Template talk:Editnotices/Page/List of VoIP companies

Edit-protected request 26 April 2016

Please create this edit notice with the following content which has been modified from Template:Editnotices/Page/List of Canadian writers, its model:

Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 12:56, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

John: I think we tend to call lists of articles 'indices' and that helps to clarify their intended use. The first statement, that lists exist on Wikipedia as a tool for finding articles which exist on Wikipedia, at best paints an incomplete picture. Izkala (talk) 13:09, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

And is actually just simply untrue per our guideline on navigational elements: lists have the benefit, vice either categories or navboxes, of being able to have non-notable elements (keeping in mind WP:LSC of course). I've deactivated the request as a result and would encourage further discussion regarding the text "Lists exist on Wikipedia as a tool for finding articles which exist on Wikipedia". --Izno (talk) 13:18, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

There even exists a specific stipulation for company lists, as it turns out: WP:LISTCOMPANY. Izkala (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:LISTCOMPANY does say a company needn't have an article to be included on a list "unless a given list specifically requires this". The intent of this edit notice is to announce that specific requirement. We are building an encyclopedia, not a directory of companies and refining this list to notable companies is reasonable to that end. Furthermore, I do not acquiesces that "we tend to call lists of articles 'indices'" whereas I am personally more familiar with having seen them called lists. Thanks for the interest you have shown in this edit request. Cheers.--John Cline (talk) 13:38, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, but you made a blanket statement earlier: that lists on Wikipedia exist as such and such [as a rule]. Also, I'd expect to see some sort of agreement between at least two or three people before we put up a strongly-worded warning. Izkala (talk) 14:00, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

And this is a very new list. Are you sure it's necessary to preclude any contribution to this? I need to review the edit notices policy/guideline I suppose, but my guess is that a list of 6 elements probably doesn't need an anti-spam notice at this time. --Izno (talk) 14:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I believe that different schools of thought serve to strengthen Wikipedia, and therefore say, in that spirit, that I tend to believe the sooner a chosen style is set out, the better; and I believe a threshold for inclusion is appropriate for this list. I do agree that the matter of fact statement regarding lists in general serves no defensible purpose, I'll certainly change that verbiage before renewing any request. It may be worth editing the page above as well, which I did say this was modeled from. Thanks again.--John Cline (talk) 14:42, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Sure. I don't think a slightly different verbiage is likely to be controversial, and would agree that the other list's text may need change. @Bearcat: please see above discussion regarding the list of Canadian writers edit notice and whether the verbiage should change here (and possibly there as well). --Izno (talk) 15:25, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

For the record, the question of whether or not a list is allowed to contain redlinked entries is not a universal rule that applies the same way to all lists — each list has to evaluated for its own circumstances and needs. A list of past and present holders of a notable WP:NPOL-passing political office, for example, does not require all of its entries to already have Wikipedia articles before they can be added to the list — in that case, it's more important that the list be complete than it is that the list comprise exclusively bluelinks, so a person who can be properly verified as having held the office can be added to the list regardless of whether there's a standalone article to link to yet. In some other contexts, however, lists can be vulnerable to abuse — for topics where notability is conditional and the potential scope is open-ended, such as List of Canadian writers, lists can have an unfortunate tendency to become misused as a directory of non-notable topics.

The list of Canadian writers, for instance, frequently has entries added to it for people who have published one poem in their high school yearbook, but have no valid claim to passing WP:AUTHOR — and both List of bands from Canada and List of Canadian musicians, similarly, frequently see the addition of aspiring wannabes who have no valid claim to passing WP:NMUSIC yet. So for lists like that, a consensus was established that "a Wikipedia article already exists" was the precondition for an entry being added, which is why the editnotices were created to communicate that restriction. But that's not a universal rule that automatically applies to all lists — it's an optional restriction that consensus can decide to place on a list whose topic is open to abuse by non-notable publicity seekers.

Personally speaking, "VOIP companies" seems to me like the kind of topic that should probably have the "article must already exist" restriction, because I do see it as a topic that's potentially open to advertorial abuse by non-notable startups. But it's not automatically subject to that restriction, unless and until a consensus of Wikipedia contributors decides to place that restriction. Basically, the question is whether this is seen as (1) a topic where it's valuable to maintain a complete list of all verifiable members of the class of topic, or (2) a topic where the addition of non-notables who don't qualify for Wikipedia articles would actually detract from the value of the list? The "article must already exist" restriction applies if consensus favours #2, but not if it favours #1. Bearcat (talk) 15:51, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Would it make sense to have a single template based on Template:Editnotice (such as Template:Editnotice-list for notable items for these kinds of edit notices? --Izno (talk) 16:36, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Modified request

I had modified the text of the edit notice to the following:

Prior to an edit conflict I had meant to say: "Seeing that Bearcat has been pinged, I am comfortable abiding by his or her decision as a valid third opinion, If the others also agree.", and now say that in light of all that has been said, I agree that the decision should first be reached on the lists talk page. Is it possible to preserve this talk page without a parent page? I think it contains useful information that ought be preserved and hope that it will be. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 16:19, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I like this text. It might be useful to point to the relevant guidelines (WP:LSC of note) in the "redlinked/unlinked" text.

Regarding preservation, you can probably copy-paste the above interaction to the talk page of the VOIP list (being careful to point to this talk page in the attribution history). --Izno (talk) 16:36, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't think there would be any reason to delete this page. Izkala (talk) 16:37, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

It is arguably eligible for deletion under csd G8. I will defer to an admin to declare it {{G8-exempt}}, if they deem it so. Cheers.--John Cline (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

There's also arguably the option of leaving this as a distinct page, but moving its title so that instead of the technically deletable talk page of a nonexistent template, it's a subpage of the list's talk page (e.g. Talk:List of VOIP companies/Template.) Bearcat (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps another possibility could be to create Template:Editnotices/Page/List of VOIP companies with content similar to:

<!-- Placeholder page, held to facilitate talk page discussions until such time when a consensus may be reached -->

[[Category:Placeholder templates]]

The page would therefore not render any discernible output a can remain in this state until a consensus is reached for what the output should be. It seems like a bold solution to me; that works.--John Cline (talk) 04:38, 27 April 2016 (UTC)