Meta:Proposed page moves/Archives/2014

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2014, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Friends of gays should not be allowed to edit articles

The following discussion is closed: no consensus — billinghurst sDrewth 03:38, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Rename to "No one cares if your friend is gay or lesbian" / "No one cares if your friend is homosexual"

I've just stumbled upon this page and though it was tagged as humor, I find little value that it adds to Wikimedia in general. I've realized looking at the page's history that it's been through multiple deletion discussions — that's already a big hint that the several people who voted delete in those discussions take offense to it and want it deleted. I am personally not offended by the title, but I can see a lot of confusion and misleading about the title; non-English speakers might mistake the nuance that friends of gays (who are presumed to be supportive of gays) are the ones banned from editing (and therefore banned from supporting gays). I've read through the essay in its entirety and most of the keep arguments in the various deletion discussions amounted to "take it in context; don't judge a book by its cover; its harmless". It obviously didn't seem harmless to the people who nominated it for deletion. Why risk offending a group of people who might misread the page, just to have a few chuckles? In an age where admins are desysopped for making "harmless" jokes "bringing the project into disrepute", where ArbCom and Wikipedia cares about its public image so much, Wikimedia needs to take itself more seriously. Why doesn't it do that? To even begin doing that one must recognize that the power of language is so mysterious that one, by definition, MUST contribute to Wikimedia by understanding that it DOES take itself very, very seriously!

For this reason, I think that we can come to a reasonable compromise at the very least by renaming the page to something more language-neutral like "No one cares if your friend is gay or lesbian" or "No one cares if your friend is homosexual". This would be followed by some much needed substantial rewriting of the page, to appeal to people whose first language is not English and might misread it.

P.S: if I am the friend of a gay person (who I support wholly), do I have every right to be offended? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:54, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

The title of the page is totally inappropriate. The main text is just weird. It's an embarrassment. Tony (talk) 08:59, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Alright, I'm going to quote Meta-Wiki's Inclusion policy on this in case people think my arguments are baseless:

Acceptable: Meta is a wiki about the Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia Foundation . As such, the following content is appropriate on Meta:

Documentation and discussion concerning the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects (see some current discussions). no
Documentation intended to help users contribute and collaborate in other wiki projects. no, in fact its serving to divide some of our userbase despite its best intentions
Multilingual cooperation of Wikimedia projects. no, see above
Relevant essays or advocacy (see some essays). as a humor page, what exactly is it advocating?
Primary research regarding the development of wiki projects. no

Not acceptable: Some content is not appropriate on Meta:

Content more appropriate on another wiki project: encyclopedic information , published texts , user-created books , dictionary definitions , famous quotations , general news and images (unless only intended for use on Meta-wiki pages; see Licensing policy and Meta:Fair use). Support
Galleries of links or images. (Meta is NOT a repository of links, upload images to Commons so that they may be used on any Wikimedia projects) no
Personal pages or blogs. Support
Content that is paid. Users may freely view, use, distribute, modify, and exploit all Meta content, in any form, and for any purpose (including commercial exploitation) without limitation (except attribution). Allowable exceptions are discussed at Meta:Fair use. no
Dedicated attack pages VERY BORDERLINE
I remain unconvinced that this information could not be conveyed in a humorous way that is less offensive to some. This coming up every 6 months or so now seems evidence to me that while a vocal minority love it and will defend it forever - its time has come to go. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 23:04, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

In total, two reasons it's unacceptable and no reason why it's acceptable per Meta-Wiki's very own Inclusion Policy. This type of humor is for the immature high school kid, not a gigantic nonprofit public corporation like Wikimedia Foundation. It's better on a personal blog about Wikipedia if anything else. Therefore, I believe that a rename is a quite rather generous compromise I'm willing to take. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 09:19, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I would say rename or don't do anything. I like the page after reading its content. Gryllida (talk) 09:27, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

