about this poll, please contact me either by email or on my talk. Please don't post any emails on-wiki. '''[[User:Ryan Postlethwaite|<span style="color:green;">Ryan</span> <span style="color:purple;">Postlethwaite</span>]]<sup>See [[Special:Contributions/Ryan Postlethwaite|the mess I've created]] or [[User talk:Ryan Postlethwaite|let's have banter]]</sup>''' 16:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
== Proposed Resolution ==
Since there isn’t a snowball’s chance of radical turn in the RfC results, here are my observations:
<hr/>
;Date linking
There is a clear consensus on date linking in this RfC. The wording the community prefers (both “Option #1”s) should now go into MOSNUM. The injunction against bot activity should be lifted because the bot’s activity is clearly in compliance with MOSNUM.
:While Lightbot does good work in general, I think the [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3|task descriptions]] need improvement. I'm surprised that the existing language made it through the approval process. All of those "may add, remove, or modify" items are essentially blank checks, unless conditions are specified to define when these actions take place. The same goes for the "will make other edits" with the "these will usually be..." qualifications. This language effectively authorizes the bot to ''sometimes'' do the ''unusual'', without any constraints other than the operator's good judgment. If anyone objects to questionable or controversial results, it's too easy to defend the activities as "approved behavior". I'd rather see something along the lines of "Dates will be unlinked under the following conditions: (1) ... (2) ... (3)..." and "Dates will ''not'' be unlinked if any of the following are true: (1) ... (2) ... (3)..." and provide examples. I wouldn't rush to turn the bots back on until these activities are better defined. -- [[User:Tcncv|Tcncv]] ([[User talk:Tcncv|talk]]) 00:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
:* Lightbot had a 100% success ratio in forty, randomly selected articles. See [[User_talk:Lightmouse/Archives/2009/February#Question|here]] for the results on twenty of those, where it demonstrated 0% false positives on ten articles that should left untouched, and 0% false negatives on ten articles that should have been delinked. Since there are ''millions'' of links, a bot is the only way to tackle something of this magnitude. The few false positives that Lightbot does goof on are easy enough to correct and pale in comparison to manually going in and delinking all those dates. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 01:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
;Autoformatting
The old autoformatting method was deprecated in December. The RfC results on autoformatting has held steady with 57–60% saying they aren’t interested in new autoformatting ideas. Far from being consensus ''for'' autoformatting, it is a rejection of it. If Cole, UC Bill, Sapphic, or someone else wants to push some new kind of autoformatting (curly brackets with template names, magic words, whatever) they should first come up with something ''new'' that addresses the concerns of the community. Central to those concerns are that date linking isn’t perceived as a problem worth the fuss. That sentiment is repeated over and over again in the RfC.
So, if they want to push some fussy ideas for autoformatting, it had better at least be something really good, like giving I.P. users the same benefits. Further, the current parties to the ArbCom should be enjoined from proposing autoformatting solutions to the community and starting RfCs on the subject for one full year. If the enjoined party is a developer, prohibited activities would include simply flat making behind-the-scenes changes to the way Wikipedia works for a year. I believe one year is the limit of the scope of decisions for ArbComs. Thereafter, the pro-formatting crowd can have their ideas vetted by Wikipedia’s Chief Technology Officer, Brion Vibber, to get permission to pitch or post their latest autoformatting ideas to the community. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 19:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:There is a clear consensus that dates should only be linked when relevant. The clear majority is opposed to autoformatting. One important fact surfaced in this RFC, only about 200 thousand editors have ever set a date preference compared to more than 50 million readers that visit en.wikipidia.org each month. Since the consensus is to remove excessive date links, there is no need to maintain the autoformatting scheme that is used by less the 0.5% of Wikipedia readers. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 21:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::FYI, any supposed ratio is not a "fact" until someone produces a proper analysis of all relevant data. What has been repeatedly presented is just a meaningless series of numbers based on some data and a lot of speculation. --'''[[User:Ckatz|Ckatz]]'''''<small>[[User_talk:Ckatz|<sup style="color:green;">chat</sup>]][[Special:Contributions/Ckatz|<sub style="color:red;">spy</sub>]]</small>'' 21:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::* That’s simple, Ckatz. I’m busy. We can have Locke do the analysis and tell us what the true summary facts are regarding community consensus. Alternatively, maybe we might leave that up to the ArbCom members. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 23:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::Perhaps it would be appropriate to define what the "relevant" data is. Then we can ask the developers to run the queries for us. Considering that the numbers on the autoformatting side are not quite as lopsided as had been hoped, having the extra data might be very useful. Would editors, especially those on the "pro-autoformatting" camp, be willing to list the types of statistics they'd like to see on autoformatting? [[User:Karanacs|Karanacs]] ([[User talk:Karanacs|talk]]) 21:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::The [[Nielsen Ratings|Nielson Company]] has measured audiences for decades and they report that English Wikipedia had 55.8 million unique viewers in April 2008.[http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_080514.pdf] There have been {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} [[WP:Wikipedians |named accounts]] the history of Wikipedia. That sets the upper limit of readers with date preferences at less than 17%. The number of registered users that have ever set a date preference is about 275,000.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)&diff=next&oldid=283409048] That has an upper limit of 0.49%. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 22:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::Wikimedia has some more measurements based on data from [[comScore]]. [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu/comScore_data_on_Wikimedia] English Wikipedia had 140.7 million unique viewers in September 2008 and 41 thousand editors made 5+ edits that month. Lots of readers, small number of editors. -- [[User:Swtpc6800|SWTPC6800]] ([[User talk:Swtpc6800|talk]]) 23:01, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::That would set the upper limit at 0.03%. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 23:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
:::::* '''There’s''' the numbers I was looking for. Thanks SWTPC6800. I’ve long said that there was no point using autoformatting to benefit registered editors when it is of no use to 99.9% of our readership. In fact, autoformatting does no good for 99.97% of our readership. Absurd. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 01:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::Dates should be linked if key to the article. Therefore bot delinking should not continue and it should be accepted that the process requires human editors to make a concious choice about relavence to the article not a turbo charged bot without an ounce of clue. [[Special:Contributions/86.132.128.230|86.132.128.230]] ([[User talk:86.132.128.230|talk]]) 23:23, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::* To I.P. user from London: We already had that discussion. Scientifically. The error rate of Lightbot in complying with these new guidelines was <u>zero</u> false positives. <span style="white-space:nowrap;">'''[[User:Greg L|Greg L]]''' ([[User_talk:Greg_L|talk]])</span> 23:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
::::::* To 86.132.128.230: The point is that bots allow for a "clean slate" approach to date linking. After the dates have been unlinked, human editors can make conscious choices in order to link the relevant dates. It is too much work to manually unlink the enormous number of dates that currently have been linked purely because it seemed like a good idea at the time. By the way, can you give some examples of "relevant" dates? (this [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_115#RfC:_Linking_of_dates_of_birth_and_death|RfC]] demonstrated that it isn't even clear cut as to whether the community wants dates of birth and death to be linked). [[User:HWV258|<b><span style="color:Navy;background:LightSteelBlue;font-family:Arial; font-size:small;"> HWV258 </span></b>]] 00:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
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