Wikipedia talk:Snowball clause

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Conflict with WP: BOLD

These two articles say the exact opposite things. This means, in effect that all new users are in a catch-22 situation, since they are forced to follow this and the conflicting rules WP: BOLD, and WP: IAR. This makes it so that the environment of Wikipedia is not fit for new users who are discouraged from editing since an edit by a new user generally, according to the discretion of the administrator, has a snowball´s chance in hell to be accepted. With this, we have an environment that is discouraging new users from editing. How can a new user edit while following all of the rules in question? This is because, this article actively discourages users from being BOLD, since, it can give users a ban or possibly worse for being BOLD, due to this snowball rule. 2601:647:4100:10E2:D962:7A08:ED5A:3671 (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:4100:10E2:D962:7A08:ED5A:3671 (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

It's all gone a bit pointless

WP:IAR makes total sense, it hits the nail on the head and sums up all left-field thinking. It's crucial to Wikipedia. But the Snowball Clause, as is, is maybe a bit pointless. Does it really have a purpose any more, seeing as it isn't policy? Doesn't IAR cover it all anyway? It just seems a little bit nonsensical to me :) --PopUpPirate 23:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• Well, then I'd suggest that, if this clause prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, you ignore it. >Radiant< 12:02, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I wish everyone else would, too :D --PopUpPirate 23:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
    • your case is a snowball, PopUpPirate ;) Benzband (talk) 11:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
      • It isn't a rule, it's an essay. I have noticed a lot of editors treating it as a policy, though, which does have me concerned. I'm in agreement with PopUpPirate. --Jackson Peebles (talk) 01:27, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Pointless pictures

IMO the pictures add nothing to the article and should be removed. "Snowball's chance in Hell" is a well-known idiom that does not need illustrating, and indeed it's become so transparent in meaning that the pictures only serve to confuse. 86.184.129.138 (talk) 19:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

"Snowball's chance in Hell" may be a well-known and often-used idiom among religionist Americans with their rather simplistic theological understanding and overall simplistic world view, but certainly not among the entirety of the English-speaking world. It is a very bad name for a Wikipedia guideline. ♆ CUSH ♆ 11:35, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I actually rather enjoyed the pictures and their captions. :) thisisace (talk) 11:12, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with cush that this is not well-know to everyone, though I do not necessarily agree with his views toward religion. I am an atheist myself, although I would certainly not consider religion to be damaging to society, as his userpage states. As for the pictures, I agree with ThisIsAce FrodoBaggins (blackhat999) (talk) 22:13, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowballs known to be in hell since 1300.

Dante tells us in his Divina Commedia that in the deepest division of hell, we find Brutus and Judas, locked in a block of ice. What can this be but a giant snow-ball surrounding these two traitors? --Koosg (talk) 10:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, but how do you get the snowball past the 7th Circle to get to the 9th? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 07:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Not what I expected

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

{{Moved discussion to #Avalanche}}. See proposal along these lines immediately below. Closing redundant thread per WP:MULTI, WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:33, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

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Coming onto this page, I expected it to be about "snowballing" in the sense of an issue that continuously gains momentum until it becomes extremely difficult to overcome (such as debt with high interest, [example on WP], or an actual snowball rolling down a very large hill). Is there a WP page concerning this sense of "snowballing"? [Edit: forgot signature, I'm on an iPad and I am unused to WP on it.] RETheUgly (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Avalanche

I'm tempted to introduce WP:AVALANCHE linking to a new section in here.

Often (at least over at WP:RFD) we refer to SNOWBALL but often we mean a large majority opinion in favour of a proposal, not against it, which is the gist of SNOWBALL (although some sections are neutral on the matter). While I could just WP:BOLDly add the shortcut, it would seem itself WP:RFD#D2 confusing unless there is some wording to state this at the target here, and for that I would rather have consensus first (rather than WP:BRD).

#Not what I expected, immediately above, expresses a similar sentiment, but I have a concrete proposal. It would look something like this:

===Avalanche===
{{shortcut|WP:AVALANCHE}}
An avalanche is a set of responses to a proposal where a vast majority are in favour of it, not against it. While made of the same stuff as a snowball, it has a moving force that is hard to stop. These guidelines apply to avalanches too.

