Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2017-07/Vote references in policies

Vote references in policies
Voting on:

Adding a section "Policy votes" in WT:Voting policy with the text below, concerning vote references in policies.


 * Policy votes
 * 1) All policy pages may have a "References" section with footnotes to the votes where the policies were approved, except in the cases below or whenever there is consensus not to list a vote.
 * 2) It is not necessary to have references to votes that merely caused exclusion of policy text.
 * 3) It is optional — and may be discussed on a case-by-case basis if there's any disagreement — to have references to votes that merely caused minor wording changes where the rules themselves remain unchanged.

Rationale:
 * Having vote references helps readers to know what rules were voted and what rules are unvoted. The vote pages themselves often have discussions about the voted subject, not to mention the links to related discussions located in the Beer Parlour and user pages. Currently, some important policies like WT:EL and WT:CFI are partially voted and partially unvoted. Other policies like WT:NORM are completely voted.

Previous vote:
 * Votes/2011-04/Sourced policies passed in May 2011, causing WT:EL and WT:CFI to have footnotes to votes.

Schedule:
 * Vote starts: 00:00, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Vote ends: 23:59, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Vote created: --Daniel Carrero (talk) 18:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion:
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Beer parlour/2017/June
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] User talk:Metaknowledge
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2017-07/Vote references in policies

Support

 * 1)  --Daniel Carrero (talk) 00:16, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 2)  This, that and the other (talk) 11:52, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 3)  — SGconlaw (talk) 12:17, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 4)  -Xbony2 (talk) 14:45, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 5)  although I am not entirely happy with the wording. Anyway, indeed: let us use the reference technique in policy pages to show what portions can be traced to a vote, and to direct the reader to a pertinent discussion contained in or linked to from the vote. Indeed, not every policy change benefits from a reference to the vote that made the change, and therefore, let us decide on a case-to-case basis when a reference is useful. In fact, this has been our practice since Votes/2011-04/Sourced policies. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:17, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

 * 1) . I don't think we need to be explicit about this. In other words, I agree with the content of the proposed policy, but I do not think we need to include it on the voting policy page. If we were to have this anywhere, it should be on a "policy format" page. --WikiTiki89 18:24, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind having this on a "policy format" page, (maybe WT:Policy format exactly) as long as WT:Voting policy links to the separate page. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 12:15, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * But this has nothing to do with voting policy. --WikiTiki89 14:43, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. To be fair, this proposal has nothing to do with who can vote and how long a vote lasts, etc. This proposal is about the distinction of voted vs. unvoted policies and where to link votes from policies. It might be of interest to people who create and/or close policy votes, and people who read policies. (I'm obviously not saying you don't do these things, I'm talking about people in general.) This proposal affects the result of policy votes. This voted text could be in WT:Voting policy itself or a separate page linked from WT:Voting policy. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:24, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think it should be at WT:Voting policy or linked from WT:Voting policy, because this is not a policy about voting. In fact, it is neither a policy, nor about voting. --WikiTiki89 15:42, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * @Wikitiki89: I think it is useful to have it somewhere, and having it in voting policy (in fact a think tank) does not harm. This vote seems to be have been created to prevent edit warring where an editor insists on removing references to votes. Creating a further page seems excessive; too many pages make it hard to find what you are looking for. Having this text in the voting policy draft would document that there is in fact a consensus, for anyone who wants to revert war about these things, which has recently happened. And even if we think this text should be elsewhere, the first thing we should do is make it clear that there is consensus on what the text proposes, and place it elsewhere in another vote, IMHO. If this vote fails, I propose Daniel Carrero creates a vote like this: "Agreeing on the following: [...]", without specifying any page into which this would be placed. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:14, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
 * We can vote on an issue without necessarily adding anything to a policy page. That may have been the better course of action here. --WikiTiki89 17:42, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * @Wikitiki89 That's better than nothing, but it means that the web site users, instead of searching policy pages to find what policies and common practices are, have to search votes. That is not so convenient. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:59, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * But in this case, the common practice is self-evident. If we have vote references in our policy pages, then clearly the common practice is to have vote references in our policy pages. --WikiTiki89 15:27, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 1)  more or less per Wikitiki89. DCDuring (talk) 12:04, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 2)  Equinox ◑ 15:46, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Decision
No consensus: 5-3-0 (62.5%) --Daniel Carrero (talk) 14:16, 13 August 2017 (UTC)