Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment

This is the talk page for discussing Requests for comment and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

WT:RFC

NOTE: This talk page is not the place to post notices of disputes or requests for comment, or to ask questions about changes you would like to make to individual articles. Please follow Wikipedia:Requests for comment.

Dispute Resolution (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Dispute Resolution, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Dispute ResolutionWikipedia:WikiProject Dispute ResolutionTemplate:WikiProject Dispute ResolutionDispute Resolution articles

view · edit

Frequently asked questions

The RFC question is non-neutral! We need to stop this RFC now!: Your side is losing, isn't it?
The RFC question is not brief. Can I fix it?: The "question" is the part that shows up on the RFC listing pages (example of listing page). If the RFC question itself is substantially longer than all the others and you are not appearing in the role of the loyal opposition, then you can copy a small part the original question plus the original timestamp (not usually the name) to the top or write a simplified question. If, however, the person who started the RFC discussion might consider you to be part of the dispute, you should ask someone else to adjust it (e.g., by asking the person who started the RFC to shorten it or by posting a note on the RFC talk page).
I don't like any of the options I've been asked to vote for.: RFCs aren't votes. You can suggest a compromise or an option that others haven't considered, exactly like you would in any other talk page discussion.
How long should an RFC last?: As long as all of the participants need, and no longer. If you started an RFC, and you believe other editors will not agree to your proposal, then you permitted to admit defeat and withdraw it at any time. However, editors who believe their side is winning are advised to not even mention the possibility of ending an RFC early during the first week.
Is the result of an RFC binding?: No. However, an RFC is usually an effective way of determining what editors agree to do, and that agreement – which we call consensus – is binding, as long as the agreement holds.
Aren't all RFCs supposed to get a formal closing summary?: No. Most of the time, the result is clear to all of the participants, and editors should not waste the community's time by asking someone else to officially write down what everyone already knows. Only a minority of RFCs get closing summary statements.
Can the person who started the RFC, or another involved editor, write a summary of the discussion?: Yes. In particular, when a proposal is soundly rejected, proponents are encouraged to accept defeat with grace. If the outcome could plausibly be disputed, then involved editors (on all sides of a dispute) are encouraged to let someone else write a summary.

Archives

For why RfC was created, see:
- Dispute resolution/Archive 1#Requests for comment

This page has archives. Sections older than 40 days may be automatically archived by .

RFC request for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation[edit]

Hello,

I started the subject Naming the tragic event in the articles head title on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force a few months ago, and was suggested to start up an RFC. Anyone wants to help me out? Thoughts? Thanks in advance

Sincerely, Sidney.Cortez (talk) 16:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to RFC, Sidney.Cortez. Do you want to start a new/separate discussion, or just bring more people into the existing one? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello WhatamIdoing,

I don't know honestly. What's most constructive, do you think?

Thanks, Sidney.Cortez (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Either way works, but I lean very slightly towards a fresh start. Create a regular new section. Add a sensible short question (i.e., not "Why don't we mention this" but something like "Shall we...?" or "Should the title for an aviation disaster...?") at the top.

The RFC tag goes above your question. For your RFC tag, you should pick one or more relevant article categories from Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Categories, plus only the style category from among the project-wide ones (because you're asking about a change to article naming conventions, which is a style matter. Specifically, this is not a "policy or guideline" question as far as the RFC categories are concerned).

You don't need to set up subsections or anything like that. If you want to explain in more detail, then add that explanation as a second comment (i.e., after your already-signed first comment, which is the RFC's official question). For example, you might say something about the title Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 being less immediately informative (e.g., to people using search tools) than some other options, such as 2001 shootdown of Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 or Loss of 2001 Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 (or whatever options and explanations you think would be useful).

After that, I suggest reading Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Publicizing an RfC and leaving a note on the main WikiProject talk page, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (aircraft), at Wikipedia talk:Article titles, any articles where you know there's been a recent discussion about this subject, and on whichever other pages you think would be useful. {{Please see}} is an optional template you can use for posting these notes, if you prefer that style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Education about RFC mechanics[edit]

Twice in the last two days I've had to explain to editors that RFC tags are removed after 30 days. They looked at the top of an old discussion or the RFC listing pages, didn't see a tag, and said they believed that meant that it wasn't an RFC after all.

I could wish that we changed the RFC template/bot behavior (to keep the tag and the anchor to show that it was an RFC, but to make it 'inactive' somehow), but in the meantime, I'm wondering whether the FRS bot could include a rotating bit of advice on RFCs, like "You can find all the open RFCs here" or "If the result is unclear, you can request a closing summary" or "Compromises are important" or "RFC tags are automatically removed after a month, but you can shorten or extend this time" or whatever else might help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you could specify what posts you're talking about and have the courtesy to ping the users that you think need education from you? If one of them is me, I do confess to saying "I don't believe there is an RfC here as I don't see it in Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/All ..." and if I'd searched that page's history I could have found that there "there used to be an RfC here". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter Gulutzan: Straight off the top of my head, there is Wikipedia:Closure requests#Talk:Black Irish (folklore)#Differentiating between the real people and the false origin story. I think that BarrelProof understands. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:39, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64: Glad you're still around, since I want to quote what you told me in 2020 in talk page thread Requests for closure noticeboard: procedure: "Archived threads are de facto closed by the archiving process. If it was a thread that required some kind of formal decision, it really shouldn't have been left untouched for so long that the archiving bot swooped in." WhatamIDoing is now telling me, and others on the thread, re an RfC that the bot took care of on February 5, that it is not "closed". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that now, but I think it's strange for an RFC to remain open but quietly disappear from the list of of active RFCs. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:23, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter Gulutzan and BarrelProof: There are at least two bots involved here, and they have different functions.

