Talk:AFD

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Contents 1 April Fool's Day 2 Inclusionism vs. exclusionism 3 Here we go again... 4 A simple query

[edit] April Fool's Day

Should it be included here? It seems that this is not something commonly known and referred to as "AFD." Therefore it does not require disambiguation, as very few, if any, people would ever type "AFD" when looking for info on April Fool's Day. On a recent edit comment, Zargulon wrote: "(Never heard of anyone abbreviating April fools day, cite if revert please)" yet it has been replaced several times without citation. Anyone care to comment? -Seidenstud 15:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[1] (note that this is the first Google result for the string '"April Fool's Day" AFD').--SB | T 15:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That is simply not sufficient. I also find worrisome rudeness and accusations of vandalism which are flying around.. inexperienced editors should probably read Wikipedia:Vandalism to find out why removing the reference to April Fools day is not vandalism. Zargulon 15:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like three sysops have reverted you, so I'm not sure "inexperienced" is the right word here. Mackensen (talk) 16:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Please read carefully what I actually wrote; perhaps that will resolve your uncertainty. Zargulon 16:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

My opionion is this article is being used as a pissing ground, rather than a real dab page to help users. A number of editors are content to add more content onto the page, even though its relevance is arguable... A discussion I had on Freakofnurture's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Freakofnurture&oldid=62741628#AFD. /wangi 16:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Moving forward I believe we need to discuss on this page what entries to include on the dabpage, rather than reverts-a-go-go on the page itself. I think the following entries are valid:

• Active Format Descriptor, Video picture aspect-ratio signal
• Alliance for Freedom and Democracy, an Ethiopian political party
• Appetite for Destruction, an album by Guns N' Roses
• Port Alfred Airport, IATA airport code
• Airport/Facility Directory, publication of the Federal Aviation Administration
• Average fade duration, a parameter important in the description of Rayleigh fading channels

Plus the AFD selfref, if we must... Comments? Rational for the other entries? Thanks/wangi 16:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with above. Online acronym dictionaries contain vast quantities of acrocruft, are too low a standard to qualify as sole citations. People create acronyms on a temporary basis, both in academic papers and conversations, and these acronyms are not intended to be used beyond the confines of that entity. I believe (and no-one has proved me wrong) that April Fools Day is an example of this. I think Wikipedia acronym disambig pages should restrict themselves to permanent acronyms. Zargulon 16:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

From my talk page:

Regarding [2]:

Perhaps you don't realize that, long before the term articles for deletion was created (back when it was "votes for deletion") and long before disambiguation pages for most three-letter abbreviations were created, AFD was a redirect to All Free Dictionaries project, see [3]. Now why would somebody do that? —freak(talk) 18:33, Jul. 25, 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the page was originally a redirect to All Free Dictionaries project, but work through my comment on your talk page from the last time - can you give a real reason for linking to this page? You made up plenty of reasons, but sorry we don't list things on dabpages because somebody thinks it makes sense - we list them because they are commonly used. Thanks/wangi 19:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

We list items on here because somebody might encounter the acronym somewhere and want to find out what it might mean: "commonly used" by whose definition? Were you thinking to add a link to an online acronym-finder to every TLA page saying "sorry, we're not bothered enough to add the obscure meaning you might be looking for, try this link instead"? Or were you maybe thinking we should have a notice on each disambiguation page saying "these are all the definitions for this term we think are sensible…if you're looking for something else, you must have got it wrong"? If the acronym is used somewhere, and we can prove that, then it should be here. Red-links on disambiguation pages are not a bad thing (actually they're not a bad thing anywhere but that's another argument): they provide a hook for someone to write an article on the term should they be so inclined. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 07:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

By that (very silly) argument, we should have an entry on the SW disambig page for the nobel prizewinning physicist Steven Weinberg, because his E-mail address is SW at something (or just SW to people in his network neighbourhood), so it is "used somewhere". Hey, it wouldn't even be redlinked! Zargulon 07:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I came here from the MoS:DAB talk page.

