Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Russavia
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- User:Russavia (talk · contribs · logs)
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Statement of the dispute
[edit]Making significant stylistic changes to articles despite significant (1:4) opposition.
Desired outcome
[edit]Russavia ceases adding subcategories to Category:Diplomatic missions by country in the manner as described above, and removes offending tags. Would consider deletion of stubs created by Russavia, but would prefer giving Russavia the opportunity to make his stubs more notable (before creating categories).
Description
[edit]Russavia is creating categories like Category:Diplomatic missions of Tanzania, Category:Diplomatic missions of Azerbaijan etc, for which only one or two articles (usually only stubs like Embassy of Azerbaijan in Ottawa) exist. He is then linking these category pages to Category:Diplomatic missions by country as subcategories, crowding out more substantive articles Diplomatic missions of Tanzania that are linked there. Despite overwhelming opposition to his changes (1:4), he is making these changes regardless.
Evidence of disputed behavior
[edit]Cannot provide diffs for the affected page Category:Diplomatic missions by country as it is dynamically altered by insertion of category tags in other articles, eg:
Applicable policies and guidelines
[edit]{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute
[edit](provide diffs and links)
Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute
[edit](provide diffs and links to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute)
Users certifying the basis for this dispute
[edit]{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
Other users who endorse this summary
[edit]Response
[edit]This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.
In writing this response, I took time to check my watchlist for recent changes, and I stumbled across this diff in Category:Diplomatic missions of Cameroon which was immediately reverted by User:Dulcem. Looking at this logically, Cameroon is a country, so it is only logical that the category is placed in Category:Diplomatic missions by country, however, you will see by the red link, that Diplomatic missions of Cameroon does not exist, so the question goes back to those 4 editors, where exactly does this category belong? If a reader who is interested in diplomatic missions goes to Category:Diplomatic missions by country, how exactly are they going to find Embassy of Cameroon in Moscow? Ponder on that question, and look at it logically.
With all due respect, article structures and categorisation in articles relating to Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations look like a dog's breakfast.
In terms of articles, take the two main articles I have been working on, and this will hopefully provide a little background, and help to put things into some perspective.
This is the Diplomatic missions of Russia article as it stands as I write this. A week ago, I changed the article to a more dynamic and more informative list (which is also useful for article development) with the intention of using that list as the basis of prosing the article in order for it eventually reach featured list status. It is my opinion that the list as it stands now would never reach that feat. Kransky claims the only difference in your diff is just a list of Russian Ambassadors that you added. My counter-claim is below that. At User_talk:Russavia/Archive_1#Russian_diplomatic_missions, Kransky stated his opinion on the use of tables, and that it is a departure from what had been done previously. The existence of ambassadors in these lists is a valid and informative addition, as without ambassadors, or heads of mission, the missions themselves would not exist; and it is interesting to note Kransky's own opinion from a while back. Truth be known, in considering a format for an expanded D.M. of Russia article, I used List of embassies and high commissions in Ottawa as a starting point and re-worked and tweaked it with this being the result. Furthermore, the AfD nomination of List of companies of the United Arab Emirates (refer this diff), which if a simple vote not based on policy, guidelines, etc, as of this diff was headed for deletion. By reformatting and expanding the list beyond simply a list of company names, it survived AfD. Looking at Diplomatic missions of Romania, and it's AfD discussion, and considering that it essentially hasn't changed since it was speedily closed, albeit with the closing comments, 'see if it can be made encyclopaedic, with due consideration to things Wikipedia is not, which format would survive AfD?
This is the Diplomatic missions in Russia article as it stood on 20 May 2008. Again, I reformatted that article into a sortable, dynamic and informative list, and this is what it looks like now, again laying the groundwork to build it into a featured list. Compare that to the preferred format of a few editors, by looking at List of diplomatic missions in Germany. Straight off the bat, there are several things wrong with this format. Firstly, Wikipedia:FLAGS#Using_too_many_flags; an interesting side observation, it is the opinion of some editors that Category:Diplomatic missions by country is too cluttered with the existence of categories which clearly belong in it, yet same said editors are those who have created this clutter in these articles. Secondly, the German article as it stands now is also in violation WP:NOTLINK. When I first re-formatted Diplomatic missions of Russia back in September 2007 (which was reverted by Kransky back then), he mentioned several things on my talk page, and asked the question Why did you bother to reference every single mission when you could have simply provided one reference to the website where all the missions are listed? - there are two answers to that question - firstly, and perhaps related specifically to that particular article, the most authoritative list is supplied by the MID if I simply supplied a link to this website, and considering that the list is in Russian, and this is English WP, if a reader does not speak Russian, and doesn't understand Cyrillic, they are not going to know what is what. Secondly, and related to the preferred format of some editors, by supplying individual links, not only is this basic confirmation that the particular mission exists, but it also provides extra information which can be garnished for inclusion in the articles. The German list as it stands now is more of a basic listing directory, and from what I can tell, it is the opinion of a few editors that this is the final version. It is my opinion, that this is merely a start of the article/list - the external links in the cluttered flag articles should at the very least be converted into inline references, or removed completely.
The Diplomatic missions in Russia article is the primary article I am working on at the moment, due to many of the missions in Russia being located in heritage buildings, being designed/built by notable people, and/or are indicative of architectural styles during the period they were built and am getting a lot of assistance from numerous editors, especially NVO, in terms of providing photos of the mission for the list, and providing info on the building history, with Argentina as an example. Yes, a lot of the individual mission articles are stubs, and Kransky is welcome to AfD nominate them all if he so wishes, my primary focus at the moment is the list, with the mission articles to be developed later, and hopefully in conjunction with other editors as well. But in creating these (for now) stubs, they have to be categorised.
