Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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"Deletion" of reviewer userright

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

I think it can be safely said that there is no consensus for the "deletion"/removal of the right from the system, largely on the basis that there is a possibility that Pending Changes or something derived from it might be reinstated in the future. More controversial is the issue whether or not we should remove the right from the ~5,000 users who currently hold it. The proposal was made in good faith on the grounds that there is no use for the right at present, as Pending Changes is not in use. Also brought up were the liberal criteria on which the right was issued, as is often the case when things are done quickly and en masse. However, I do no see sufficient support here to enact the proposal, and indeed compelling arguments were made against it—namely that to remove it requires a huge amount of effort for little or no gain, and that the right might potentially be useful in future, Pending Changes-related or otherwise (such as part of criteria for new page patrolling). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:52, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

---

I propose that we get rid of, "delete" if you like, the Reviewer userright. There is just no point to having it anymore, as the pending changes trial failed and it's just a spare right you can't do anything with. If we can't get any more of them, and the people with it can't do anything, we don't need it. It should just be got rid of, because there's nothing special it enables users to do. Rcsprinter (talkin' to me?) 16:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment Pending changes still exists, it has just been removed from all articles following no-consensus on how it should be used and applied. That does not mean that pending changes will never make a come back. Pol430 talk to me 16:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

As said above. There will probably be another RfC at another time, especially considering (IMO) the illegitimacy of the vote that resulted in the feature being turned off. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:54, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

• This just seems like morre backhanded attempts to permanently remove PC through procedural objections, rather than resolving the actual issue of whether we should be using it at all. Until the larger issue is resolved, there is no point in even discussing this. Its not doing any harm and is invisible, so why remove it when we may have to put it back in the future? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - I was an opponent of Pending Changes until I actually saw it employed effectively with respect to a controversial and legally sensitive BLP. That sold me on P.C. as a legitimate vandalism-fighting tool to be employed in certain extremely limited circumstances. I don't think that the system of Pending Changes is dead forever; until that time, it doesn't make sense to blow away the user right. If nothing has happened with Pending Changes within the next year or two, it might be time to revisit this matter. Carrite (talk) 17:47, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Support - If we ever need it again it can be brought back. At the momment, the only thing it does is 'big up' users who think that having elevated user rights makes them superior. Oddbodz (talk) 19:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose-Maintaining it does absolutely no harm, and saves a lot of of work if/when pending changes (or any similar function) is restored. Developer time is precious; asking them to waste on something like this is a bad idea.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:21, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support removing the bit from 5,544 "testers" who aren't testing the feature. The right shouldn't be deleted, but it should be limited to those who are actually interested in continuing to test it on the available trial pages. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

  Addendum: PiRSquared17 is basically only person who has tested the Pending Changes feature on the available testing pages recently. Most other entries in the Review log are basically the result of users reviewing / editing pages that sysops accidentally added Pending Changes protection to. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:59, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

What's to test? We know that the interface works in its current release Pol430 talk to me 21:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure. PiRSquared17 had prior experience with the feature before his or her recent December tests. Maybe he or she forgot about what the feature was like and wanted to re-familiarize him or herself with the feature. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to see how it worked (the interface, etc.). I remember using it a little last year. πr² (t • c) 05:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - when we need it again over 5K pre-approved users don't need to apply; personally, I'm appalled that during my wikibreak reviewing came and went. Additionally, it's a great 'big up' for users who know that having elevated user rights makes them superior. Josh Parris 21:40, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Good grief! I hope for the sake of all that's good about Wikipedia, you are kidding. If elevated user rights have any value, I shudder at the thought of it being that they make any users feel or be in any way superior. If your sentiment is in fact serious, I think you've just made a fine argument in favour of removing as many elevated user rights as possible (without undermining the ability of folk to do their jobs). fredgandt 10:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
    • Ah I see. Yours was a humorous response to a comment above. Thank goodness for that. fredgandt 10:09, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment– @Carrite, @Josh_Parris: The last major logged improvement to FlaggedRevs was in July 2011, while most recent logged revisions are minor or are related to localizations / translations. Flaggedrevs is listed as a completed project (as opposed to a work-in-progress). FlaggedRevs isn't listed on mediawikiwiki:Future or mediawikiwiki:Roadmap. The WMF has several higher priorities, the top of which is their planned WYSIWYG editor. My conclusion: FlaggedRevs won't be improved significantly enough to warrant another trial this year, the next year, or the year after that. Unless someone says otherwise, we should assume that FlaggedRevs / Pending Changes isn't coming back in an improved form in the near-future. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 00:50, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Who said it needed improvement? It just needs another RfC advertised better. The initial RfC to activate the feature had about 650 participants, 75% of whom voted in support of the feature. The ill-formed RfC that brought it down on the basis that there was no discussion to implement it (gotta have a meeting about when to have that meeting after all, or things will never get done) had approximately 215 participants, 70% voted to remove it. In other words, three times as many editors approved the initial roll out as resulted in its shutting down. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:13, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
    • That's right. There's no "improvement" needed. The issue was not how it works/performs, the issue has always been whether or not it should be turned on or off. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Michaeldsuarez; development or deployment of Pending Changes is the exact opposite direction the WMF wants to head. I also would have doubts that they would allow it to be reenabled here, given their veto on Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. --MuZemike 09:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