First, there is Legobot (talk · contribs), which handles the RfC listings. When this bot detects that the first valid timestamp following a {{rfc}} tag is more than thirty days ago, it removes that {{rfc}} tag and also removes the corresponding entries from the listing pages. This is not closure, and nor is it archiving: it is delisting, no more and no less. The discussion remains open, but it is not as broadly publicised as it had been.

Second, there are ClueBot III (talk · contribs) and Lowercase sigmabot III (talk · contribs), which handle archiving of discussion pages. In this context, "to archive" means to cut one or more threads from a discussion page and paste them into a subpage which conventionally includes the word "Archive" in its name. It is this process that I refer to as a de facto closure, since it is not permitted to continue discussions on archive pages. These bots have no means for knowing if a discussion is resolved or not: they look at the time of the most recent activity in the thread, and compare that time against the archive settings at the top of the page. Some pages have archiving settings that mean that a thread might be archived after less than thirty days, and to protect against this, Legobot adds code like {{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1714057272}} just before the {{rfc}} tag when it adds the |rfcid= parameter, and leaves that code alone when it removes the {{rfc}} tag. If you come across code like that at the top of a discussion thread that has no {{rfc}} tag, that may indicate that the thread did have an {{rfc}} tag at some point in the past. But the page history should be checked to be sure - the best thing to look for is edits by Legobot. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. The only bot changes in the history are by Legobot so it wasn't archived then unarchived, and I can make no joke about RfCs pining for the fjords, assuming this is about me and BarrelProof. As I said earlier, I'm glad you're still around. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 00:23, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is another case where confusion has probably been caused by misuse of terminology. As the terms are defined in the Wikipedia:Requests for Comment, there is no such thing as an RfC being open or closed and you can't close an RfC. You close a discussion or end an RfC. It's normal for an RfC to end while the discussion is still open. Common sense says whoever closes a discussion should end the RfC as well, but they're technically separate events. "Close an RfC" is a slang variously used to mean end an RfC, close an RfC discussion, or both, and it's hard to know which. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 18:55, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RFCBEFORE often ignored[edit]

In my experience, a large number of RFCs are frequently started after no discussion, or extremely minimal discussion. Is there a way to make WP:RFCBEFORE more prominent somehow? Aza24 (talk) 00:07, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some weeks ago I thought of adding a line in big text like Is your RfC really necessary? but didn't do it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A message like that would probably discourage the "wrong" editor. Thinking about the two editors who were running ~10 RFCs years ago, I'm sure that they strongly believed that their RFCs were really necessary. Other editors did not disagree with them; they were invincibly convinced that they were right; therefore, an RFC was necessary to prove that they were right. (The fact that they were frequently not proven right did not change their minds, but it did stop the edit warring.)

@Aza24, I find that complaints like this are frequently motivated from two places: One is a general, disinterested concern that the people who respond to RFCs are wasting their time by responding to such "obvious" questions. The other is a more specific concern that a particular RFC is going to end up with the "wrong" result, whereas if the rest of the community hadn't been invited to join the conversation, then the "right" answer could have prevailed. (See also the FAQ on people complaining about biased questions.) One of these concerns seems to be more common that the other. Which is yours? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. RfC's are helpful--especially when one or a few editors are not following the WP:RS. It's the only decent forum I know of to address a content dispute. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:15, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll admit, it was prompted by JK Rowling-related talk page chaos; a discussion was taking place, and then a RFC suddenly appeared on a matter which had not even been discussed. It calls back to numerous times I've witnessed discussions talk place over a day or two, and certainly not concluded or proved stalemated—but an RFC appears anyways. Many times these RFCs are halted before a consensus arrives: a solution to me seems to make it clearer that discussion should take place first. Aza24 (talk) 06:29, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hot-button articles tend to attract more than their share of RFCs, but I'm not sure that's always a bad thing.

I'm not sure that changing the instructions would help. Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, and reasonable people could disagree about whether a discussion has concluded or reached a stalemate. (For example, I tend to be a bit more optimistic about the chance of reaching a conclusion than many other editors.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Am I allowed to give my non-neutral opinion on the RfC that I started?[edit]

I started an RfC with a neutral statement. Can I give my opinion on the subject below my first statement and timestamp? ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 22:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may of course make a comment on the RfC; any editor may. It is only the RfC issue summary that must be neutral; it is of course not expected that comments in response to it will be. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:31, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why a protected page blocks me[edit]

I added references and it seems like an automatic block. How do I get this to go into RfC? OhioMD (talk) 02:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You need to provide some more information about what you were trying to use as a reference if you expect others to be able to help you. URLs are usually on the blacklist for very good reasons though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up. Remsense诉 03:43, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@OhioMD, it would help if you could tell us the website you were trying to add. It may not let you post the link, but you can spell it out as "example dot com/page.html" if you need to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:42, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]