I propose renaming "importance" to "priority" on the WikiProject assessment scale. "Importance" is slightly subjective, and in my opinion "priority" is more accurate within an encyclopedia. Some projects have already done so. Thoughts? Thanks, –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

While I agree "importance" is not the best word, I think there are problems as well with changing to "priority". An article is of "high priority"...high priority for what...? For editing and getting to FA status? Ok, then once its at FA status it is no longer a high priority then, so what "priority" do you label it now? Importance is a terrible name I agree, but this may be a case where paraphrasing Winston Churchill might come in handy "Importance is the worst name there is, except for all the other possible names".Camelbinky (talk) 08:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

This will require renaming around 7,500 categories, updating all incoming links. Much as I would love to see a unified schema for assessment categories, this level of change is not viable. The assessment scheme is not reader-facing, it doesn't particularly matter how semantically-correct its terms are; only that it is internally consistent and is useful to the rest of the project. I'd rather see the handful of "priority" scales standardised to "importance", not because I think that's more semantically correct, but purely because it's more consistent. Happy‑melon 09:04, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Juliancolton's proposal. "Importance" could imply that the topic warrants a larger article, which is not necessarily true. For example a scientific concept may be fairly easily explained and so obvious (once someone thought of it!) that little commentary is needed. But if it's widely used and linked to, its article needs to be kept in good shape.

If changing "importance" to "priority" requires updates to thousands of records, that's what bots are for. I accept that there may be higher-priority demands on bot-writers' time - the proposed change is useful but not urgent.--Philcha (talk) 09:38, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Philcha do I understand you correctly that in your eyes you want the change to be more than just semantics, that you want "priority" to actually mean something differently than what "importance" currently stands for? That then brings this to more than just "something for a bot". If something that currently stands at High in importance but as a "priority" it might not, we are getting into more change than what you are implying. To use your scientific concept example, say article X is Mid importance in several different science based wikiprojects, but under your "priority" structure it should then be High since it should be of high priority on keeping accurate since, in your own words "its widely used and linked to, its article needs to be in good shape". I think importance is very "important" in that it lets readers/editors know which articles are more the most important to "know" in order to know the full breadth/most important facts of the topic as a whole. Wikiprojects can, on their own, start a list on their pages for articles that need attention (many do), list things-to-do, and prioritize which articles need to be checked-up on, and they can do so in their own way without a systematic cross-wikipedia format. I agree with Happy-melon that the outliers on this issue (ie- the wikiprojects that have changed to priority) should be changed to the majority, not the other way around.Camelbinky (talk) 11:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The proposal turns all ratings upside down. Priority is not equivalent to importance. Venus and Mars are important, but they are already FA and thus have very low priority for content building (in ain't broke...) but high priority for vandal watchers. Some barely notable barrister from Sussex has low importance, but keeping his article compliant to BLP is a priority. The problem, as I see it, is that importance, although subjective, is also intuitive, at least within its field. Priority is not. NVO (talk) 12:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

why not eliminate all importance notices for a clean start? Bots can do it :) Then we may indulge in forging acceptable concept of priorityfor years. NVO (talk) 12:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't like "priority". Too many wrong connotations from the word's common usage in everyday life: implication that some (unspecified) action is urgently awaited; choice of one thing rather than another.... Agree with Winston Churchill (and "importance" is actually pretty good, too). PL290 (talk) 13:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Over at WP:VG, we've changed from "priority" to "importance" recently. Whilst I'm not actually sure of the reasons (I just dealt with some of the necessary rewriting and moving), I prefer "importance". Priority is no more subjective than importance, as long as there is some sort of defined scale. I also find "Priority" gives some sort of connotation that all articles are in some sort of massive backlog - that doesn't feel right to me. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 19:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be "priority". I just thought it seems like a reasonable choice. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

"Importance" identifies the purpose of the rating with precision: "Is this article important to have a complete encyclopedia, and how much is it needed?" The only reason priority is used is because calling someone "Low-Importance" in a biographical article tends to be rather uncomfortable. So I wouldn't be comfortable making that change and opening cans of worms just because we can. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see "priority" as a synonym for "importance". In fact, I suggest "priority" is is (roughly) a function of importance and assessment. Assign values 1-6 to the importance (6 for "top") and values 0-6 for assessment (6 for GA). For any article subtract assessment from importance - the higher the value, the higher the priority. While we don't make assignments, this would be a decent way to allocate resources. (A negative value implies too many resources have already been expended relative to the desirable allocation, but as we want people to work on what they want to work on, it's not a major negative.)--Sphilbrick (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You just indicated the problem: It is being proposed to be used as a synonym for importance, and to actually supersede it. It is not a very high priority to modify articles that are already featured; it is a higher priority to bring low-quality, highly important articles up to par. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Now that all Wikimedia projects are migrating to Creative Commons as the preferred licensing platform, I have proposed phasing out most of the GFDL options from the upload forms at MediaWiki talk:Licenses. Please note that this proposal is not about deprecating any licenses, it is simply about whether or not we still want to promote use of the GFDL license in our drop-down list on the upload form. There is also a similar proposal underway on Commons. Kaldari (talk) 15:42, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi there Jimbo! Its me, again. I noticed that Wikimedia Commons has held a Picture of the Year compition in the last three years which seems to be working out pretty well. I was thinking if Wikipedia could possibly hold an Article of the Year compitition, or something similar to it. What is your opinion about this suggestion? Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 15:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. The last thing we need is yet another barnstar-strewn mutual backslapping festival. See also the previously rejected Article of the Month proposal. – iridescent 16:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support - I rather enjoy barnstar-strewn mutual backslapping festivals--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:16, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

  As long as everyone understand how (in)significant barnstars are (which, I think, they do), sure, what's the harm? I would suggest separate contests for different classes of article, since it is rather difficult to compare articles on very different subjects (eg. Titanium vs History of Sheffield vs The Wiggles [I haven't looked at the actual articles, I picked them based on the subjects]). A final round to choose the overall article of the year wouldn't hurt, but it should be taken even less seriously than the rest of the contest. --Tango (talk) 16:28, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

  When concerned with FAs or article writing, most of those high-volume awards contests have a high tendency to decrease their quality, and often disrupt the entire process. Our most respected content writers had to fight restlessly to get the infamous awards center down, see the mfd debate. There's also the rejected and deleted Wikipedia:Featured Article of the Year. So, I'd say be very careful with that... It could look innocent at first sight, but then it becomes a big problem and a major waste of time and resources. And if this is something that won't be recognized by the community at large, which previous experiences shows to be likely, I don't see the point. Cenarium (talk) 17:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

  I imagine that problem can be fixed pretty easily by saying that the version of the article that existed before the contest started is the one that counts (yet another thing FlaggedRevs would help with!). --Tango (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

  If we require articles to be FAs, they should already be FAs before the contest, to minimize the disruption of FAC. But even if the version to be considered is fixed, some users may disregard that. Another source of concern are political or controversial articles that will create contention when !voted on, and even more if chosen as 'AOTY'. Cenarium (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Sounds like a great idea - better proposed on the village pump though. Majorly talk 16:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support. As it was my idea. Thanks for supporting me on this Jimbo! Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 16:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Just a note that it's not by supporting here that you'll have consensus for anything. Cenarium (talk) 17:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support barnstar-strewn mutual backslapping festival. Hopefully there will be some cringe worthy drama involved as well. Let's roll. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support if and only if Samuel Johnson is given the award of greatest Wikipedia page of the century, along with Johnson the title of greatest Brit ever. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support Obviously a good idea. But I suggest rather than article of the month, do article of the quarter--Jan-Mar, and so on--and then there could be a fun vote for the article of the year based on the four finalists. Anyone can submit their article, for the first year, even older ones, and then after a year, limit it to articles that made FA during that cycle. rootology/equality 18:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support I rather like the idea of a "barnstar-strewn mutual backslapping festival" as well. ⊕Assasin Joe ^talk 19:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• This is a user talk page, not a place to gather consensus for a project. If you want to propose this, use the village pump for example. Cenarium (talk) 19:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Can I just move this information to the page; instead of having to start the voting again. Ross Rhodes (T C) ^Sign! 19:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I was about to answer: No, the proposal needs to be fairly presented. We see this from time to time, proposals on Jimbo's talk page that get his support or not, and then we wonder how to handle it adequately or we have objections because of that (BLP survey for example). Note also on the situation this edit by Jimbo; starting a discussion with 'Jimbo supports this' would be unfair and not allow to adequately generate consensus. This thread can't be moved without skewing the discussion, because this is a user talk page, not a common place for community discussion (even if, for good or bad, sometimes it happens here). Cenarium (talk) 20:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Many problems: 1) We add 500 to 600 FAs per year: what editors are really going to read all of those articles to make an informed decision? 2) What will prevent this from being simply a popularity contest, with the editor who has the most friends receiving the honor? 3) To what aim is this award mentality? Could not the same effort go into reviewing articles? 4) Does anyone really believe that any one article of those 5 to 600 can be considered "best"? Misplaced effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose As this has been moved... First, the way it's been proposed is skewed, thus invalid to generate consensus for creating this project. I've explained this above. As I said also, this will create massive controversy and drama for political or controversial articles. And it's pretty established that those kind of award contests have an adverse effect on the quality of content and related processes, see the mfd debate for the "award center" for one of those (one of the 'myspace' series episode from last year). It took many user's time to deal with this and finally get it down, no need for another massive waste of time and resources, and generator of drama and controversy. That would be interesting in an ideal world, but knowing how Wikipedia works... Cenarium (talk) 20:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose We don't have enough reviewers for FAC. The last thing we need is a diversion of that limited pool for an exercise that is fraught with myriad problems. For example, who gets to vote for this? All Wikipedians or only FAC reviewers? If it is the former, then what does one do about perfunctory votes/comments of the kind, "I have read all the articles and find Article X to be head and shoulders above the rest?" For another example, will this contest be restricted to FAs or will other articles allowed as well, and how many? Ten, twenty, all FAs of a given year? As it is, arguments about the quality of individual FACs in their respective reviews can run into pages and pages; imagine, then arguments about comparisons of A with B, A with C, ..., A with Z, B with C, and so forth ... Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, whose service to the community is provided often in the uncelebrated articles, sometimes on small topics, written by multiple authors and even anonymous IPs. Examples are: Pronoun, Relative clause, Gravitation, Theory of relativity, Vinegar, Wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, Whiskey, Introduction to genetics, DNA replication, Elm, Cumin, Marathon, Long jump, and so forth. None are FAs, and many only B class articles. In contrast, many FAs seem to be newspaper style feature articles on obscure topics that no one reads or consults? Why are we celebrating them? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Neutral at the moment. Main arguments in favour seem to be (a) it'll be fun (maybe) and (b) it'll be good publicity (probably), and hence might help attract new editors. Against: (a) it'll inevitably have a strong element of arbitrariness/randomness (b) it'll take time and energy away from improving articles through established processes (c) it won't be fun, it'll be a tiresome pile of argumentative work. I suggest that a way to avoid the downsides would be to form some sort of elected committee to choose a limited number of FA candidates, and then have a general vote on those. Just A Bit Of Fun then, with limited messiness. Rd232 ^talk 21:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I don't see why people keep bringing up FAC. I don't think this has to have anything to do with that. And yes, it's a popoularity contest to some extent (like AfD and RfA and every other process we "vote" on. There needs to be a set of rules for nominating. A set of rules for voting. And wa la: let the fun begin. My suggestion would be to have a category for new articles (created that year) and improved articles as there seems to be a bias of awards and recognition towards new content rather than fixing what's there. I don't see why an article has to be FAC to be awarded this honor, that is its own well established process. And as far as concerns over it being a distraction, it's only a distraction if you choose to participate in it... ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

  On commons, pictures are chosen among featured ones. This is an assurance of quality, and of course would probably be seen as an advantage if not required for selection. Thus people would try to make their articles featured or at least of good quality for the selection, which will likely disrupt those processes per past experience. It will also create controversy and drama when controversial or political articles will be nominated (let's take an example: Barack Obama). And it will be forced upon us, even if we don't want to participate. But such a process must also be representative and recognized by the community at large to have a real value, which probably won't be easy to get. Cenarium (talk) 21:28, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• Neutral to weak support I can see the inherent problems in this but if we could get it to work would be good I think. I like something similar to RD232's suggestion as well. dottydotdot (talk) 22:25, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose First of all, the widely varying subject matter of FAs means that it is nearly impossible to determine what is "best". Second, why waste so much time reading throught the 2,500 FAs to see which is best, especially when editors can be doing many more productive things, such as reviewing potential FAs or cleaning up old FAs. Third, why the emphasis on awards? This would probably turn into a popularity contest to some extent. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Like Jimmy and many above, I like barnstars. But linking them in such a manner with featured content is baaad, for reasons enumerated above. Agree with Dabomb: a bit of misdirected energy we could spend on improving Wikipedia in tangible ways. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 00:21, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support. I'm usually not a fan of contests, but this sounds like a good idea. I share Dabomb's concerns, though if it encourages the creation of quality content, I'm all for it. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Question If there is already a contest for photos, what is the difference? Isn't that a subjective contest also? I don't really understand the opposes. Those who want to participate can, and those who choose not to don't have to. Seems like a nice way to focus on what a great article is all about and I think the discussions of which articles should be nominated and why and which ones people will vote for as the best and why, will be enlightening. Will there be bias of all sorts? Absolutely, but that's where discussion and process come in so we can work out a consensus result that will certainly not be without controversy, but that will engage editors in focusing on "Beauty" so to speak a la Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And all editorial decision making is subjective to some extent after all. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

That's what concerns me: the amount of time that would be spent finding and deciding on the "best" article. If this were a simple "list all the FAs and let's vote" thing, I would say go for it. However, this process seems to require a substantial amount of time to find a set of superior articles, discuss how the articles will be chosen, and determine how the best of those articles will be selected. Is this really worth that time? Dabomb87 (talk) 01:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, I don't look forward to the prospect of "cringe worthy drama". We have enough of that. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything on Wikipedia that doesn't create a certain amount of cringe worthy drama? If 10 co-noms had to sign on to nominate an article into the competition, and the nominess were narrowed down after editors were allowed to select one or two to advance to the next round, and then if everyone was given a vote or two on the final outcome, I think it would be positive. People would read and edit the articles. It would also hone community wide skills on what an excellent article is all about. I'm sure there will be some controversies, but I think a focus on great article creation and writing is inherently positive for anyone who wants to participate in it. I personally wouldn't want to see it focused on FAC only articles, but I see the reasoning in favor of that. If FAC articles have an advantage, I think that's great, but this process should be independent. I think the discussion of which articles should "advance" or be selected would be very enlightening. It sounds like fun. Which article would you nom? :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support Though perhaps only "timely" Featured Articles should be considered? That is, the chosen article should be about a major happening or emblematic thing during that year. E.g. for the period of the last 6 months, it could be the financial crisis, if the article on that was of Featured status. Kinda like Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", except not restricted to just people and with only topics having Featured articles being elegible.--Cybercobra (talk) 21:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
• A big problem with this is public perception. We're not any more a little site nobody cares about, where we can play unheeded. If we want to legitimate this title, it will have to be widely advertised - and approved - in the community, and the result will be quite widely known in the community, and beyond: it will be picked up by media. And what will people think of this ? How should we present this ? What will be the consequences on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation ? For example, if it's Barack Obama, we'll be accused of favored treatment, supporting him, much more so than we have already been (which attracted, and keeps attracting regular disruption). But this is true not only for this article, if we choose Halo 3 for example, will we be accused of making its promotion ? Certainly, and same for U2 and many others that could pretend to this place. It's not like FAs of the day, article of the year is a title, and will be seen as such. Doesn't it go against our NPOV policy, to choose an article and honor it more than others ? The public will also expect a selection criteria: so as mentioned above, what should it be ? how do we make the choice ? based on quality ? most of our users are not expert in content writing, and as pointed out, comparing the quality of hundreds of articles is infeasible, and such comparisons are not very relevant or valid anyway. So it would be random, or indeed based on popularity. And about creating a pre-selection committee: WP:BURO. I don't see how we can organize this in a workable and widely acceptable way. Cenarium (talk) 23:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

The proposal has seven or eight "supports" and six "opposes." It isn't going to fly. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:18, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, mostly per User:SandyGeorgia. Looking at a picture takes a few seconds. Forming an informed opinion on one maybe a few minutes. Reading an article is at least one order of magnitude more work. I don't see how we will get a result beyond a pure popularity contest. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
• Since this has now changed from being a query on Jimbo's talkpage to apparently a full-fledged vote, endorsing and reiterating my earlier oppose comment. Quite aside from the sheer pointlessness of an award where the only people who qualify will be the group who generally care least about awards, it's based on the ridiculous premise that it's possible to rank articles on completely different topics to the same criteria. How do you rank Richmond Bridge, London, Carrington Moss, Posting system and Jerry Voorhis (the last 4 FAs to be promoted at the time of writing) against each other? I might take Jimmy Wales's opinion that this kind of thing isn't counterproductive a little more seriously if he'd ever actually uploaded a Featured Anything or written an article more than one paragraph long. – iridescent 21:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow! Those articles have very serious problems. I would not be comfortable nominating even one of them. Which raises serious concerns about the FA process and also suggests to me a contest with community wide input would really highlight what makes a great article. I'm not sure what FA focuses on, I suspect it's rather technical, because having material that is clear and well written doesn't seem to factor in at all. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose — an image-of-the-year would be quite a nice idea, and encourage beauty and stuff. Articles aren't like that, I think it'd cause too much trouble. ╟─TreasuryTag►hemicycle─╢ 07:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Support: Anything that would provide another incentive to improve Wikipedia articles is a good thing. Along these lines, what about naming a Featured Article of the Month, with all FAs that appeared on the Main page in the month automatically in the running. The winner could be decided by vote with no discussion. Finell (Talk) 12:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - I don't really fancy another distraction from actually helping Wikipedia in general. Focussing on FAs to get them to "Article of the year" status draws attention away from all those Start-class articles that need and deserve work doing to them. We should be encouraging editors to do more work improving the articles that need it in steed of over-beautifying articles which are already of high encyclopaedic merit. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 18:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support per "Why so serious?". I think it's good to have some smiles and enjoyment about the 'pedia. — Ched :  ?  13:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

an alternative notion

I'm generally opposed to the Featured Article of the Year idea for most of the reasons adduced above, but it did set me to thinking about what we want to encourage. Although this is a fuzzy and weak thought (and thus perhaps should be somewhere other than Proposals), I think there might be value in something a little less grandiose that addresses Wikipedia's purpose, such as a set of monthly or quarterly contests (with, like Barnstars, the possibility of multiple winners) for the articles that were [different categories] most interesting, intriguing, informative, understandable, readable and helpful to those outside the article's field (thus automatically excluding votes from the editors of the possible competitors within a field). For example, the computer article that was found most helpful by non-techies, the political article that was most useful to those who don't follow politics, the article about India that non-Asians found most intriguing, the sports article that non-fans found most interesting or the article which best explained a religious concept to non-theologians.

This would of course have to be on the honour system (no practical way to keep Microsoft engineers from voting for an article about Windows), but the purpose is just to seek articles that are worthy of praise or commendation. I think to be fair that articles could be nominated by anyone, including experts; otherwise (as with Featured Articles) non-experts might never know how good or well-written an article about an obscure Belgian senator or the growth of Aspirin or some gnarly problem in philosophy might be. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:20, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

• General support To piggyback on Shake's idea, I'm not sure the categories would work, but simply picking one per month from the recently promoted (no honors to any photos/images on here for a while=no additional honors for articles that are already FAs) might work. On top of that, you can just select the annual winner from the 12 monthly winners. Runners up could also be chosen for additional honors. And why not if it encourages more quality writing? — BQZip01 — ^talk 08:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Need

Research of Wikipedia, its users, and the system is good. Through research, we can better understand Wikipedia, where it thrives, and where work needs to be done. Most importantly, research in Wikipedia allows us to work toward making it better.