@Floydian, @Seb_az86556: I don't believe that there'll ever be "consensus" to re-enable Pending Changes. Even a near three two-thirds majority supporting a proposed change to WP:V was deemed not to constitute consensus. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

"near three-thirds majority" — isn't that like the same thing as saying "nearly unanimous"? Maybe you really meant ten-tenths ;-) Mojoworker (talk) 17:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If it works, don't fix it. Warden (talk) 10:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

  It's not working; it's not being used; it's just sitting there; it's a deadweight. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose as a waste of time and effort for no benefit. If the right does nothing then it does no harm. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose It seems removing it accomplishes nothing anyone can use.84.106.26.81 (talk) 14:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose as it's not in the way and may, someday, be useful once again. And I'm not convinced it's actually the large amount of dead weight it's alleged to be. If there are 5,544 editors with the reviewer flag set, I'd guess there're no more than 8192 bytes of weight in DB content and extra code. And probably, if we somehow convinced the developers to get the reviewer right out of our faces, they'd implement it by either just hiding it (no reduction to DB or code, possible increase in code) or flipping all the bReviewer bits from =1 to =0 (resulting in no savings to DB weight). This thread alone has already added 22 kB to the bulk of Wikipedia, so just discussing it has 3 or 4 times the burden.

This isn't impeding our progress; this is hardly a huge, heavy barnacle on the SS Wikipedia. It's not even a little tine barnacle. It's a splotch of extra paint in a different color, just below the waterline. One can see it if one knows where to look, but mostly it doesn't bother anyone, nor should it. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 15:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose if Pending changes doesn't come back there is zero benefit in getting rid of the reviewer right, and some lost opportunities as there are bound to be other uses one can make of the reviewer right and the work that went into approving those thousands of reviewers; If only as a prospect pool for future RFA candidates. If Pending changes does come back there is a huge benefit in already having thousands of reviewers already approved. I'm assuming that sooner or later either the community will change its mind re Pending changes, or something will happen that forces us to take vandalism more seriously and implement this or the flagged revisions system that works on DE and other wikis. Remember we as a community are in decline whilst our readership and with it spam and vandalism are on the increase. So at some point we will need to implement systems that enable our volunteers to use their time more efficiently and identify edits that others have not yet checked. While the WMF may not currently be directly investing in this, one of the areas of research that a number of people have been looking at is the automated identification of vandalism. I think we have most of the ingredients in place to build a system where dubious edits are identified for review, and as long as only those with the admin or reviewer rights know which edits are identified as dubious I think we could devise a system which combines the efficiency of knowing which dubious edits another reviewer has checked with the open editing model of newbies not knowing that their edit is going to be looked at. ϢereSpielChequers 17:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose No comment on PC itself, but I don't think we can remove the user group itself without making a massive mess of the logs from when it was in use. Donno, ask the devs, I guess. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Support, let's end this already. If this stuff ever comes back, we can still solve these problems then. For now, however, the userright should be removed from our configuration. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:27, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, keeping it doesn't hurt anything, but getting rid of it might cause problems (presumably including a lot of duplication of effort) if consensus changes on this issue. I'm somewhat doubtful that this is possible, since MediaWiki includes it for wikis such as de:wp, but even if it's possible to remove it just from en:wp, I still don't think that removal is a good idea. Nyttend (talk) 00:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
  • User rights can easily be turned on and off selectively by project as can all extensions. The effort in turning it on and off is trivial. Though, like asking someone to turn the light switch off after you've just asked them to turn it on and they've sat down, a bit annoying. It can be configured differently on different wikis too (different namespaces affected, different user groups created, etc). I have no position on the matter, did not test it here, but use it regularly at mw.org and la.ws.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 14:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - WP:BIKE Bulwersator (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support: it's useless right now and if any feature using it will be enabled in a future, re-evaluation of the those who have this right will take more time then doing it from scratch. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 21:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support. There was never a policy behind this user right - it was given out haphazardly and in some cases (as mine) it was taken away without reason also. So it doesn't actually mean anything. While I understand the position that a meaningless right isn't worth cleaning up, the Pending Changes trial has definitely had an "undead" character about it, failing to end on one deadline after another - even hanging on with one administrator trying to use it after the trial was thoroughly over. I think by now standard undead safety protocols definitely apply - stake, decapitate, salt, and burn! Wnt (talk) 05:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support removal of userright, but not deletion. This was one of the reasons why I opposed PC even if I recognized its utility. The userright was handed out willy-nilly with no real guidelines as to what they should have been doing. Having witnessed several users - who really shouldn't have been given any special userrights yet, much less a reviewer userright - using it for purposes other than blatant vandalism/BLP violations, it made me realize that these people were basically quasi-oversights with the power to dictate what revisions are publicly visible without having earned it. I understand that having a large number of reviewers quickly was part of the trial, but then again it was a trial that forgot to stop. I still hope a saner PC can be implemented with more rigorously chosen reviewers at least for BLPs, but until then, the reviewer rights should be stripped from those who currently have it since it was given for testing reasons.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WereSpielChequers: one of these days, the enwiki community will have a sudden rush of blood to the head and implement pending changes for BLPs, right? May as well keep the user right around for when that happens! I mean, we already have pending changes: it's just called {{editprotected}} and it has a much worse UI than pending changes does. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support – I think it is quite confusing having lots of different user rights; the system looks cleaner when there aren't as many. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 16:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support, but no big deal. The right was given out much too casually, and it is reasonable to require that it be reassigned when there is a well thought out proposal underway. It's worth remembering that one of the problems identified in the last trial was that it had never been worked out what responsibilities reviewers should have. I would expect that any future trial will address that issue, and it would be a hassle to have to take back the right on a case-by-case basis. Better to give it out case-by-case, starting fresh. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support removal of this largely redundant tool, the raison d'être is dormant (for want of a better word). The tool can be resurrected at the same time as 'Son of Pending Changes'. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Sven Manguard and Phil Bridger. WikiPuppies! (bark) 14:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose why bother? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - per WereSpielChequers & Tom Morris - I would just be repeating them if I expanded further. Begoon ^talk 07:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, per the eloquent Carrite and Fyre2387. bobrayner (talk) 10:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - generally per WereSpielChequers. The right was inxeed handed out indiscriminately, but not as indiscrimate as the current right for anyone to patrol new pages. If NPP were ever to be made a pixie hat, then we have a ready made right for it (with a couple of tweaks), and a pool of people who can't be any less knowledgeable than some of the newbies for whom NPP seems to be a magnet. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
• Request – Since users will able to test Pending Changes longer than I expected, can a sysop please re-add Pending Changes protection to Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Testing/1? The protection on that page expired in August 2010. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:55, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Done--Guerillero | My Talk 14:19, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not sure work on PC is done yet. Also, retrofitting of the userright for other tasks is highly likely. Marcus Qwertyus 07:13, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support removal of the reviewer flag from all users, but not the deletion of the reviewer flag. When the flag was originally handed out, there were no criteria in which to vet the candidates. If we ever turn Pending Changes back on, it would be best to have a clearer criteria. However, the exact criteria and details is for another RfC. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 00:24, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support removing the right from all that hold it, but oppose its deletion. There may well be a use for the reviewer right in the future; there is no benefit in deleting it. However, no one actually needs the right at the moment, and removing it from everyone will ease any future changes or proposals. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support - Snowolf already removed my right (after IRC request) - totally useless. mabdul 19:45, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Even though I got my reviewer bit removed and added the tag to WP:PERM/RW. We may take it back up in 1 year or way longer. Just remove from everyone that currently has it. ~~Ebe123~~ → report on my contribs. 01:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Why bother?Jasper Deng (talk) 01:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Also for the reasons given by Carrite and Fyre2387. JACooks (talk) 21:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per -Fyre2387. Babakathy (talk) 07:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose—why pull the userright only to hand it back out when PC comes back under a clearer policy and mandate? Imzadi 1979 → 14:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Already tagged as historical, and can be used later as a reference guide.—Whenaxis about | talk 21:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
  • the reviewing right would still be in the logs, or? mabdul 23:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• STRONG OPPOSE - This has nothing to do with being one of the 5,544 "bigged-up" users in question above. My oppose is because I still have a strong belief in the feature, and that it worked. Unfortunately, there were still enough problems that the community voted to have it taken off indefinitely, though I believe without prejudice for later reinstatement. I think a sufficient amount of time has passed and revisiting Pending Changes would be a worthwhile thing to do anytime soon. Therefore, removing the userright hinders the ability to restore PC when and if the time comes. It also wastes developers' time. CycloneGU (talk) 16:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, pointless busywork. Stifle (talk) 17:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose PC still exists, but is inactive. The removal would also pointless extra work, as the user right does no harm at all. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{Let's talk}_{about my edits?} 18:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - As mentioned above, there's no point removing the bit when the feature is sitting there waiting for use. If it was actually broken, rather than just not in use, it might be different. Mark Hurd (talk) 07:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Changing the "d" to "t" in templates

