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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: redirect to Wikipedia:Glossary. No need to restart the discussion at Help talk:Glossary. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 22:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Glossary

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Help:Glossary (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)​

This page, first created in 2008, aims to be a reader-focused glossary, contrasted with the editor-focused glossary at Wikipedia:Glossary. However, I question the need for such a glossary to exist.

A reader is someone who, basically by definition, has not delved deep enough into the weeds of Wikipedia to find a page like Help:Glossary, so it's not surprising that it's averaged only about 10 pageviews per day. For readers that do arrive at the page, either they're looking to find the definition of a specific term they encountered (meaning we've already failed, because we should be defining on the spot any jargon we use in reader-facing places), in which case ctrl+f will work just as well at WP:Glossary, or they feel a need to read the whole thing in order to navigate Wikipedia, which is an utterly unreasonable ask to make of visitors to a general-use website (luckily I think we're good enough about using plain language that there aren't really readers in this category).

The page is out of date (it calls wikilinks "free links", a term I don't think anyone uses nowadays), poorly scoped (a reader-focused page shouldn't be defining the community portal), and just generally not that helpful (it's not somewhere I would want to link from a reader-focused intro to Wikipedia). It should be redirected to WP:Glossary to reduce the maintenance burden, reduce the cluttered maze of beginner help pages (something they regularly report to be overwhelming), and eliminate its potential to make editors think they have license to use undefined jargon words in reader-facing areas. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:00, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notified: WT:Help Project. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:18, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Having read the short Help glossary, I think that it is helpful for new editors who would rather not deal with the longer glossary. Robert McClenon (talk) 10:09, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to WP:Glossary per nom. I do question the contents of this glossary and the need for a separate glossary for readers - most Wikipedia articles are written to either avoid jargon or to explain it where it occurs, like the footnotes on disambiguation pages which clearly explain what a disambiguation page is. This seems to contain a random selection of words with limited relevance to readers. Why is "Coordinates" included in a Wikipedia glossary - that's not specific to Wikipedia and basically any reader should figure out what they are. Why does it talk about "discussion" pages, there is no discussion link - it's called a talk page. If this is intended for readers with no intention of editing why are concepts like IP editors, namespaces, page histories, free links and page protection explained (wikilinks are actually explained 5 times under various names, none of which you'll come across as a reader, and I would hope we don't need to explain what a link is in a glossary). Why are skins explained in an introductory glossary if they're only available to logged in readers? only a tiny fraction of our users have an account. I could continue here but basically all the terms here are either not Wikipedia specific, are already explained wherever a reader would come across them or are irrelevant to readers, and I don't see any value in keeping this over the complete glossary for editors as the selection of terms seems to be fairly random and this is quite badly out of date. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 13:37, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In response to the suggestion that we critically review this to sort out just the entries relevant to readers - I think if we sorted through this list thoroughly there would basically be nothing left for a reader facing glossary. looking at the current entries on the list:
Extended content
  • admin - Readers will likely never come across an admin, they only interact with editors. Terminology is not used in articles
  • article - self explanatory, does not need a definition. "This article is about X" is not going to confuse anyone
  • broken link - this terminology is not used in articles
  • blue link - this terminology is not used in articles
  • category - this might be worth having, but every category has a help link to Help:Categories which does a much better job of explaining what they are.
  • Community portal - Not terminology used in articles, most readers will not come across the community portal. If they do click on the link in the sidebar the first thing on the page is a massive "welcome to the community portal - this is what it is" notice
  • coordinates - general concept not related to wikipedia
  • disambiguation - general concept, all disambiguation pages already contain a template explaining what a DAB page is
  • disambiguation page - duplicate of previous
  • discussion - the concept of a discussion is not wikipedia jargon, discussion pages have been called talk pages for years
  • editor - self explanatory, not Wikipedia jargon
  • external link - this one seems reasonable, most articles have external link sections and it isn't explained what makes a link external
  • Featured article - most readers will have no interaction with the featured article process except spotting the stars in the corner of articles, which already have rollover text telling you what they are.
  • free link - obsolete terminology, not used in articles
  • GNU Free Documentation License - general concept, not wikipedia jargon
  • hatnote - not used in articles, readers will come across hatnotes, but they won't come across the term "hatnote"