It seems to me the 4 editors do not have an understanding of how categories operate on WP, and also that Wikipedia is a work in progress. Editors would be reminded to read Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories), and then look at Category:Categories by country to see how articles are categorised and sub-categorised, etc.
It is incredulous that there is now no common link between Category:Diplomatic missions of Russia, Category:Diplomatic missions of the Czech Republic, Category:Diplomatic missions of Canada, etc, because by the removal of the sub-category Category:Diplomatic missions by country from these (and other) categories, the only category existent is Category:Foreign relations of Foo, even though there is a common link between these categories, that being Category:Diplomatic missions by country.
Just as incredulous, is the removal by Aquintero82 of Category:Diplomatic missions by host country from a multitude of categories. Start at Embassy of Russia in Canberra and follow only Diplomatic missions categories from one to the next and you should be able to reach Embassy of Iran in Stockholm by way of:
Embassy of Russia in Canberra --> Category:Diplomatic missions in Canberra --> Category:Diplomatic missions in Australia --> Category:Diplomatic missions by host country --> Category:Diplomatic missions in Sweden --> Category:Diplomatic missions in Stockholm --> Embassy of Iran in Sweden.
Interestingly enough, Category:Diplomatic missions in Berlin, before the CfD of several categories (which again shows there is no real standard in this project!), was categorised in Category:Diplomatic missions by host country. Of course, Berlin is not a country, but rather a city, so I created Category:Diplomatic missions in Germany and placed the Berlin category in the newly-created category, with the .. in Germany category in Category:Diplomatic missions by host country. Again, Aquintero82 saw fit to remove Category:Diplomatic missions by host country from a multitude of categories, even though they had been there, incorrectly, by city for the longest time. But now its a problem?
With the creation of Category:Diplomatic missions in Kinshasa, this was placed in another category created by myself, Category:Buildings and structures in Kinshasa. The AfD nomination by Kransky of Category:Buildings and structures in Kinshasa tends to show me that the structuring of categories in WP is not understood by said users. It was only 3 days ago that Category:Diplomatic missions was created by another user in order to navigate between all articles and categories relating to diplomatic mission. I looked at diplomatic mission, and noticed that it was categorised in Category:Diplomatic missions by country and Category:Diplomatic missions by host country, which I removed, and added Category:Diplomatic missions (making it the main article in that category) - and also added an unreferenced tag (because it is) - Kransky reverted this, and in an edit summary which totally goes against WP:AGF, reverted the categorisation outright (including unreferenced tag), and again claiming there is a concensus, when there is clearly NOT! I have reverted that, and have added catmore tags to Category:Diplomatic missions by country and Category:Diplomatic missions by host country, and in the processed removed text which is not needed in a category.
The illogical removal of these categories has totally negated the ability to easily navigate from one article to another, and furthermore, no attempt has been made by any of these editors to find or create a category which can link all of these common categories together, but instead formed a lynch mob (of sorts) to assert their ownership of these articles and categories, and in the instance of one editor fails to assume good faith from the outset; and yes, that got my back up, and perhaps ignored them when I shouldn't have. I stated my openness to compromise [[way back when, but responses to myself, and responses to others, unfortunately tend to sound like my way or the highway.
Also of concern to myself is this concensus which is constantly put forward by Kransky, in relation to the articles and categories. There are many users who believe the current formats are not the way to go, but changes are forcefully resisted by some editors. Examples of others opinions are here, here, here and elsewhere (Firefox crashed and I am not sifting thru pages again to find the diffs)
And lastly, also of concern is the somewhat insidious use of Category talk:Diplomatic missions by country for purposes for which it is not intended. Some editors are using said page to discuss article content and other non-category related issues, when that discussion should clearly be taking place on either the affected article talk page or at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject International relations. And I call it insidious, even if due to ignorance, due to this request for comment, which being placed only 2 days ago is most likely in response to this article; this RFC clearly belongs at Diplomatic missions of Russia. If I had not stumbled across the talk page by accident by misclicking a link, there could be a discussion (of which I was not advised of) to which I could not have had the opportunity to respond to, and then have this claim of concensus brought up. That is not concensus. And I have posted my opinion that the use of that talk page for anything but discussion the actual category is not appropriate and needs to take place elsewhere in future.
What would I like to occur?
- All editors recognise that there is now no concensus in relation to article content, due to the way in which it has been gathered; concensus by stealth is not concensus, and that concensus is now required to be gathered in an open and public forum - further reading, a great article on international relations - Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
- All editors acknowledge that article ownership is not acceptable - this includes categories also, and also acknowledge that concensus can change
Users who endorse this summary:
Outside view
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It seems to me that Russavia is following the usual conventions in categories.
If we consider (say) Category:Airports by country we find no articles but a collection of subcats, one per country. Each country category (eg. Category:Airports in Russia) typically contains a list of airports (placed at the top of the category) together with articles on individual airports. List of airports in Russia is categorised into [[Category:Russia-related lists]], [[Category:Lists of airports|Russia]], [[Category:Airports in Russia| ]].
So, changing airports to "Diplomatic missions" I would expect (List of) Diplomatic missions in Russia to be categorised thus: [[Category:Russia-related lists]], [[Category:Lists of diplomatic missions|Russia]], [[Category:Diplomatic missions in Russia| ]].
(I am also broadly in sympathy with lists being made more informative by adding details of current heads of mission. Eg List of diplomatic missions in Russia, Russavia's version, is much better than List of diplomatic missions in India, which is hardly worth keeping). -- roundhouse0 (talk) 19:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
Discussion
[edit]All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.
11:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)