Because of the change of "discussion" to "talk" on Wikipedia articles, we similarly should change this on templates. The "v" is for view (obviously), while "d" is for discussion and "e" is for edit. It makes so much more sense to change the "d" to a "t" (for Talk, as opposed to Discussion) because of the change regarding the tab name (from discussion to talk). Till I Go Home (talk) 07:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a practical reason why it is not "t"; it is too narrow, leaving only three pixels to click on, while the "d" is wider. Compare: d vs. t. — Edokter (talk) — 12:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact that it is inconsistent with the new style of "Article | Talk" meaning it would make much more sense as a "t". Till I Go Home (talk) 13:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

What you say makes sense, but I personally find usability the larger concern. I find that t a pretty difficult target! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:05, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe tk (just a thought, as "t" could also stand for "template" in this context). --NSH001 (talk) 16:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

"t/d" (talk/discuss) perhaps? I dislike that "talk" was chosen over "discussion", but now that it's been decided, we should at least make everything consistent. --Cybercobra (talk) 17:12, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Why not simply switch to uppercase letters? A T link is sufficiently wide. —David Levy 20:05, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Alternatively, do we really need to link to the talk page of a template from every instance of that template? Leonxlin (talk) 04:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

We need the e button for really unexperienced users to change also transcluded templates. mabdul 11:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

We also need E for lazy people. Like me. Petrb (talk) 13:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support to change to t and all to uppercase letters. mabdul 11:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
• Why not change them all to capitals V T E. If you reach a consensus how to do that, poke me or someone on bots, and I could help to implement this widely on site. Petrb (talk) 13:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support V T E Again, better to have everything consistent, and the uppercase solves any logisical issues. Angryapathy (talk) 17:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support V T E, per above. Help new and lazy users find the four letter words. --Quintucket (talk) 00:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, obviously. They are called talk pages, let's not beat around the bush. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support And I don't understand the pixel comments above. If it needs to be "t", it needs to be "t". The number of pixels really doesn't matter doktorb _words^deeds 16:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Somewhat oppose - won't some people find it confusing actually, clicking on t, thinking it will also take them to the template page? Simply south...... having large explosions for 5 years 18:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

