Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)

Regarding this post that editors seem to feel is misplaced, would it be advisable to have the instructions at the top include a point along the lines of "issues that affect only a single article do not belong here"? Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 19:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that the list is already of the size that it won't be read by many people. Could you suggest some bullet points to remove to make way for this one? And I note that it's just one editor, rather than "editors", but I happen to agree so I suppose the plural is correct now. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:11, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Very fair. Proposed speedy deletion criteria seems like an infrequent enough thing it could probably be removed (it's also something that is more likely to be done by at least moderately experienced editors, who will ideally know better than to use the pump for it). Ditto for new wikis. Proposed new articles could be wrapped into the single-article bullet point as a specific example (it's something more likely to be done by newcomers, so probably worth spelling out). (I was including my own unstated agreement when I made it plural, so that's now three of us.) Sdkb ^talk 20:55, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Archive bot wasn't archiving my old multi-part thread even though the latest date on it was Sep 16, 2024.

I noticed the archive bot was missing some parts. I added the parts. I did not change the number of days (9d), or the archive size (300K). See diff.

See:

• User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo#Example 2: Incremental archives
• User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo#Parameters explained

Wait a day or two to see if archiving starts working again on its own.

If it starts working again, then remember these settings (change the counter as needed):

{{User:MiszaBot/config
| algo = old(9d)
| archive = Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive %(counter)d
| counter = 214
| maxarchivesize = 300K
| archiveheader = {{Wikipedia:Village pump/Archive header}} 
| minthreadstoarchive = 1
| minthreadsleft = 5
}}

--Timeshifter (talk) 15:35, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It worked! Multi-part thread has just been archived. See diff. That was fast. It was a couple weeks overdue for archiving.

So the missing bot parts mattered. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the bot's documentation, it probably wasn't archiving because the default for minthreadstoarchive is 2 and minthreadsleft is 5. We'd have needed at least one more section created to be able to archive 2 and still leave 5. We might also have had to wait for a second thread to be ready to archive. Your edit changed minthreadstoarchive to 1, allowing your thread to be archived while still leaving 5 on the page. Anomie⚔ 23:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

The bot archived 2 discussions on Sept 29, 2024. That was 13 days after the last post on Sept 16, 2024 in my multi-part thread that was just archived. So something else may be going on. I see you are a bot coder. Maybe you can figure it out.

The bot archived 3 discussions in Sept 26, 2024. So it can do 3 at a time. Or maybe it can only do a maximum amount of kilobytes at a time. Especially if it has to start a new archive. A good reason to change the default to minthreadstoarchive = 1.

By the way, the defaults are different in the 2 sections I linked. I picked the defaults I preferred from the 2 sections. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:55, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

On September 29, it archived 2, leaving 5 to satisfy minthreadsleft. I also note your large thread contained a DNAU for September 21 from Special:Diff/1245780731, which would have been used as the last-"comment" date rather than September 16. The two archived were older than September 21, which is why they went.

I don't know if the bot has a maximum limit, but that's not relevant to anything that happened here. If you look at the bot's contribs, recently it archived 33 discussions in one edit (after someone set up archiving on the page).

User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo#Example 2: Incremental archives isn't showing defaults, it's showing an example config. But I don't care about minthreadstoarchive being 2 or 1. I just wanted to clarify that it was the changed setting rather than "missing bot parts" that "fixed" the archiving. Keep an eye on the New Page: Snakes Of Egypt section now, it's 11 days old now but still won't be archived until a new level-2 section is created due to minthreadsleft being 5. Anomie⚔ 11:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I see now. Also, the {{DNAU}} made things more difficult for me to understand. I see that the "defaults" listed in the table in the section linked below really are defaults, not just suggestions. So when a parameter is "missing" on a Village Pump page, it still works. Using the defaults in the table:

• User:Lowercase sigmabot III/Archive HowTo#Parameters explained.

I hope we keep minthreadstoarchive = 1 on the Village Pump so that threads are archived sooner rather than later. I think the Village Pump page works better for all, the faster it loads. And when threads that have reached a natural end are archived sooner. Rather then being possibly restarted much later when the past participants may no longer be paying attention.

For others reading this, here is what was being used before:

{{User:MiszaBot/config
|archiveheader = {{Wikipedia:Village pump/Archive header}} 
|maxarchivesize = 300K
|counter = 214
|algo = old(9d)
|archive = Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive %(counter)d
}}

All I did was add:

| minthreadstoarchive = 1
| minthreadsleft = 5

--Timeshifter (talk) 18:00, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The word "actionable" is not grammatically correct so I will be reverting the wording. Logoshimpo (talk) 09:27, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

A declaration of war is not the normal method of justifying a proposed change, particularly when performing the change three times: diff + diff + diff. "Actionable" is standard wikispeak and is the best word. Johnuniq (talk) 10:43, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

It's also a standard English word, meaning "able to be acted on". Anomie⚔ 11:50, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

See WP:BRD for best practice. It was OK to make the change once if you thought it was uncontroversial, but when your edit was disputed you should have left the page as it was and discussed. The word may not have been standard English in the non-legal sense a few decades ago, but it has now become so. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

user:Sollyucko: I think "concrete and executable" are preferable to "concrete, executable". Logoshimpo (talk) 17:42, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

@Athanelar and @Voorts: The page size is getting out of control again, and your RFCs each have over 200 comments. Do you want to WP:SPLIT them off? See Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Creating an RfC (step #2). The split process is to copy/paste (like a manual archiving) to a new page name and (this is important →) remove the old id number in the {{rfc}} tag. Legobot will give you a brand-new id number when it relists the RFC, and the Wikipedia:Feedback request service will issue a brand-new set of invitations to the new location. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Fine by me. I'm not gonna be at my computer till much later tonight so anyone should feel free to do it. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:20, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

 Done voorts (talk/contributions) 02:25, 23 January 2026 (UTC)