It may make sense to put those into separate namespace or put the 'is humorous' banner at the top at your liking. Gryllida (talk) 09:28, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with the renaming. I think it meets "Relevant essays or advocacy (see some essays).". It is a satirical essay about common vandalism patterns. Like "a modest proposal". Meta:What Meta is not #3: "Meta is not entirely formal, and many of its pages are meant to be humorous.". Is this supposed to be on Wikimedia Forum, Meta:Babel, Meta:Proposed page moves, or RFD? PiRSquared17 (talk) 14:00, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Meta:Proposed page moves? Gryllida (talk) 14:08, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Yep, Done.[1] --Nemo 14:33, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose rename, like mentioned earlier I think the essay title is intentionally puzzling. (I might suggest to move it to Essays:* or whatever namespace, or move the 'is humorous' banner to the article top, to help readers gain orientation.) Gryllida (talk) 14:44, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi gry. In fact, the page used to have both a humor notice and brief context hatnote at the top, but they were removed. By the way, there is no "Essay" namespace, but there is an essay category. I think the humor category is enough, along with perhaps a vandalism-related category. PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:00, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the context. ☺ I don't really mind these things I mentioned not being done; they are merely of brainstorming nature, as a first reaction to the initial proposal. Gryllida (talk) 04:17, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Oppose the 32434534th proposal about this page this year. See also Talk:Friends_of_gays_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles#Propose_rename. --MF-W 01:07, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
- Oh noes! The article actually has a useful talk page. Gryllida (talk) 00:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Didn't we just have this discussion? --Rs chen 7754 01:15, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, we did. Trijnstel_talk 20:51, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Oppose as well, for reasons on the various other discussions on this topic. Ajraddatz (Talk) 01:16, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Oppose rename. I believe I commented on the relevant talk page. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:07, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Oppose I'm done with this frequently recurring discussion. And put {{humor}} on top again. Having it on the bottom is not logic imho. Trijnstel_talk 20:49, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Unproper categories

I just found out there are 2 categories that state the same thing: Category:Translators eng-ron and Category:Translators eng-rom. None of them is right, since the correct initials for Romania are ROU (since January 2007). A simple internet search can easily confirm, if there are any doubts about it. Thank you. --Winter^eu (talk) 08:21, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

The new category should be Category:Translators eng-rou. --Winter^eu (talk) 12:18, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

@Wintereu: Please feel free to fix the categories with your proposed category. When emptied we can delete the old categories. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:40, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Wintereu and Billinghurst:

Oppose moving to rou. As is stated on Category:Translator's Templates, the category names are based on BCP 47 language codes (which are mostly from ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-3). As everyone involved in this discussion knows, the ISO 639-1 and Wikimedia language code for Romanian is "ro", so a redirect could be set up from there. The ISO 639-3 code for Romanian is ron, not rou or rom. Note, however, that rum is a valid synonymous ISO 639-2 "bibliographic" language code, so a redirect may be set up from there. ROU is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for the country of Romania (which is not the same as the Romanian language), although previous versions of the standard used ROM. Note that rou is the ISO 639-3 (and therefore also BCP 47) code for the Runga language of Chad, part of the w:Aiki language "family" (the two dialects are very different). Also rom is not the ISO 639-3 code for Romanian, but Romani (i.e. the language of the Romani people, also known as Gypsies). This should not be made into a redirect to Romanian, since the two languages are not the same. The only member of the eng-rom category is User:Sirty, whose babel indicates fluency in both Romanian and Romani. Sorry if I made this too confusing. Here is the simplification (TL;DR). Note all codes mentioned are ISO:

RO: This is a country code and TLD for Romania, and the ISO 639-1 language code for Romanian.
ROM: Former country code for Romania, current macro-language code for Romani (Gypsy).
RON: ISO 639-3 language code for the Romanian language.
ROU: Country code for Romania, language code for Runga.
RUM: Synonym of RON language code in ISO 639-2.

P.S. I think the way these categories use ISO 639-3 where ISO 639-1 already exists is inconsistent with Wikimedia's language codes and Wiktionary's Babel templates. I think it would be more consistent (and easier) to use 'en' instead of 'eng', 'ro' instead of 'ron', etc., but that's a separate discussion. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

P.P.S. Since I doubt any Runga speakers are going to translate pages on Meta anytime soon, a redirect from 'rou' to 'ron' would probably be harmless in practice and reduce confusion. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:07, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I have converted the template to Runga, and this should be closed as Not done. That there is confusion over the categories and templates, there would seem the need to overtly address the basis of their classification in the cats and the templates, rather than having to dig to another place. Users should not have to face a jargon issue. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:21, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

@PiRSquared17 and Billinghurst: Thank you for your time spent in dealing with this issue. Still, someone should probably fix the eng-rom template as standing for Romani, not Romanian and add it to the list. Regards, Winter^eu (talk) 11:17, 7 September 2014 (UTC)