  A slightly ambiguous initial is preferable to one with no obvious meaning (given the fact that it stands for a term no longer in use in the relevant context). —David Levy 19:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support change to "V T E", as discussed above. —David Levy 19:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support V T E per common sense exhibited above. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 19:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support: V T E or even Ⓥ Ⓣ Ⓔ.   → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ 03:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support V T E. I have no issue whatsoever with "v t e", either. DCItalk 20:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• Sounds like a good idea. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support v · t · e The all caps looks, well, overly imposing. Also, I strongly oppose Ⓥ Ⓣ Ⓔ, as not every computer properly renders unicode. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support View Talk Edit see examples Petrb (talk) 13:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for several reasons: 1. Capitals are too big and cause misalignment. This could be countered using smallcaps, but those render inconsistently between several browsers; see Template:Navbar/testcases for examples using smallcaps. 2. When hovering over the 'd', a tooltip appears with the text "Discuss this template"; so where is the perceived confusion? 3. Just because the tabs now use "Talk" doesn't mean the rest have to follow suit; by that logic, we would have to change the "v"/"view" to "t"/"template"... oops, "t" would be taken by Talk. To sumarize: I see no reason to change something that has been working for ten years now. — Edokter (talk) — 14:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support any of the proposed options (V T E, v t e, view talk edit, View Talk Edit). Dcoetzee 22:17, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - View - Talk - Edit. Carrite (talk) 05:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• Stick with v t e The width of the "t" is irrelevant because you can just include padding on the inside of the link to expand the clickable area:

In fact, since the space is there, why not maximize the clickable area for all three?

I prefer all lowercase because it's less attention-grabbing. —Designate (talk) 19:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposed types

Let's compare this:

• Complete text

This is a test template

• Shortcut

This is a test template

I guess we should decide if it wouldn't be better to use first one, since it's most clear to newbies Petrb (talk) 14:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

And "View", "Talk" and "Edit" are all short, four-letter words to it will be fine. Till I Go Home (talk) 05:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Note also that VTE and V T E are both possible for small templates. Mark Hurd (talk) 07:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

"Check Availability" feature for usernames

I think Wikipedia should implement a "Check Availability" feature for usernames (as offered by YouTube) for editors who are newly registering at Wikipedia. As of now, if a username is already taken, the user have to retype the password and the annoying CAPTCHA after choosing a new username. Implementation of this proposed feature will save a lot of time. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 06:04, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Support I think that there's a list of usernames somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment. The fact that I can't find it suggests that finding available and used usernames could be made easier. Pine^talk 22:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

You'ee probably thinking of Special:ListUsers. It's decidedly difficult to find if you don't know how to get to it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:18, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Support - can't think of any logical reason not to have this, and good reasons to have it. Can;t think why it's not already there! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Support Why hasn't this been implemented it? It's a great idea because it saves time for the person registering, he wouldn't need to get a message saying that the username has already been taken. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:09, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Support, although I don't know how Youtube has implemented it - that might save us work at the WP:ACC team. mabdul 11:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Ajax. →Στc. 07:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

This is very easy to implement, anyway Special:ListUsers list only local users so it's absolutely unusable for this. If there is a support for this, we can implement it quickly, however the deployment to cluster may take a while. Petrb (talk) 12:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Support this sounds like a very good idea. (i for one remember typing the captcha over again several times) :P benzband (talk) 21:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Support Useful, time-saving, easily implementable (per Petrb), and long overdue!--JayJasper (talk) 21:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Support This seems to be a good way to improve the account creation process. Helder 15:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. I hate people. They should stay off the Internet and we should make their lives miserable. Okay, seriously, who in their right mind would not support this as nice-to-have? -Fennec 04:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Nyup! Per Fennec. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• 

  
  The page mw:Requests for comment/Account creation might be of interest. --Yair rand (talk) 14:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for WP:Identifiability

Proposal for WP:Identifiability

An AfD closing admin recently stated, "An WP:OR title alone is not a valid reason for deletion". IMO, there is no part of an article more important for the avoidance of WP:OR than the title.  I propose that WP:Identifiability is a missing policy.  This is a basic concept, "the existence of topic titles must be WP:V verifiable". Below are some related AfD and DRV discussions.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/City Seminary

Article kept with zero references for the title (as a matter of WP:OR, the title is believed to be slang usage in Sacramento).  Closing admin statement, "I am not particularly concerned about the rationale given by Unscintillating, since there is no significant contradiction between being called "City Seminary" one place and "City Seminary of Sacramento" another place."

