The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thryduulf (talk • contribs) 09:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Sassanid Arabia → Arbayistan (links to redirect • history • stats)     [ Closure: keep/delete ] 

Delete: There was a "Sassanid Arabia" in so far as parts of Arabia (Bahrein, Oman, Yemen) were under Sassanid rule, but a) there was nor province under this name, and b) this particular creation resulted from misreading Arbayistan (a province in northern Mesopotamia) as "Arabistan" or something like it. Constantine ✍ 19:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral - i'm not an expert in this, so i would trust the majority opinion on this.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:48, 15 July 2013 (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.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was keep per SNOW. Bencherlite^Talk 22:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:Ping → Template:Reply to (links to redirect • history • stats)     [ Closure: keep/delete ] 

Deletion. It is never appropriate to "ping" someone to notify them of a discussion. The way to do that is to post a notice on their talk page. Discussions may never be personalized, for example, by beginning a reply with the name of the editor being replied to. The only time this can not be avoided is in a discussion that is not threaded, such as an ARB discussion, where participants may only reply in their own section, and they are not "pinging" them but instead indicating which discussion they are replying to. The new notification system has proliferated the use of ping instead of using talkback, but that needs to be discouraged as inappropriate. In a collaborative decision making process (consensus/parliamentary), discussion to or about participants is always prohibited, and must instead be directed to the group (or moderator). Directing discussion to or about a participant is personalization, which is prohibited. See WP:NPA and WP:FOC. Apteva (talk) 16:53, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy close. The redirect is in use, and deleting it would make huge numbers of discussions unreadable. (Besides, whether you like it or not, the habit of addressing a user with "@" at the beginning of a posting is not going to go away, no matter if people type it directly, or use the "ping" redirect, or its actual target – are you also going to nominate that? Incidentally, the claim that "Discussions may never be personalized, for example, by beginning a reply with the name of the editor being replied to" is plainly absurd. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. I would note, as a disclaimer, that I was informed about this nomination and warned against using the template in my staff role - but that I am commenting here as an individual, not as a staffer. I would note as a second disclaimer "sorry for the TL;DR".

• So, let me be clear (first) about what the ping template does. Ping silently pastes in a username, in such a form that the notifications system ("echo") picks up on it. When it does, the user is sent a notification that they have been mentioned in a discussion. This means that someone participating in a thread on, say, AN/I - an incredibly long page with a large number of different discussions - does not have to watchlist the page and check back every time an edit is made to any section. Instead, they can wait for the system to actively tell them they have been replied to. This is nothing about personalising discussion, it's about making editors' lives easier. Yes, the talkback template does this. The talkback template is also an absolute pain to use. You have to go over to their talkpage and make a completely different edit, instead of adding a single template to the comment you were going to make anyway.

• Moreover, if the definition of "personalising discussion" is "mentioning or replying to an editor", we'll have to make far more changes than merely deleting the Ping template. We'll have to pretty much destroy how we converse on Wikipedia. The use case for the Ping template is "users replying to other users", and this happens constantly - and has been for 12 years or so. If you're in a conversation with a lot of participants, and someone makes a comment you find particularly insightful or don't understand, you discuss it with them, indenting to indicate your statement is a reply to that specific message. The ping template did not create this discussion protocol, we did.

• This doesn't undermine the conversation - the reply may be read by the passive readers of the discussion, or any active participants in it - and nor is it personalising the discussion. It's a reply to comments. It is about the comments, and therefore the subject. It is not about the user making those comments. If we want to consider replying to comments personalising the discussion, we'll also have to remove (a) indenting on talkpages and (b) the notifications setup. We might also consider deleting Template:Reply to, which is what generates this functionality; Ping is merely a redirect.