  • history - only place a reader will come across this is in a few cleanup templates, which already explain it refers to the page history.
  • interwiki - not a word used in articles
  • IP - general term, not Wikipedia jargon. Not a term used in articles.
  • IPA - general term, not Wikipedia jargon. IPA usage in articles is already linked to Help:IPA
  • ISBN - general term, not Wikipedia jargon. already linked to ISBN when used in references
  • link - general term, not Wikipedia jargon. I think we can assume anyone on the internet knows what a link is.
  • Main Page - self explanatory, doesn't need a glossary definition, not used in articles
  • MediaWiki - not used in articles, only place most readers will come across this is the main page, which already states it does wiki software development
  • namespace - not used in articles, readers will not come across this term
  • page - fairly self explaitory. The difference between a page and an article is irrelevant for most readers.
  • Portal - This one is reasonable - lots of templates for related portals and the like use this jargon
  • protected page - not used in article, readers will not encounter page protection outside maybe noticing the padlock icons in the corner of pages
  • Random page - self explanatory, already has rollover text explaining what it does
  • Recent changes - not relevant to readers, this is something only editors will use
  • Redirect - this is reasonable - used a lot in hatnotes and the like
  • Red link - not used in articles, readers will not come across this name
  • Reference - general term, not wikipedia jargon
  • sister project - The only place readers will come across this is the main page, which explains what each sister project is, or soft redirects, which also link to information about the projects
  • skins - advanced feature only available to registered users, does not belong in an introductory glossary
  • stub - already linked to the help page anytime it appears in a template.
  • Talk page - Most readers will not come across a talk page, and talk pages already have an editnote telling you what they are and how to use them
  • wiki - Not used in articles, not really Wikipedia jargon
  • Wikibooks - don't know why only wikibooks gets a mention, but anywhere it's mentioned in templates it's already linked to Wikibooks
  • wikilink - Not used in articles, readers will not come across this name
In my opinion I think that of the current definitions in the glossary the terms that Wikipedia readers might come across in articles that might need definition are category, external link, Portal and Redirect. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 02:20, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion about venue
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  • Keep. Speedy keep WP:SK#1. No rationale for deletion. This is an archive, or redirect, or merge and redirect proposal. That calls for a talk page discussion, and there is no justification for the MfD seven day deadline. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @SmokeyJoe: I'm less familiar with MfD than I am with AfD, so I'd appreciate your insight if you are, but recent discussion at the village pump affirmed that AfDs by nominators seeking to delete (in the non-technical sense) and redirect rather than just delete are perfectly okay. Is that non-applicable here? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:24, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Sdkb. The difference depends on whether the redirect is Wikipedia:Pseudo-deletion by redirection. Other cases include: fixing a content fork; or a smerge and redirect. I think this case is one or both of the other cases. AfD has higher propensity to act because there is the need to get inappropriate stuff out of mainspace. At MfD, you have to make the case that the page is inappropriate, not just that there is a better way. What I see here is that you are making a reasonable case for merging the two Glossaries. This amounts to a WP:Request to merge. Requests for merge are not properly done under the threat to agree or see it deleted. If your proposal to merge is disagreed with, the next step is RfC, not XfD. There is no need here for either haste or deletion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:52, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that you move your proposal to Help talk:Glossary, and if there is no substantial disagreement, redirect. This makes for a lower-stakes process, you don’t have to be certain you are right, another editor later may revert the redirect if it seems to not be working out. This is the wiki way. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:55, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SK1 requires that the nominator "fails to advance any argument for deletion or redirection" and has done since this 2015 RFC. As the nominator has advanced an argument for redirection SK1 does not apply. I also can't see that a merge proposal is the right way to go about this - Help:Glossary is just a cut down version of WP:Glossary so there's nothing to merge into the Wikipedia page. Until someone creates a "Requested redirect" process this seems like the best place to discuss this. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 15:26, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to switch to a different venue if there's a more appropriate place, as I don't want the venue question to distract from the redirection question. But since there seems to be some uncertainty about that and some editors have begun !voting on the redirection question below, I'm going to separate this out into its own section if that's alright, so that we can continue trying to figure it out but not get muddled. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:45, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Request to redirect, or proposal to redirect, would be well done on the talk page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:10, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.


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