Wikipedia talk:What does "per" mean?

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This page is an essay, and explicitly not a policy, guideline or how-to. To become one of these it would need wide ranged consensus support and review. --Barberio 16:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• It's not a policy or guideline. It is a help page, in that it explains a common term. To explain a common term one needs neither support nor review. If you think the explanation is wrong, {{sofixit}}, but calling it someone's opinion is just silly. See Help:Contents for more explanatory pages that aren't essay either. >Radiant< 16:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

If the page restricted solely to explaining the term 'Per', maybe. But it also supports and suggests editor behaviour and standards, which makes it an essay.

It has had no constructive input from other editors, and has had no review or acceptance as consensus. This is not a help page. --Barberio 16:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• I don't see anything in this page that supports or suggests editor behavior, and neither do I see how supporting or suggesting behavior would make it an essay. It seems you are confusing "help page" with "guideline". Guidelines need review and acceptance and consensus. Help pages are just written to, you know, help people. >Radiant< 16:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Edited to reduce to reporting the meaning of the term as used in Wikipedia. This really would be better served as a link to some kind of glossary of common wikipedia terms than a page of it's own. --Barberio 16:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think the rest of it is not "the meaning of the term as used in Wikipedia"? —Centrx→talk • 16:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Because it made value statements on if citing essays in the same manner as policy was acceptable. Something which does not have consensus support. --Barberio 17:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Wait, are you suggesting there are different ways ("manners") to cite things? >Radiant< 17:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

If you read Wikipedia:Don't cite essays or proposals as if they were policy you can see that there are. --Barberio 17:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• So you actually want everybody, whenever they link to WP:SOMEPAGE, to point out clearly what that page actually is, even though such would be readily obvious if you'd just click on the link. That's well-intended but I doubt you'll be able to convince the community. Nevertheless, that still doesn't contradict this page. The page doesn't make "value statements" or state that it's okay to "cite essays as if they were policy", it simply points out the obvious fact that people sometimes do cite essays and that such a citation does not indicate that the cited page is policy. >Radiant< 09:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

From WP:POLICY, "A how-to or help page is any instructive page that tells people how to do things. [...] A how-to differs from a guideline in that the former explains how to perform a certain action, and the latter explains when or why certain actions are recommended." Clearly, this page is closer to the latter than the former, as it is explaining motivations behind actions and recommending actions.

Since it has not had consensus review, or any move to adopt it as a guideline, it is an essay. It should be removed from the help category and marked as an essay. --Barberio 00:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• That's a false dichotomy. You're assuming that anything that is not a guideline is an essay, although Wikispace contains plenty of pages that are neither. >Radiant< 09:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Potential link confusion with WP:PER, this should be renamed.

One of the important processes pages, Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests, has a collection of shortcuts that are confusingly close to the name of this page. This essay should probably be renamed. --Barberio 08:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• I have no problem with that, but what would you suggest? >Radiant< 14:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I realy have no idea what to call it, since it's a strange hybrid glossary item and pseudo-guideline. It's also redundant to Wikipedia:Glossary#Per. --Barberio 15:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Based on it's redundancy to Wikipedia:Glossary#Per and confusing closeness in title to Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests's shortcuts, I'm going to nominate this for MfD. --Barberio 15:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Reasons why this is an essay.

1. Ascribes motives and meaning to editor actions. ie, says what 'editors mean' when they say 'as per', when it's unclear that this is the consistent use of the term.
2. Recommends behaviour, in advising editors how to react to people using 'as per'. Howtos are informational only, and should not be making value judgements like this.
3. No indication that this has consensus support to not be an essay.
4. Contestable viewpoint on how the phrase is used and if it's appropriate for use in such a way.

For these reasons, this page is an Essay, and should be given the {{Essay}} tag. --Barberio 08:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually you have it backwards.

1. Describes a simple part of how Wikipedia works. It says that when editors do not state that they think a page is policy, then you have no reason to infer that they think it's policy. That's stating the obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated for people who don't get it.
2. Doesn't recommend anything, it's simply informational as above.
3. No indication that this has consensus support to be an essay. Yes, that's a fallacy but so is your point #3. Consensus doesn't override fact.
4. There are some people who don't understand point one and wish to legislate the way people "cite" pages, but these people don't realize yet that legislation is not actually possible on Wikipedia.

