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Template:Support
I discovered this in the "perennial requests" page so you could say I found it in a manner that suggested that I should not be attempting a DRV for this template. However, after finding that this and its variants are often used in the Japanese Misplaced Pages and probably many other language Wikipedias, I found them very useful in understanding what they are saying, and was wondering why there did not exist a version on the English Misplaced Pages, so the perennial requests page notified me that it did exist some time in the past, which is why I am filing this DRV right now.
In any case, the major reason why I find that there is a usefulness to comment icons that outweights the disadvantages, as well as the Template:Oppose as well as the theoretical Template:Comm (short for "comment," a much better name than Template:Object) is that to those who are not so good at English, it enables people to follow the discussion much more easily than if they were not there. Although this is the English Misplaced Pages, we cannot expect everyone to be native speakers in English, just like how the Japanese Misplaced Pages cannot expect all of its users to speak perfect Japanese (I can understand about 50% of Japanese writing, and did not know the word for "support" in Japanese, but the image definitely helped). For example, on page here in the Japanese Misplaced Pages, even if you do not understand what they are saying at all, you can at least know where they are making a comment supporting or opposing a certain suggestion. As can be seen on that page, the icons especially help in understanding the gist of what is said―they are not used for voting, but merely elucidate the conversation.
In terms of encouraging voting and such, I would say these icons encourage voting no more than simply writing "support" or "oppose" (or any of the other phrases like "keep," "delete," etc.) in bold, which we do already, and which newcomers quick come to copy in discussions. If we truly want to get rid of voting, we should all stop engaging in that practice - as long as we continue, this is only to make it more clear, especially to those who are not native in English. Thus, they do not perform any function other than something similar to the icons commonly used in the sockpuppet investigations pages, which I find useful in summarizing what is said. Furthermore, even if they do not need to be used in AfD discussions, they clearly (as in the example I have given previously) have a positive usages in article talk pages, where the argument that "they are useless unless everyone uses them" is invalid since they are not used in an vote-like sense on the talk pages in the first place.
The more major reason given in the previous discussion was the load time. Given that the images themselves are small, I do not think that this is an issue - the bigger issue is the pages themselves getting long. That is what tends to slow down my browser, not small images like this. I have experienced no problem with loading times in my experience of pages that have used these icons.
(For references, the Japanese Misplaced Pages does currently use two sets of templates, one for comments on talk pages listed in the documentation here, and one for AfD discussions listed here.)
New questions? 18:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- Comment With regards to AfD discussions, I found them extremely useful since I did not know a significant number of the Japanese words used there, like "speedy delete," "keep," or "delete a particular revision" until I saw the words used next to the icons, as in the page here.--New questions? 18:54, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Dub FX
Dub FX is a notable artist who sells out gigs in many countries (I'll just add one example - Athens, Greece, Oct '11 ). He has 440,000 followers on Facebook - DubFX (compare Wax Tailor, who 'only' has 170,000 followers (here) yet has a Misplaced Pages page), and has released several albums - albums list. All this, yet the page was deleted due to "lack of notability" (here). I'm sorry, I could not find the deletion discussion, but I would be interested to see who participated, how long it lasted, and the reasons. In any case, I feel the figures I provide speak for themselves, so please re-create the page! Thank you :-) BigSteve (talk) 10:06, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
- The deletion discussion is Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Dub FX. The closing admin, Martijn Hoekstra, has indicated that he will restore the article per WP:SOFTDELETE on request, maybe you should ask him first? Procedurally, I endorse the AfD closure (nobody opposed deletion), but could support a relist or restore if somebody in this DRV finds reliable sources that could make this person pass WP:BAND. The Google News archive search indicates that there may be non-English sources about him. The above links however are unhelpful, as commercial success and Facebook followers are not relevant in terms of our inclusion requirements. Sandstein 10:20, 6 April 2012 (UTC)