Policy Change
I'm proposing the following change to wiki policy:
- We no longer delete articles that do not meet their intended balance point, or the SGT if none is specified.
- We delete the Balance Assistance template. Talk pages again become the place where issues are brought up and discussed.
- We move the authority to delete articles for balance below monk level or above wizard level to the Rating's Committee, and only then with a majority vote with polling lasting at least one week. Alternately, we put it up to the general user base; really it just needs to not be something that any one person can do or threaten by putting up a template.
- Whoever brings it to the vote should not be able to participate in said vote, aside from arguing their position.
The reasons for these changes are straightforward. Balance levels are somewhat vague, and there is a consistent lack of agreement among members regarding content that falls in between. What is Rogue level for some is Fighter level for others, and neither of these positions can be wrong without more complete definitions of the balance levels (which we are actively avoiding). With neither of these positions being wrong, it is unreasonable to delete an article for having one or the other listed on it. This compromises our goal of providing accurate and easy to use balance levels somewhat, but as that goal seems completely unattainable without more complete definitions of said levels, I think this is as close as we can get.
The Balance Assistance template, which we currently use as a punitive measure against articles that someone feels do no meet their specified balance points, fails because of these edge cases. It largely serves to make authors suffer deletion threats for disagreeing with another user. It's other use, to notify a user of a balance concern, is more effectively realized by actually explaining the concern on the talk page instead of giving a terse note on the main page. Further, if we are no longer deleting pages for not rigorously meeting their indicated balance level, the template serves no notification / tracking purposes either.
I find the idea that one user can determine the fate of an article, regardless of how well respected, frankly repulsive. This was basically the case with the balance assist template, despite its intentions, and another reason I would be happy to see it go at this point. We may still need to delete articles for failing to even be on our balance scales, however, and that is a part of the wiki policy I do not want to see compromised. Moving the authority to a group of users, either the Rating Committee or the general user base, mitigates the one user issue.
Lastly, by allowing anyone to bring an issue up but then disallowing them from deciding the matter we require participation and discussion from additional users. This makes it impossible for one user to determine the fate of a poorly balanced article, and even defaults to the author if there is insufficient interest in the article for the complaint to be taken up.
I'd appreciate thoughts, concerns, support, and whatnot on these proposals, because I can't actually change policy on my own. Well, I could just go and edit this in, but that's not really in the spirit of things. - TarkisFlux 18:31, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
- This is gonna be a loose post here as I try and gather my thoughts on the subject.
- 1.) Agreed. I dislike deleting "complete" articles. Articles can always be sandboxed or de-categorized if it is obvious that the article is incomplete (in a sense of playability). Authors like to upload works-in-progress. Which brings me to...
- All "Add New Page" pages should include a note or link to the policy on adding articles, or at least a summation about adding incomplete work and the preference towards sandboxed articles.
- 2.) Agreed. More discussion is better. It would also be good if authors would write a short synopsis of their design intent and philosophy and why they think their article is balanced on the talk page after uploading the article. That's really more of a bonus though. Establishing author intent from the beginning might help resolve some problems as well as initiate discussion as well. Which brings me to...
- Mechanics can be fixed, but also, the flavor of the article (writing quality, cohesiveness, concept) is largely up to the author itself, and that area isn't as easy to fix. I still foresee flavor being a part of why articles are going to be deleted/sandboxed. Grammar and sentence structure is of course, fixable by others, but extrapolating beyond that is often difficult.
- 3.) Keeping a discussion open to all users would be nice for "acceptable range of balance" on an article. Though, Rating Committee voting is probably the way to go. Everyone is still entitled and encouraged to voice their opinion.
- 4.) I don't think we'll have any problems with meat-puppetry here. Though, beyond that, should the author of an article still retain his vote if brought up by another user?
- Also, wasn't sure where to fit this in, but I wanted to mention it as well.
- We have the "Help Wanted" template still for authors to post on their own articles if they seek assistance. Since the author can remove it himself, and allow other users who want to help to search for such things, I think we should keep it.
- Yes, often times I see myself staying out of an article's discussion because they can quickly become "User A" arguing against "User B". This should generally be avoided. If you're reading a discussion, and you have something to say and the time to say it, please chime in. I guess that's all I have for now. Someone else, chime in on the main points. --Ganteka Future 19:17, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, this doesn't even touch on the incomplete issues or other templates, this was just intended to be an update of balance level stuff. We can actually differentiate between complete mechanically and not showing any <- stuff -> from everything else, so the incomplete doesn't suffer from the same problems. And the Help Wanted shouldn't go anywhere, cause that's actually working as intended (though it could be prettied up, or stuck at the bottom of an article, or whatever).
- And I don't really care if the author retains a vote or not, I just want it biased in favor of the author and against whoever brought it to the vote. I want burden of proof and convincing on whoever is going to bring the issue up, and not on the author to get their stuff saved from the concerns of a single user. - TarkisFlux 19:37, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
- This is a good idea and needs to be implemented right away to deal with outstanding issues. Surgo 22:06, December 9, 2009 (UTC)