Despite this value, research is hard to perform in Wikipedia. See a failed mentoring study and an in-process interface study for examples of the frustrations involved. Although most research will have seen human subjects review (such as an IRB) before a study is performed in Wikipedia, such review boards are not aware of the norms of the community or in any position to approve actions within Wikipedia.

How it can work

We need an approval process that can grant license to perform appropriate studies within Wikipedia. Such a process could provide an end to debate on the appropriateness of a study before the study begins and limit the researchers to approved activities.

Like most discussions in Wikipedia, the results should be consensus-based and could follow the community's dispute resolution hierarchy. These decisions could then be effectively binding so that discussion cannot be re-opened during a study for trivial reasons and so studies that step out of the bounds discussed during review can be easily identified and rectified.

I propose that a new village pump specifically for research be opened. This pump would function similar to the policy village pump. Once researchers have gotten approval through external reviewers, they can submit their proposal to the village pump for research. Consensus on how the research will be conducted can be reviewed by the community before it begins.

Not only would this process allow for better research to take place, but it would also allow the Wikipedia community to protect itself from research methods that harm Wikipedia in some way.

-- EpochFail (talk) 21:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

You might want to bounce this off of Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia too. Nanonic (talk) 21:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Done! Thanks for the suggestion. --E_pochF_ail (talk|contribs) 20:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

My limited understanding of Institutional/Investigation Review Boards suggests that it is generally encouraged to engage subject matter experts where it is clear that the IRB is lacking in some critical area of expertise. Thus, engagement of a Steward or Foundation Board Member wouldn't be out of the question as an ad hoc IRB member in cases like this. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

This would be useful if it would be replacing institutional IRBs. Otherwise, its just adding another layer of bureaucracy (and I don't even want to think what would happen if Wikipedia IRB would disagree with my university IRB...). PS. I fully support adding somewhere to the policies that doing surveys of Wikipedians is acceptable, and that researchers are supposed to follow the usual code of ethics. But I don't really feel like supporting creation of Wikipedia's own bureaucratic IRB hell (WP:CREEP comes to mind as well). And what poor souls would staff it anyway? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 07:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

That is a good point. The last thing we want to do is simply add more bureaucracy to the process of performing studies in Wikipedia. Although I think I initially stated that poorly. What I really hope to gain from the result of this proposal is a simpler way for academic research to be performed successfully in Wikipedia. If the problems Katherine ran into when trying to perform her surveys could be avoided without introducing excessive red tape, I feel that would be preferable. --EpochFail ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Instead of having a semi-formal IRB-like approval process, I think a simple page (linked to from the proper places) suggesting research guidelines, written for reading by those unfamiliar w/ WP, would be preferable. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking of a new bot to monitor new biographies and notify authors if the articles don't contain references. The bot would also output the list of unreferenced biographies to a page. Any thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 04:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

How would it infer that an article is a bio? If the article is so bad as to not have references, it's likely to be uncategorized as well. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The presence of Category:Living people. And, yes, it may also be uncategorized. But that's a project for another bot. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the number of new articles that will contain the living people category, contain no references, and be problematic BLP-wise is rather small, and might even be outweighed by the false positives where there are references but not in a bot-readable format or where there is nothing contentious. The list might be more useful if it would be checked by humans, who would remove unproblematic entries; it might also be useful to look for additions to biographies without the addition of a reference. But we're going to use flagged revisions instead of the latter, right? --NE2 16:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Any BLP that doesn't contain references is inherently problematic. The small number makes things more manageable, in my opinion. And bots can do a pretty good job of detecting references; it may miss some articles, but it shouldn't contain any false positives. That's the idea, at least. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:46, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you read the pages you link to? "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." This is a poorly-sourced (but not quite unsourced) quasi-BLP, but nothing there is contentious. If someone were to add unsourced or poorly-sourced information about how the company does shoddy work, that would be problematic, whether or not there are sources in the article for other statements. --NE2 17:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You've lost me. The goal here is to focus on a specific problem and try to address it (wholly unreferenced biographies). --MZMcBride (talk) 20:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You've lost the trees. The real problem is bad information, usually negative, in biographies. --NE2 22:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course. But that wasn't my goal from the outset. My goal was to try to eat one small fish rather than try to drink the ocean. Y'know? A new unreferenced biography you can warn the creator about and monitor proactively (it should be only a few bios a day). It's a small step. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Weak support Per above comments, I don't think it will be all that useful, but its impact won't be negative, so no reason to oppose... --Cybercobra (talk) 06:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Currently assessment rankings are Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, and FA. Unfortunately, and I think I know why, there is a problem- very long and very poorly written/edited articles get labelled as C, or even worse as B, because one- nobody wants their article to be a C class so they put B, and/or two- the article is so long that it doesnt really make sense to call it a "start". The issue came up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York regarding Newburgh (town), New York. Perhaps the institution of a D-class needs to be explored? I'm curious as to other's opinions, perhaps there is a very good reason out there as to why there is no failing grade that I dont see.Camelbinky (talk) 01:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd totally oppose the creation of a D class, which is bureaucracy for the sake of it, and intensely dislike the pointless new C-class as well. The lower article assessments are purely to identify articles needing work – the only assessment grades with any particular meaning in Wikipedia terms are FA/A/GA, because they're assessed against fixed criteria. It doesn't make the slightest difference to any article whether it's classed as start or B-class; if you object to the classification given to a particular article, unless it's at GA/FA (in which case you need to go through GAR/FAR as appropriate to downgrade it) there's nothing to stop you changing it; the (subjective) criteria are here. We don't "fail" articles here – Wikipedia's neither an examination nor a videogame – if you think an article's inappropriate for Wikipedia, either fix it or AFD it. – iridescent 01:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you got WAAAY too excited/upset about this first of all, second I dont think you understand what I'm saying, and third I disagree that the assessments dont matter, the assessments do matter. A stub class allows articles that are just created/very skimpy to get recognized as such and there are editors out there that are dedicated specifically to going around and improving stubs because that is what they enjoy doing, just as there are those that focus on going around finding/fixing references, creating disamb pages, copy-editing grammar, or putting in photos, but dont work on the traditional editing of info or creating articles. And with a D class there probably would arrive those dedicated to improving D-class articles. Nobody said a D would be "failing" articles, which is probably the reason it doesnt exist, some are afraid of "feelings" being hurt if an article gets a D. I dont understand your comment on "this isnt a videogame" did I say it was? Giving an article a D rating would not say it is inappropriate for wikipedia, it would be saying "this article needs lots of improvements and it sucks". There are articles that simply SUCK but the topic is important and shouldnt be deleted. The article I mentioned should not, no matter how much it sucks, even if it were 100 times worse, should not ever EVER EVER be deleted. There is a difference between assessment of the article and its notability. Notability is why something should be deleted, not that it simply has had crappy editors! There is defined criteria for C and B just as there is for GA, A, and FA. Articles that suck so badly need to be pointed out and brought to the attention of editors who have already contributed, are contributing, might contribute, so that mistakes can be fixed. That is why we have templates saying things like "citations are needed" "contains too much trivia", "is too long", "contains excessive detail" if an article has several of these templates slapped on it, it needs to be labelled on its talk page as a failing grade. I am insulted that your options are "fix it or AfD it", why should I fix an article I know nothing about when instead I can bring it to attention of those interested by giving it a D class.Camelbinky (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I mostly agree with iridescent. Everything except FA, GA, and for some projects, A, are arbitrary enough as it is. This just seems like unnecessary busywork. Rather than actually improving the Start and C-class articles, let's re-review them to give some of them yet another arbitrary rating. We already have a 7-level rating system, that's more than enough. Mr.Z-man 02:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like C-class. Articles should be Start until they prove they have some worth, at which point they're B. Once they're looking proper, they go to GA, then A and finally FA. The C-class is really a pointless in between step which makes it difficult to distinguish between Start and C and C and B, causing the problems you're talking about. The reason we have mis-classing issues is the fact that we have too many in my eyes. Adding more, evidently, wouldn't help that. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 16:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say C-Class is a starting point to find articles where B-class criteria are met. A B-Class can then be improved to GA ect. Agathoclea (talk) 07:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I was one of the strongest supporters of the C-Class assessment, which I would contend has filled a very real gap in the assessment scheme, but I would also oppose the creation of a D-Class. The assessment scheme is by nature and necessity rather fuzzy, using subjective rather than objective criteria. It is, therefore, open to both accidental and deliberate mistagging: rating an article higher than it actually is. What the introduction of C-Class achieved, by allowing us to set much clearer B-Class criteria, was to move the fuzziness away from the region that is used by the WP1.0 assessment scheme: FA/A/GA, but also good-quality B-Class articles. Previously, "B-Class" spanned a range from borderline GA, easily admissible into a static version, and generally reliable; right through to piles of drivel that were mainly remarkable for being lengthy. With C-Class, said drivel gets downgraded, and when you happen across a B-Class article on wikipedia now, you can generally be confident that it will be at least 'passable' quality. That's the biggest achievement of the C-Class introduction for me.

A D-Class, on the other hand, has no such advantage. To whom is it important or useful to further subdivide the morass of articles that fall below that 'acceptable' boundary? What rubric would you even use to identify such articles, as distinct from C-Class or Start-Class? I see absolutely no benefit to this subdivision. Happy‑melon 19:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Happy-melon. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:41, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

C-class was an overkill, what's the point of D? Is it something worse than Start? NVO (talk) 09:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, no more assessment classes please. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Give me 4000 editors for assessment and I will try to implement all letters down to Y-Class. There is a good load of articles which is untaged an most of the B-Class got B without a proper look. Improvement is the task in wikipedia nor assessing.--Stone (talk) 19:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi all, in two years of looking for solutions to the BLP issues have finally stumbled upon an idea that hasn't been raised before. Basically it's this:

Suppose we noindexed biographies of living persons, upon the subject's request.

This would require developer assistance, and require a bit of structure to make sure the ability doesn't get misused. An initial draft proposal is at my blog.[1] Am interested in thoughts and suggestions. Durova^Charge! 20:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but some people are sufficiently notable (or, in particular, infamous) that we would be remiss in our duty as an encyclopedia if we noindexed them, as this would deprive Google searchers of immediate access to the Wikipedia article. The subject's request should be the least of our concerns. bd2412 T 20:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

A subject's request should be the least of our concerns? Might want to update this part of BLP then. NW (Talk) ^{(How am I doing?)} 21:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I'm not really sure what this would accomplish. All of the BLP issues (with libel, etc.) would still remain, they'd just be a little less visible via search engines. Of course, they would still remain licensed under the GFDL and mirrors would be free to copy them. What's to stop all of the mirrors from being indexed by Google? Cool3 (talk) 21:01, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Quoting Durova here, "Generally speaking, most biography subjects' chief complaint has to do with the high ranking given to Wikipedia articles by search engines--combined with the difficulty in preventing malicious vandalism. Most of the objections to deleting biographies upon request have to do with the desire for encyclopedic completeness. So this looks like a viable compromise." NW (Talk) ^{(How am I doing?)} 21:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I especially like this idea because often it is difficult to get consensus to delete problematic articles because the article does have potential—it can be referenced, or libelous statements removed. With this solution potential damage done can be limited while nobody's work is lost. And people can still work on the article; it can be indexed once problems with it are resolved. — Jake Wartenberg 21:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

So the idea here is that it's alright to libel some one so long as no one can find it on google? Cool3 (talk) 21:22, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

No, the idea here is that libel won't be a person's first opinion of Wikipedia when they do a Google search. Libel is never OK, and this will minimise people's exposure to it. Dendodge _T\^C 21:27, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, a compromise between delete and keep while problems are resolved. — Jake Wartenberg 22:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

IMO this won't really help much. If something is so bad that we want to obscure it from the general public, it should just be deleted or aggressively cleaned up. If there's nothing wrong with it, then we need to tell the subject "We're sorry that you may be unhappy with it, but the article is balanced and well-referenced to reliable sources" and we shouldn't hide non-problematic content. In any case, by the time we get a valid complaint from the subject, we've already failed. We do plenty after we get a complaint. That's what the OTRS team is good at. What we need to be working on is preventing complaints, not preventing complaints from becoming lawsuits. Mr.Z-man 23:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no. Either the person is notable and deserving of a well-balanced biography or they are not. Sweeping the content under the rug, so to speak, is not the right answer. There's a reason that __NOINDEX__ doesn't work in the article namespace. I can't imagine any developer creating a software tool to implement this idea, and with good reason. We need to either properly deal with our content or it should be deleted until we can. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Fellows, remember that we're an open edit site. Suppose there's a BLP subject who checks his biography weekly. He's notable enough to have an article, not famous enough to be on many watchlists, and owns a service business. One day after he checks his biography a competitor vandalizes it strategically. So it's six days before he realizes the problem and sends in an OTRS request. In that time, does a potential client read that page? Does he lose a contract because of it and have to lay off three employees? That's real harm done, and if the subject can't get a deletion and decides it's better off noindexed than handing out pink slips, then I say we honor that. He knows his needs better than we do. Durova^Charge! 01:05, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Then we revert the vandalism and semi-protect it, or switch on FlaggedRevs once that's enabled. The only way the harm be prevented under this proposal would be if the subject preemptively contacted us, which from my experience almost never happens. The end of that scenario makes no sense. I don't see how those can possibly be the 2 possible options. Either a) the vandalism has already been picked up by Google, and we can just revert it and hope no one notices before Google re-indexes it, or b) the vandalism hasn't been indexed yet, and we just revert like normal. In neither scenario does no-indexing solve anything. If its already been indexed then its too late. If it hasn't been indexed yet, it serves no real purpose. Mr.Z-man 01:41, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

It is not an absolute solution for the BLP problems but if implemented it can be quite a usable tool able to answer more than a half of BLP complains (my estimation) Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds more like a way to avoid actually fixing the article. The proper way to address BLP complaints is to remove unsourced statements or delete the article. Mr.Z-man 01:41, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Nobody says we deprioritize fixing BLPs. But the hard fact is we haven't the volunteer staff to patrol every BLP proactively. By noindexing BLPs that are known and repeated targets upon the subject's request, we minimize the chance that future dirty tricks will do real harm before we become aware of the problem. Durova^Charge! 02:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Then protect the page, that's what protection is for. Having the libel not show up in Google results fixes nothing. As MZM said above, all it does is sweep it under the rug. I fail to see how patrolling BLPs proactively has anything to do with this proposal. By the time we get a complaint, we've already failed at patrolling it. If we want to put any more work into protecting BLPs, it needs to be on the prevention side - stopping problems from happening or fixing them before we get a complaint. Obscuring the problems after the fact just seems pointless Mr.Z-man 04:07, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Philosophical questions aside, would it work anyway? Google caches stuff.PL290 (talk) 16:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose per Mr.Z-man. This proposal really just sidesteps the real problems of BLPs. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the way Wikipedia works is just wonderful. The idea however crossed my mind that, whenever controversial issues are concerned, it might be advantageous to also have "opinion pieces" (not alterable by readers) and signed by their authors, who take responsibility for what they say.

Is it at all conceivable? Cordially

msk

Dr. Marcello Sorce Keller Board Member, Mediterranean Institute, University of Malta Honorary Research Associate, Monash Universty, Melbourne

Wikipedia's mission is to present information which has been published in reliable sources. If you have a strong opinion about something, get it published in some reliable publication, and then WP may be able to write about it, and rely on that publication as a source. Crum375 (talk) 20:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

One of our policies is that we don't publish original research. As an "opinion piece" would be original research, it goes completely against our policy. Sorry, but it's a no can-do. Opinion pieces, really, belong on blogs - places where you are intended to express yourself. Thanks for the suggestion though. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 13:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

However, if by controversial issues you refer to the case where one reliable source contradicts another, these can appear in Wikipedia articles as long as a balanced view is presented rather than an opinion. PL290 (talk) 16:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

We don't publish opinion pieces (except for our user essays, which have to do with the operation of Wikipedia), nor do we publish any other kind of original work. If you find some, please help the other editors change it to something more suitable.    M   17:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I removed some of the personal info stuff up there. Don't know how important it was, but better safe than sorry :/ [flaminglawyer] 02:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You may be interested in Wikinfo, in which main articles have a sympathetic POV and sub-articles represent other POVs; it's effectively the reverse of Wikipedia's Content forking policy. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I often see many queries on the Humanities Reference Desk that deal with business. I put some of those questions up myself. Would it be practical to start a RefDesk specifically for business matters? Or is that too narrow a spectrum? I may forget to check this page next time I am on Wikipedia, so please send a copy of your reply to my talk page. Thanks!--Ractogon (talk) 03:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't we make all section templates the same size? There has been a discussion on making the size of {{expand-section}} smaller and the size was reduced. So what about {{Unreferenced section}}? I'd like to propose shrinking this template too.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

You could try asking on Template talk:Unreferenced section or Template talk:Unreferenced (as Unreferenced section calls Unreferenced). This example adds "small=left" to the ambox call but it makes the template appear taller:

84user (talk) 02:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

After Jorge's and Happy melon's comments below I wrapped this example to fake an align-right. It saves space but it seems to conflict with right-aligned objects. 84user (talk) 04:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

• Hear, hear! And also, PLEASE, make them appear flush aganst the right margin, like an [[Image:...|right|...]], so that they do not waste screen space with blank lines, and do not interfere with reading the article. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 08:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Ew, that wastes acres of screen space. It will need to be cut down hugely if it's to be made small, like sect-expand is just a few words.

Jorge, the right-floating small option was the default for mboxes, and we (the template coders who wrote it) were specifically asked to make a left-aligned version for the small amboxes, so it wouldn't interfere with permanent images, infoboxes, etc, that are located on the right. Happy‑melon 11:02, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's a fudge using {{mbox}} with small font but it only saves a line of text compared to {{Unreferenced section}}:

84user (talk) 05:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

How about just cutting the information on the tag like the expansion template. Which changed from this to that. I'd recommend "This section requires more references to meet reliability."

