User:It's dot com/STUFF reform

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Revision as of 04:51, 18 May 2005

The situation

STUFF is a mess. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it's true.

Click here to see how I think it should look.

Some people think STUFF should be eliminated in favor of talk pages, but I think a central location for fun fact decisions serves a valuable purpose: First, it's convenient to keep track of several facts at once, and because of that there is more consistency between facts on different pages.

I've given a lot of thought to how STUFF can be improved. I identified what I thought the biggest problems were and created a new format to correct them. Then I tested the format by applying it to some facts currently open.

Click on these links to skip down to the source code for a sample fact, followed by the new format. At the bottom are some real-world examples.

Problems I identified

• It's difficult to easily see where one discussion ends and the next begins.
• It's sometimes difficult to tell which votes have just started and which are about to close.
• The lack of structure has allowed the page to degrade to little more than a forum where discussion is haphazard and redundant, and denigrating personal attacks are rife and rampant.
• It's hard to tabulate the votes.

Proposed solutions

• Each fact will be isolated in its own section. Each section will alternate colors from one to the next, and the fact itself will be highlighted within the section.
• Each fun-fact canditate will be placed chronologically at the top of the page, without regard to the page from which it came. The page title and the time and date the fact was posted will be featured prominently.
• All the arguments for and against a fact, as well as comments, will be grouped together. Users who have nothing useful to add to the discussion will be encouraged to merely vote and move on.
• The votes will be user names only. They will be grouped at the bottom and numbered.

Known issues

Comments are welcome on the talk page. I have already recognized several items:

• The overall format is complicated.
• Specialized signatures do not work.
• There is no provision for a Revise vote.
• Clever votes will be a thing of the past.

The new format

Source code

Here is the source code that will go on the STUFF page:

<div class="stuffgray"> OR <div class="stuffblue"> (these style definitions will need to be set up)
===Item Title===
{{stuffitem|<!--the fact-->The STUFF'd fact
|<!--from page-->
[[page title]]
|<!--posted on-->~~~~~
|<!--arguments for (* list)-->
*First argument for.
*Second argument.

|<!--arguments against (* list)-->
*First argument against.
*Second argument.

|<!--comments (* list)-->
*First comment.
*Second comment.

|<!--votes to ACCEPT (# list)-->
#[[User:First user|First user]]
#[[User:Second user|Second user]]
|<!--votes to DECLINE (# list)-->
#[[User:Third user|Third user]]
#[[User:Fourth user|Fourth user]]
}}
</div>

And here is the code for template that it uses:

<div class="stuffitem">{{{1}}}</div><br> (this style definition will need to be set up)
'''From:''' {{{2}}}<br>
'''Posted on:''' {{{3}}}

'''Arguments for:'''
{{{4}}}
'''Arguments against:'''
{{{5}}}
'''Additional comments:'''
{{{6}}}
{| border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2 style="border-collapse:collapse"
|- bgcolor=#DDDDDD
! '''Votes to accept:''' !! '''Votes to decline:'''
|-
|
{{{7}}}
||
{{{8}}}
|}

Proposed new format

Real-world examples

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