I should appreciate your views. Pinging Ivanvector, Tavix, Champion, Lenticel, Thryduulf as regulars at RfD. (Perhaps I should have started this discussion at WT:RFD, I dunno, but it applies as much to any other discussion page.) Si Trew (talk) 07:10, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I did consider drafting an essay or e.g. calling it WP:BULLDOZER but this has a nice symmetry, and I think SNOWBALL covers it, but focuses on discussions where the majority is against a proposal, and I think we need to distinguish the two cases in closing remarks &c. I can see, however, that this proposal itself will be a WP:SNOWBALL as "no need for it" etc. Si Trew (talk) 07:22, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
• Comment @SimonTrew: It's only an essay, so you can probably just add it without waiting for approval. I would like to point out however, that the success of a process usually changes the status quo, and thus it has a higher burden of proof than WP:SNOW. Perhaps add something about that? Tamwin (talk) 22:50, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
•  Done. I was going to Boldly add this kind of section, even before I saw the proposal here. However I didn't use the text suggested above. I welcome improvements to my text. I also created {{shortcut|WP:SNOWPRO}} to the new section. Alsee (talk) 08:19, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
• Given that this is one of the few essays (along with WP:BRD, WP:AADD, WP:ROPE, and a handful of others) that is effectively a guideline by dint of how much reliance the community has on it, I would have preferred to see more discussion of this before it was added. However, I support the addition. People keep coming here looking for the "gathering so much support it can't be stopped" concept (including even after this discussion; see thread-after-next, below), and the addition describes actual practice. I can't even count the times I've seen an RfC or whatever get closed per a SNOWBALL that is pro rather than con, or one of three or more options under discussion. The same basic principle applies: if it's very obvious how the discussion is going to conclude, just conclude it, unless there's reason to believe the emerging consensus might change (e.g. if everyone commenting so far seems to be a bloc vote ginned up by canvassing a particular wikiproject, or if none of the participants so far seem to know what they're talking about because no relevant wikiprojects were even notified; it's usually pretty obvious pretty quickly whether a discussion does or doesn't represent a wide selection of editors).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:31, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: When I saw this change, I was concerned because of certain things that shouldn't be closed early, especially in the case of things that should have an admin closing them. But SMcCandlish's above comment makes me feel better about the addition. Still, I think the addition could use some cautionary language to be on the safe side, and I will leave a note about the change at WP:Village pump (policy) for more opinions. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Yeah, it shouldn't be seen as a means of bypassing process when WP:Process is important.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:44, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
• Meh Seems a mostly pointless attempt to define a new term to me. Normal use of WP:SNOW doesn't seem to differentiate between pro and con. Anomie⚔ 12:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I also note that #Not what I expected above and #A different type of snowball below don't actually seem to be about this "avalanche". They seem instead to be closer to Wikipedia:Fait accompli, where the overwhelming thing is in the work to do rather than the !votes in a discussion. Anomie⚔ 12:15, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
• I disagree with the addition, because I do not feel there is a clear analogy that would make an avalanche only applicable for supporting views, versus an avalanche of opposing ones. Additionally, I don't feel any real need to introduce a new jargon term. Commonly-used English expressions should suffice. isaacl (talk) 01:08, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Interpretation

If one wanted to seek a consensus to request an early close of an RfC, without specifying the result one way or the other, would that be considered a proposal for a SNOW close? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:23, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Please ping me if there is ever a response. Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:53, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I don't think so, as a WP:SNOW close refers to a situation in which there is a clear winner. Tamwin (talk) 22:52, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss and Tamwin: it doesn't, really; at least not in practice, it refers to a situation with a clear outcome, not "winner" in the sense I think you mean that the proposal is carried or opposed with a landslide (or #Avalanche, as I suggest). Here it's just basically "Frozen" or "Chilled". Si Trew (talk) 02:28, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Use of phrase "yet another"

Why is the phrase "yet another" inserted into the first sentence here? It does not really make sense, unless one has just read a lot of pages with similar content to this one. Vorbee (talk) 07:55, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

A different type of snowball

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Moved to #Avalanche

See two threads above this one. Closing redundant thread per WP:MULTI, WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:31, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

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Is there an article, essay, policy, or something for the other kind of snowballing? Like, if something is done to one thing it could snowball out of control? Kinda like listcruft? Zero Serenity ^{(talk - contributions)} 16:21, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Revise sentence?

Hi. I'm new to this topic and to Wikipedia administration things generally, and this may have to do with my having trouble with the sentence "For example, if an article is speedily deleted for the wrong reason (not one of those listed in the criteria for speedy deletion), but doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving deletion through the normal article deletion process, there's no sense in resurrecting it and forcing everyone to go through the motions of deleting it yet again." I finally figured out what it means, but it still kind of trips me up and I think the idea could be expressed a bit more clearly, perhaps by something like: "For example, if an article is speedily deleted for the wrong reason (not one of those listed in the criteria for speedy deletion), but doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of not being again deleted through the normal article deletion process, there's no sense in an editor's resurrecting it and forcing everyone to go through the motions of deleting it a second time." If it's felt that the original wording is adequate, then at least let it be registered that I had trouble understanding it. Thanks. –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Roy McCoy I agree, that's a long and complicated sentence. Although I'm not sure your version would help a random reader. Instead I trimmed some unnecessary words, and I tried to improve clarity by replacing implicit words (like "one" and "it") with the explicit words (like "reason" and "article"). Overall I have it 10% shorter:

For example, if an article is speedily deleted for the wrong reason (the reason was not within the criteria for speedy deletion), but the article has no chance of surviving the normal deletion process, it would be pointless to resurrect the article and force everyone to go through the motions of deleting it again.

I'll go make the edit. Alsee (talk) 10:12, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

This feels like TV Tropes

TBH how this is worded makes it feel like a TV Tropes article, or at the very least, a small attempt at comedy. Rewrite? RThreeKed (talk) 21:14, 14 March 2020 (UTC)