It's confusing to say "meet", short for "be in compliance with", and then link to the policy but not refer to it by name. There is no Reliability policy. How about

Ooh, cute! I would support a move to make section templates consistently small-style and with minimal waffle-content. Happy‑melon 19:30, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok I support the new template. It's simple and no one needs that big of a template for a section. Great work!!!--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 19:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It has my vote too. 84user (talk) 12:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The most recent one has my vote as well.Drew Smith What I've done 01:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I can live with the change in size although I disagree with it, as I believe a lack of sources is a much more important message to give readers and editors than a need for expansion. Furthermore, this template is for completely unreferenced sections and the above change in wording makes it equivalent to {{refimprovesect}}. If there is consensus to change the size of the template (as there appears to be) I would suggest something along the lines of:

Not distinguishing between {{unreferenced section}} and {{refimprovesect}} may lead to editors adding {{unreferenced}} to completely unreferenced sections instead, as the message is stronger (and bigger?). On a side note, how would this affect the use of {{unreferenced|section}} which currently produces the same result as {{unreferenced section}}? ascidian | talk-to-me 12:13, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I see no difference between the two, nor a need to distinguish. In both cases, the solution is to add more references. I do think that it would be better if they were right-floated, in the manner of infoboxes and portal and interwiki links. I really don't see why 'interfering' with 'permanent' right-aligned elements is a problem - all that can be fixed once the section has been cleaned up. It's a much bigger problem if we interfere with the actual text of the article, I think. But then again, this might be the point.    M   18:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The template should be somewhere it is going to be easily noticed, and refers to the main text of the article, so don't float it off to the right (like an editsection link). OrangeDog (talk • edits) 09:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't watchlist loads of places, I haven't been around in a while and I have no idea what the conversation is like round here now - so this may have been proposed loads of times, or may even exist for all I know. On pages like, for example, KGX, having something more like this. That is to say, a template with parameters for common abbreviations (ICAO, IATA, this, this, whatever). My reasoning for asking is that across TLA disambiguation pages these are often named inconsistently, making them hard to find. If it were done like this, they could be ordered (and presented, with headers or whatever) nicely. Have at it — Alex Muller 18:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

There is some mileage in the general idea, I think, but the application would needs work. It being over-complicated seems to be the problem here. People would have to understand template usage to use it, and it varies from normal disambigation pages. For example, what would happen if some of the meanings were such TLAs and some weren't? Also, these pages would look completely different to other disambiguations, which could be a problem. If you had something non tabular, like {{{pagename}}} is the ### code for {{{associated with}}}, that could possibly work and standardise them, at least. Ordering on a list of a handful isn't a priority (and which order?). The consistency would still suffer though. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 18:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I see the point, but even aside from the problem of consistency with other disambiguation pages, I find the table presentation far less helpful than the introductory words plus bullets. Perhaps things could be improved simply by the use of suitable punctuation within the existing layout? How about something like:

KGX can be:

• An SIL code (the Kamaru language of Sulawesi)
• An FAA identifier (the Grayling Airport of Grayling, Alaska)
• A station code (London King's Cross railway station)

PL290 (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Anything that standardises it is what I was going for, be it a table or otherwise... the issue (I would guess) is that we have thousands (Tens of thousands? No idea) of these three letter pages, and something like a template would be the easiest way to quickly standardise across them. Now I'm thinking about it, I guess I should throw out there the suggestion of {{IATA|London Heathrow}} which would return something like "The IATA code for London Heathrow". Using the same phrasing (and order, ideally) on each page would be a positive, in my opinion — Alex Muller 09:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you're right. Using the same phrasing (and order, ideally) on each page would be a positive in my opinion too, and the more so considering that this type of disambiguation page can be seen to need two wikilinks, justifying departure from the guideline only 1 wikilink per entry. The confusion caused by the presence of more than one wikilink is something else that will be mitigated under your proposal, because the pairs of wikilinks will be in a uniform layout that conveys that one is the class ("The IATA code") while the other is the instance of that class ("for London Heathrow"). I have no reservations other than the one about the layout, which need not be an issue if the templates simply return text for bullet points as you've indicated. PL290 (talk) 21:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I've made a couple of non-traditional dab page edits recently that are in the spirit of what has been proposed here. I've taken the simple approach and set items aside in an 'official codes' section; this seems consistent with the sectionization guidance provided at WP:MOSDAB. See OBO and ACV and YAI. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I've put together a very basic template at {{IATA}} which includes the pagename and any information you want added in a parameter. Somebody with more template knowledge or ideas can fix it up, but it's a start I guess — Alex Muller 08:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The link to IATA would need to be dropped (or be conditionally present) in order to comply with WP:MOSDAB. I've made a revision to the template; see {{IATA}}. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

If you could use the IATA code for [[{{{1}}}]], {{{2}}} (assuming it at least mostly fitted with any introductory '### is:') I think that would be better than the colon bit. But I'm all for it now, assuming you could hope to cover at least the majority of such pages using AWB or similar, probably (or by hand). Not quite sure how you'd cover all introductions, unless I'm unaware of some standardisation here?- Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:41, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with dropping actual code as in the IATA code for [[{{{1}}}]], {{{2}}}; personally I think it's good and clear how they had it, IATA airport code {{{3}}}: [[{{{1}}}]], {{{2}}}. PL290 (talk) 17:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent), OK. Surely {{{3}}} is simply {{PAGENAME}}? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I was convinced by the comment at {{IATA}}, "The inclusion of the actual code is needed because the page title may be "*** (disambiguation)" or have a different case or punctuation from the actual code". PL290 (talk) 20:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Parameter 3 (the actual code) should be an optional addition. The default could be {{PAGENAME} if Parameter 3 is not provided. Certainly, this will result in some bad line items, but it might be a convenient addition. However, I am not sure how to introduce conditional logic into templates. Also, Parameters 1 and 2 should be obligate, so that an error is thrown if either is left blank; again, I'm not sure how to insert value verification logic into the template. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:57, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Gotcha. OK, bit behind, but hey. {{{NAME|DEFAULTVALUE}}} is how that bit works; I think you could set default values for 1 and 2 that were something like <span style="color:red">ERROR: CORRECT PARAMETERS NOT DEFINED</span> (a sort of manual validation), if they take HTML (I have no idea if they do). Hope that makes up for my failings. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I created two others before reading your input, Jarry. I will go back and do some tinkering of all three to use the default value setting as suggested. The new ones: Template:ISO639 and Template:FAALID. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) How do people feel about my suggesting that these templates be substituted rather than transcluded? The point of subst is that these templates are just format standardization templates and multiple formats are currently in use across dab pages, so changes in the templates would not really need to be propagated. Further, changes to utility of the template (e.g. tolerance for blank parameter values, for instance) won't impact the formatted text ... so wouldn't need to be propagated either. Thanks for your input. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Backlinks can be informative but in some types of article, such as lists, the number of backlinks from a single footnote can be very large, making it unlikely the feature is useful and presenting an untidy set of footnotes:

1. ^{^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad} Work A, p.210

2. ^{^ a b c d e f g h i j k l} Work B, p.415

3. ^{^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x} Work C, p.203

The suggestion is to have an optional setting to allow footnotes to be rendered without backlinks:

1. Work A, p.210

2. Work B, p.415

3. Work C, p.203

It may be desirable to control this at one or more of: the cited work level (perhaps <ref name="myref" backlinks="false">), the individual reference level (<ref name="myref" backlink="false">), or the reflist level (turn off all backlinks). The last appears to me to be most likely to be useful. PL290 (talk) 08:58, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

As a pro-tem solution "ol.references li a sup i b {display:none;}" in your monobook.css might do the letters. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 09:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; but as you probably guessed, the proposal is to intended to benefit all users, including newcomers, and not just regulars who are able and willing to customize their WP experience. PL290 (talk) 13:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Example of an actual article where this is a problem? --Cybercobra (talk) 11:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I have seen list articles reuse references more times that the example. If a reference is reused that many times, then I suggest an alternative such as {{cref}}. For more info on how the backlinks are generated and formatted, see Help:Cite messages. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to try to convince you that {{cref}} is the solution you are looking for, but it is currently the only solution I am aware of. For a solutions using cite.php, you will need to file a bug report and convince a developer of the validity of your concept.

Backlinks: {{cref}} could certainly be modified for no backlink, which would seem to be the only acceptable solution.

Self-documenting: The only current way to include a page number without another full instance of the cite is to use {{rp}} or to use the shortened notes system. Again, if this is unacceptable, then a developer solution is required.

Auto-numbering: Without a valid backlink, numbering is rather moot. I use alpha characters starting with "a" and include the {{cnote}} in the references section formatted with {{refbegin}} / {{refend}}. There should be only one or two references of this style required in an article.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Developer solution: yes, when I made the proposal that is what I envisaged. The intention is to gain support here first for this modification of <ref> (or indeed opposition, which happily there doesn't seem to be so far). I don't wish to file a bug report if folks are dead against the idea in the first place.

Auto-numbering: in the scenario presented (articles which are lists) there will certainly be more than one or two inline citations, and my intention would be that the reader, after encountering (in the article text) notes 1, 2 and 3 in that sequence, would not be expected to then encounter, for example, note 84 before note 4. Hence the insertion issue identified in the auto-numbering note above.

I'm glad to know about {{cref}}, which looks useful for some things, but probably not this application, and my preferred developer solution remains a modification of <ref>. PL290 (talk) 17:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

For a real-life example of a list where <ref> is currently avoided just because it would create an insane amount of backlinks, see Talk:Line of succession to the British Throne/Archive 4#Format of the list. (Of course, the length of the list itself is also perennially under discussion.) —JAO • T • C 12:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• I like it how it is now. You can see how many times the same point was referenced, and click on that list to find the various spots easily. Dream Focus 10:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Backlink labels are defined at MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels. From November 2006, there were 130 backlinks, defined from a to hz. In March 2007, this was defined through lz (338) by request, then up to zz (676) in August. This tells me that there are editors reusing links well over 300 times. This is awkward, ugly and the backlinks become useless.

I took a look at the issues with {{cnote}} and started from scratch with {{scnote}}. When used with {{scref}}, this gives the ability to define references with no backlink, but with the look and feel of <ref>...</ref>. It is not automatic, but it does resolve several issues. I would expect to use this mainly in list articles and then only a very few uses. I suspect that a lot of uses of {{cref}} could be replaced by the groups feature of <ref>...</ref>.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate the work that's been put into this and I'll be interested to have a look at {{scnote}}. I'm also interested in general to learn more myself about how such things are created and I hope to pursue that at some point. PL290 (talk) 10:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If you want to see how the cite.php references are put together, see Help:Cite messages and Help:Cite errors. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Context: when viewing a diff, the affected areas of text are displayed for side-by-side comparison in the left and right panes. So far so good.

Proposal: add extra hyperlinks into the diff rendering, to allow one-click navigation from a text area in the right pane to the corresponding location within the article text below. PL290 (talk) 14:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for being an idiot, but I'm not sure I follow. Do you mean having hyperlinks to the left of the text taking you to the edited paragraph? So clicking on the link next to the paragraph I added takes you to, say, #paragraph-2? Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 21:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I mean; but like Drilnoth has it below, not extra links to the left, just clicking anywhere in the diff will navigate to that point in the article (and not just to that section, but to that actual text location, remembering that extra anchors can be placed in this special rendering of the article for the diff). PL290 (talk) 10:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes please! AWB already has this in a way... in that, clicking anywhere in a diff will automatically move you down in the edit box to where the clicked-on text is. This might be doable for times when not actively in the edit box, too. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the edit summary, this is already there; if it's an edit of a section, the "→" text is a link to the section.
The poor man's method of what you're asking for, however, is to copy a random group of words and paste them into the browser's "Find" feature, which will take you to the section on the page where the text is (as long as you don't copy any formatting or link code, since it won't display that way in the browser). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The poor man's version is what the proposal seeks to improve upon! But the "→" ahead of the section name in the edit summary I had not noticed; thank you, that certainly helps to an extent; however, the proposed feature remains desirable because sections can be sizeable and more precise navigation will be an enhancement. PL290 (talk) 10:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert at this, but as far as I know the usual way to "jump" to a section of a page is that the section has an ID specified with html. For example, a section will have the same ID as it is named. Whn you click a "jump to" link, it tells your browser to move to the element with that ID. However, unless something like this is already implemented, this would mean that the mediawiki developers would have to make a way for every line of text to automatically get an ID. Not impossible, but propably difficult and unlikely to happen. However, I could be wrong. If someone who knows these things properly could confirm or correct what I said here, that would be preferable. Ose (talk) 22:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that this would actually be doable with JavaScript in MediaWiki:Common.js (in other words, no need for IDs every line). Just need to find a good coder. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 23:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

As to html, yes, what's called a "named anchor" is placed at each section heading. You can see these if you view the source of this page; for instance, this section starts with the anchor <a name="Add_extra_hyperlinks_when_rendering_diffs" id="Add_extra_hyperlinks_when_rendering_diffs"></a>. That's what makes it navigable from the TOC or elsewhere. My thought was that more of these anchors could be added to the version of the article rendered below the diff. Not even necessarily one per line, but perhaps one at each point where the diff has flagged a difference. Or a javascript approach may be better, as Drilnoth mentions. Perhaps someone more familiar with the WP software can comment. PL290 (talk) 11:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The current prefeence options do not conform to the needs of dyslexic visitors of WIKI, infact WIKI could be described as an alien environment for dyslexics The are many cause of the dyslexic symptom, the two main categories are visual and auditory neurologogical information processing problems. Most dyalexia freindly werb sites follow a standard convention of providing at least six different background options for the whole web page such as the UK British Dyslexia Accossaition web site http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/ they also offer font choice and font colour choice but that may be too technicla for WIKI at this time. The research basis for all of this can be viewed at http://www.dyslexiaservices.com.au/Six-Year_Follow-Up.htm

Those who have the auditory problems that can cause the dyslexic symptom prefer text to be presnted with more spacing and using multi coloured fonts, which again many be not too tewchnically possible just now but have a look at http://www.apduk.org/ and the prefer listed infoirmation which appears in the guide indexes to be presented something like this http://capdlinks.homestead.com/Dyslexia.html

Hopefully it may be possibloe toi make WIKi more accessable to its dyslexic visitors who could be between 5-17 % of all Wiki readers

I hope this is in the right palce i have Auditory Processing Disorder as the cause of my dyalexia and i find working in WIKI a stressful nightmare.

dolfrog (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Almost everything can be changed on Wikipedia (for registered users) either through preferences, add-ins or custom CSS. Someone know one that's designed for this? Any way, you have made the cardinal sin of shortening Wikipedia to Wiki, which should ever, ever be done. For the record. In any case there are a lot of ways to change the above, it's certainly all possible, but I don't know any specifically for those users. You can change font spacing, font and colour using custom CSS, definitely, as well as backgrounds. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia offers several skins - one might be easier for you. Look under My Preferences -> Skins. You can also create your own with a little work. I don't know of any specifically to address these concerns. There is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability and Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility which may be able to help. Rmhermen (talk) 16:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi both

tahnk you for your prompt replies sorry about wikipedia,

on my skins page I found the following ________________________

• Chick (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• Classic (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• Cologne Blue (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• Modern (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• MonoBook (default) (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• MySkin (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• Nostalgia (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)
• Simple (Preview) (Custom CSS) (Custom JS)

__________________________

all of the CSS and JS options are dead RED links which lead to a blank page could this be remedied. My concern is that the options I am asking for should be standard options for Visual dyslexics to choose from just like say the Monobook option which many non dyslexic may prefer.

So I ma asking fro SIX more skin options whicxh would comply with the standards i mentioned above so that these dyslexics can set the background for all of their wikioedia experiences.

I will now take my request to the projects you mentioned

dolfrog (talk) 16:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Those links are supposed to be red: they link to pages where you can put personalised CSS or JavaScript that will then be run for you on all pages. It enables you to easily and completely customise the site to your needs. For instance, if you follow the "Custom CSS" link for whichever skin you have selected, and add the following code to the page:

#content, #mw_content { word-spacing:0.5em; }

then page text will be rendered for you, and only for you, with extra space between words, which you suggested would be useful to you. This is just one example of the many things that could be done to change the site's appearance: as mentioned, the Usability and Accessibility projects will be able to help you with other ideas, and how best to implement them. Happy‑melon 23:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to provide some standard skins for differently challenged users. For visually impaired users, a layout with large white-on-black characters could be useful. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd be very much in favor of an accessability tab in preferences. On such a tab optimalizations could be offered as desired. rrzzrr (talk) 23:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The Established editors association will be a kind of union of who have made substantial and enduring contributions to the encyclopedia for a period of time (say, two years or more). The proposed articles of association are here - suggestions welcome.

Administrators are very welcome to join, so long as they meet the criteria for admission, and so long as they are committed to the core objectives of the Association, including supporting other members.

All nominations will be by me for the moment, but other nominations are welcome - please use the space provided here to nominate anyone who you think would be eligible and interested (which may include yourself). When there are enough nominations, there will be an election from among the nominees.

Please put all discussion here.Peter Damian (talk) 10:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've created Wikipedia:Content noticeboard per what appears to be a fairly solid consensus; see here for background context. Any suggestions/comments are appreciated. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Cool! I've thought that something like that would be helpful for awhile too, but wasn't sure if there'd be consensus. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

When I was first using Wikipedia (it can be overwhelmingly confusing at first if you're not used to looking at lots of mark-up!) I used to accidentally miss (not be able to find) the cancel button quite frequently, and sometimes ended up clicking on 'save page' or 'show preview' instead! (Then having to undo it, I think. It's all a bit of a blur, honestly, but I know I kept missing the cancel button.) So I think it might be helpful if the cancel button was as noticeable as the 'save page' and 'show preview' buttons, perhaps just by putting it in a box like the 3 currently to its left? (And maybe making it red, or pink, or something.) Just a thought. Thanks very much. (p.s. Wikipedia is great! I love it! Go Wikipedia!)--Tyranny Sue (talk) 04:31, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I think making it a button isn't too bad, but coloring it different... I dunno.
Keep in mind that you can also always just hit "back" in your browser, or click on the "article" or "discussion" tabs at the top (depending on where you are). EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea to make it a 4th button (Save page/Show preview/Show Changes/Cancel edit) and would cut down on accidental newbie saves that appear as vandalism. Is there any way this can be advertised more for a larger audience to discuss? --64.85.214.183 (talk) 18:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Great idea, aside from the coloring. Cancel is as much an action as the other three, and standard in most interfaces. –M^T 02:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a great idea and really, why was it not included in the first place?! The very fact people have commented on it raises that simple question. In addition, if people make a mistake and don't correct it, it simply creates more work for everyone else!? I think the most relevant question is...Why isn't it a button, rather than why it should be a button.