While I too happen to be in a debate trying to reduce irrelevant links at another dab page, I have to agree with the inclusionists here. The Dictionaries project is a no-brainer; it apparently is referred to as AFD, and if you go to the linked site from the Wikipedia page, you'll see a little "AFD" logo on the top of your browser. As for April Fool's Day... it's certainly not a common acronym, but I think I have seen it before. While I doubt it was ever abbreviated before 1997, people on the Internet abbreviate everything, and I believe I've seen "AFD" used for short in the various prank round-ups on websites (along with within certain prank news updates). More generally, while it is an edge usage, it's not a wholly ridiculous one that opens the door to anything and everything. I don't think it's worth fighting a revert war over. SnowFire 19:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

"People on the internet abbreviate anything and everything" agreed.. does that mean that we should include abbreviations for anything and everything? You have hoist yourself by your own petard. Internet abbreviations are generally used in a way which is self-evident from context rather than requiring lookup on Wikipedia, and their use is generally used casual, not canonical. The revert war seems to be over, thanks to the forbearance of our side in the face of extroadinarily bad behaviour from the opposition, who tragically include a number of admins. Your contribution however seems nothing other than a gratuitous effort to vindicate the "winners". Zargulon 20:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Um... right. wangi, who supports removal, was the one who asked on the talk page for people to come comment; I'm sure he made his request with the knowledge that it's possible people would look and disagree. I made my comment in good faith, and I did check the edit history which seemed to show the revert war continuing, so I thought an addition could help. Guess not. I'm not psychic; I didn't know you'd already "conceded." SnowFire 03:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The concept of good or bad faith hardly applies to a comment which contradicts itself, but the result is clear: in the face of our reasoned arguments, more random support for the position of editors who believe in reverting, rather than discussion. Zargulon 07:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Normally I would let this drop because, well, whatever, but I get kind of annoyed when accused of bad faith and "random" support as opposed to reasoning- especially when the invitation said "Input welcome."

The main issue in my comment was not reasoning at all, actually. This is mostly a matter of fact, not opinion. Can we all agree that "If something is abbreviated AFD with some commonality, it should be on the disambig page?" Given that, I was adding the factual statement: "Yes, I have seen "AFD" used to refer to April Fool's Day before." Thus having that usage on this page should be given some consideration. Pray tell the contradiction here.

I suppose you're going to point out that I then qualified my statement with some warnings about the casual nature of the source. Is being honest a problem here? I didn't want to be unfair or offer half-truths, so I offered a nuanced opinion pointing out upsides and downsides as a neutral observer. If not being a single-minded zealot (on a very minor issue!) makes you "contradictory," especially when the other option would have been to be a zealot for the other side... (Side note: This is exactly what happened to John Kerry; the Bush camp succesfully painted the fact that Kerry could see advantages and disadvantages, and favor some policy while having reserverations about parts of it, as a weakness. Sigh.) SnowFire 13:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course I am in favour of a single editor giving arguments for both sides of an issue, and it does not constitute a contradiction. If that was what you intended, you should have written While I doubt it was ever abbreviated before 1997, and while people on the Internet abbreviate everything, nonetheless I believe I've seen "AFD" used for short in the various prank round-ups on websites (along with within certain prank news updates). That would have been presenting arguments on both sides. That wasn't what you wrote; your actual comment raised the fact that people on the internet abbreviate everything as support for including April fools, rather than as an argument against it. Which is a pretty random logic, and is likely to provoke suspicion when everyone else taking your position has been reverting rather than engaging their brains. You may not have intended it, but I'm not psychic either. As you currently describe your position, your arguments on both sides are certainly reasoned, although I feel the inclusionist one has already been refuted. Zargulon 14:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what "argument" you were attributing to me, since this statement is factual (Fact: People on the Internet use abbreviations, and since it's more common there, I have seen the usage on some Internet sites) and neither an argument "for" nor "against." What you thought I was saying is still a mystery to me, especially since you seem to have intuited what I meant while nevertheless flaming me anyway. If we want to play the "rewrite each other's posts" game, might I have recommended a response along the lines of "Perhaps, but that usage is simply too minor? Most times that April Fool's Day would be abbreviated, it would only be because it was obvious from context, and it seems rare."