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christian existential apologetics

one title-reference was claimed to have been found during the AfD, but IMO the main reason that the article was kept was that it was well-written WP:OR

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Bolshevik Influence on Political Correctness

article deleted

• Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 January 7 for 15 Khordad (Paramont) Intersection

article originally deleted, no references provided for title, relisted

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/15 Khordad (Paramont) Intersection

consensus that the title of the article is unsalvageable WP:OR, article kept, 2nd DRV on the horizon

Unscintillating (talk) 01:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Would a similar standard be held for redirects? Disambiguation? Josh Parris 01:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I am not addressing Josh's question — I think that this proposal has merit for titles which purport to be proper names. There would be exceptions to this which would follow the "it is not necessary to source the fact that the sky is blue" argument, such as surnames for which there are notable persons (e.g. Taylor (surname)). I do not think that the proposal should be applied to descriptive names, such as 2008 cyberattack on United States or List of iOS devices or Economy of Norway, as examples. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rumors and urban legends regarding Sesame Street comes to mind as a generic title that was unsourceable.  In this case the article was deleted.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• (Closing admin of 15 Khordad Intersection) I hope to point out the danger of this proposal with regards to deletion policy. Consider two hypothetical articles, each with a likely OR title, but otherwise each about a subject that's otherwise notable:
  1. The first article is about a subject of local interest in the English world. An editor in the debate proposes an alternative title (say, based on the official name of the subject rather than local slang reference), the article is thus renamed and kept.
  2. The second article is about a foreign subject of local interest, and does not have an established English name. Without an acceptable English article title that doesn't amount to any original translation, "Identifiability" is invoked, and the article is deleted.

  The problem of this proposed policy, is that it is biased against subjects that do not have an established English (or Latin alphabet) name. In other words, from the enactment of this new policy onwards, Wikipedia's inclusion guidelines will present a systematic bias against topics from the non-Latin alphabet world. This is utterly against WP:NPOV, and is directly contradictory to Wikimedia-wide projects such as meta:Research:Oral Citations which serve to conteract the current Anglo-sphere dominance when it comes to articles about things of local interest. Deryck C. 10:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I am not very impressed by Deryck's argument, nor in general by the argument that it's a bad thing for an English-language encyclopedia to have more coverage of topics of interest to Anglophones than of topics that are less likely to be of interest to Anglophones. That's not what NPOV is about at all; NPOV is about treating topics neutrally when they're treated at all, not about making sure that all topics are treated whether or not they're of interest to the (English-speaking, almost by definition) readership. However, no, I wouldn't want to actually ban having an article just because there's no Latin-alphabet name, but this should not really be a problem — the policy (or guideline) could easily be written in such a way as to allow transliterations of verifiable names from other alphabets. --Trovatore (talk) 10:32, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I concede that I was deliberately skeptical, because I felt that 15 Khordad Intersection is a prime example of a type of article which this proposal seeks to remove from Wikipedia. Deryck C. 21:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between deleting an article with a topic for which no established name exists, and removing the topic.  In this case, the encyclopedic material (assuming other criteria are met) could-have-been/can-be entered in the article for Shiraz, Iran.  In an article, but not in a title, questionable material can be presented without using Wikipedia's voice. For example, the article could say,

Iranian sources have at least two names for this intersection, those two being "چهار راه پارامونت" "چهارراه پانزده خرداد", which translate.google.com translates to English as "Four Way Paramount," "Crossroads khordad".

Unscintillating (talk) 01:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I am a bit unclear. Is this proposal saying that an article can be deleted solely because there is a dispute over what to call it? Certainly, there are concepts which are deserving of an article, but which don't have Official Sanctioned Titles (tm). An English-language descriptor of the concept should suffice, n'est ce pas? --Jayron32 22:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No, the proposal says nothing about a dispute, it says the title has no special status that frees it from the requirements of WP:V verifiability.  As per WP:BURDEN, "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds...material. [Another editor] may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it".  Unscintillating (talk) 01:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but we do that anyways. Its called a "move request". People with reliable sources indicating that a better title for an existing article is needed will simply either move the article themselves, or champion a discussion under a move request. No need to delete anything. --Jayron32 06:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree, assuming that an identifiable title has been found to move the article to, after a move the unidentifiable title still exists as a redirect.  So after a move the need for deletion has changed little.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• I don't like this one bit. Certainly we could highlight in Wikipedia:Article titles that we should avoid making up our own names for topics if possible, but demanding that the title be verifiable or the article gets deleted seems odd if otherwise editors agree that the topic is worthy of an article. We don't need yet another rule to use to delete articles on technicalities. Fences&Windows 23:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
• I think this is a silly proposal. Articles are about topics, we just need the topic to be clearly identified and notable. Not all topics have a clear title. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. the WP:Article titles policy is fine for the purpose. Article titles are a way of finding a topic, they do not define a topic, they are just search keys. Dmcq (talk) 00:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately a fair number of articles are about topics invented to some extent by the person who wrote the article. One reasonably reliable proxy for figuring out whether this has happened is whether the topic has a standard name. One really terrible example that sticks with me is nuclear crime, an article that never should have been written. I was able to get it moved to a less neologistic name, list of crimes involving radioactive substances, but I am still deeply uncomfortable with the article and think it should be deleted; it's a libel trap waiting to happen. --Trovatore (talk) 00:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
  • And if the topictitle is not clearly identified, we keep it anyway?  Why should titles get a special treatment and become an open door for original thought, when in the body of the article we try to follow the sources?  Unscintillating (talk) 01:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
    • A is often associated with B does no mean that if you see B then A is true. It might be a red flag but that's about all. Would people also not try and prove things by showing instances that agree with them but by trying and failing to prove the opposite thanks? There used to be another editor thankfully now banned who used to have endless arguments with everyone about finding the exact wording of titles and trying to delete articles on that basis and I believe the interminable discussions on WT:Article titles where they spent a lot of time have quite clearly demonstrated there is no wish to have anything like this. Dmcq (talk) 14:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
      • I've redacted an ambiguity.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• This proposal is truly bizarre. WP:OR is for articles, this prevents article content that cannot be verified. But suggesting that an article be deleted simply because there is no source stating that the title is the proper is nonsensical. It's even more so if applied to redirects, since redirects are intended to be guides for people who may not know what the proper title is. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