Let's see some postive action on this Wikipedia ^©Wiki User 68 ^Talk_Work England  Portal 00:15, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support fahadsadah (talk,contribs) 17:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support — The inclusion of 'cancel' as a button would allow its selection via tabbing (at least in Firefox), which is the main method that I use to navigate from edit screen to action when editing (working on an edit, tab => summary line, tab-tab => minor-edit, tab-tab-tab => watch, tab-tab-tab-tab => save, etc.). Using the keyboard shortcut like this is faster than navigating to the action link by mouse. Until I can type with my mouse, I will retain a fondness for keyboard shortcuts. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support, see above. –M^T 04:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
• Still interested in seeing this go through -- what would the next steps have to be? –M^T 22:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support HarryAlffa (talk) 17:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support changing it into a button; don't really support coloring it Nanowolf (talk) 07:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose We have too many buttons already—the editing page is rather crowded. In addition, the cancel function is useless (for me, at least, as I prefer going back or simply closing the tab). Ruslik (talk) 18:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Page crowding is not an issue since the proposed change in appearance will occupy no more space. PL290 (talk) 20:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree; the button will in fact take up more screen real estate than the simple link that exists there right now. As Ruslik points out, the page is crowded. However, the complexity (or perceived crowded-ness) of a page is not just a function of how many things are it, but also how those things are organized; if there is consistent organization (e.g. all page-level functions presented by buttons rather than some by buttons and some by links), more things can be added without the page becoming overwhelming. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Quite so, I expressed it badly and should have said that, in my opinion at least, page crowding is not an issue with the proposal and that the proposed change will occupy hardly any more space. A button will indeed occupy slightly more space than the link but will potentially reduce page crowding for precisely the reason you give. PL290 (talk) 13:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I neither oppose or support this, and I'm merely leaving a comment. Regardless of whether Cancel occupies more space, horizontally or vertically, it will not really affect the layout of the page at all. The table directly under the save/preview/changes line is wider than the save/preview/changes line itself. Therefore, despite taking up the additional pixels of a button instead of a link, the page layout would be, essentially unchanged. Even for low resolution users, the change would not make a significant change to the layout (such as wrapping the row of buttons down to a new line). The additional horizontal space used would be approximately 20 pixels or less (I haven't gone and figured it out exactly), and as I mentioned above, the table below it (with Insert, the hotlinks to special characters, reminder to sign pages, and cite sources) is already significantly wider than the line with the buttons on it. Phuzion (talk) 08:12, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Addition to my comment: The text-based browser links, formats buttons in the following format: [ Button Title ] Links are just shown in an alternate color. This would take additional horizontal space (4 characters), but like I said earlier, the table below is still wider. Phuzion (talk) 08:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support (except for colour)—Cancel should be a button having the same appearance as the other three, to visually group it with them as an action that can be applied to the current editing. PL290 (talk) 20:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
• Support Didn't even know there was a cancel button (used to just press my browser's "back" button). YOWUZA Talk 2 me! 18:16, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose – I'm going to oppose for the same reason Yowuza supported. S/he said, "Didn't even know there was a cancel button (used to just press my browser's "back" button)." I say, exactly! I have never (to my knowledge) in the 1+ years I've been a Wikipedian pushed that button, and I was a newbie (as far as Wikipedia interface understanding goes) for probably six months. The button is useless and I'd sooner support deleting it altogether than expanding it. Making the button bigger will only expand clutter and won't truly help anyone. The proposal had better not be implemented on the basis of a 10-5 or so vote. American Eagle (talk) 06:06, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
• Didn't even know there was a cancel button... –Juliancolton | ^Talk 06:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: The cancel button is nowhere near as important as the other three, and if a browser doesn't keep the content that you added in its history (I think that IE might not), then having one more big button will make it easier for confusion... and hitting cancel by accident could lose a lot of new content. The back button works just as easily and is just as acceptable, as is just scrolling up the page and clicking "Article" again. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
• Observation re. importance/irrelevance of Cancel button: don't forget that some (many?) users, who are perhaps computer-literate to an extent but have limited knowledge of how the web works, may quite reasonably assume that once they start an edit, even if they then abandon it, they should "tell" Wikipedia by pressing Cancel. That is the only way to cancel that the UI invites. Even if it occurs to them that there are other possibilities, people may quite reasonably assume that any alternative could leave the edit active, perhaps even preventing others from editing the article. Hitting the Back button is in any case generally known to be something that can cause problems on some websites if used after starting an interactive process. To hit the Back button during an edit would not necessarily occur to users or be something they would want to do if it could cause problems for themselves or others. To such people, who may be a significant number, the Cancel button is important and they would be helped if its appearance was such as to visually group it with the other "action" buttons that apply during edit. PL290 (talk) 09:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Remark on observation: I end up doing neither, just hitting the "article", "project" or "discussion" tab (which, by the way, seems to work faster than waiting for the "Cancel" button to clear through). But that's definitely one of the quirks that's subject to endless personal variation. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• I agree with juliancolton and with PL290. I would normally support this change; my only concern is that legitimate edits might get lost thanks to an errant click on the wrong button. At least as it is now, "Cancel" doesn't blend in with the other buttons. Powers ^T 13:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

As this states agreement with what I expressed, but with the one reservation about clicking the wrong button, may I be persistent and enquire (of any who have mentioned this fear) about the basis for feeling that the current non-button appearance lessens the chance of accidental click? Consider: in a typical OK/Cancel or Yes/No dialog, the user is presented with two buttons having similar appearance, because these buttons, thus visually grouped, form the sum of the available choices (and similarly if there are more than two buttons, as in Yes/No/Cancel). The user is not presumed to be helped by giving one of the buttons a different appearance, or presumed to be placed at greater risk of accidentally choosing the wrong one by virtue of their visual consistency. Seen in these terms, is there actually any aspect of the UI being discussed here which makes this principle any less applicable? PL290 (talk) 20:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In the rare times that I use the two adjoining links for "Cancel" and "Editing help", I've more than once hit one when I wanted the other. It certainly wouldn't hurt to tint a full-scale "Cancel" button in pink, orange or red, to put "CANCEL" in all-capitals, or to emphasize it with Bold face or Italics. The possible confusion with the other three buttons is somewhat mitigated by reducing confusion with "Editing help". —— Shakescene (talk) 05:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Just learn how to use the back button on your browser. Dream Focus 09:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I think it would do more harm than good; putting the cancel button next to the others makes it much more easy to click accidentally. Sophus Bie ^(talk) 08:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Support Neater, more logical. --Robinson weijman (talk) 18:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Support. I always wondered why it isn't a button. I don't the edit view will become too "crowded" for an extra button. Anyway, the cancel operation belongs logically in the same group as save, preview and show changes—not with "editing help". Pairing it with the latter is just bad UI design. Jafeluv (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment As long as I can still hide the useless button/link with CSS, I don't care. Anomie⚔ 17:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I realize I'm a relatively new Wikipedian by account, but please bear in mind that I have been around here under various names and IPs since 2004, although I don't wish to provide names or links going back that far, since I don't think it's all that relevant. I'm just saying this to show that I'm not some random schoolteacher showing up here and saying this.

That said: What of a system in which sexual, graphic or highly medical images are tagged with a warning on their Image page (so that it doesn't interfere with articles) and there is an unobtrusive link on the Wikipedia front page to "browse Wikipedia without graphic images" that would set a cookie in the user's browser to block images with such a tag. Can this be done? I realize that WP:NOT censored, but this seems less like censorship and more like any of the voluntary methods a user can undertake to block sexual images, only facilitated by the Wikipedia software. One potential problem I can see is that I'm not sure how it could be implemented without possibility of removal for say, a school or family computer -- it seems like students and children would easily be able to turn it off. If this idea is liked, though, maybe someone brighter than I would have an idea to resolve that problem...?

--Lesath2 (talk) 16:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem is, someone could easily add the warning maliciously/remove it. Good idea though. YOWUZA Talk 2 me! 16:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:DISCLAIM. This is quite a perennial proposal. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The issue is, as ever, how do we decide which content should be handled in this fashion? There are many groups reading Wikipedia who think that sexually-explicit images are a minor problem in comparison to images-of-Mohammed/images-of-the-Holocaust/etc/etc. Should we build a similar system for such media? If so, how can we avoid accepting the responsibility for controlling access to any arbitrary content? It's the zero, one, infinity argument: the only way to control the situation is to adopt the zero position: we do not censor any content, for any reason, except our own editorial policies. That way, no one can come along and say "you have a button for not seeing images-of-X, but not for images-of-Y", and equally "You said clicking this button would hide images-of-X and it didn't, now I'm pissed off" is similarly avoided. This is the only viable position to take. Happy‑melon 17:19, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

No it isn't. We can give a disclaimer about the content control system, and then give buttons for whatever people want buttons for. Default show everything (obviously - WPNOTCENSORED), but allow people to hide sexual imagery, nudity, Mohammed cartoons, or pictures of spades. Why not have some kind of content classification (in the usual flawed messy WP way), and allow users to choose what they want to see? Rd232 ^talk 17:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

If someone wants to install a personal filter to block Muhammad too, then I have no problem with this. What is a problem, though, is that if we help people make even voluntary filters like this, then we'd end up helping people make voluntary filters for other types of content that should not be censored. An alternative is to request that the school board catalog the specific images that are inappropriate, and block those directly. I doubt that this is a good idea, though, since nothing should prevent a child from getting what is essentially sex education information.   M  17:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I imagine that if we gave a school a list of all 4 million+ images on commons and asked them to pick out the ones they wanted hidden, they'd probably just laugh. Its far easier for them to just do a less precise filtering with keyword based web filtering software or block Wikipedia altogether. Mr.Z-man 17:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

There are several problems with this well-intentioned proposal.

1. Unfortunately, even with a disclaimer as Rd232 suggests, if we take that first step toward filtering certain kinds of content, we then become responsible if one example of that kind of content gets through unfiltered. If we say "here, browse Wikipedia without explicit images" and a penis picture sneaks through to little Johnny's computer, we've got big problems on our hands, disclaimer or no. As it is now, we can say "Wikipedia has explicit images; sorry!" and not worry about whether our filters are airtight.
2. Then there is the problem of determining what exactly counts as "graphic". We make content-based distinctions all the time on Wikipedia, but I think the last thing we need is yet another type of one. Is File:Gray1166.png graphic? Is File:Gray406.png? File:Da Vinci Coition of a Hemisected Man and Woman Luc Viatour.jpg? They're illustrations and therefore ok? Then what about File:CSC Herme Masturbate-a-Thon Logo Original for Wiki.jpg? See how hard difficult it is? Who makes these decisions?
3. Why stop with images? What about graphic text? Or links to sites with pictures or text that would be filtered were they on Wikipedia. What about wikiquote:Marquis de Sade?
4. And as Happy-melon points out, how many different filters should we create? Should we create one that blocks access to information on homosexuality? On sado-masochism? On Nazi imagery? (The German government would like that one.) If not, what makes nudity and explicit sexual images a valid target but Nazism not?

I'm sorry, but starting down this path opens too many questions. We've got an encyclopedia to write. Powers ^T 19:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I think all those can be addressed. For example, 1 is easily discounted (if the disclaimer is enough when we don't even bother, a disclaimer for when we try but sometimes fail is surely enough). 2. we make decisions equally difficult all the time (eg what counts as a reliable source). 3. and 4. are fairly absurd FUD attempts to put a ratings classification for images in the same court as censorship; we'll have to trust, as with everything else, that something sensible comes out of the collaborative WP process. (And if it doesn't, only those who specifically choose to will see the results.) All that said, I have no interest in either creating such a system or using it; I just don't think it's inherently unworkable. Rd232 ^talk 21:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you dismiss issue 1 too easily. It sounds illogical, but it is often true that trying and sometimes failing is often worse than not trying at all, at least from a PR standpoint. For 2, yes, we do make equally difficult decisions all the time, but I don't see the case for adding another category of difficult, and in this case especially contentious, decisions to our remit. I don't appreciate the accusations of FUD; 3 and 4 were not intended as that, just as examples of more lines that we will have to contentiously draw. 4 also raises a very relevant question -- why sexual content and not other kinds of potentially objectionable content? It's not FUD to ask why sexual content is being called out as a candidate for filtering. Powers ^T 13:40, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, sorry, "FUD" came off too dismissive. Rd232 ^talk 16:48, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

• We need to leave this issue to others, such as the providers of web filters. Any concerned parents, schools, etc. can use those products to control what content is available to children, and I'm sure they will do a much better job than Wikipedia. We are a world-wide encyclopedia so shouldn't be deciding what may or may not be offensive in any particular culture; for example, in one country a split second flash of a nipple is considered offensive enough to cause a national scandal, but the rest of the Western world just laughs in incomprehension. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Some type of hidden filter flag (or multiple flags) marking certain pages as "Not office safe" would be appreciated. That way I can customize my account not to accidenly pick a random page that would offend a co-worker while browsing WP. If it has to be configured so that only Admins can modify the flag, then I can live with that. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:24, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The big problem is whether or not some people consider things offensive or not. If you posted a tag on the Autofellatio image, somebody could, in all good faith, remove it. Or, what if you're an orthodox Muslim who doesn't want images of Mohammed displayed? We've had that discussion ad nauseum. Or, what about an orthodox Muslim who thinks that the image of a woman's face is offensive? They might tag all images of bare female faces as offensive, and then who would have the right to remove it? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Right; the problem, RJH, is that we don't know what will offend your co-workers, and everyone's co-workers are different. Powers ^T 13:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. —Apis (talk) 15:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that many users(myself included) don't have problems per se with "sexual images", but with the poor quality and possible prurient intent of those images. I have no strong objection with the 'human anus' article having a proper professional medical photograph or other depiction of a human anus(although I think it's clearly utterly superfluous and contributes nothing but wasted space to the article). I do have an issue with an exhibitionist posting a poorly shot photo of his own anus because he wants thousands of strangers to look at his asshole. I think a prohibition of controversial "sexual images" where the source is the uploader would be advisable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.155.16.174 (talk • contribs) 05:25, 9 June 2009

That's a different issue (but it would lead to the same problem in classifying what's a controversial image). If there are such exhibitionist pictures, I would think that problem could be solved on the talkpage of the article in question so no extra rules are needed.
—Apis (talk) 14:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the people WP:OWNing the article: sometimes an article is taken over by a group of people who will claim any attempt to move or remove an image is "censorship", despite the final paragraph of WP:NOTCENSORED. Anomie⚔ 20:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

This has been proposed in several different forms. I don't see that we will ever come to a consensus on whether or not to self-censor, nor will there be agreement on the classification of particular images or articles. I think the best we can or should do within Wikipedia is to provide the technical information for readers to censor their personal viewing environment. We provide this information in some part for articles such as Muhammad.

I would have no objection if someone wanted to create lists of articles and images as a project outside of Wikipedia.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Censor_offensive_images -- SEWilco (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

i would like to make 3 suggestion here

1st, adding 2 additional portal, mainly, > "astronomy and space exploration" , and topic on "greenpeace , environment, > habitat , animals" .

the current portal contains portal to "astronomy" and "environment", but i think it lacks a lot of things which anyone reading it or referencing it should know or might want to read. a side comment here also is that, it can only be accessed through the main site if i am correct. that is to say, if i am in other page like wiki words "planets", i wont be able to see or know that there is this portal about astronomy.

2nd, > > also, it would be a great to have a page listing all the keywords / > voca / concepts for certain topic like "astronomy" and maybe "science". > > for example, a page listing keywords/voca/concept for "astronomy and space > exploration", > (like for example "list of astronomy topics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basic_astronomy_topics) which lists out the various topics of astronomy, except that the list is by topics, whereas the suggested list of > "astronomy and space exploration" is by keywords/concepts/voca ). this additional page will enforce and enhance the already existed "list of astronomy topics" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basic_astronomy_topics) and adding more complete pictures to it. > and from this "suggested page", i would be able to see a list of key words and > voca relating to astronomy. >

3rd > and it would be most helpful to have a link to that "suggested list page" > added to the bottom of the keywords ' page (eg.of keywords' page -> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet) helps greatly . > > > its just a suggestion but i believe it will be a useful one to most user.

• I don't know that the "portal" is that you are referring to, but some Wikipedia things which are called portals can be edited. Some of the things which you describe are provided through Categories; for those look at the bottom of an article for a list of categories and click on one to browse it. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

About three times just lately I've come to wikipedia to look up something fairly trivial and found myself at a deleted article. I'm sure this must happen to many - and sometimes perhaps the notability of something once deleted goes up over time - but you come to a page previously deleted and don't normally care enough to restart the page or whatever.

Would it be possible for editors/users to somehow just tag that they had come to such an article, and therefore it might be a bit notable, and they wish it was still there. That could then autogenerate a list of the top deleted articles being hit, which could be considered by admins case-by-case for undelete?

This could maybe also alleviate some tension (doesn't seem as much these days) between deletionists and inclusionists.--Jaymax (talk) 01:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Having a couple people (or a lot of people, doesn't really matter) click on a dead link doesn't constitute notability, or anything close to notability. Sounds like you're adding a button that adds it to WP:RA or similar. This would create a lot of spammy entries on WP:RA (or whatever you're suggesting) by 1. the people who created the deleted article, possibly COI editors, 2. non-experienced Wikipedia users who'll see a "click here to..." button and click it, no matter what it does, and 3. more COI editors. [flaminglawyer] 01:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree (somewhat strongly) that people arriving at a high frequency to a deleted page on wikipedia is not an indicator (not saying proof) of notability. For example, if something gets external media coverage, that increase in notability will correlate fairly well) to an increase in hits. A thoughtful analysis would reveal that a mechanism as proposed should be fairly impervious to COI editor influence (unless they're going to run some script to auto-request from a bunch of different IPs - ie: sockpuppet) - each individual 'hit' should not be seen as a RP:RA.

Actually, I'll take it a level deeper (and further into the realm of clever technological solutions, thus guaranteeing no outcome) - if a search would match a deleted article title, that would likewise be considered a 'hit' - this would prob actually be much more meaningful than the 'button'. Point is not to generate a ton of requests, but to expose the significant previously deleted articles that are now in high demand, for consideration for admin undelete.--Jaymax (talk) 08:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Why not just add an automatic counter for page hits and if a certain target is hit (x in n weeks, or the like) note it on an appropriate page? rrzzrr (talk) 23:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

How high a target would you be looking at? The redlink of Horse cock gets about 100 hits a month from people looking to see if we can handle the redirect, while the redirects at Big tits and Big Pussy both get upwards of 2,000 I suspect disappointed hits per month. – iridescent 00:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

If the note generated by the automatic counter (upon reaching a specified target) would include links to [go to], [discuss] and [ignore from now on] to route further action, most of the giggle-searches like the ones mentioned above would get filtered out quickly. rrzzrr (talk) 16:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Administrators in some cases will not undelete the content. Why? Because often deleted content is pure rubbish. It's someone writing juvenile silliness, or making random keypresses, or abusing Wikipedia as an advertising billboard, or violating copyright, with no effort to write (or even to start) an actual, bona fide, encyclopaedia article. There's a point that people making undeletion requests sometimes miss: Deleted content is often bad content. No robotic technological "solution" is going to be a substitute for the human being seeing the deleted article reading the deletion summary, to see why content was deleted. No automated request mechanism is going to be the answer here. There's a reason that Special:WantedPages was practically useless.

