This short template is used for indicating that the rationale given in a !vote in an RfA, XfD, RfC, RM, noticeboard thread, or other consensus discussion has been disputed, and where this dispute is detailed, without inserting the details of the dispute into the !voting section. An alias of this template is {{Disputed rationale}}.
Usage edit
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* I think this user should be indeffed cuz they're from Texas. – MrUnreasonable (talk), 20:30, Wednesday, July 29, 2015 (UTC)
** {{Rationale discussion}} ~~~~
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Parameters edit
|rationale= – to change the words "The rationale" to something else, e.g. "One rationale", "The rationales", "The tone", "{{U|UserName}}'s comment" etc. It should start with a capital letter.
|response= a.k.a. |reason= – to change the wording "responded to" to something else, e.g. "questioned", "reinforced", "challenged", "discussed in detail", "refactored into a sub-thread", etc.
|1= a.k.a. |where= a.k.a. |talk= a.k.a. |discuss= – to change the default #Discussion wikilink to the location of the material in question, such as Talk:Underwater basketweaving#Comments on several related move requests, or #Comments by User:J.Random, or User talk:MrUnreasonable#Unhelpful comments. It will insert the [[ ... ]] for you. You can use {{anchor}} elsewhere on the page to create a link anchor to your specific comments if they are buried in a long ==Discussion== section, or one with a long title that you'd rather refer to as just #below.
|2= a.k.a.|diff= – to provide a diff/permalink in addition to or instead of a normal wikilink (it suppresses the default #Discussion talk page wikilink). It is entered as a URL (full, or preferably with //: protocol-relative format), and the enclosing [ ... ] will be added for you. If you prefer to use wikilink-formatted diff linking, use the |where= parameter. It is useful to include a permalink if referring to a discussion on another page that will or may get archived.
This parameter must be named or explicitly numbered, or the = in the URL will cause it to fail.
Multi-diffs: You can "cheat" and add additional diffs, by accounting for the auto-generated brackets and adding the needed intervening ones, e.g. |diff=https://en.wikipedia.org/whatever] and [https://meta.wikimedia.org/blahblahblah (though by request or if someone wants to just do it, we can add |diff2=, etc. parameters).
Rationales for use edit
Consensus discussions often get mired in nit-picky threaded disputes that are better moved to a general discussion sub-thread, outside of the main discussion (which might be the ==Comments== section for !voting on an RfC, or just the normally concise responses directly under a proposal). This template can be used by posters, or by WP:REFACTORers, to keep the main section cleaner, and to avoid WP:BLUDGEONing the discussion.
One can even use this to refer to one's own comments, e.g.: {{Rationale discussion|rationale=My proposal |response=reliably sourced |where=#Evidence}}, yielding:
It can also be used for evidentiary notices, e.g.: {{Rationale discussion|reason=posted by an account determined to be a sockpuppet of a banned editor |diff=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Keegscee/Archive#30_May_2010}}