I did not intend to start a game, and I fully accept your rewriting of my post. In fact it is hardly a rewriting but rather a repeat of what I said in this talk page before you showed up, and I understandably didn't want to start the "repeat my post over and over again for people who show no signs of having read it the first time" game either. Zargulon 19:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I will only add that usage on the Internet hardly rules something out for inclusion- I doubt Oh my God! was ever abbreviated OMG before '95, but that is also on the disambig page (and correctly so) due to the fact that it is now a usage. SnowFire 16:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

True enough, and I doubt anyone would have the slightest trouble supporting OMG with authoritative sources. The exact opposite to the case that we are dealing with. Can you be more specific about these prank sites..? if one of them is notable in some way then you might have a case. Zargulon 19:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I posted (neutral) pointers to this discussion on a couple of related talk pages ([4], [5]) - just wanted to get more eyes looking at this, so thanks for dropping by SnowFire. I'm disapointed that most of the editors/admins on the "inclusionist" side of this issue haven't discussed it here, preferring instead comments in edit summaries. I still stand by my reasoning (above) for why fdicts shouldn't be listed and i'm baffled by the listing of those two computer worms! /wangi 10:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that one of the things that leads to these kinds of fights, is that the inclusionists misunderstand what disambiguation pages are for. A disambig page is not an index. It serves one purpose only: as a backup mechanism to protect against broken links; links that should go somewhere else. Unless there is a reasonable chance that an editor could mistakenly make a link to AFD, expecting it to lead to a particular article, that article should not appear here. The appearance of an acronym in some dictionary or list of acronyms is clearly not sufficient. The usage must be common enough that someone could create a link here by mistake.--Srleffler 02:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree in principle, though I'm on your side of the debate. Disambig pages (like all wikipedia pages) are primarily for readers, and secondarily for editors. I wouldn't want DABs to be comprehensive, but if an abbreviation is used and expected to be understood with some frequency, I say include it. (OTOH, AFD as April Fool's Day isn't used+understood with any real frequency. See my next comment). Thomas B 16:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

As a neutral observer, when reading the comments, I leaned inclusionist. More info is generally better, if someone uses it. After reviewing the evidence, however, and googling a bit for AFD (and words like "april" or "prank"), I could find no links that were not either livejournals (and other blogspaces with very liberal abbreviation patterns), or didn't immediately disambiguate the term (as in: "Can't wait for AFD (April Fool's Day)!"), suggesting these authors don't expect anyone to know the abbreviation, suggesting nonstandard usage. I see no evidence AFD is used as a reference for April Fool's Day without support from context. Others claim they have seen/used it in this way. Where our intuitions and experiences diverge, it's best to rely on evidence. So I propose a standard: the inclusionists should be required to provide 2-3 links where AFD is used as April Fool's Day 1) outside of a personal medium (livejournals, myspace) where 2) it is not immediately defined, or 3) followed by context disambiguation, like the words "prank" or "hoax." Thomas B 16:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusionism vs. exclusionism

There are the most general rules wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and their consequences: Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. You cannot add an abbreviation just because your buddy likes to use it in e-mails to you. The usage must be well-established and described in reputable sources.

While I am here, there is anothyer common brand of inclusionism: an article, say, Leaf (disambiguation) should not include all possible phrases that include the word "Leaf" however useful it might be; e.g., I will not add Maple Leaf Rag into it however I like the tune. (this comment is pertaining to the case of virii here). `'mikka (t) 19:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Here we go again...

Guys, perhaps those in favour of adding to this dab page would like to take part in a discussion here, rather than in edit summaries? Lets keep the page stable and get consensus behind one version or the other... Thanks/wangi 20:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A simple query

Why don't those people who wish to remove items from this page answer one very simple question for me: Why? How are they harmful, how do they make this page worse, and why should they not be here? Don't tell me "because the MoS says so"; that's a bullshit answer. I want to know, in explict detail, why editors want to make this page less useful.--SB | T 09:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I counted 6 fairly random questions, call them "one very simple question" if you like. But all of your questions, at least the ones that made sense, have been answered already on this talk page - the minority opinion which you represent has basically got its way through agressive reverting. Don't pretend that you're interested in discussion. Zargulon 10:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the disambig template from {{disambig-cleanup}} to {{disambig}}. As far as I can tell, the page meets the manual of style and the argument over including April Fool's Day is more about content than the manual of style. (My opinion on that issue is no, FWIW} Thatcher131 (talk) 11:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)