And here's another point often missed: Requesting isn't writing. Undeleting rubbish is not a route to getting good content, and requesting such undeletion, or even requesting wholly new articles, isn't actually writing that content. Good content has to be written. It doesn't appear out of thin air. Wikipedia is by no means complete, and what it needs is people who write, not automated requests to re-process rubbish. People who write address missing articles by writing them. Even I've done this. I did it at Fizz keeper. Uncle G (talk) 14:16, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Unusually, I agree with everything Uncle G said. Contrary to popular belief, most articles aren't deleted because of a Conspiracy To Keep Material Off Wikipedia, they're deleted because they spammy, pointless, or appallingly badly written. Click "Random Page" at Deletionpedia a few times to see just how much crap is shovelled off Wikipedia each day. If you want a redlink to turn blue, then write something to fill the gap. – iridescent 15:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to indicate in the caption of non-free files that they are not free. A template like {{nff}} (saying "Non-free file") could be appended to the start of the caption. This would help users differentiate between free and non-free content (Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia after all) and also help editors to weed out unacceptable usage of non-free files. Logos often don't have captions and could be exempt from this idea.--Commander Keane (talk) 09:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to have "non-free" all over the place for readers, but you did give me an idea for User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js. Anomie⚔ 11:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea nor do I think it is necessary. If users are going to copy a file they're more than likely going to click it first to get the large version. While their on the file description page they should notice that the file is fair use (if it is). Other than that, it would be quite an eyesore. - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

What does your gizmo do Anomie?--Commander Keane (talk) 04:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

It checks the categories and page metadata (e.g. protection level) for each linked page, and adds corresponding CSS categories to the links. Then in your monobook.css you can use those classes to make the links different styles. For example, for me links to dab pages show up with a yellow background, redirects show up in green, self-redirects show up in green with a green background, and (thanks to your suggestion) non-free images show up with a double red outline and a symbol (IE doesn't support either of those CSS rules, as far as I know). A few people seem to find it useful, anyway. Anomie⚔ 17:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Just added one to that list of a few people. :) Great script, thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Nifty! Anomie⚔ 12:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to this addition to my script, I've already fixed one non-free image used on a project page, and started a PUI discussion about another where someone objected to my removing it and (IMO incorrectly) changed the license to "public domain". Anomie⚔ 12:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

If someone is going to reuse an image, I would hope they are checking the licensing. Editors working an article should be reviewing images— I find many images incorrectly tagged as free. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

You know what would be useful (to me anyway)? A little scratch pad or chalk/white board type of area on user talk pages where you could put a quick and short note to someone, messages like I replied on my talk page, look at this, are you online...whatever. The types of messages that are Twitter sized and many times don't even need a response. It'd reduce talk page clutter and might encourage more communication, sometimes I feel like I want to say something but the message is so slight and fleeting that I don't want to make a whole new section for a message that's less than 10 words...RxS (talk) 14:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea, but could you not just make it yourself & if others like it they'll do it? Dotty••|☎ 16:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you thinking of something like {{talkback}} maybe? ╟─TreasuryTag►Speaker─╢ 16:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I think he means a transcluded "notepad" window. I'm sure I've seen such things around occasionally, but can't think where. – iridescent 20:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The talkback template covers some of it, but there are other uses/reasons I can see. What is this transcluded notepad window? It'd be nice if it was included on talk pages by default. RxS (talk) 21:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Little scrolling editable window. I know I've seen them, just can't think where. – iridescent 21:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

(adding) There's an example of the sort of thing I mean on User:Alistairjh – see the editable, independently scrolling window? – iridescent 21:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It's such a tease.. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it okay to move unsourced (but not necessarily negative) statements to the article's talk page (under a "Unsourced statements removed" header or something)? I'm specifically referring to things like this: Wikipedia:Database reports/Biographies of living persons containing unsourced statements. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This is standard practice in all articles for unsourced, dubious statements. However it should not be done on a fast large-scale basis, even by hand, just as {{fact}} should not be added en masse. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, if a statement isn't harmful or negative, but it isn't sourced, how long should it stay in an article? Indefinitely? Should unsourced statements begin being migrated to the talk page? I agree that this shouldn't be done so fast that it does harm to the articles. On the other hand, making some progress on this issue seems very important. And I'm lost as to how to proceed. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The only way to make progress on sourcing is to research sources on an article-by-article basis; there isn't any quick fix. The real question about migrating things to the talk page is not how long they have been tagged as unsourced, but whether they are controversial or dubious, or are apparently biased, in a way that warrants moving them to the talk page. Some things should be moved to the talk page immediately, or just removed. Other claims can safely be left unsourced indefinitely until someone takes the effort to dig up a source for them. This is true in all our articles, not only BLP articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

If a quick Google search doesn't reveal any sources for a particular statement, is that sufficient to remove it or move it to the talk page? Some have argued that facts that aren't readily available in sources usually are indicative of non-notable information. For example: "He received the prestigious All Pakistan Newspaper award for the best column in 1991 from Prime Minister of Pakistan." from Qamar Ali Abbasi. A quick "best+column"+-wikipedia Google search doesn't reveal anything off-hand. At what point should the statement be moved to the talk page or removed altogether? --MZMcBride (talk) 18:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

With a person like that, google is essentially never going to give useful results. For this particular article, it looks like one possible source is [2]. This sort of systemic bias (towards English sources and away from foreign-language ones) is one of the reasons that every article of this sort has to be addressed individually. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

As we (are supposed to) aggressively remove unsourced negative statements from BLPS, moving all other unsourced statements (which will be positive or neutral) to the talk page has the potential to introduce a slight negative bias to all BLPs (imagine everything negative is sourced, and everything else gets removed because it is unsourced). I don't think that is a good idea. Kusma (talk) 05:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite understand, unsourced negative and questionable content is removed entirely, unsourced positive content would be moved to the talk page. If anything, moving the unsourced positive content should offset the bias created by removing the negative content. I don't see why, if people are going to find sources, they would only source the negative content. Mr.Z-man 05:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Just an observation: they might do that because of a mistaken belief that only negative information "has" to be sourced. Now what WP:BLP really says that "contentious" material should be removed, whether positive or negative. On the one hand, negative material is more likely to be contentious than positive or neutral material. On the other hand, not everything tagged with a {{fact}} tag is "contentious", and discretion is needed in handling tagged material. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Forgive me if this has been proposed before - I don't often look at these pages and I've done the best I can to try and find related proposals, but couldn't find this one. Basically, having seen Huggle not working and hearing complaints from editors about the difficulty of manual recent changes patrol, I begun to consider what patrollers should and are prioritizing. Of course, BLPs should be our number one priority, but vandalistic edits often fade into the cloud of edits. What I am suggesting is an option on Recent Changes that will display only edits to BLPs and their respective talk pages. I'm not sure how that could be achieved, possibly through an Abuse Filter Tag or creating a dummy namespace, but it seems like a good idea that can help us better streamline our efforts into protecting these articles, especially when the automated tools break down. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 13:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

It's annoyingly slow but: Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Living_people CIreland (talk) 13:10, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well obviously a good enough idea to have been already implemented. :) Thanks, sorry for the wasted space. \ Backslash Forwardslash / {talk} 13:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I have an ongoing frustration that is embodied in this diff: The editor adds a blank line under the section heading, and suddenly you have a "completely deleted" paragraph and an "entirely new" paragraph -- which makes it impossible to quickly identify the actual changes that the editor made in the paragraph.

Is this considered a bug, rather than a (mis)feature? Surely this been reported before: Will it ever be fixed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

You might want to consider using Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) instead. I wish I had an answer for you; I too would like to see this fixed. Powers ^T 19:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought about that, but the info note at WP:VPT seemed to suggest that this was the better place... unless, perhaps, doing the Right Thing in this situation is considered "fixing a bug" instead of "creating a feature", in which case the correct location is perhaps at some other website entirely? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

yes, the correct place would be at bugzilla: but unless you're a mediawiki wiz it's probably best to raise it at VPT so someone cleverer then you and I can forumulate a developer-readable bugfix request. –xeno^talk 20:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I daresay that note on the technical pump is a bit misleading. I have no idea why they'd direct someone here if they had a legitimate technical issue. Powers ^T 01:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Until this gets fixed you can use the word/character based enhanced diff view of the cross-browser userscript wikEdDiff (which is also part of the gadget wikEd). Cacycle (talk) 02:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia,

I am sad to report dishonesty is infiltrating into Wikipedia as some who are larger corporations see the "advertising value" to Wikipedia. This means the usual deterrence to bad posts (undesired, unbalanced posts) is going to spread like crazy from here.

1) Keep Wikipedia online same as it is 2) I would pay 200 bucks gladly even for digital ( no medium) because the decay is obvious- those with truer wiki-wiki win in long run 3) This is the first step in a process to move wikipedia into peoples phones, desktops, lives while mobile- so more money there.

End

PS: You guys are arguing about the word "Pfat" and the whole Wiki crystalline beauty is rotting. Please save it- well beyond me.

Hmm... WP:1.0 work for you? --Izno (talk) 02:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

(Not necessarily corresponding to the OP's numbers)

1. Spam and attempts to manipulate Wikipedia are not new problems. We've been dealing with spam for years now. Given the popularity of Wikipedia, its actually a lot more dangerous for corporations to abuse it than it was before. WP used to just be yet another site that could be manipulated for SEO purposes, now if a big corporation or a politician gets caught at it, its negative PR in the news.
2. The longer Wikipedia goes, the more review articles get, so Wikipedia is likely getting better with time, not worse. While spam is an issue, there's nothing to suggest its leading to the slow death of Wikipedia.
3. Why on earth would you pay $200 for free content on some 20 cent DVDs? You might do it (for some rather misguided reasons) but I doubt a lot of other people would.
4. Most new mobile phones have internet access, and again, its fairly difficult to get people to pay for something we give away for free (and making people pay for it when we can give it away for free is somewhat contrary to our mission)

Mr.Z-man 05:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

1. VERY Strong Oppose This would destroy the point of Wikipedia being a "free encyclopedia". YOWUZA Talk 2 me! 16:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
2. This proposal is now moot with the new Books application ;) Anyhow, strong oppose to selling free content for corporate gains; in any way, shape, or form. ThemFromSpace 17:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
3. Question - as an editor of Wikipedia, will I get some of this profit? How will that work? Per article I've edited or per contribution? If there's any sort of way I as a student can personally make money for this, it sounds like it could have excellent potential. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} (nah, I'm just kidding. It's a silly idea) 18:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
4. Weak Oppose I think it'd be a good idea. I don't think putting all the articles on would be a really great idea, but putting only FA, A, GA, B, C articles I think it could work. Of course before we do that, we'd need major reviews and stuff. All in all, it's a good idea but I don't think it'll work. Renaissancee (talk) 23:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Oppose Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, in all possible forms. Although some would probably pay anything to see it was it was in the golden age, before the misguided notability guidelines came into play, and packs of evil deletionists went about mass destroying many long held articles, calling it all fancruft. Dream Focus 09:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Weak Approve: Anyone can copy and sell Wikipedia, and Wikipedia also can do so. It is a reasonable fundraising proposal. However, the phrasing of the question also implies restricting the subscription version to articles with some kind of approval status, and the question suggests not being aware of the existing approval proposals. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Oppose Completely goes against what wikipedia is all about, free anyone can edit. Also theres already off line cds given out for free. See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/FAQs about providing a cd version of wikipedia that is free and not requiring internet connections as in some cases in the world interent is not always available. Ottawa4ever (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Comment someones already doing it. Nanonic (talk) 18:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• You are already allowed to make copies of Wikipedia and sell them for profit (this is part of what is meant by "free" in "You can re-use content from Wikimedia projects freely" in the Terms of Use). Of course, anybody else is allowed to make copies of your copies and sell them for less. Kusma (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I propose that the approximate amount of time since the last time an article was edited (i.e. "last edited (5 minutes or 3 hours or 20 days etc) ago") be displayed somewhere on the article where it may easily be viewed. This would be useful (1) for seeing how current an article about a recent event is, and (2) as a metric for gauging the reliability of the current version of an article, using the assumption that articles that have not been edited for a while can be considered "stable" and are less likely to have vandalism or other issues. Thus, a savvy reader could look and say: "Oh, this article was last edited 5 minutes ago, I should check the page history to ensure the edit was not vandalism before relying on the information here", or at the least "This was edited just 5 minutes ago; I should be more wary about the accuracy of the article as it could be vandalized". As for placement, I would suggest on the same line as the title, but right-aligned and in smaller font, but this is obviously quite open to suggestion.

As to why this would be better when we already give the last modified date at the bottom of the page (1) it's at the bottom of the freakin' page and not very visible at all (2) for readers who don't login, it gives the datetime in UTC, which can be a pain to convert (3) the date is just plain less convenient compared to a time elapsed figure. --Cybercobra (talk) 12:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

It says UTC though oddly enough it's actually still based on your prefs. This of course doesn't mater if you'r not logged in. Still, I think using "how long ago" to determine reliability isn't a very good thing to do. Vandalism can stick around for a long time, even years, if it's subtle enough. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:24, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I see that, there are counter-examples to using time since last edit as a definite gauge of reliability, but nobody is suggesting that. They are suggesting that there is a positive correlation, which there is. And they are saying that this is an advantage. Which it is. Now even if there wasn't a correlation, that lack of correlation would not be a bad thing. The time of last edited is already shown, and that is clearly not correlated w/reliability, yet you don't argue that it's lack of correlation w/reliability is reason for its removal. Kevin Baas^talk 15:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of showing how long it's been since the last edit. I can see many advantages, and no disadvantages, save using up a tiny bit of space on the screen. Kevin Baas^talk 15:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Caching could be a problem with this... for example, {{underconstruction}} has a "last edited" counter built-in, but it is usually out of date. 5 hours after the last edit it may still say "3 seconds" or something because the page's cache hasn't been purged. I don't know enough about the MediaWiki software to know if this could be fixed, but its just something to think about. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

We could parse the "last edited at" timestamp with JavaScript and convert it into a relative time. Won't help those without JS, of course... Happy‑melon 16:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding performance concerns, there is Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance to consider, though even I would still be wary as to the impact if this change were to be made, but that's more a question for the devs to look at if the proposal manages to get that far, so we shouldn't concern ourselves with performance worries yet. --Cybercobra (talk) 17:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The incorrect "UTC" label was added to the message last month. I just removed it. —David Levy 17:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

But now it doesn't show "UTC" for non-logged-in readers... --Cybercobra (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a matter for the MediaWiki developers to address. In the meantime, slight ambiguity is vastly preferable to absolute incorrectness. —David Levy 18:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

True, but are the devs even aware? --Cybercobra (talk) 18:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see a Bugzilla entry, so I filed one. —David Levy 18:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if this wouldn't have the same problem as the often-proposed list of unwatched pages - vandals may be attracted to pages that have not had recent edits and may be more likely to be unwatched. Also it may inspire a new type of vandalism just to reset the counter. Rmhermen (talk) 16:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism just to reset the counter sounds too boring to be worth it to vandals. It would not be as bad as the list of unwatched pages as the vandals would still have to go out and locate a page themselves; furthermore, the correlation between watched-ness and time-since-last-edit is not direct. --Cybercobra (talk) 02:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, the "Recent unwatched changes" feature suggested above on this page would also help mollify the problem of unwatched pages. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:58, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this adds value and would like to see it implemented. How about just always displaying the banner that's already displayed when an old version is viewed (mutatis mutandis)? Even leave it red, perhaps, given the discussion at #An opinion - How can Wikipedia reliability be improved. Anyway, always having it there would introduce consistency and it seems caching is not an issue with that mechanism. PL290 (talk) 12:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

That is certainly one viable implementation option. I personally wouldn't favor it because showing the username could encourage vandalism/vanity, I prefer a time delta to a timestamp as explained above, and the red seems unnecessarily distracting. But that's just me. --Cybercobra (talk) 16:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

• The proposal says that it would be useful for gauging "stability" assuming that a long-unedited page might (ceteris paribus = all else being equal) be more stable or reliable than one that was last edited 5 minutes ago. But I think that it might be equally valuable for the reverse reason in some articles that depend on currency, such as ones about athletics, business, politics or elections. If it's the day after a World Series, an Olympic contest, an election, a resignation, a stock-market drama, a natural catastrophe, a crime, a court decision or a late-breaking newspaper sensation, and it's been five days (or else, by contrast, five minutes) since a relevant article was last edited, then the reader will see more clearly how up-to-date that article's information is likely to be. —— Shakescene (talk) 13:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, this was point (1) in the second sentence of my proposal :-). --Cybercobra (talk) 16:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Why bother, when the foot of each page states "This page was last modified on 4 June 2009 at 02:25" or whatever date/time it was last updated? Lugnuts (talk) 06:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
  • See second paragraph in this discussion, beginning "As to why", which specifically addresses this. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• Knowing nothing about how this would be implemented, I like the idea, although I see the issues that could come with caching. hmwithτ 13:45, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I was also wondering about caching issues. In general, I think I like the idea if it's not too intrusive or hard to implement. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

There is one at the bottom of the page. There is no reason to get another one. Griffinofwales (talk) 22:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

If you have popups enabled, when you hover on a page link, it gives the age of the page. According to Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups, the page age code was written by Mike Dillon. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think this information is important enough to be displayed too prominently, especially since it is readily available if you decide to go look for it. I do like the idea of displaying how long ago the page was edited, though, as it simplifies things and gets rid of the problem with using UTC. I propose that this information be included at the bottom of each page, like so: "This page was last modified on June 5, 2009 at 14:41 UTC (24 minutes, 11 seconds ago)." This solution could be seen as a starting point or a compromise. —Pie4all88 ^{T C} 23:05, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Hey, I never noticed that was down there before. Years of using wikipedia, and I just now saw it at the bottom after it was mentioned here. I think it'd be a great idea, since I often wonder just how recent information is, and how active the article is being edited. Perhaps you could display how many edits it has had within the past 30 days even. Dream Focus 09:44, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

• Good idea especially for the benefit of the 95%+ of people who just come here to read the encyclopedia. A non-obtrusive way of indicating possible quality problems, and a good way to avoid the UTC problem. The experienced editors won;t need it, but that's no reason for us to vote against it. DGG (talk) 22:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

One concern I have (that may have already been mentioned, apologies if so) is that people may use it as some form of complacency. There's no fixed boundaries that, say, more than a week ago means it's correct, less than a week means it could be vandalism and is worth checking. It's peoples' judgement. But might some editors just breeze through articles thinking "more than a week, ignore. More than a week, ignore"? It just feels like its placement would act like some sort of solid guidance on the content of the article, which it isn't. It's at the bottom for those who want to use it, but why lull others into a false sense of security? Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 22:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

We're mostly targeting this at readers more than at editors; in fact, I don't think it'd be of much use to editors, besides perhaps being a red warning light to check for vandalism if an article was edited extremely recently, but I don't see in what circumstance it would discourage editors from editing compared to the present situation; perhaps you could describe the bleak scenario you envision? The problem with it being at the bottom is that it's nigh invisible (see User:Dream Focus' comment above) despite being quite useful info. As stated previously, yes, it is only directly related to stability, not accuracy or lack of vandalism; however, stability does strongly correlate with lack of vandalism and edit-warring. It's also a consciousness-raising measure: if readers see this information, they might be more inclined to be skeptical and check the history/source in cases of likely vandalism. As for false sense of security, this entire encyclopedia is editable by anyone at all, so the idea that there is any security is a false one; this would just indicate when things are particularly insecure. I would also be supportive of an accompanying explanatory message and/or page to assuage any concerns of misinterpretation. --Cybercobra (talk) 03:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You make a good callback, and I see your point. Personally, it's just a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I'm happy with it the way it is and don't see the need for a change. On this basis, I'll abstain from the vote. I can't see an overwhelming reason for it but I don't have any great opposition to the idea. Thanks for the response and the note on my talk page. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 08:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Very pointless, and in no way any indication that an article is more stable or less likely to have vandalism. Less edited articles have had vandalism stay for weeks, even months. Nor is it a valid indicator of real stability. Again, less edited articles will go weeks, months, even years without editing, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "stable". Real stability comes from being noticed yet stable, not just being an unnoticed crappy little article. Users interested in knowing when an article was edited can just as easily see the footer already at the bottom or check the history. There is no need to make it more noticable or move it. Most websites have "last updated" at the bottom, so users interested in such information will naturally look there. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • The intent is not that "long time since last edit is synonymous with reliability", but rather the inverse that "short time since last edit correlates with unreliability". Views on other points given previously. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Executive summary

The following is an attempt at summarizing the above discussion for the benefit of new voters in the straw poll so as to avoid WP:TLDR. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Arguments for

• correlated with article stability and lack of vandalism + edit wars; rough accuracy measure for readers to use
  • counter: subtle vandalism can stick around for a long time, so the "time elapsed" figure could be misleading as a vandalism indicator in some cases
    • counter-counter: no one claims it's a direct causal relation, just that it's a useful correlation
• useful for seeing how up-to-date a current event article is
• more useful for these purposes than the existing "last modified" timestamp; see counters to first "Argument against"
  • counter: anyone who cares can do the calculations themselves

Arguments against

• the "last modified" timestamp already exists and can be used for these purposes
  • counter: the "last modified" timestamp is in UTC, which must be converted and compared manually, so it's inconvenient
    • counter-counter: only if you aren't logged in; displays per preferences for all registered users
      • counter-counter-counter: this change is primarily intended to help non-user readers
  • counter: the "last modified" timestamp is at the bottom of the page, which makes it hard to find/notice
  • counter: a "time elapsed" figure is more directly useful for these purposes than just a timestamp
• including "time elapsed" could interfere with caching and/or could cause performance problems
  • counter: WP:Don't worry about performance, the devs can tweak the exact implementation of the idea to minimize its impact
• may inspire vandalism just to reset the counter
  • counter: that seems boring compared to the other things vandals can do
• may allow vandals to infer unwatched or less-watched pages to vandalize based on long time without any edits
  • counter: the correlation between last-edited and watched-ness is not direct
• this information is not important enough to be displayed so prominently
  • counter: see "Arguments for", and counters to the first "Argument against"

Straw poll

Wording and use of elapsed time

I agree with the general principle behind the proposal but there are two aspects of the present form that concern me. They are quite small aspects but to me important enough to prevent my voting "For" any of the options above, notwithstanding the fact that one of the issues is already there in the existing page footer text.

