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The result of the debate was oppose amendment. jSarek 02:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Amendment to Rule 8Edit

I propose an amendment to the currrent FA requirement #8. As it currently stands, an FA is allowed up to 3 red links. I think this should be changed to no redlinks. It is easy to create a stub at the very least, and I think it gives the wrong look to have our top articles linking to unwritten articles. This is normally cleared up by the time the nom goes through anyway, so I hope it will be an uncontroversial amendment.

Current rule: An article must:

• …have no more than 3 redlinks.

Proposed amendment: An article must:

• …have no redlinks.

VotesEdit

Support amendmentEdit

1. --Eyrezer 01:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
2. LtNOWIS 03:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
3. Not only should the nominated article have no redlinks, but the articles that article links to should ALSO have no redlinks! MWAHAHAHAHA! -- Darth Culator ^(Talk) 04:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
4. Just because people aren't motivated to expand stubs is no reason not to create them. Also, per Eyrez's Platt example. I should also note that this rule is sort of kind of almost in effect already since quite a few Inqs hate redlinks (I'm actually not one of them) and will not give a nom the beloved Inq Stamp until it's been 100% deredlinkificated. Gonk ^(Gonk!) 00:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
5. Fix redlink, rinse, repeat.—Graestan ^{(This party's over)} 00:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
6. Wildyoda makes a good point, but then why have only three? In the cases of an article like Wicket, there's going to be dozens of stubs created just to fill out the redlinks, but what is the difference between those stubs and the three additional stubs that'll have to be made if this goes through? And where did this number come from anyway? In my opinion, it's all or nothing in terms of redlinks for FAs, though I'm easy as to which -- AdmirableAckbar ^[Talk] 13:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
7. --Dark Lord Xander ^{(Embrace The Dark Side!)} 03:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
8. Though I agree that stubs are worse than redlinks, it still makes no sense for there to be a three redlink rule when there could be a no redlink rule. Let's either have a no redlink rule or no rule at all. Cull Tremayne 06:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Oppose amendmentEdit

1. It's not the fault of the article if another article hasn't been written yet, and I don't think we should penalize candidate articles for linking to a handful of articles that someone needs to go and write. Havac 03:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
   • Why have any requirement on redlinks then, if the measure is only of the article itself? --Eyrezer 04:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
2. I don't think we should encourage stubs to be written just to remove redlinks. Redlinked articles draw more attention to the fact that information is missing than a link to a stub that someone might assume to be a well-covered topic if they don't visit it. I know I'm personally much more likely to see a redlink and turn it into a well-developed article than I am to expand a stub (see this list). As long as an article does not have a massive list composed entirely of redlinked topics, the existence of redlinks period is fine and three seems like a good cut-off number to me. Wildyoda 03:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
3. Yes redlinks are bad but I don't think three is an unreasonable number in an FA. Green Tentacle ^(Talk) 09:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
4. Per Green tentacle. Atarumaster88 13:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
5. I'm not even that big on the 3 redlink rule. Coop 22:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
6. Unit 8311 16:52, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
7. No. An article could get deleted and cause a redlink. -Fnlayson 03:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
8. Per Wildyoda and GT. Hobbes15^{(Tiger Headquarters)} 04:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
9. —Xwing328^(Talk) 04:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
10. jSarek 04:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
11. Eniad ^{(Boring conversation anyway.)} 18:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
12. ^{Jedipilot94 *Fo-Shizzle*} 19:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
13. Redlinks are better than worthless stubs, in my opinion. -- Ozzel 04:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
14. Lord Hydronium 04:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
15. Against, if only to help prevent the following scenario:
    1. An article is written up to FA standards. There are no redlinks.
    2. The article goes into the FA queue.
    3. Just before it's scheduled to go into the queue, the subject of the article appears in an ongoing comic series. Several new characters and items appear alongside the article subject, and need to be mentioned and linked in the updated article.
    4. Now there are a bunch of redlinks: if stubs aren't created fast enough, does it lose FA status?
    5. It seems to me that the "3 redlinks" rule allows us a bit of leeway in this situation. Of course, writing articles on new subjects quickly is also something our contributors are good at, so this might not be a major concern for some of you. —Silly Dan _(talk) 11:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
16. Against, as it encourages the wrong behaviour in users wishing to be FA writers. Stub-farming is not really what we want in a quality user, eh? Besides, as has been stated, it's better for someone who really knows about the subject of the redlink to fill it out rather then the person doing the FA, who may not have the specific expertise to do so.--Goodwood ^{(For the Rebellion!)} 04:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
17. Per Goodwood and Green Tentacle. Master Aban Fiolli ^{(Alpheridies University ComNet)} 20:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oppose superfluous votingEdit

1. Sikon 08:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
2. Imperialles 20:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

CommentsEdit

Seems like I often see people objecting to any redlinks even though the three are allowed. -- Ozzel 03:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• So much for being uncontroversial! :) With regard to the above comment, I am one who often mentions that I would like redlinks to be removed. However, I only ever do this in the comments section as opposed to a direct objection, based on the current ruling. --Eyrezer 04:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
• I do the same as Eyrezer. Atarumaster88 13:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
• With regard to the comments against, my problem is this: in the process of writing Platt OKeefe, she had about 30 redlinks to start off with. I am going through and writing articles for these links, but it is completely arbitrary to say that I need to do this for 27 of the links but not the last three. It should either be all of them, or, if it is as has been suggested above that it's not the FA's fault if other articles haven't been written, then redlinks shouldn't matter at all. The logic should apply to all links or not apply at all. --Eyrezer 03:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay, well what if someone goes and expands an article, then nominates it for FA? Yey in the artilce, there is a redlink anout a character who the editor has never heard of. He asks several others and no one knows who that being is or where he comes from. (For the sake of argument, let's say it is obvious it isn't fanon though.) Well, then what? He's done everything he could on an excellent article yet it still got turned down because of one minor redlink about some puny character. I think we should let artiicles have one redlink. Chack Jadson 11:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
  • IIRC, the Inquisitorius can still whether an article needs redlink fixing before getting approval. This is instruction creep. Atarumaster88 13:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Can still what? If the Inq informally require no redlines, there's no real difference. -Fnlayson 03:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
• It won't make a difference now, but why are we deciding to keep our FA rules arbitrarily loose? We've got no shortage of Featured articles, and it seems contrary to the very premise of a featured article to have obvious flaws in it. --LtNOWIS 10:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)