So you are saying that we need to keep "15 Khordad (Paramont) Intersection" as a redirect because people will type that name when they don't know what the "proper" title is?  Really?  Unscintillating (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• Bad idea. If the title is bad, then WP:MOVE the bloody page. Deletion is not a form of clean up, not even for bad titles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

"bloody", is that not a British form of crude language?  You have a history at WT:5 of joining in personal attacks of editors you consider to be newbies, so I hope this stops here and now.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

^^'Bloody' is used in British English frequently and socially accepted widely, it's not derogatory or really considered offensive, or 'crude'. Just thought I'd put into perspective for you. Acather96 (talk) 11:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Unscintillating, I do not consider you to be a newbie. I consider you to be an editor with enough experience that he ought to know better already. My belief that you are not a newbie is exactly why I think, for example, that your edit warring last summer [1][2][3] to prevent WikiProject Essays from tagging that page was so inappropriate. If I thought you were a newbie, I wouldn't treat you like a peer when you screw up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Taiwan_island_group is a current AfD with a related topic being discussed.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Here is a quote from that AfD, "I recommend you find a bunch of reliable sources referring to 'Taiwan Island Group', because right now the lack of such sources is what may have the article deleted. Nwlaw63 (talk) 20:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)"  Unscintillating (talk) 01:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The AfD discussion concentrating on the name just looks all wrong to me. The real question is whether there are secondary sources dealing with the topic in some depth, do we have geography books that have a chapter about the islands and groups them together for instance? The citations in the lead are the things to look at when deciding on the notability of the topic - not the title. Thoise citations should be compared to what the lead says the article is about and if those citations do cover that in some detail and are good secondary sources the notability hurdle is passed. My current feeling looking at it is that it probably should be merged into the article about the island of Taiwan as the current references aren't enough for a good separate article but this has absolutely nothing to do with the title of the article not being common. Purely descriptive titles are fine if there are no good standard names for the topic. Dmcq (talk) 01:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• WP:Articles_for_deletion/Weight-Increase_Phobia provides a relevant comment by mentioning WP:NEOLOGISM.  WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#Neologisms is a policy and states,

  In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, it is preferable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.

  Unscintillating (talk) 01:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• This discussion has been cross-referenced at [WT:Article titles#Accuracy: A sixth criterion?].  Unscintillating (talk) 21:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with the closer that WP:OR in a title is never a reason for deletion, because it only encourages the named topic bias, in which topics with widely accepted names receive articles while those without one don't get one, although they may be more significant and have far more impact in the world. Current events are a common example; for example the 2011 Japanese earthquake is at 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which is an WP:OR title, but I'd dare you to delete this article. Dcoetzee 22:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't find the dare to be contributing to this discussion, likewise the word "strongly" suggests to me insecurity in the argument.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • You clearly articulate an argument that Wikipedia should be in the driver's seat when it comes to naming things, even at the expense of the popular policies WP:V and WP:OR.  I'm seeing that User:Dcoetzee/Named topic bias in effect makes a claim that following the sources is biased against things that are not sourced.  I'm wondering if that is any different than the "but it is true" WP:V argument in a new form.  Is there a need or purpose for Wikipedia to be openly pushing the envelope of original research, or is this an inevitable effect of organizing material in general?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Is 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami a new proper name, or a descriptive name, that if it becomes a proper name, was not created to be a proper name?  It is nothing like the "City Seminary" AfD where it took several days to find a reliable source for the name of the seminary.  I don't think anyone even considered The seminary on Sixteenth Avenue in Sacramento.  As in a lede that reads, "The seminary on Sixteenth Avenue in Sacramento (TSOSAIS), is a conservative, evangelical theological college, in Sacramento, California."  Unscintillating (talk) 03:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Allow watchlisting of Special:Contributions/[User] pages

[edit=Quintucket (talk) 00:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)]
I notice that every objection centers around the idea that it would make it easier to stalk users. So I'd like to point out two counter-points which have been brought up in the comments:

1. It's easy to wikistalk a single user. What this proposal would do is allow the watchlisting of a lot of users, which isn't a tool wikistalkers need. They already have what they need, which
2. There's no need to allow watchlisting of registered users. Logged-in vandals are generally dealt with in a timely manner; it's mostly the IP vandals who slip under the radar. [/edit]

I'm surprised this isn't on perennial proposals, but the upside is it means I get to suggest it without (I hope) looking like a total ignorant. I've noticed that the vast majority of anti-vandalism efforts are given either by Cluebot, or with an automated tool like Huggle or Twinkle, which apparently allow first-level warnings. This means that persistent vandals will get a lot of warnings, and often get "final" warnings followed a month later by more first-level automated warnings only. But the users with earlier final warnings in the last year or so I can at least report at AIV. Even more problematic are the users who rack up a large number of first, second, and occasionally third-level warnings, but never get to a final edit. (I generally give users who fit this criteria a third or fourth level warning in line with the total warnings they've accumulated in the past year. I'm not sure this is fully Kosher, but I feel it's completely warranted.)