I'm against the word "last" because it needlessly employs an admittedly common but in my view very bad practice, in prose intended to convey facts: the use of words which, when taken literally, are simply untrue. There will be those who counter me, saying "idiots should not use the web", etc., etc., but the plain fact is, the statement "This page was last edited about 7 hours ago", displayed on a web page in a user's browser, is doomed to become untrue as soon as it's displayed:

• 1) One hour later, will the browser display have counted down from 7 hours to 6? Not unless javascript etc., is employed (which makes it less of a general solution), but more importantly:
• 2) One minute later, when another user edits the page, will the browser display show this?

No. In both cases, the user's browser will still bear the needlessly untrue statement, "This page was last edited about 7 hours ago".

Now, you may tell me that "everyone should know" their browser will only show what was retrieved at the time they retrieved it, and "everyone should know" their browser will not "know about" other user edits, and and so everyone should "know to interpret" such statements as not literally true; and there's a lot of truth in all that. But it's also true that "everyone should" is an ideal, and in practice, for anything at all that "everyone should" do—and perhaps all the more with something like the web and its changing technologies—there will be some who do other than what "everyone should" do, either simply because they haven't learned yet, or for some other reason, perhaps to do with disability. My point, therefore, is simply this: in prose intended to convey facts, whenever possible without great contortion, disruption or distraction, use words that convey the literal truth.

The second issue is that the use of elapsed time rather than timestamp, resulting in a statement which is only true relative to the moment of its rendering, exacerbates the first issue. The timezone question should be addressed and resolved in its own right.

Taking the two issues into account, I would prefer to see something along the lines of:

• This version was created at 09:36 on Tues 9 June 2008 (Eastern Standard Time)

PL290 (talk) 09:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

How do you propose to solve the "timezone question"? Seems quite difficult to me, but a viable alternative if you could get it to work; I went with time elapsed because it's simpler, avoids geographical complexity, and is more directly useful in the context of the intended use. Regarding phrasing, perhaps you could campaign for the bottom-of-the-page timestamp to be changed to "This version current as of 09:36 on Tues 9 June 2008 UTC" or similar? Would you be opposed to making the timestamp more visible if it were rephrased? --Cybercobra (talk) 09:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

- Making the timestamp more visible if it were rephrased: yes, I support this. Either at your top-right location, or, if that encounters difficulties due to other things that can appear there (such as icons resulting from templates etc., or the [edit] link for those who've enabled "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page"), then possibly appended to "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (...)", or below it, akin to this.

- Timezone question: perhaps a separate discussion, so I fear it may clog your proposal, but off the top of my head I'd suggest a 3-stage approach with fallback:

• If logged-in user, timezone from user preferences;
• Otherwise, if javascript supported, use javascript to render per browser timezone;
• Bottom line, failing both of the above, use an agreed default such as EST.

In all cases state timezone used. PL290 (talk) 10:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Elapsed time need not be an issue per se, if the phrasing is suitable. For example:

• When this page was displayed, it had last been edited about 2 hours previously

or to be really informative, show both timestamp and elapsed time:

• When this page was displayed, it had last been edited about 2 hours previously, on 9 June 2008 at 12:43 GMT

PL290 (talk) 11:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I fear that would be too verbose and intrusive. It shouldn't take up too much space or steal great attention, just be a benign little thing. But your feedback and reasoning are noted. --Cybercobra (talk) 12:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't find this to be something to worry about. If people don't realize that browsers don't auto-refresh, well, oh well. I mean, this isn't vital. The version they're looking at, at the time the initially load it, gives accurate time frames. If they leave it sitting for two days and expect the time frames to be updated... that's not our problem. As far as the timezone issue. If we're going to use a default, it should be UTC, as that's the default for the rest of the site. لennavecia 12:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather give a general idea, ie: 2 hours ago... 2 days ago... more than a week ago... more than 3 months ago... more than a year ago". FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Some comments:

• Any "elapsed time" display needs to be done with JavaScript, else it won't work for anons (caching)
• JavaScript does not have direct access to the user's time offset from preferences. Its not safe to assume that the preferences offset is the same as the browser timezone.
• The last modified timestamp varies not only based on time offset, but also timestamp format preference.
• The JavaScript functions that return a date string are inconsistent across browsers. Firefox and Safari return the full timezone name ("Eastern Daylight Time") and GMT offset, IE returns only the abbreviation ("EDT"), and Opera returns only the GMT offset. I'm not sure what other browsers do. JavaScript doesn't have a strftime-like function.
• Using any default other than UTC, which is what every other timestamp on the site uses, is just asinine.

-- Mr.Z-man 19:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Polling postmortem

Ok, voting on the polls appear to have now petered out, so my interpretation of the results as they stand is that:

• there's consensus to add the elapsed time
• but no consensus to place it at the top-right or to move the timestamp from its present location.

So, unless people have alternate placement suggestions, I propose to file a bug to add the elapsed time by the timestamp at the bottom of the page. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:14, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! Is a bug report the appropriate place for a request like this, though? —Pie4all88 ^{T C} 20:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said directly above, any elapsed time display would need to be done with JavaScript if we want it to work properly for unregistered users. You could file a bug to ask for it to be added to the JavaScript in MediaWiki, but it would be just as easy (probably easier) to add it to the sitewide JavaScript here. You just need to find someone to code it. Mr.Z-man 20:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Could we not just ude {{Time ago|{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}}}, which makes 22 months ago? Dendodge _T\^C 20:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

That would have the same caching problems as building it into the interface. Mr.Z-man 21:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The possible caching issues are why the developers should have wide latitude as to exactly how this gets implemented. I personally disfavor Javascript due to the decreased compatibility, but whatever the devs decide oughtta go. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no way to provide an accurate elapsed time in the software without JavaScript or disabling some level of caching. Mr.Z-man 23:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

(dedent) Bug reported as #19276 --Cybercobra (talk) 07:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Forgive me if this has been discussed previously, but has anyone thought about creating a new namespace for non-free files?

Background

• We only permit non-free content in the main namespace, subject to a few exceptions (WP:NFCC#9). However, the software allows anything from the "File" namespace to be displayed anywhere by default.
• The licensing policy states that non-free content must be identified in a machine readable format. At the moment, we identify non-free content by the presence of a template starting with the string "Non-free". (i.e the wikitext must match the regex "\{\{[Nn]on-free"). This effectively "bolts-on" a non-free tag to content.
• The EDP is currently enforced by experienced editors and automated bots. Without this intervention, non-free files are treated identically to free files. It isn't uncommon to find images with non-free tags displayed in templates, portals, categories, talk pages etc. User pages of new editors frequently contain non-free media.

Proposal

By creating a "Non-free" namespace, the software could automatically enforce WP:NFCC#9 without user/bot intervention. Other features could be developed later, such as:

• Users who want a completely free encyclopedia could select a "free content only" switch in their user preferences (similar to the option when installing nearly-free operating systems like Ubuntu). Any content in the non-free namespace would then be hidden when pages are rendered by Mediawiki.
• Automatic limitation of the rendering size of non-free images could be implemented.
• Non-free content could be hidden in all namespaces except the main namespace by default. Exceptions could be specified using a behaviour switch like __EDPEXCEPTION__. [This is more flexible than the current situation, where __NOGALLERY__ is required to turn all (not just non-free) images off in category pages].

I guess implementing this could cause some major headaches, as non-free files would need to be moved to the new namespace and cross-namespace redirected images would need to be handled properly. Any thoughts about the idea? Would it break more than it fixes? Papa November (talk) 12:27, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• Besides "Template starting 'non-free'", there's also Category:All non-free media included by those same templates; this is potentially even more machine-friendly, as it can be directly queried by the API. Users and bots would still be needed, as far too often an uploader will lie about the freeness of their upload for various reasons and nothing can really change that. The "other features" are interesting, though.
  As far as the moving of existing files were this implemented, that could very easily be handed by a bot as all non-free media are already clearly categorized. Anomie⚔ 12:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• Personally, I think the implementation costs far outweigh the minimal benefits. Besides the coding work to create an extra file namespace in MediaWiki, 335000+ images would have to be moved, then around 362000+ uses of non-free images in articles would have to be updated to use the new namespace name. Those could be done mostly with bots, but even doing one edit per second (very fast, and probably unrealistic, even when image moving within MediaWiki is enabled), it would take 8 days of non-stop editing. Templates that assume one namespace prefix will work for all files will have to be changed to work with 2. Documentation would need to be manually updated. And bots and scripts that work with images may need to be modified. Mr.Z-man 20:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
  • This doesn't sound like a real good idea. Besides, in theory the File namespace on Wikipedia should only contain non-free images and some free images that Commons wouldn't accept, since Commons should be hosting almost all free images currently stored here. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Hmm, I was worried that it would be an implementation nightmare. Is there an easier way of getting the same benefits? In particular, it would be really nice if users could turn off non-free content in their user preferences. I guess if it's already possible to identify non-free images from its categories/template transclusion, it should be possible to implement an "off" button somehow. Papa November (talk) 21:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Self electing groups. Outside opinions are solicited on the issue of self electing groups on Wikipedia. MickMacNee (talk) 14:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Aren't the Edit summary and what's this? buttons on the edit page supposed to open in a new window/tab? I accidentally clicked on it and lost all my work! Reywas92^Talk 16:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No, they aren't. On most browsers (including Firefox, Safari, and Opera, but not including IE), the 'back' button will get your work back in this situation. Algebraist 16:38, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Fold-out or roll-down sub-sections in which a section is rephrased in simple, accessible language.

The drive toward encyclopedism - especially on topics peripheral to scientific study - renders a great many articles so unintelligible as to seem self-congratulatory. Such articles are riddled with so much compound jargon, that to read a sentence is like not reading it at all: one knows as much after as before.

It is obvious that force-feeding monosylabic language would be quite as pedantic as it is currently pretentious, and we may assume, perhaps charitably, that editors of these pages already try to balance these articles to be useful to knowledgeable readers, while not excluding those who are not.

Let them have their cake and eat it. By adding a common-sense language framework, articles can get as academic as may please, when the cryptic sections are broken down into matching, clear language. Simple [+] fold-outs could suffice and allow the learned editors to demonstrate just how well they understand the subjects by explaining them in general terms. rrzzrr (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose in mainspace articles. Wikipedia:Accessibility#Scrolling and collapsible sections exists for a reason; collapse boxes can crash older browsers, and make pages unprintable. We're not Knol and shouldn't be running simultaneous versions of the same article; if something is incomprehensible, the solution should be to rewrite it into a comprehensible version. If you want simplified English, Simple English Wikipedia is the place to go; if a simple version exists, the link to it will be on the right hand side in the interwiki links. – iridescent 23:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• Agree with Iridescent. If an article is too difficult to read (I agree that this is a common problem!) and you don't know how to fix it, bring it up on the talk page. Its editors most likely want to make it more accessible and will value your constructive comments. Also note that there are other ways to solve cases where it has been deemed too difficult to keep an article both technically detailed and easy to read, as with the Genetics/Introduction to genetics companion pair. And at the extreme end, of course, there's simple: (which needs a lot of help, I think). But no, Javascript is not the way to solve this. —JAO • T • C 00:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

• Fully agree with Iridescent and Jao (although the interwiki links are on the left in the most common skins! :D) We are not Knol. Happy‑melon 13:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

WP's primary objective, surely, is to enlighten. If we accept that, then when an article fails to do so, it fails period.
Because of the sheer volume of articles which are prohibitively technical, solving this issue via individual talkpages doesn't seem to be a viable method. In other words, exclusive articles aren't incidental, but rather an emergent flaw, stemming from prevailing attitudes neatly summarized by this isn't Knol. rrzzrr (talk) 15:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

So part of the problem is that we have too many articles to maintain, and the solution is to make more? Mr.Z-man 23:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Some articles suffer from tech-speak, not all. As a consequence, I'd say, deal with it on a case by case basis. Should you come across a tech-speak article, flag it, admin are notified and if they concur, they can activate the fold-outs for that page. A banner explains the situation, the fold-outs and asks editors to simplify sections in their connected fold-outs. Upon editing a main section, editors are reminded to reflect changes in the fold-outs. rrzzrr (talk) 22:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• If you felt this a necessity, I'm sure there's some JavaScript that you can add to your monobook.js to make it work for you. Misunderstood the proposal. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 11:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Viewing the city article "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester,_New_York" under the "Media" heading shows an old (analog) listing. Since the digital transition, these numbers may have changed.

Volunteers are needed to check and update any citiy's Media section

This should probably be posted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Television Stations. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

The autopatrolled usergroup is now enabled on the English Wikipedia as the 'autoreviewer' usergroup. Thanks go to Andrew for a speedy addition. A guideline on WP:Autoreviewer will be going up within the hour, but it should be no different than how the whitelist currently works. NW (Talk) 16:24, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Quite often I find pages that are protected at some level or another. I feel the natural impulse to click on the talk page and see what I can find out about why the page is protected. More often than not, there is nothing. I usually find myself hoping to see a template box of some sort. I looked through Category:Protection templates and found vaguely what I was looking for, though they seem to be written for the tops of articles, not talk pages. I suggest making more useful talk page templates that provide the following:

• A link to the protection log
• The admin who changed the protection level
• The protection and the expiration date
• A place for customized details about the block besides the usual one-sentence reason. Something like "Move-protected after a series of moves from Joseph Anthony to Joseph Anthony on wheels! over a period of several weeks. Due to the history of the subject, requests to move the article to Joseph Deuster will be considered."

In truth, these templates wouldn't be very different from the existing protection templates except that they wouldn't actually protect the page that they are placed on. Still, it would be very helpful if something like this became standard procedure. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems like process creep... Ideally admins should be using descriptive protection summaries and doesn't the software give you a nice little red outline with the protection details when you edit the page? –xeno^talk 05:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It does give you a link to the protection log (albeit buried in the middle of MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext). Algebraist 12:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The appearance is different for admins and non admins. — Jake Wartenberg 17:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The casual reader and the unfamiliar user probably don't know how to search through the protection log and probably don't know how to (or don't want to) search through potentially hundreds of diffs in the article history to find the information they're looking for. I hardly see this as process creep. The intention was to improve transparency and user-friendliness. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

these templates wouldn't be very different from the existing protection templates except that they wouldn't actually protect the page that they are placed on. The existing templates do not protect pages they are placed on either. You are actually not prohibited from creating such templates and offering them for the use in Wikipedia. Ruslik_Zero 10:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm considering writing a bot. The purpose of the bot would be to identify the Wikipedians most involved in editing the pages assessed by a given WikiProject, and to compile the results into a sortable table. The chief goal is to allow newcomers to identify people at a WikiProject who are likely to help them in a timely way. The bot would also help in identifying inactive WikiProjects.

WikiProjects usually have /Participants lists, but these lists are not maintained. For illustration, several WikiProjects list hundreds of participants, suggesting lively activity. Unfortunately, many participants have (1) edited only a few times, years ago; (2) edited significantly but stopped contributing over a year ago; or (3) never contributed to an article assessed by that WikiProject. I'm not suggesting doing away with the Participants list, just supplementing it with another list identifying the active/inactive participants.

I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on the bot, both its overall advisability and its implementation. I've sketched out the bot's code, but if anyone wanted to help, that'd be excellent. Thanks! Proteins (talk) 19:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Look like at least some overlap with User:ClockworkSoul/Igor. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

• I think WikiProjects would welcome these functions as an opt-in. I had to cull the WP:XB list by hand, it would be nice to have a bot that did it. –xeno^talk 17:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

In all articles about demographics of countries there is a section called "CIA World Factbook demographic statistics" or something like that, for example - Demographics_of_San_Marino#CIA_World_Factbook_demographic_statistics. They all look the same, the only thing different is the numbers. So I thought, maybe it is possible to create some kind of template for that, so that you could only enter the numbers and then I would enter them for all the countries (or maybe this could even be done automatically, because in CIA factbook all the country profiles look the same). Then one person could translate all the text in that template into another language and after that articles about all countries demographics could be automatically created in that language's wikipedia. In this way, very many useful articles could be created in very many languages. They would all look something like this. Well I haven't figured out all the details yet, firstly I want to know does this at least have a chance. So does it? --Tiredtime (talk) 20:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that your proposal isn't very understandable, as it's currently written (I assume that English is your second language? If so that's fine, I can't speak anything except English...). So, if you can explain further what you mean, perhaps that would help those of us reading your idea to understand your meaning.
— Ω (talk) 09:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try. First of all, I'll explain another similar but easier idea. Consider this and this article. Maybe the Latvian version can be updated automatically according to the English version? Some Latvian has to make a long and repetitive copy-paste work to make a Latvian article that would be completely the same as the english one, except the names of the countries and few other words. Maybe a computer program could do this? And then articles like that could be created in all languages.

Now I'll try to explain the more difficult proposal I tried to explain earlier. The only real difference between this and this article, excluding the introduction paragraphs, is the numbers. So a template for these kind of articles could easily be made. The only real difference between this and this article is the language. For example, instead of "Population growth rate: 1.49% (2000 est.)" in Spanish article there is "Tasa de crecimiento: 1,49% (2000 est.)". My proposal is:

1. To create a database with all the values of the demographic statistics.
2. To create templates of these articles in all the languages that would take the information automatically from the database. In english it would look like this. In lithuanian it would look like this (instead of AAAs there would be data from the database).
3. To automatically create these kind of articles in all languages or to add a section with this statistics, where articles already exist.--Tiredtime (talk) 11:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

So this would be something like Commons, but for data rather than images? Shimgray | talk | 12:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. The thing is that it would take a lot of work not only to create articles like that but also to keep them up to date. Doing it to all wikipedias at once would make it much easier. --Tiredtime (talk) 12:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• "create a database" or just a spreadsheet will suffice. Interfering into other language wikis (that might not necessarily rely on this particular source, it's ridded with minor errors and incostistencies) is hardly an option. NVO (talk) 18:53, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you please briefly explain why interfering into other language wikis is hardly an option? I could ask for permission in each wiki. Or is it technical problems?--Tiredtime (talk) 20:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

This proposal includes 3 points:

• Simplification: Rather then having thousands of different stubs that are within their own tree/ecosphere, the standard should be that each WikiProject automatically receives and is responsible for maintaining their own stub. This should significantly simplify stub sorting, both administratively and for users.
• Dating: All of the stub templates should have a date field added to them, as most (all?) of the maintenance tags have done. This should facilitate tracking stubs, allowing WikiProjects and other stake-holders to track "backlogs".
• Standardization: All of the stub templates should be standardized to use {{asbox}} or something similar. I guess that something like this has been discussed in a multitude of other places, but this seems to be the "correct" place to propose it...
  — Ω (talk) 06:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• Not all subs belong to any Wikiproject. If fact, a lot of them do not. So, the item 1 is a no-go. Ruslik_Zero 08:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Can you point to an example? Over months of stub-sorting, I can't remember one time where I couldn't find an accompanying WikiProject (I'm talking about the Category:Top-level stub categories stubs here, of course. Obviously some lower level ones won't, but they easily fall into their parent stub's project). Maybe I've just been lucky? Their not all categorized into WikiProjects (Which is a whole other topic), but they could be with just a little research.
— Ω (talk) 09:19, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

1) wouldn't work for the reasons given above, and also for reasons of uniformity. At present, wikiprojects already use an assessment system which allows them to keep track of the status of their articles, but this deliberately runds in paraallel with the stub system which runs across the entirity of Wikipedia. Both are kept because onl;y a small proportion of potential editors actually beling to specific wikiprojects, and its been shown in the past thaat simply having a wikiproject-speecific template discourages other editors from editing the articles. By not having a WP-wide stub sysstem, we'd therefore reduce the chance of articles being dealt with - and yes, there are many, many areas which are not part of specific projects. Others are covered by several wikiprojects, and if they all had their own standdards for stubbing it would lead to potential sources of tension between them.

