Template talk:Essay

Template for approval: Template:Essay
Title. Works in a similar way to Template:Guideline. -- SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 05:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Why do we need this? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:00, 20 December 2021 (UTC)


 * See Moving User:SHB2000/Wikivoyage is not an encyclopedia into projectspace above. If we move that to mainspace we need to mark it as unofficial in some way, and the way to do it at WP is by such a template. I probably won't read the page in detail before New Year, so I won't comment on details, but I wouldn't like it being confused with ordinary guideline pages, unless there is consensus on its material content, language and usefulness. –LPfi (talk) 14:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Support for informal essays about Wikivoyage. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 14:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I like the fact that Wikivoyage's rules and guidelines are lean and that we avoid the level of complex bureaucracy on Wikipedia. So I'm inclined not to add complexity with something like this unless it's really needed. I don't see a need to move SHB2000's userspace essay into projectspace, as we already have pages covering much of the same ground. To SelfieCity and LPfi's points, I think unofficial/informal essays without community consensus can stay in userspace instead of being moved to mainspace. But I'm open to being convinced, there may be value that I'm not seeing. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:38, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * } creating projectspace essays, after some considerable thought. If you want to write something useful, please do – but keep it in your userspace.  The existence of essays is a significant problem at the English Wikipedia.  See w:en:Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays.  We have such fights over at enwiki about how to classify pages, and endless pressure to create ever more categories and labels, so that "my" page won't be "just" an essay.  The amount of confusion this creates is substantial.  Did you know that the w:en:WP:Five pillars is an essay?  Yup.  It was just written one day by an editor who wanted a longer version of w:en:WP:Trifecta.  The formal proposals to label it as a policy have all failed.  But it's an essay that restates policies, so if you "violate" the five pillars, then you're also breaking policy.  w:en:WP:BRD is also just an essay, despite editors demanding that others follow its advice.  (These, unfortunately, are generally editors who've never read BRD, including the first sentence, which says that it's optional.)  You can put almost anything you want in the projectspace and make it look official, especially to newcomers, because your edit summary will say something like "Rv per WV:HISTORY", and few enough people will click through to discover that it's just a page you wrote yesterday that has no official standing at all, or might even contradict the actual policies.  Over time, we'll end up with more unofficial essays hanging out in the official projectspace than we have policies and help pages, and nobody will have time or interest in reading them all.  This is not a path that this community, or any community with fewer than ~3,000 active contributors, should follow.  If you want to get something into the policies or help pages, add to the existing ones.  If you don't want to do that, then please leave it in your userspace, and use links that plainly label the page as being your own, like "See long explanation at User:SHB2000/History sections".  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * BTW, have you noticed what's happened here? For years, we had policies and help pages.  Then we decided to copy one page from the English Wikipedia (because it's not good enough to just link to theirs on the rare occasion that we want it?), but it wasn't a policy, so we also copied their model of labeling rules as "guidelines".  (Now we have nine guidelines?  How did that happen?)  And now we have a proposal to copy their model of public essays instead of sticking with our tried-and-true method of userspace essays.  The only thing that we aren't copying from enwiki is the advice that w:en:Wikipedia:Not every page needs a tag.  If anyone wants to start a betting pool on which of their many other classifications will be next, please put me down for expecting a proposed supplement tag next.
 * SHB, I'm going to say this again: Please do not import, copy, or mimic any templates from the English Wikipedia.  No matter what good impulse motivates you, it is almost always a bad idea.  The English Wikivoyage does not need ever-finer classifications and extra paperwork to push.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * SHB2000, why don't you post to the talk pages of the most relevant existing policy pages, proposing to add the most useful content in your essay to them piecemeal and specifying which language you'd like to add to which pages? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:57, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @WhatamIdoing Please do not make accusations of me "importing", "copying" templates or whatever when this template; guideline was not created by me. That one was created by over four years ago and has been used since then. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 21:09, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Also to WhatamIdoing, it may not have had a discussion, but this description given by (regarding the use of guideline is much more convincing than yours, which is not even relevant to this wiki. This isn't a place to discuss Wikipedia policies, and you can't compare the two wikis when there's an obvious difference in editor base. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 08:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * But there might be cautionary tales in comparing different sites. For example, there are a lot of templates on Wikipedia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * However, WhatamIdoing's comment was:
 * Opposing the ideas of essays, not the template
 * As usual, her usual "asking me to stop creating templates" in the pub and not on my talk page
 * None of it was anything specific to this template. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 09:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Andre created that particular template one day less than three years ago, not over four years ago. It was copied from enwiki for a specific, single-page purpose.  It has since spread to eight other pages.  (I don't remember seeing any discussion about it being applied to any of those other pages, but perhaps I just don't remember them.)
 * It is the massive difference in the editor base that prompts me to warn against importing enwiki's approach. We don't have the people to support a crushing layer of bureaucracy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You've missed my point. This discussion is about the template, not the concept of essays as a whole. You can start a new thread about that. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 20:52, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, if there isn't community consensus for the concept as a whole, then presumably there's no need for the template. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:57, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose so, but this template can still be used on userspace essays. SHB2000 (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta.wikimedia) 23:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If we decide not to have essays in the Wikivoyage: namespace, then we obviously don't need a template to label them. To have this template, all three of these conditions need to be met:
 * We decide to have a category of pages called "essays".
 * We decide that these pages need some sort of enwiki-style label instead of w:WP:NOTAG.
 * We decide that the way to add that enwiki-style label is to use a template.
 * I think we should not have a category of pages called essays. Therefore, we don't need any templates whose sole purpose is to label a (I hope) non-existent type of page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I have to concur with WAID. I like enwiki essays (and enwiki fine-grained-technically-not-essay-but-really-an-essay distinctions). I've written a handful; my notes on some of its more complex rule interpretations or guides to navigating tricky obscure bits of projectspace. Wikivoyage doesn't have nearly the same weight of complex rule interpretations or tricky obscure bits of projectspace. Wikivoyage is a small place with a lot less law and a lot more practice. I don't think the enwiki structure works well here. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 09:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've probably written more than my fair share of "essays" (as well as other advice pages) at enwiki. It can be fun to write them, and occasionally I do it as a way of documenting something that I've learned that might be helpful but doesn't seem like a good use of space in a policy (e.g., w:en:WP:LIKELY, w:en:WP:Based upon).  But what makes that work is the existence of other tens of thousands of other people who might want that information and dozens who might improve upon it, with no effective central mechanism for reaching the interested parties.  At a more human-scale wiki like this one, a single comment here can reach a large fraction of our experienced editors.  Sharing information here is both more effective (greater percentage read it) and less burdensome (requires no extra bureaucracy). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)