So I try to check recent changes manually and find these persistent users, and watchlist any pages they've vandalized. This isn't exactly the best way to go about it, and I rarely catch new changes by these vandals, but I don't know if it's because they stop (unlikely in many cases), or because they move on to other pages. But if I could watchlist Special:Contributions pages directly, it would let me follow those persistent vandals without keeping them in a text file (which I've thought about, but I'm lazy, and I've already got quite a large non-vandal to-do list in another file).

While I know this would require software updates, I'm hoping that enough people would appreciate this feature that it can gain the consensus to suggest at Bugzilla. --Quintucket (talk) 10:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:STALK. I don't think I can agree that this would be beneficial, however useful. --Izno (talk) 13:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: While I acknowledge the advantage of watchlisting vandals but this will have much adverse affects on the constructive contributors who regularly get hounded or stalked. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Yes, with what Izno points out, and the substantial changes needed to software (I think) to "subscribe" to specific versions of what is a virtual "Special" page, I can't see this gaining much traction. There are so many "stalking" concerns it would be bound to open up, and truly, I share some of them. I think you're stuck with another way of doing this if you need to do it legitimately. Begoon ^talk 13:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose (reluctantly) Whilst I've often experienced the very same frustration as Quintucket, and have regularly (daily, even) thought how useful this feature would be, stalking vandals' edits shows a failure to assume good faith. We have to assume that they won't reoffend once warned - even if they almost invariably do. Yunshui 雲‍水
  • I don't think I follow the reasoning here. By this logic, we also shouldn't watchlist or protect any commonly vandalised articles, AGF they won't be vandalized again. That's really the exact reason why we would want to watchlist recurring vandals, for the very likely case they will again. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
    • We can also remember something that Jimbo pointed out: "our social policies are not a suicide pact." I always try to assume good faith whenever there's any doubt, even with users who add anti-Semitic comments to articles (this is a real example, I tried to reach out to the user). But some vandalism is pretty damn obvious, like adding nonsense or spam. When you see a user who has a long history of vandalism, it's pretty clear that the vandalism will continue until the IP is reassigned or the user grow up.

On the other hand, if a user has a history of non-constructive edits, even if they seems to be in good faith, it runs up against competence is required. I've seen many users who persistently add biased or verifiably inaccurate information despite warnings to stop, and I assume that they genuinely believe they're improving the encyclopedia. When I see these users, I try to add text to whatever template I'm using (this is another reason I refuse to use scripts). These users in particular it makes sense to monitor, because they can become genuine Wikipedians. (I'm a minor case-in-point; my 2004-2005 contribs tended to reflect an anti-Boston bias that I've now outgrown.) Is it better to have Huggle users templating them until a non-script-using user gets fed up and reports them, resulting in a block, or users who can monitor them and attempt to talk to them? --Quintucket (talk) 17:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. There are very many vandals from different IPs/usernames and some recurring individuals could use an oversight. But I don't think the ability to follow their edits arbitrarily outweighs the enabled misuse of the feature for WP:STALKing. I might consider this if users/IPs were "watchlist-tagged" by sysops. But this does sounds a little WP:SHEDy. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• We can implement this feature for IP contributions only to indeed avoid stalking. Then it will make sense for static IP with recurring vandalism issues.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:32, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Really? I think you first need to establish that an IP editor is less entitled to protection from "stalking" than a registered (still possibly anonymous) username. Begoon ^talk 14:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

    Well, this is obviously an issue for discussion, but did not the community decide to have higher level of protection from IPs by for instance restricting them to be unable to create new articles? I am not sure the community would support the idea, but I do not think it should be outright rejected as being in contradiction to the five pillars.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

How about sysops being able to tag only the vandals who can then be watchlisted or monitored through RSS feeds? --lTopGunl (talk) 15:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

If they are vandals, why aren't they already blocked? --Jayron32 15:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Because we are talking about recurring IPs. They may be blocked for 6 months, then return after two more months and start vandalizing articles until caught and re-blocked. This could facilitate catching them on time.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Aren't we getting a bit close to being back in HELLKNOWZ's WP:SHED, by now, though? Begoon ^talk 16:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Without regard to the supposed moral hazard this presents, I'm not sure that this is technically feasible using the way that watchlists work. Actual "pages" in Wikipedia consist of text which is only changed when someone changes it; the text itself is stored in the database, which is why it can be watchlisted. "Special" pages do NOT consist of existing text, the "special" pages simply pull info from a database and the page is generated on the fly; there's nothing for one to "watchlist" because the things the watchlist looks for (changes to stored text) don't exist in "special" pages. I don't think this is implementable easily. I suppose it could be kludged by the devs, but it isn't something as easy as flipping a switch. --Jayron32 14:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

That's why I observed that it might be difficult. However page-protection already shows up in watchlists, and then there's the watchlist itself. It would seem to be a relatively simple matter of transcluding (not the right word, I know), any new user contributions to the Special:Watchlist page, as they would appear on the Special:Contributions page. --Quintucket (talk) 17:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I support the principle here, and know of times myself it would have been useful, but also am worried about the potential for abuse in the form of stalking and hounding. Maybe it could say only work on newbies with >50/25 edits, or something along those lines. Could also be useful for adopters and mentorers to track their adoptee/mentoree easily. I'm not sure if this could be technically implemented though. Acather96 (talk) 16:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• In response to some of the comments I've seen above: I think I agree that if created, this should only apply to IPs. One thing I've noticed is that admins seem to apply a lower standard to blocking usernames than blocking IPs (usually on the pretext of WP:EDITWAR, whether the 3RR is violated or not), presumably on the principle that it could affect more people than just the vandal. And it seems to me that the vast majority of persistent registered vandals are spammers, who can be safely indef-blocked, while most IP vandals seem to have no such external agenda.