2) Sounds great in theory, but in practice would have negligible effect. Whereas an article is tagged with a datee if it's in a cleanup category, that iss generally effective because any editor can do cleanup on an article fairly easily (it would be easy, for instance, for an editor with little knowledge of aa subject to wikify an article or add a category). Stubs require expert attention to get them beyond stub level - and that, sadly, can only happen when there are eperts in a particcular field editing. As such, it's impossible to handle stubs by any form of "first in, first out" system, unlike other cleanup targets.

3) There has been a long-running discussion at WP:WSS over asbox, which generally makes the work of stub-sorters much harder due to the inflexibility of the system. Sure, it would be good to have all stub templates coded in identical ways, but there are sepcific stub templates where this is simply not possible - and there are so many of these exceptions that using asbox for them is not practical. The current system, which is to get as many templates as possible using a standardised coding but allowing for any potential differences as they arise, is a far better solution. Unfortunately, so many stub templates are made "out of system" that trying to keep stub templates uniform is nigh-on impossible (this is a major reason why it is so strongly recommended that stub types are proposed for discussion, rather than simply created on the fly).

So, basically, while the proposal sounds good in theory, it is not really a practical one. (1) would destroy the uniformity of the stub system, (2) would be a lot of work for no benefit, and (3) would make the flexibility of the stub system harder to achieve and would also be impossible to maintain in practice. Grutness...wha? 23:49, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• IRT the first bullet point (Simplification), your counter points are seemingly belied by the fact that the Categorization system and wikiprojects themselves work, and work fine. Individual Stubs, Categories, or Portals/WikiProjects are mutually exclusive. As I said above, I would challenge anyone to find an article that is not "classifiable" into a WikiProject. Also, one of the primary issues that I think should be addressed is to reduce workload, and I think that this accomplishes that goal. It would move the workload to the wikiprojects/Portals, where the topic stakeholders have their own interest in maintaining their stubs. I think that stubs are important, but stub sorting (beyond the top level "move them out of Cat:Stub" sense) has taken on it's own life as a sub-world.
  — Ω (talk) 03:11, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

You say that like it's a bad thing. :P Pegship (talk) 15:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

:) In any case, WP:WSS is a very active project, which is more than can be said for a lot of subject-specific wikiprojects, many of which rise and fall with alarming speed. There's simply no way of guaranteeing that stubbing would be carried out by a project which isn't able to maintain more than one or two active members, or becomes moribund. And even if we were to accept the (questionable) suggestion that the wikiprojects cover everything, that is only one of several arguments against the proposal that i raised in point 1. Each project would have its own standards, so there would be no uniformity - and where an article was covered by more than one project, the different standards of the different projects would inevitably lead to tension. Grutness...wha? 01:13, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've been thinking about mentioning something like this for a while now. Personally, I can't see any reason why we need so many stub categories... it actually serves to make things confusing for the users who don't actively sort stubs, and I see little benefit. For example, are all of the stub types listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types#Sport biography really needed? More or less all of the ones that I looked at have less than a hundred members... wouldn't it make more sense to, instead of categorizing by nations like they are now, to upmerge them into the by-country topics like Category:African sportspeople stubs? And then there are also so many different video game stubs that I, personally, can see no real benefit from... e.g., Category:Id Software stubs, Category:Rareware stubs, Category:Anime game stubs, and even some of the larger ones like Category:Educational video game stubs. However, I think that it would make the most sense to discuss these over time at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion, rather than causing a bunch of additional drama here by trying to come up with a single way of determining what stub types there should be. I don't think that by-WikiProject is the way to go, but I agree fully that the current setup seems excessive.
• Maybe having a minimum of 200 applicable stubs would be a good start? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 03:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• We use a minimum of 60 stubs at WP:WSS, and are still constantly accused of being "stub nazis" for not allowing categories with far fewer stubs. Someone (can't remember who after all this time -it was several years ago), worked out that the easiest size of category for editors to effectively browse for articles to expand was between 60 and 600 articles, so those are the limits we use for optimum category size. If you wait until you can split 200 stubs off into a subcategory, you're often goiung to have 1000+ in the current category while you wait. I've written on this subject in the past at User:Grutness/Stub rationales. Grutness...wha? 01:13, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• Some relevant projects are dormant, some dead, others have just a couple of regulars active. Active wikiprojects cover only a fraction of knowledge. And the fact that a project is active does not guarantee that it has active members interested in this kind of maintenance. So it may work in some instances, but only some.NVO (talk) 12:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
• There will always be editors who don't personally see the use of various aspects or areas of WP. If you'd like a count of the exploding number of stub articles, take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Excess. The bottom line is, stub categories make it very clear which articles are in most need of expansion, and which are in their subject area, which is where most editors tend to browse. The other bottom line is, we could use more editors to actually expand the articles, rather than proposing changes in how they're organized, which is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. <g> My last point is that the stub structure is maintained by the stub sorting wikiproject, which suggests to me that the project members' experience is one of the major factors in deciding whether to change anything. So I will have to agree with Grutness on this one. If stubs are a nuisance, let us start a drive to expand them, not re-shuffle them. Pegship (talk) 15:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, so I'm pretty sure that the movefile bit has been disabled for now because of issues (is there more info on this somewhere?). This seems like the perfect time to discuss how it will be used on WP when it is up and running again. When it was first launched, it was as a built-in right for admins. When it comes back (all fixed-up), it would make sense as an individual user right. To put it plainly, an editor shouldn't have to sit though an RFA to be able to rename a file. Blocking a vandal, deleting an article, and renaming DSC001.jpg shouldn't require the same amount of community trust. Obviously this feature (like any) could cause some issues if abused, but what would be the downside of allowing certain non-admins to use it? Again, I am aware that this is the future that I am talking about, as it is not a current feature. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 07:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't a built in right for Admins, it was just assigned to admins for a testing periods before people were let loose with it and people found a major bug with it so it was disabled. And for my vote, if it was assigned to any group it should be autoconfirmed since it should be considered no differnt then moving/renaming any other page/article. Peachey88 ^{(Talk Page · Contribs)} 09:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

If there was an "image redirect" feature. Say I renamed a file called "000000001" to "John Smith, 25 October 2008", would all the articles still linking to 000000001 show the image? J Milburn (talk) 10:00, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

File redirection works now— I'm sill cleaning it up from when file moving was enabled. Redirected files don't show the articles the file is used in, only a backlink to the original file. As to the problems with file move, see T20033. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:09, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I guess I'm not really proposing anything, then. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:11, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Future implementation is worth discussing. The issue of redirected backlinks makes it more difficult to look at an image page and figure out if the backlinks are valid. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Context: articles and sections can be tagged with {{Unreferenced}}, {{Unreferenced section}}, {{Refimprovesect}} and so forth. This serves (at least) the two purposes of alerting readers to the deficiency and encouraging editors to make it good. However, and perhaps for some types of article more than others (for example, lists), an article may be started by one editor and built up to a state of completeness over a period of time by other editors. Such an article, while not necessarily warranting {{Unreferenced}} and suchlike, may therefore take on an appearance of completeness prematurely, which, while aesthetically pleasing, runs counter to the aforementioned two purposes.

Proposal:introduce a small icon, or something of that ilk, that can be placed at the side of a section to indicate its completeness (or other status) as determined by the editing community. Although not dominating article appearance like an {{Unreferenced}} banner does, such an indicator would serve to guide expectations about the material and invite improvement by editors. A combination of colour and text would allow, for instance, a red "far from complete" icon, an amber "has a few problems" one or a green "all appears well" one. Simplistic examples, but perhaps sufficient to provoke interest. PL290 (talk) 21:19, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• Can you suggest the way to actually review/evaluate sections short of a full-blown peer review? It's all about available manpower, not technicalities. Your proposal is sort of Flagged Revision Phase Three, while wikipedia expects trials of Phase One some time in the future. NVO (talk) 12:44, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I envisage that the editing community will want to exercise ongoing consensus about this just as much about any other article content, and will therefore set appropriate indicators as part of their ongoing edits. If someone sets an inappropriate indicator, the community can react, just like it does when an edit results in any other inappropriate article content. PL290 (talk) 13:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, it's probably just a template, for the editing community to use like they do {{Unreferenced}} etc. The point of the proposal is to seek consensus firstly for the idea, and secondly for the basic appearance/design, of a small icon that sits at the side of article text. So I am referring to article content, not a software change. I envisage an effect akin to embedded pictures in article text, but a lot smaller, and with a set of standard appearances and a piece of variable explanatory text for the status information. The text might become visible as a tooltip or suchlike. PL290 (talk) 09:54, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

To me this sounds a lot like icons people in wikibooks are using: see b:Help:Development stages. Anyway, I think the proposal makes a lot of sense: currently there is no way to indicate how much sections or articles are complete. -- Taku (talk) 19:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

We are most of us aware that from time to time editors post aricles to en-wiki which are not in English. At present, these qualify for speedy deletion only if their content qualifies intrinsically for this, or if they already exist in another wikipedia. In my experience, foreign language articles never receive any additional editor input except tags relating to language, and obviously ultimately do not survive in en-wiki. I propose therefore that the {{speedy}} category should be enlarged so as to include any article not written in English, with the sole proviso that the creating author should be notified at the time of {{speedy}} tagging. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 21:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Foreign-language pages get translated all the time. – iridescent 22:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
• Tend to oppose: probably better to leave such an article for Anglophone human editors to translate than to push the author into using a machine-translation service like Babelfish. The excellent material in History of the Jews of Thessaloniki (from a long original in the French Wikipedia) was translated that way with the originator finally saying the result had got so garbled he was almost ready to blank it and start over. While such services can be useful to start translating a stub, they can introduce into longer articles all kinds of obscurity, ambiguity, mistranslations and fictitious references (translating titles literally while leaving page numbers and editions untouched). —— Shakescene (talk) 04:42, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
  • The real point was to encourage editors to get efficient translations posted here, or to post on their own language wiki. But in view of the vast wave of apathy which my proposal has created, it probably isn't very important. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 20:35, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

A common practice is to protect templates that are used on a large number of pages. This is done for two reasons:

1. High-use templates use up a lot of resources when changed, so we want to keep editing to a minimum.
2. Vandalism to these templates can be very disruptive.

A while ago, someone suggested that all pages in the template namespace should automatically be semi-protected. Unfortunately, the main problem with this proposal is that new users will not be able to edit low-risk templates.

However, here is my idea: any template used on over a certain number of pages (say, 1,500) should automatically be protected by the MediaWiki software. However, there should be a new user right (edittemplates) that allows the user to edit any template that has not been specifically protected by an administrator. A reasonable requirement for this right would be be 1,000 edits and no recent blocks. Administrators would be able to assign this right to users, much like with rollback.

Any thoughts? --Ixfd64 (talk) 06:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a fair proposal. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You're certainly right that we protect templates for fundamentally different reasons than we protect mainspace content, so it's reasonable to have a different approach. One minor problem I see with you current proposal, though, is that it would only apply to pages in the template namespace, rather than any transcluded page. That's easy enough to address - if this change is made, it should apply to any page that heavily transcluded.

A larger problem is that the number of transclusions of a particluar page can be changed through normal editing, so it would be possible to enact the protection by adding many dubious transclusions (preventing normal editing) or remove it by removing good transclusions (allowing bad-faith edits). Needless to say, the latter would normally be easily detected, but the former would allow non-admins to attempt fiat protection of templates that didn't have wide support for protection. This sort of action has happened before; when the software introduced a feature to prevent deletion of pages with long histories, some of our editors decided on their own to add many useless revisions to the main page in order to trigger the restriction.

Rather than automatic protection, I'd suggest transclusion-protection be made optional for administrators to implement; if it were set on, the affected page would be protected only if it were widely transcluded, but if it were not set, high transclusions would have no effect (the status quo). That would allow many permanently protected templates to be set to a lower protection level, without affecting any page unintentionally, and without allowing normal editors to implement protection on their own. However, my proposal wouldn't exist without your original one, so thank you for making it. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:41, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

We have a pages for "Reference_desk" and "Requested_Articles", but we don't have pages where someone can say, "I'm overwhelmed by these external sources. Could someone please assimilate their content into subheading Y of article Z?" or "Hey! Page X has a long list of external links -- help me move them into References!" (Call the page Wikipedia:directed research? Wikipedia:integrate source? Wikipedia: requested citations? (the sources are provided; we just need to cite to them in non-infringing fashion.))

The only requirement will be contributors with the patience and discipline to gain a passing understanding the subtopic they're writing about before they begin writing, and who understand the rules at WP:CITE. For example, a non-lawyer can't achieve a perfect understanding of legal content on a first read, but he could understand the stuff well enough to make a first effort at integration into an article. His work will be easy to verify, since it will have citations to the hyperlinks provided; and even amateurish efforts will make it much easier for a specialist to organize the text. (We might require that the person making a request must identify whether the provided sources are in the public domain.)

This page will attract people who are busy, or lazy, or selfish. The beautiful thing is that there are a large number of people who, at any given moment, are neither new to wikipedia nor busy nor lazy nor selfish. We're taking advantage of the world's idle cylinders.

Even if this page attracts moochers, Wikipedia will improve concurrently as it 1) adds more content and 2) becomes viewed as a place you can go to learn what you need to know. If the moochers are discovering that Wikipedia is conforming its content to their needs, they may get in the habit and consider editing articles later.Agradman ^{appreciates civility}/_{makes occasional mistakes} 23:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't WP:RFF and WP:CNB (depending on the exact situation) be what you're describing? – iridescent 23:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• Well, I'd feel uncomfortable making this sort of request those pages. What I need is a place to say, "Hey, look, I found this nuanced public-domain source-- would someone please integrate the material into Heller_vs._D.C.? I'm quite pooped." I'm pretty sure that if I posted this on the pages you mentioned, I'd get called a dirty name. But if you disagree, I invite you to give it a try :) Agradman ^{appreciates civility}/_{makes occasional mistakes} 23:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Please consider adding the autocomplete feature for the search box in the mobile version of wikipedia. --Glen83 (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The book feature that had been deactivated per this discussion and clear community consensus, has been reactivated by User:Eloquence, see here. Some changes have been made, such as allowing only autoconfirmed users to save books. But the interface has not been changed despite the concerns of the community. User participation is needed here. Cenarium (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

There's an interesting discussion at m:Fundraising 2009/Donation buttons upgrade regarding donation buttons. All are welcome to participate! --MZMcBride (talk) 23:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Just like the problems we had with AOL customers, there are ongoing problems with Hughes Network Systems customers, including users of a popular American high speed satelitte internet service known as HughesNet. There is currently an active case at WP:ABUSE (see this link). We probably build WP:HUGHES similar to WP:AOL for now, and we probably need to try to get them to either set up XFF headers as AOL did, or get them to start monitoring Wikipedia activity within their network to curtail abuse. One idea is to encourage HughesNet editors to complain to HughesNet customer service in much the same way we encourage school and corporate editors to complain to their IT departments when we block them. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 06:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I have started a community RFC about a proposal for a bot to unlink dates. Please see Wikipedia:Full-date unlinking bot and comment here. --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:23, 22 June 2009 (UTC) bumped 14:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Currently wikipedia doesn't explicitly support a friends list. It would be nice if internal users could be friends and or enemies with each other. Friends lists would be very helpful. Brian Everlasting (talk) 12:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

An enemies list sounds like a particularly bad idea. Friend lists can be cool, but I'm not sure we want Wikipedia to drift in the direction of a social networking site. Let's see what others think. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:46, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with GTBacchus. I have Wikipedia colleagues I treasure and even some who I consider friends, but I worry that if people begin trying to increase their networking here, the encyclopedia will suffer for it. A list of enemies is quite likely to be divisive, I think. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:48, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

What actual purpose would a friends list serve on Wikipedia? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a social networking site. We don't need a "friends" list per se. If you want to construct something like that on your User page, that's your business. And NO ONE needs an "enemies" list. - Denimadept (talk) 16:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that after initiating this proposal, the author of it reads Wikipedia: What Wikipedia is Not and goes to the sub-heading 2.5 there, which makes it quite clear that Wikipedia is NOT a social networking website. There may be places - in fact, there are places - on the World Wide Web for you to have a friends list, such as Facebook or My Space, but as Wikipedia serves a different function to these websites, Wikipedia is clearly not one of them. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree (with ACEOREVIVED, not the proposal! Sswonk (talk) 21:13, 14 July 2009 (UTC)), although the enemies list concept contains echoes of WP:MMORPG. Sswonk (talk) 13:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

<< Can the person proposing this idea please explain how it would further Wikipedia's purpose, which, by the way, is to create a wide-ranging and in-depth encyclopedia? Thanks. ╟─TreasuryTag►prorogation─╢ 13:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

If you want to create a friend list on your userpage for collaboration, go for it, but I doubt that WP will ever have official friend lists in the way that MySpace does (see also: WP:NOT#MYSPACE). hmwithτ 13:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, This is stupid. Has WP:NOT just flown out the window?   «l| ?romethean ™|l»  (talk) 20:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to my post? What's stupid? hmwithτ 19:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I did not take Promethean to be referring to your post, but to the original proposal, on the grounds that it was a violation of WP: What Wikipedia is not. I know that the point could have been made a little more tactfully - we have to be careful in these Village Pump discussions to maintain good netiquette and to avoid weasel words. That said, I still feel, as many others who have contributed to this discussion, that to have a friend list would be a violation of the Wikipedia's raison d'etre, which is surely, dissemination of knowledge and not social networking. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

No, no, and no. Just plain no. WP:NOT and all such. Shereth 20:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

This is useless except for automated tools that we don't have in place yet. If, for example, the recent changed for unwatched articles were implemented, and watchlists were made public, we might use it to avoid watchlisting the same thing as our friends (ie, trusted recent changes patrollers). Or, hide the friend's vandal reverts in our watchlists. The idea being proposed is basically a usergroup for each user. (Along with friendship confirmations, but I think those are probably useless, and should be excluded.) If it can be put to good use, then great. It should start as a simple user script, though.    M   21:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, watching (WP:WATCH) all of your friends' talk pages and then bookmarking the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Watchlist&namespace=3&days=0 will allow you to view a page of their talk page activity, and adding WP:POPUPS to your preference gadgets will allow you to view their complete recent activities by pointing the mouse cursor at the "contribs" link following their name in the {{User}} templates that include contributions. But, as others have noted, the focus here is creating and maintaining an encyclopedia, not social networking. Sswonk (talk) 21:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

• For collaborative purpose, there is a JS that lets you can "add" your wikifriends and keep track of their online/offline status:User:TheDJ/Qui. I don't think MySpace-like functionality will ever be implemented though, because its out of Wikipedia's scope. --59.95.122.27 (talk) 06:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a very bad proposal so I agree with ACEOREVIVED as well.

Brian Everlasting has, however, already created a Wiki-Friends and Wiki-Enemies list. Is that a violation of Wikipedia policy or does he have the right to do so? EconomistBR 20:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

He seems to have used my idea of putting it in his User page. What right do we have to interfere with that? I still think it's a Bad Idea to have a public "enemies" list, but it's his life. - Denimadept (talk) 23:26, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

After much discussion, {{WikiProjectBanners}} and {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} have been effectively merged: the only difference is in the defaults for the |collapsed= and |banner collapsed= parameters. Note this has been the case for a month and a half now with no one even noticing.