For these reasons, you don't seem to understand the difference between an essay (e.g. someone's opinion on how things should work) and a help page (a simple explanation of who things do work). >Radiant< 10:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Response to above

1. Individual editors use of language in their comments is not 'part of the way Wikipedia works'.
2. Does make recommendations and value judgements, for example "So if somebody says 'do this per WP:PAGE' and you disagree, don't say '...but WP:PAGE is not policy!!'"
3. Essay's are the pages which don't have consensus support to be anything else. At the very least the page should clearly note it is not consensus supported.
4. So this is legislation to counter the people trying to legislate against the people who cite things as legislation?

--Barberio 15:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Yes it is.
2. No, it tells people to avoid straw man arguments. If a user doesn't say "page X is policy" then "but page X is not policy!" is not a valid argument.
3. False, per WP:POL.
4. No.
5. >Radiant< 15:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, the MfD for this page *required* it to be remarked as an essay for it to continue being here. You are now acting in direct contradiction of expressed consensus. If you can not accept this page as an essay and want to express ownership over the page, please userfy it. --Barberio 15:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• No it didn't. MFD governs deletion, not editorial actions. Note that I have already removed the so-called actionable part that you objected to. Also note that in the MFD, two people mentioned this page as an essay, and four people mentioned agreeing with me. Why is it so hard to understand that a help page is not an essay? >Radiant< 15:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"Help" page

I may have been a little overstated in making the {{essay}} tag be part of the MFD requirements. That appeared to be the way to go, but the closing does not show a clear consensus for that. On that note, from a purely editorial standpoint, I've removed the Category:Help category and self-tag, as this does not seem be a help page (not to say it is not a helpful page). I have NOT readded the essay tag, and don't really care if this page has any label at all, nowhere does it say we must label our pages. If it were up to a !vote, I'd say essay whould be the best IMHO. This page is similiar to WP:SNOW and other of these meta- pages, perhaps:

The following is a page that refuses to be tagged.

? — xaosflux ^Talk 02:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It strikes me that we could solve the problem by calling this page policy. I'd say that it's arguably too obviously self-evident to be needed as such, but apparent fact is that it's not. "If people link to a page and/or use the word 'per', that does not necessarily mean that the page linked to is a guideline" - should be obvious, but surprisingly, some people do respond with "yes it does, and therefore people shouldn't link to pages". >Radiant< 13:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The meaning of linguistic expressions does not depend solely on what a single person, or even a particular faction, may intend to communicate. Likewise, Wikipedia policy does not depend solely on what a single person, or a particular faction, may find to be "obviously self-evident". If a particular expression is sometimes misunderstood, that can be an indication that its actual meaning is not the one that the user of the expression intended—and that a different expression should be chosen. It is not an indication that Wikipedia policy dictates, or should dictate, that everyone's use and understanding of the expression should conform to the meaning that was intended. (Linking to a page during discussion, in and of itself, is so generally useful, and so hard to avoid, that it is worth some risk of misunderstanding. But the use of per is a different matter; there are other, less misleading, ways to express what needs to be said.)

The reason I insisted so strongly during the MfD on labeling Wikipedia:Per as an {{essay}} is that without that label, it is likely to give new users the impression that the practice of using per, and the judgment that per means what this essay says it means (and nothing else), are sanctioned by Wikipedia policy, or at least by unchallenged, long-standing custom. As a new user myself (registered in December 2006), I can testify that I found this essay insidiously misleading, and I very much appreciate Barberio's boldness in bringing this MfD against it, and thus drawing its problematic aspects to my attention.

