Meta:Requests for comment/How should closed permission request templates be used?

The following request for comments is closed. There is no consensus for any change from current practice. No templates will be deleted, they should not be applied retroactively, and sysops and bureaucrats can use them at their discretion. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of the issue

{{Closed request top}} and {{Closed request bottom}} are two templates have been substituted on most Closed Meta-Wiki requests for permissions pages to indicate that they have been closed.

1. Should {{Closed request top}} and {{Closed request bottom}} be deleted? Are these templates useful for marking closed requests pages, or are they unnecessary?

1A. If {{Closed request top}} and {{Closed request bottom}} should be kept, should they be applied to old requests that don't have any form of boxed closed request template already?

Comments

This is the context; I decided to open an RfC instead of a request for deletion because while several people have commented that they are unnecessary, I'm not in favor of deletion and would like to ask the broader question of how these templates should be used if they should be used.
For question 1, I think they should be kept because they're a clear visual indicator that quickly informs editors that a request is closed. {{Closed request bottom}} also have the secondary benefit that it automatically adds the current category based on the page prefix, a renovation on some old code that MarcoAurelio developed. For question 1A, I think the whole point of such templates is for them to be applied to all the pages so one can consistently utilize them to easily determine if a request page is closed. The statistics tables on my user page show that pages that do not have boxed closed request templates are outliers.
@Billinghurst, MF-Warburg, and Masti: Since I opened this RfC based on comments and actions from you, I think it's only fair I inform you about it. E to the Pi times i (talk) 18:34, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
1. Templates should certainly be kept.

1A. There is a value to putting them on discussions at the time they are being closed. Though I wouldn't insist on it, my view is that there is even a value in going back as far as about a month, so that it is clear that "recently" closed discussions are closed. In my opinion, though, it is almost always better not to disturb the (dormant) editing history of older closed discussions.

The only time that I would potentially put them on an older, closed discussion is if someone actually goes in and adds new content to the discussion. In that case, as long as we are rolling back the new content, there is no harm in adding the closure templates as well, to make sure it doesn't happen a second time. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@StevenJ81: Your response leaves me with a question:

Given that I have already made such edits, and they have already disturbed the dormant editing history, should they have been reverted?

If the only reason those edits were problematic is the later addition to the editing history, doesn't reverting them compound that problem?

The answers to these questions seem to depend on your rationale for saying it is almost always better not to disturb the (dormant) editing history of older closed discussions; could you also clarify this? E to the Pi times i (talk) 16:11, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Busy IRL.

I wouldn't bother reverting at this point. As you say, reverting them just compounds the problem. (But if someone else reverted, I also wouldn't undo the reversion, either.)

Why wouldn't I disturb the editing history? It makes the page appear in Recent Changes (and also on people's watchlists, if someone is still watching). Either way, that's going to make someone go and look at why someone is bothering to disturb a closed discussion, with the initial presumption that it could be vandalism. (Why else would someone bother to edit a page like that?) That's an extra commitment of time and energy on the "watcher's" part, for what is effectively no good reason.

...and the flip side of the coin is that a potential vandal may see a new target to hit. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:06, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what this RfC is for tbh. Both templates are being used on all closed Meta:Requests for adminship et al.; and being duly substitued their usage on "what links here", etc. should be zero. That doesn't make the templates unused. As a bureaucrat, I use them all the time. Thanks. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need to retroactively add templates, and just add new template for new request. Archives should be left as is when the stuff was archived. — regards, Revi 10:19, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In general, let's crats/admins decide whether to use / not use the templates. I am really not keen to retrospectively apply the templates to all. --Cohaf (talk) 07:25, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]