Proposal:Forbid tags (editing process templates and metamessages) in articles
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This is a featured proposal. This template automatically categorizes into Category:Featured proposals. All proposals marked by this template should be on this list too. |
No template messages in articles
Keep the article itself clean: the article itself may only contain the (real) contents. All the notices of perceived transgressions against some ideal form, any meta-messages and any other irruptions of a bureaucratic mindset must be put in a separate page. So no stub-templates, unreferenced-templates, issue-this-or-that-templates in the article itself. Make this a Wikimedia-wide policy.
All template message deface articles
One of the real threats endangering Wikimedia-projects is an increasingly bureacratic mindset. The most noticeable manifestation of this mindset is the pasting of templates defacing and hiding the articles.
For example, stub-templates are often the dominant part of an article, or would-be article. Quite often stub-templates so completely fill up a page so as to hide that there is no real article at all, but only a topic. On the other hand any user writing a short article runs the risk of being terrorized by having a stub-template being pasted in the newly created article even when there is no real need to expand the article (it is short but well-rounded). Similarly, templates pointing to some issue which some user feels is dealt with inadequately remain on these articles indefinitely. Pasting such templates is a hobby of some users; there appears to be no direct relationship with the properties of the article nor do the users doing the pasting appear to feel any responsibility of explaining in some detail why they are pasting their template. In a very real sense these templates are like graffiti defacing much of the Wikimedia-projects. The mere fact that some people like graffiti should be no reason to allow this: clean up all Wikimedia-projects!
Stop the terror
Decrease bureaucracy, decrease war-mongering, decrease terrorizing those who contribute actual content.
What might be the proper place for meta messages?
- Should there be a (new) separate page for templates, meta-messages, and evaluations, or should they be included on the Talk-page?
A ban on template messages will free human resources
None. It will take quite a few hours to move all these templates out of the articles, but they are there in the first place because lots of users who like to mess with templates have too much time on their hands, so there should be plenty of volunteer labor available.
References
- This proposal is the reverse of Proposal:Improve transparency of article status and the editing process, which proposes to make such templates the dominant feature of the article itself, rather than keeping this layer of bureacracy separate from the article.
- An illustration on this very site.
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