Template talk:Moveon top

I wrote this for user talk pages. Use sparingly (or not at all) on resource talk pages. If you try it on a resource talk page, report the results of your "experiment" here.

Wikitext
First statement
 * Second statement
 * Third statement

Rendered Outcome
First statement
 * Second statement
 * Third statement

How to request/propose reopening a closed topic
In the following example, topic A was opened and closed. Then topic B was opened and closed. Finally someone requested a reopening of topic A by writing a request to reopen. Or, the person requesting the reopening of topic A can be bold and force the reopening by removing the two template statements.

Topic A
First statement of Topic A
 * Second statement
 * Third statement

I suggest we reopen topic A because ... signed by (written after B had been opened and closed)

Topic B
First statement of Topic B
 * Second statement
 * Third statement

Topic A
First statement of Topic A
 * Second statement
 * Third statement

I suggest we reopen topic A because ... signed by (written after B had been opened and closed)

Topic B
First statement of Topic B
 * Second statement
 * Third statement

Good work
Thanks for this. I tried transcluding this from Wikipedia, but it proved too complex for me to handle. However, one thing which did work was using a doc subpage Template:Collapsible option/doc with Template:Documentation. Perhaps this would work getting your notes here onto the template page? Leutha (discuss • contribs) 07:00, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have to admit I find templates really confusing. I don't like the way the "Moveon" template forces the line "Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.".  The editor in me wants to rephrase.  But I can live with this wording and have better things to do.  Thanks for the encouragement.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:49, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That could be fixed, if you like, and easily, but the name of the template is a problem. Why not use ordinary collapse? I see in the history: (trying to find the diplomatic way of saying it's time to move on) That's a personal reaction disguised as a "fact," i.e., one person's opinion. If it's your user page, what is much more authentic is "I prefer not to discuss this further, thanks." There is no way to be fully diplomatic with that, it means "What matters to you does not matter to me." Bottom line: who is more important, the user whose page it is, or the other user? That, in turn, depends, for me, on my relationship with humanity. Ideally, we are important. So I'll listen even beyond my comfort zone. But others may draw the line differently, and, in the end, if a user is upset, they probably are not in a state to get much from a communication. When my teenage daughter says "Dad, I'm not listening," it's just a fact. Some parents would get upset. I don't. I stop talking! Unless I have something crucial to say, in which case I'll tell her that, and, so far, she then listens.
 * She used to say, "Dad, Shut up! You aren't helping! She found that simply telling me she wasn't listening was more effective and less, ah, disruptive. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:46, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have prosed a change here and here. Leutha (discuss • contribs) 12:48, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

"Request to reopen a discussion" re-opens a discussion.
Normal wiki process with a closure template is that any user may reverse the close. But there are exceptions. A close on a user talk page, placed by the user, should be respected, generally. The Moveon template is designed as a full-stop close, which is one reason why its use on user talk pages is a tad rude. Next step up in rudeness: a forbidden topic, and next step up beyond that, a user page ban.

My opinion is that its use on a resource talk page, unless accepted by consensus, is disruptive and unacceptable. We should encourage discussion, not suppress it. Ordinary collapse may be used without that prominent demand to "start a new discussion," which can be far more work, especially if what is desired is to respond specifically to comments in the closed discussion.

"Moveon," to me, is like what I've seen on en.wiki, "move on, nothing to see here," which is a phrase famously used by police in an oppressive state. Don't be curious! Don't talk about what interests you! GO AWAY!

An ordinary collapse looks like this:

collapsed discussion, blah, blah

The collapse reason is best as a neutral, uncontroversial summary of the collapsed material. How not to use it is how I've seen it used on enwiki, a reason like "Useless off-topic discussion by fringe editor."

The language of the template of the Moveon template, is just like an archive template, only collapse is added. That archive template language has caused a lot of trouble. A close is a expressed decision by a user that consensus has been reached or that finding consensus is unlikely and further discussion is a waste of time. One can see many discussion closes on WV:RFD, and normal practice there is to leave a discussion open until someone closes it.

There can be an involved close and an uninvolved close. Both should not be re-opened ''unless the user has something to contribute to the discussion or there has not been enough time to show possible consensus. It can get complex. However, the goal is to close discussions where nothing more of value is likely,'' and to do so quickly on a user talk page or resource talk page will often be experienced as abrupt, a rejection of discussion, etc.

The suggestion that a written request to re-open may be made complicates what would ordinarily be simple: if a user thinks that a close is too soon, the user may simply revert it. It's best if the close reason is left, I convert these to comments where appropriate. But if a user reverts my close and does not restore the comment, I don't run screaming for a custodian, I just restore the comment. That is on a "public page." On a user page, it all gets murky. Formal closes on user pages are very, very rare, this is an entirely new introduction. Collapse, yes, not uncommon.

In standard deliberative process, a request to reopen a completed topic is non-debatable, because discussing it re-opens the topic, thus defeating the purpose of closure. If seconded, it's voted on immediately. No discussion!

Wikis replace this with individual reversible action, ad hoc. Want to re-open it? Just re-open it! I'm pretty reluctant to re-open a closure by a user on their user talk page, but it can increase my perception of that user as uncommunicative. "Uncommunicative" is their right, though if they are a custodian ... it gets iffy, it has a Bad History. I'd rather see, in fact, a blanking of my comment with "That was too chatty, please summarize!" -- or the like, even, in that context, "tl;dr" is enough.

In spite of the language in Template:Archive top and Template:Archive bottom, users have reverted such closes. My standard process waits 10 days after a topic is closed before archiving it to the archive page. If a user reverts the close before that, I have never revert-warred over it, as far as I recall, even when I thought it disruptive. If a user, however, reverses the archiving later and pulls the topic back to the page, I'd treat that as disruptive. The topic may be re-opened with reference to the original, instead of pulling old, dead meat out of the freezer. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:37, 9 September 2015 (UTC)