I'm not under any illusion that there's a general rule that pages have to be labeled. Nevertheless, I do feel that this particular page needs to be labeled to protect new users from being misled, and that xaosflux's first administrative summary was the correct one (admittedly, it is a judgment call). I would note that though there was a strong majority in favor of keeping the page, no one except its creator Radiant! has expressly denied that it is an essay, and three people (or four, if xaosflux himself is now to be included) have asserted that it is an essay. (In any case, removing it from Category:Wikipedia help at least solves the worst part of the problem.) —Neuromath 05:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• First, your conclusion contradicts your premise (that labels don't depend on what a group of people want). Second, you seem to mistakenly assume that any page that's not an essay is therefore policy. And third, your logic is backwards: this page was written to explain the word "per" that soem people are confused about; you argue that, since the confusion exists, the explanation is therefore invalid. That's incorrect, and calling the explanation "just somebody's opinion" will only increase the confusion. >Radiant< 10:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb... if in order to justify your usage you have to say that it's "incorrect" to use something "literally", it is more likely that YOUR usage is incorrect. --Random832(tc) 14:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Confusion vs disagreement

"It's not a disagreement because I'm right" is not a productive position to argue from; there's really no existing dictionary definition of "per" that supports either view - this usage, whatever it is, is unique to wikipedia. --Random832(tc) 13:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• If you say so. It's not really a big deal to me. >Radiant< 11:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I miss the days when this wasn't an issue.

Believe it or not, I remember the days when things got done on Wikipedia and people actually cited their own unique reasons for getting it done, not just "per"ing someone else. I find it deeply depressing that this is even a page, and more so that the saying has caught fire so quickly and to nearly everyone here. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 11:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, but this page doesnt say that clearly, , and the reason it is here is to do so. Perhaps the first section got lost somewhere along the way. DGG 06:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: reversion of my edits to this page

Hi, Radiant! (and the rest of the people who watch this page). I just noticed that you reverted a number of edits I made to this page to clarify its meaning, and I was unsure what you meant by your edit summary. I'd appreciate if you'd post a note on the talk page explaining your reasoning before you reverse that [relatively large] amount of work.

You wrote:

wow, I go away for a few weeks and someone needlessly complexifies this page and reverses its actual meaning! Bad.

First off—please assume good faith, and maybe check out WP:OWN a bit? You may have considered my edits needless and "bad," but I'd like to hear some more specific discussion on what exactly was the problem with them, so that this page can be revised to suit everyone's needs. I wasn't certain how I "complexified" the page, and in what way I reversed its meaning. If I could hear more about that, I'd be more likely to agree with your reasoning around the page's content, rather than getting wikistressed and nearly reverting it back. :)

Here are some of my reasonings behind the changes I made:

• I did a number of formatting fixes. For instances, I added bullets to several points which seemed to need that formatting, and bolded certain words. I believed that this would make the article more friendly on the eye and more consistent with WP:STYLE.
• I changed vague phrases like "for the reasoning" with "... believe this because of the reasoning".
• I suggested that perhaps a misunderstanding of the word "per" could be found among established, as well as new, users.
• I took issue with the phrase specifically does not mean on the page. It seems rather difficult to say exactly what a word does and does not mean among this community, as I don't believe there's any official policy or consensus on the exact significance of "per."
• I made some of the language more Wikipedia-specific, and tried to delete some language which personified the word itself.

Sorry about not putting this on your personal talk page, Radiant!, but I felt that it'd be more useful to place this message nearer to the actual article. Switchercat ^talk_cont 00:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• Let me briefly explain the point of this page. Some novice users have a tendency of thinking that, if somebody says "do <x> per WP:PAGE", this means that "WP:PAGE is policy and therefore we must mandatorily and immediately do <x>". This assumption is false and leads to a host of confusion, misinterpretations, and other bad ideas. The point of this page is to counter that. Looking over Wikipedia usage, the word "per" indeed does not at all imply anything about the page it points to (and in fact, neither does the dictionary). Changing the page to some vague wording about "using it properly" or somesuch isn't helpful. >Radiant< 11:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying your meaning. I suggest that you add Some novice users ... etc. to the page itself, as I didn't find that that message was clearly stated in the page itself. (Although, as I edited it to say, it's not just novice users.) I'm still not quite certain about what you're trying to imply, though. Which of my edits specified on my bullet-pointed list did you disagree with, and in what way did these edits change the meaning to a more vague one? As far as I knew, I was mostly making the language more easy to understand (see point #2). :) Switchercat ^talk_cont 12:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

A late reply but... boy, the above comments really confirms me that this page is an essay. I still don't understand why the author doesn't want it tagged as such, but the page is pretty clear to me. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 03:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Per = ...

In the normal usage on WP 'per' almost equals 'according to'. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 20:13, 24 April 2011 (UTC)