• The only policy-based rationale presented for this deletion is that the template somehow violates WP:NPA and WP:FOC. We use this template for informing people of replies to their comments, not for attacking them, and FOC reads "Focus on article content, not on editor conduct". We're not discussing editor conduct; we're discussing the comments an editor has made. We are a collaborative environment - that's an essential part of how we work. To try and ban it completely undermines the collaborative editing model, and won't be achieved by deleting one redirect to one template that is one method of triggering one piece of software that enables this kind of discussion. Ironholds (talk) 16:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy keep - I'd used this as ((ping)) for a long time, not ((reply to)). If you have an issue with the name of the template, why aren't you nominating other redirects that have names that are like this, or other templates that have names like this? There's no reason to delete this, many people have used this template, so keep it. If someone wants to nominate ((reply to)) for deletion on it's own, then that discussion can take place there. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 17:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  As noted, reply to is fine, but only in a discussion that is not threaded. We simply indent our response in a threaded discussion to indicate a reply, and reply to is not appropriate there, using it personalizes the discussion and makes reaching consensus in a collaborative discussion more difficult. Apteva (talk) 17:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  That is a bizarre misunderstanding of how Wikipedia communication works (or how human communication in general works, for that matter). Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Not really. Consensus decision making has been around since the 1600's, and parliamentary since the 1700's. I am not aware of any other forms of collaborative decision making that exists. This is not a blog, it is an encyclopedia, and all discussion relates to how we can improve the encyclopedia, and involves constant decision making. For reference, Roberts Rules of Order includes the advice "All remarks must be directed to the Chair. Remarks must be courteous in language and deportment - avoid all personalities, never allude to others by name or to motives"[1]. Consensus decision making follows the same rules, with discussion directed to the group instead of to the chair, and predates parliamentary decision making by 200 years. I have noticed that some editors are far more sensitive than others in being named, and the correct response is to never name any editor. Apteva (talk) 17:58, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  We have never, at any time, followed Robert's Rules of Order. Nor have I ever seen any editor be sensitive to being pinged, which is implicit naming (heck, I'm doing it right now!) Roberts' Rules of Order is not followed, I would note, in an actual Parliamentary system - that of the United Kingdom. While addresses are to the group, individuals are frequently named. Ironholds (talk) 18:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  I am shocked! Is it really true that some people in parliament disobey their own rules? (they certainly do not follow Roberts Rules of Order, but rather their own flavor of the same, Roberts Rules of Order is both a starting point and the most commonly used set of rules for those not using consensus decision making). Parliamentary procedure is mentioned to point out that if we did not use consensus decision making, which never allows directing conversation to or about participants, but instead used what most people might be using in their own city, town, or country, directing conversation to or about participants would still not be permitted. Apteva (talk) 18:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  You're now trying to force your belief of what consensus should be on others through this pointy nomination. You say "consensus decision making... never allows directing conversation to or about participants" - Sure. But Wikipedia does allow it, and it is expected. If you don't like that, don't make pointy nominations like this, but go discuss a WP:NONAMINGEDITORS policy. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 18:12, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Definitely not my belief. I was certainly not around when the principles of consensus decision making were developed, but I would be happy to work on a WP:No naming editors policy. The reason why all collaborative decision making uses the same rule is that it works, and doing otherwise simply does not work. It leads to bickering, and drives editors away. We appear to be losing about 6% of our best editors every year right now, and infighting is certainly a contributing factor. Right now each month we gain about 6,500 new editors who make at least five edits. Some never make another edit, but of those who continue to make at least 5 edits/month, a relatively constant 10% make over 100 edits/month. Right now we are sort of at a steady state situation, where we may be gaining about 600 new very active editors, but are also losing the same number of old ones, and have temporarily leveled off at about 3,200 editors who make over 100 edits per month. This obviously is not good, and corrective action is needed. Apteva (talk) 18:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep – @Apteva: Not to personalize this, but you're a somewhat quirky editor. Ironholds well states the rationale and usage of this template and I can't think of more to add to that. Sure, this template can be used to make personal attacks. Such attacks can just as easily be made without the template. Ultimately, it's just up to individual editors to just not do it. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:28, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And it's also possible to bicker and infight without ever naming the person(s) that you're bickering and infighting with. And a Wikipedia User: page is no more or less private than any other page on Wikipedia. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The intended uses of this are perfectly reasonable. I would love it if more people used it when replying to stale-ish talkpage discussions that the original author may have forgotten about, or for other reasonable purposes - "X knows a lot about this but probably isn't watching the page", "Y was involved in this last year, let's ask her". No undue personalisation, but perfectly sensible ways of handling our (flaky) messaging system. Let's not be slaves to talkpage notifications forever. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:50, 9 July 2013 (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.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete'. Thryduulf (talk) 09:26, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Dont call me crazy → Bob Lansberry (links to redirect • history • stats)     [ Closure: keep/delete ]

Silly redirect, same as this one.AshFR (talk) 04:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - "Don't call me crazy on the 4th of July" is the title of a documentary on this guy, as noted in the article. Might be a plausible search term. Grandmartin11 (talk) 17:29, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The phrase is a WP:PTM for the documentary anyway. Checking "don't call me crazy" -wikipedia returns a grand total of three relevant results in the first give pages, all of which use the full "Don't call me crazy on the 4th of July" phrase. Don't call me crazy should be deleted as well. --BDD (talk) 21:29, 16 July 2013 (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.

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete. Materialscientist (talk) 07:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Yaroshenko Nikolay triathlon → Yaroshenko Nikolay (links to redirect • history • stats)     [ Closure: keep/delete ]
• Yaroshenko Nikolay → ru:Ярошенко Николай Николаевич (links to redirect • history • stats)     [ Closure: keep/delete ]
• Nikolay Yaroshenko → ru:Ярошенко Николай Николаевич (links to redirect • history • stats)     [ Closure: keep/delete ] 

Delete, as the 2 cross-language redirects aren't useful to most people on English Wikipedia, and the non-cross-language redirect indirectly acts as a cross-language redirect 71.199.125.210 (talk) 19:43, 9 July 2013 (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.