Also after much discussion, the usage guidelines for these two templates have been updated: {{WPBS}} is now recommended on talk pages with three or fewer banners, and {{WPB}} is recommended on talk pages with 6 or more; no recommendation is made for pages with 4 or 5 banners. If local consensus on any talk page is contrary to this usage guideline, |collapsed= should be used explicitly to indicate that.

In one week, unless consensus changes, bots will begin a run through all pages in Category:WikiProject banner shells with deprecated parameters (which represents about 14% of all banner shells currently in use) to remove the deprecated numbered parameters 2–10, and at the same time implement the above guidance on the pages edited. Please direct any comments to Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 01:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

For the 5-day period beginning July 18, 0:00 UTC, some Wikipedians are voluntarily pledging to avoid all non-article-space work at Wikipedia and are rededicating themselves towards article improvement. This drive is being called the The Great Wikipedia Dramaout, and more information is availible at WP:NODRAMA. --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 18:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

So this is the perfect opportunity to delete ANI, rewrite the Main Page, and create new Policies?  ;-) Dragons flight (talk) 18:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it also seems like also the perfect opportunity to ignore (rather than, say, prevent) serious disagreements between editors.    M   22:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

For anyone who hasn't yet commented, the community's views are still needed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Advisory Council on Project Development. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:47, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick straw poll: Am I the only one that think the level 3 headings (with 3 equal signs) look too strong compared to the level 2 headings (with 2 equal signs)? I'm use Firefox 3.x on Linux but have tried other browsers and platforms too. Take a look at the History section of the Brokencyde article, for instance. The level 3 headings render with a font size nearly the same size of the level 2 heading and the bolding makes the level 3 heading seem more important than the level 2 heading. This is something that has bothered me about Wikipedia's styling for a while now. Is it just me or have others noticed the same thing? Jason Quinn (talk) 17:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Previous discussions:

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_45#Headings.2C_subheadings.2C_and_sub-sub_headings_-_text_size_etc
• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_46#Heading_structure_broken
• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_59#Heading_fonts

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Also see (the oppose section) of this tangentally related discussion. - Jarry1250 ^{[ humorous – discuss ]} 17:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. The Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_46#Heading_structure_broken discussion is about document structure, however, and not readability. It seems that there is sort of agreement that the styling could be better from these brief dicussions.

The headings are optimized for articles which are correctly structured. A subheading shouldn't appear directly under a superheading. Have a look at Lion - the headings are just fine, and making them less bold would make things worse. To fix Brokencyde and similar articles, remove the unnecessary subheadings instead of making them smaller.    M   22:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

But there is no real reason why a article should need a paragraph of text under each heading before the subheadings, and in those articles, it does not look well-- see Bengal tiger, Checking some FAs at random Robert Peake the Elder, Campbell's Soup Cans,Flag of Belarus, Seabird have 3rd order headings following directly 2nd order; Catherine de' Medici's building projects and Tomb of Antipope John XXIII do not. In some of these cases, it would be hard to structure the article with a paragraph in what you say is the correct place. The technicalities of the format should accommodate the way people write articles--or at leas tthe way they write what we consider our best articles. DGG (talk) 04:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC).

Oh, an age-old nonsense, no need for a poll. Just don't use level 3, skip straight from 2 to 4 and watch for those pesky bots - unless you don't care about the ugly Lion-style typographics. Ir appears that crappy typographics are an unsolvable perennial and the most common solution offered is "make your own user skip and forget about unwashed unregistered masses". NVO (talk) 20:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I've done just that, in fact. But professional level presentation of pages conveys the attitude that we care about the project, and have proceeded past the stage of just cobbling it together like a project from people trying to learn the elements of html. DGG (talk) 05:16, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I opened [3] so that trivial biographies, and trivial facts, and trivial events unsuited for wikipedia, can be entered.

Here you will find verified details about people who may be not that important to the general public, but definitely important to a certain family or nationality. This wiki will host seemingly unimportant details, facts and even rumors, as long as a source can be verified, and as long as the fact is not disputed and proven to be defacement or against known fact.

Here you will also find disputes and discussions about the biographies, and a history of the biography making, and of the shown facts (pictures, books etc) - a meta biography. I hope this succeeds, and more important, I hope I am not doing something which already exists... פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Seems pretty similar to Wikipopuli and Biographicon. Algebraist 16:39, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

For certain broad, general issues or disputes, our community decision-making processes are often inefficient, in so that they fail to provide consensual solutions. This is a recurrent problem, here is a recent development. Thus I propose a new process, or a new type of RFC, as a decision-making process and also an investigation tool. Let's call this a "community case" for now. The principle would be as follows, but can be amended as we see fit: users can propose a case for the community, that would be broad issues or disputes, and not specific issues (especially, not user issues) that couldn't be resolved at lower levels (normal RFCs, etc). There is a XFD-like discussion on whether to open the case, and if there is consensus to open a community case after a few days, a bureaucrat can close the initial discussion and open the case. The case would be organized in a main page where the original discussion is copied and two subpages, spanning the two phases of the case. The investigation phase: proceeding on the /investigation subpage, initially opened, where the issue is investigated, and conclusions on the present situation of the issue proposed (but no proposals for solutions yet, rather findings of facts). When enough discussion has been done and there is a durable consensus, the investigation phase is closed by a bureaucrat and the conclusions having reached consensus are posted on the main page. Then, immediately after, the solutions phase is opened: proceeding on the /proposed solutions subpage, where solutions are proposed and discussed. When enough discussion has been done and there is a durable consensus, the case is closed by a bureaucrat, and proposed solutions that have reached consensus are posted on the main page. They can then be acted upon. If the case is complex, a bureaucrat discussion can be held (already occasional at WP:RFA). If no proposal has reached consensus after a substantial amount of time and discussion, it says so. The organization of this process should allow to collectively assess a situation and provide a more efficient way to reach consensual solutions. Of course, as usual, decisions are not indefinitely binding, and they can be later altered or overturned, maybe a dedicated page for case amendments could be created. Like with arbitration cases, new cases on the same issue can also be opened. Cenarium (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

this seems to have the same problem as now: deciding when there is "sufficient" consensus. For RfA the bureaucrats can decide because we have an accepted numerical standard, though with a considerable range for discretion. For policy issues, the extent of the supermajority would depend on the importance of the question. Additionally, at RfA there are only two possible results, so it's a conceptually simple decision. Since most issues of this sort may better be settled by compromise, the amount of discretion on the closer would be very great. We would basically be relying upon a single individual to decide the problem. DGG (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem of the assessment of consensus is present everywhere on Wikipedia. Assessing consensus is incredibly difficult when issues are convoluted, discussions disorganized, etc. That process should allow to organize the discussion in order to facilitate the development of consensus and its subsequent assessment. In the Cartesian way of thinking, when you're faced with a big problem that you can't resolve, you try to solve parts of it to facilitate the solution of the whole issue, this is similar here. Take the investigation phase, there's the discussion and the proposed findings to summarize it, those findings are proposed by users and then discussed, this is a yes/no issue, so it's easier to arrive to an assessable consensus. It's the same for the solution phase, discussion, then the proposed solutions. Discretion will still be involved, but no more than in XFD discussions. Though a process to close the case with several bureaucrats involved could be used to ensure a fair assessment of consensus, for example, a bureaucrat could propose a closure (e.g. findings 1.1 fail, 1.2 pass, 2 pass, 3 pass, 4 fail) and several bureaucrats should agree with it, before proceeding with the close. Problems may arise with variants and contradicting proposals, as they should not appear in the final closure. Bureaucrats should choose the proposals with the strongest support, which involves discretion, hence the need for independent review. As for proposals with no consensus after a substantial amount of time and discretion, they are not retained in the final closure (this is a pass/doesn't pass issue like for ArbCom cases). Prior to the closure, bureaucrats, or admins, acting as clerks ?, could point out those situations and ask for more community input. Cenarium (talk) 20:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

For some people, ArbCom's unilateral creation of a Policy Council, was divisive; for others, the recent RfC regarding the Council was divisive. I think the good news is it gave many people a venue to express their belief that Wikipedia needs reform.

In an attempt to create something positive out of a conflitual situation, I have created this new project page, WP:Areas for Reform as a space for members of the community to identify and analyze important areas in need of reform.

The immediate objective is to identify specific problems, and then make possible the broadest, open discussion by the community.

My ultimate hope is that after adequate discussion here, editors will be ready to propose new policies or revisions of existing policies.

I have identifies a number of areas that may need reform, based on both the discussions of the Policy Council and the discussions surrounding the RfC. Since my list cannot be exhaustive, I have made it possible for other editors to add other areas for reform, using the same templace as we are using for the rest. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Might subconciously tone down the desire to vandalize pages a bit :)--Occono (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

A nice sentiment but I don't see it as cutting down on vandalism enough to warrant the change. "Edit" is straightforward; "improve" is a bit nebulous. Shereth 22:17, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Shereth. I think that "Improve this page" could be very problematic,

and would lead to lots of discussions on the talk page about whether the edit really has been an improvement.ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:35, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, nice one. How about changing "Save page" to "Save improvements"? EconomistBR 22:12, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

How about changing the label to "emendo" (latin for "edit"), just to make it harder for children to vandalize pages? - Denimadept (talk) 22:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of the overly optimistic titles given to Soviet communist endeavors parodied by the full title of Borat, or depictions of socialist realism and the Gross National Happiness measure of Bhutan. Sswonk (talk) 01:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Although I appreciate that this proposal was well-intentioned, I feel that the difficulty is that if some one has the malicious desire to vandalise a page of Wikipedia, s/he will do it, whatever it says at the top of the page. Let us also remember that the definition of a wiki is a website which "any one can edit", not a website which any one can improve.ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Among other concerns, I think the top tab space is at a premium already, so adding three more characters is sub-optimal. (I've got a javascript that shortens it to "edit", FWIW) –xeno^talk 19:44, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I like the proposal, though think a better name than a Latin version of edit would be better, this is English Wikipedia afterall and personally I think Latin is idiotic. I understand, and agree, that "improve" would be used too literally on a talk page discussion about whether an "edit" was legitimate because it didnt "improve" the article in someone's opinion. So, basically I dont know what would be better than "edit". But I STRONGLY disagree with Aceorevived's opinion that Wikipedia (I'm not saying the definition of wiki) is a place "anyone can edit", technically anyone can edit, but if their edit is not constructive, disruptive, vandalism, racist, or offensive their edit is removed and they can be banned. So, now we dont encourage ANYONE to edit ANYTHING into any article. Plus just because "if someone wants to they will do it no matter what", well, yea duh, but if someone wants to shoplift it doesnt matter if there is a law against it, they'll find a way, that doesnt mean we should make shoplifting legal or stop finding ways to discourage shoplifting (or whatever crime you want to put in its place). Wikipedia IS a website where anyone is encouraged to IMPROVE, what else would be the reason to edit if not to improve? other than to vandalize, of course, which we dont encourage nor do we tolerate it. If changing from "edit" to something else stops even 1% of the vandalism that wouldve occured then its a good change. The question is- what name WOULD stop even 1 individual act of vandalism and how would you prove that it would? Plus we need a name that would not be a burden to newbies on their first time to wikipedia wanting to contribute (a Latin word may be discouraging to newbies who wouldnt know that tab is where they need to click to begin editing).Camelbinky (talk) 23:28, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Many others in the past have noted the potential power of a Semantic Wikipedia. By providing semantic context to wikilinks, we have the beginnings of making Wikipedia queryable by computers (without resorting to natural language processing). The Semantic Mediawiki (SMW) extension seems to be the leading technical solution, and the possibility of incorporating it here at WP seems to be continually discussed but with no real action plan.

My interim proposal is to silently encode semantic wikilinks (SWL), which would allow users to optionally encode a semantic context in wikilinks. The links would show up as usual as wikilinks/hyperlinks. The semantic context would be stored but not queryable. But perhaps the existence of potential SWLs will motivate us to move on the technical solution. And once the specific technical solution is decided, it should be simple to write a bot to revise these silent SWLs to their proper syntax.

As a proof of concept, I've mocked up a SWL template at User:AndrewGNF/SWL and modified two test pages User:AndrewGNF/UGCG and User:AndrewGNF/ITK (gene). (I'm a biologist, and the SWLs I'm playing with here represent common biological relationships.)

Comments/thoughts? Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 00:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I kind of like the idea of having hidden semantic information, so that someone with a copy of the Wikipedia database could hypothetically do semantic queries on it. But it would basically have to stay hidden. Running a Semantic MediaWiki myself, I can tell you that the most likely reason Wikipedia does not plan to use SMW is because SMW is really, really slow. On a site as popular as Wikipedia, it would bring all the servers to their knees. rspεεr (talk) 02:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've heard this too. But I've also heard that in principle, the WMF is in favor of getting some semantic solution in place. The advantage of this system of silent wikilinks is that it's not tied to any specific technical implementation. AndrewGNF (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Seems to put too much junk into the middle of the source. Data like that is easiest to manage when it's in one place. The infoboxes are probably the best bet for this sort of 'hidden' information. Why would they not be sufficient?    M   03:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the added syntax makes the code a bit more difficult to read. That would be the primary trade-off in my mind. Regarding the infoboxes, it's not clear to me how that would be a solution. Clearly lots of links in infoboxes have an implied semantic meaning (so this may be an argument for why we could just mine the infobox semantic links later). But if you believe that there are links that could be semantically annotated in the free text, then I don't think the infoboxes are a solution. In my mind, infoboxes are primarily a method of organizing things visually, whereas semantic links are good for organizing data semantically. I think these are sometimes, but not always, overlapping goals... AndrewGNF (talk) 04:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Not hearing any strong opposition, I went ahead and created this template in the main namespace at {{SWL}} and made one change to use it. More feedback and discussion is welcome. Otherwise, I'm going to start using it in my edits and we'll see if it catches on... Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 17:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

OK... So, you changed "[[RTN1]]" to "{{SWL|target=RTN1|type=PPI}}". And that is supposed to mean... what? In other words - what does "PPI" mean? Documentation doesn't seem to cover that...

And I am not sure that there is lack of "any strong opposition" - I would count "Seems to put too much junk into the middle of the source" as such... In short - such change makes the code harder to understand for anyone (man or machine) trying to read it now and there is no real guarantee that it will be helpful to anyone in the future... I doubt that can be a good idea... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. You're right, I chose a bad first example. I mentioned I was a biologist, and to many biologists, "PPI" clearly means "Protein-protein interactions". So bad choice by me. But here is another example, which essentially can be interpreted as "UGCG produces glycosphingolipids". But one can easily imagine simpler examples too. (The standard one on the Semantic Mediawiki site is "Berlin Has_capital Germany".) You're right, the "type" field is free text and open to bad choices. Note that the template automatically creates categories (e.g., Category:SWL/PPI and Category:SWL/produces) that can be used to exactly define the relationship. Does this help address your concern at all? Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 19:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

No, we need to make articles less terrible to edit before we can start adding all sorts of new confusing crap into them IMO. If we want to start putting semantic data into a database, we should start with the things we already have templates and metadata for - Geographic coordinates and biographical data. The framework is already there, but the problem with those is that there's no way to get the data efficiently. Mr.Z-man 18:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks, I wasn't aware of these templates before. So these are essentially silent templates for storing classes of structured information, rather than a silent template for storing a single piece of semantic data (as {{SWL}} does). This is interesting -- I'll need to think about this more. Off the top of my head, I think SWL will be more likely to be noticed since it's inline (and hence more likely to encourage semantic contributions from editors), but it's also a bit more disruptive being inline. Hmmm... Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, in that sample edit, it's trivially easy for a natural language processor to pick out that UGCG interacts with RTN1, and that the type of interaction is PPI even without that template. One thing that might help is developing a style guide for describing interactions in natural language, so that they are consistent and easy to parse.    M   18:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that that is one of the easier cases for NLP to pick up, I tend to think in general that nothing in NLP is "simple". But regardless, I think we can easily envision cases that wouldn't be much more difficult for NLP. However, I think I don't like the idea of creating a style guide to make things NLP-friendly because it constrains what editors can do with the text. I think the text should be written to maximize readability, and semantic content should be added in a way that maximizes accuracy and precision. My two cents on that idea... Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 19:21, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

To try to get more discussion from more users on this topic, I've moved this discussion to Template_talk:SWL and added an RfC. Cheers, AndrewGNF (talk) 18:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Since a long while, we have had a selector on the search form and results that allows people to choose a different search engine. The reason for this was traditionally because the Mediawiki search engine was terrible. Over the past year this has significantly improved however. The search form has also seen an important upgrade recently from the usability team.

In light of this usability study it is clear that less is better for our non-experienced users. Especially the tag "Mediawiki engine" that we had before on the searchengine selector was a disaster ("What's mediawiki?") according to Trevor. I have since renamed this to "English Wikipedia". I do think however that there is no real need anymore for this search engine selector. So my idea was to either move this to the advanced view of the searchpage, or remove it altogether and create a gadget of it. I'm thus asking for feedback on what we should do here. I invite you all to add your comments or votes below. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Leave it as is

Well the above should indicate I don't really think this is a good idea, but it's always an option of course.

Comments

Remove and make it a Gadget

The benefit of this is:

1. Simpler interface for non-advanced users
2. Less Javascript to load
3. People that have the gadget enabled, can have it available all the time.
4. Google is in the top right of most people's browser anyways.

Comments

I would support this option. MediaWiki search has drastically improved, and the spread of no-indexing means that external search results for non-mainspace may get worse, not better. Mr.Z-man 16:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The external searches are now entirely unnecessary for the lay-user, and they create as many problems as they solve. Happy‑melon 17:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. I was going to give some long reasons, but all I managed seemingly was "Bold text". Huh. - Jarry1250 ^{[ humorous – discuss ]} 19:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Mr.Z-man also. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a straw poll (just yet), but I support too. It'd be neat if it could roll out as an enabled gadget for all current users, then be switched to non-enabled by default for new users. That would create a minimum of fuss, and maybe nobody would even notice, but I have no clue if it's possible. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:53, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

That is not possible. There is no "distinction" between newb and experienced users to check against. Also the Gadget system can not have something enabled for all users by default. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:51, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I was clear. I mean to enable it by default at launch, so that all existing accounts have it enabled. Then, to disable it by default, so that all newly created accounts do not have it. If that even makes more sense. It's not important, I've just noticed that these sorts of things seem to be reverted by irritated parties, and this way they'd never notice. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 00:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It should at least be possible to file a bug and have all users (or those with > 1 edit) preferences changes to have the gadget enabled for them. — Dispenser 23:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Everything is possible, but I doubt brion is gonna run a script to update the database record of all our en.wp useraccounts for a single gadget.... I'll ask him however. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I thought that now that Andrew's overhauled the preferences system, only 'changes from default' are recorded in the DB. So enabling it by default is just that, changing the default. Although I can't remember how thoroughly the existing database has been converted to the new format... (also)Happy‑melon 13:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Gadgets are not added like normal preferences though, so there would (at the very least) need to be some way to define a gadget as enabled by default on MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. Mr.Z-man 15:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with MrZ, good change. MBisanz ^talk 15:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Move to advanced view

Benefits:

1. Available to all users, no need to install anything.
2. Simpler interface for non-advanced users (who are less likely to hit the Advanced view).

Downside:

1. We need to load the Javascript
2. One click further away for many users to change the searchengine

Note that in this screenshot I have also moved the selector, because it is bad form to "jump" the position of interface elements that are available in all views, which adding the selector in the old spot would happen if you switch from Simple to Advanced mode.

Comments

• Don't right-align the selector like that; people won't see it! Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:21, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Result

OK, i will put this change into effect then. Unfortunately I don't see a way to enable this gadget for all users at this time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:59, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

 Done —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)