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Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Strikethrough templates

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: Delete. GMGtalk 17:06, 1 August 2022 (UTC).reply

Strikethrough templates

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This is for Template:Ds, Template:Ts, Template:Qs and their associated modules, subpages, redirects etc.

Obnoxious strikethrough templates that have no real use case. The entire point of striking through text is to leave it in a state where it is readable but it is obvious that it isn't relevant anymore - it is not supposed to be used as an antivandalism measure. Good uses of strikethrough are things like amending comments after other people have replied to them, marking sock comments that are too deep in a conversation to remove, and marking up proposed changes in text. For these kind of uses the standard single line strikethrough is more than adequate. Strikethrough is not supposed to be used as a way of leaving vandalism on pages in a half readable state - if content is so egregious that it cannot remain on a page it should be removed entirely, not left intact but with a stupid number of lines crossing it out.

Looking at some of the places where this is used shows that it is nearly always an awful idea. on Talk:Main Page this is used to try to obscure an insult targeted at the subject of a photograph, but the insult is still left there for all to read. In fact the insult is probably the most attention grabbing thing on that page, by virtue of it being almost in a bold typeface due to all the lines running through it. That comment should have been removed entirely, not struck through.

Using this template is just going to result in feeding the trolls and is going to encourage them to leave more nasty messages. The way of dealing with trolling, vandals, and blocked users is revert, block and ignore. Having a scheme of strikethrough templates in increasing degrees of ridiculous and obnoxiousness so you can tell a troll exactly how offensive you found their message based on how many lines you used to strike it out just encourages them to come back.

Finally this template is a complete mess from a technical perspective. The "template calls a module which calls a template" setup is unnecessary and a textbook example of poor template implementation. The CSS rules used are poorly designed and used fixed pixel offsets, so the lines are in the wrong place if you change the font, text size, browser zoom level etc. The template requires three levels of span tags for some inexplicable reason. The module wraps blank lines in CSS. — 192.76.8.85 18:36, 19 July 2022 (UTC) Vote closes: 19:00, 26 July 2022 (UTC)reply

Keep for many reasons I don’t have time to get into right now. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 13:30, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
This is already used within MediaWiki itself, see mw-history-suppressed – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 16:15, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Also, since when are unregistered users allowed to participate in vfds? – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 16:25, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
  • Delete, per nom. ~ UDScott (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
    @UDScott: Then, why is it used in MediaWiki? – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 17:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
    It's used in revision lists to indicate the difference between revisions which have been deleted and those which have been suppressed. It isn't really supposed to be used in content pages - I'm certainly not not aware of any projects that use it. Even in situations where it is used (i.e. lists of revisions) it's used to indicate that content is missing, it's not used to try to stop someone reading the content by repeatedly crossing it out. 192.76.8.85 18:33, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
    Well, this serves a similar purpose, like its use in MediaWiki, it is used for differentiation: A single strike-through is to show that something is outdated, wrong, changed, etc. (usually done by the original commenter). A double strike-through is used to show that something was remove by someone else because it was consider inappropriate. A quadruple strike-through's use is less clear, a understand why you may think it should be deleted, in-general it should be used for something more severe than double strike-through, but not severe enough for it to be removed entirely. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 18:45, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
    If someone removes something because it is inappropriate nothing should be left in it's place. The whole point of W:WP:Deny recognition (more commonly known as "do not feed the trolls") is that when you remove disruption you don't acknowledge it. As I said in my nom, having a single strike for inoffensive sock puppets, a double strike for somewhat offensive material and a quadruple strike for really offensive material means that you end up creating a game like scenario for trolls and encourage them to write the most offensive stuff possible. By using these templates you also end up in one of two scenarios - you leave material that should have been deleted on a page but with some attention grabbing formatting over the top, or you make the message about why you deleted the content unnecessarily difficult to read. 192.76.8.85 18:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
    Inappropriate does not always mean trolling or vandalism (e.g. spam, off-topic, etc.) – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:03, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
    Why would it be a good idea to leave spam on a talk page? Why shouldn't it just be removed? 192.76.8.85 19:06, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
This is not meant for anti-vandalism. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:07, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Well, let's look at where you have used it then.
All of these seem like you've been using it on vandalism? 192.76.8.85 19:24, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
I do agree that those were misuses and you may remove them. But, that does not negate my point. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:26, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Also, a user may keep troll/lta comments on their talk page if they wish. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:27, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Yes, so why have you been running around redacting them? 192.76.8.85 19:29, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
I really don't see what your point is. Above you say that this is supposed to be used on spam (which should be removed for the same reason as vandalism) and off topic comments. I really don't think the use on off topic comments is appropriate, it's verry W:WP:BITEEY for newbies who don't know what talk pages are for to have their comments struck through in this manner. 192.76.8.85 19:29, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Full spam should be removed. The purpose of this is for comments most people wouldn't want to see (not as in offensive, just irrelevant, or not worth reading for other reasons) so someone can just skip the striked-out comments. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:32, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
And who gets to be the arbiter of which comments are worth reading? Why is it necessary to use such ridiculously over the top formatting on a message just because it's a bit off topic? 192.76.8.85 19:34, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Not for things that are a bit off-topic. Mainly for stuff that isn't constructive, but not enough to remove. Also, this has other uses (e.g. suppressed history, other removed things, etc.) – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:43, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
What is "stuff that isn't constructive, but not enough to remove"? --Ferien (talk) 19:47, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
E.g. A vote that includes no valid reasons. Using a talk page as a general forum. etc. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:49, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
These both shouldn't be struck out. They should have replies to them and the user can make a choice on whether to strike these comments out yourself. But you, or any other user other than the person who commented originally, should not strike these comments. Ferien (talk) 21:02, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Again, why is it necessary to use such over the top formatting and strike a comment out with either 2 or 4 lines just because it isn't constructive?
The whole point of supressing material is to remove it from the public view. Why would you leave a crossed out message like "THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN REMOVED BECAUSE IT INCLUDED PERSONAL INFORMATION" when supressing stuff? The whole point of suppression is to limit the spread of the content - leaving messages where it has been removed would just W:Streisand effect it and make other people go out of their way to find it.
"It might be useful for other stuff" is too vague to actually comment on and isn't a use case. 192.76.8.85 19:49, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
No I don’t mean actually suppressed stuff, I mean examples. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:50, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Wikiquote:Oversight is a redirect page telling people to go look at the documentation on meta. When the help page for this tool is on another project why would we need local examples of what it looks like, and where do you envision these examples occurring frequently enough to merit a template? 192.76.8.85 19:55, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
For example: If someone was showing the revhistory of a page in wikitext form. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 19:57, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Where on earth would that kind of thing occur? Why would you need to have the page history in wikitext form, rather than just linking to the page history? 192.76.8.85 20:03, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
I have seen this done several times before. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 20:04, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Where, on this project, have you seen people writing wikitext pages that are supposed to look like page histories? 192.76.8.85 20:06, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply
Not on this project, but I have seen it on other projects. Anyway this isn't the main point, just a side benefit. – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 20:07, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply

@Gilldragon: Thoughts? – Ilovemydoodle (Not a sockpuppet) (talk / e-mail) 01:01, 21 July 2022 (UTC)reply

@Ferien, UDScott, Rubbish computer, Ilovemydoodle: I've added the brand new triple strikethrough template to this nomination, because it's the exact same thing and has the exact same issues as the other two templates I nominated. Courtesy ping as a notification. 192.76.8.85 22:56, 20 July 2022 (UTC)reply

I would include this template in my opinion registered above - I believe all should be deleted. ~ UDScott (talk) 12:56, 21 July 2022 (UTC)reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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