The other point I'd like to make is that I've seen a number of cases where problematic IP edits have gone unnoticed for months or even years, and I'm sure there's more we've all missed. All it takes is for a bot or user to revert vandalism by one IP but not the one that preceded it, or for a user to make another edit that hides the edit from most watchlists. (I doubt that the vast majority of recent changes get patrolled by a human user, even one using a script.) Usually these are blatantly POV statements or factual inaccuracies (often inserted in front of an already cited source), which while not technically vandalism, though these users will often have edit histories that contain genuine vandalism. Presumably if users who reverted the obvious vandalism were able these users, these seemingly valid edits would be subject to stricter scrutiny. --Quintucket (talk) 17:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: I am more than a little puzzled by the fears expressed here about people misusing the capability proposed. On the one hand, there is nothing to prevent anyone from looking at the contributions of a given Wikipedia user at any time so this will hardly be opening up some kind of Pandora's box. On the other hand, I recall that there is some javascript that can be added to a userpage to do exactly this (a search of common tools would probably find it, although I can't be bothered). (On a slightly different note, "stalking" is a serious form of personal harassment which is often criminal - looking at what someone edits on Wikipedia is not stalking by any reasonable definition and the overuse of the word does a disservice to victims of real-life stalking.) Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support the idea, although its implementation might not be doable inside the current Special:Watchlist functionality. I don't find arguments about the dangers of stalking to be at all compelling. Stalkers already have a single page where they can see all of their target's contributions, so it's merely a matter of convenience. Stalkers are obsessive and they're already stalking without this tool, so this proposal would only change things for actual vandal fighters who don't watch vandals as closely as they might if it were easier to do so. — Bility (talk) 18:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I have thought of this too, and here is a perfect example of an IP where this would be needed: User:173.168.93.7. This editor has put in guerilla vandalism across dozens of articles before getting noticed and having the vandalism removed. The editor was blocked 5 times, and as soon as the block is over, the exact same type of vandalism starts again. Now, if we had this tool, I would easily see when this person started editing again, and check to see if they were up the same same shenagins, and perhaps nip the issue in the bud before too many articles were disrupted. Currently, I'd literally have to mark a calender to check the IP once the block is lifted. Angryapathy (talk) 18:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I watchlist the user pages of some vandal IPs, and when I see Cluebot, et al., leave additional warnings I'll double check to see if they have committed enough vandalism to warrant a block.   Will Beback  talk  20:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I can appreciate where the nominator is coming from, but suspect that this will create problems - particularly an increase in unconstructive wikistalking - more than it will bring benefit.--JayJasper (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

As another user noted above, stalking users is already possible through the Special:Contributions page. It's also possible to watch vandals the same way, of course. The difference is that fighting vandals effectively requires the monitoring of many pages, while stalking a user requires the monitoring of only one or two. Also, as noted, there's no reason to allow watchlisting of logged-in users. The actions of logged-in users already tend to be subject to stricter scrutiny, I think in part because they're easier to recognize than an IP number, and in part because blocking a user will only affect that user, whereas blocking a vandal may affect other users. --Quintucket (talk) 23:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support as a userright - Mentors may find it useful, but its potential for abuse requires it to be a restricted function. Jasper Deng (talk) 06:42, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• I actually made a userscript that did this years ago - it would take any user pages on your watchlist, then put those names into the wikipedia api, get out their recent contributions then display the results in a formatted list. Unfortunately the api then changed significantly and I haven't had the chance to rewrite the script accordingly. I understand the concerns that people could get stalked - I don't know how big a problem it is but surely the solution to that would be to either restrict access to contributions pages (which is never going to happen) or to just make people more aware that anything they post on here is public, and hence to avoid posting anything they later regret. Even if people here aren't keen on a feature like this, it's perfectly possible for third party websites to implement this sort of thing. Tra (Talk) 17:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• I like the idea, but am concerned that it might be abused for WP:HOUNDing. On the other hand, I've done it myself on occasion with nothing more complicated than a simple bookmark. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• That's my workaround as well -- I make bunches of bookmarks of potential problem-user contribs (typically new user names that remind me of banned users, or historically troublesome IPs, things like that) and then periodically open them all in tabs. Easy to do, requires no software update. Antandrus (talk) 04:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• User contributions can be pseudo-watchlisted through RSS feeds - eg this. It's slightly clumsy (you have to use an RSS reader) but it does work (and it can scale as a long-term solution for mostly-inactive users). Shimgray | talk | 12:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support the idea although I don't think it will be implemented any time soon: devs discussed this since 2004 in mediazilla:470. In another project I'm currently using my userscript similar to Tra's above but utilizing browser localStorage. — AlexSm 22:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
• Strong support – Enough with the "stalking" crap. Stalkers don't need extra tools to stalk—they are already stalking just fine. (By the way has anyone actually looked at WP:STALK recently?) This is a feature that I have wished for for a long time, and it would be extremely useful. Currently I have a list of a few users and IPs that I try and check up on every so often, but it's pretty difficult without a feature such as this. It seems more like something that would be on the toolserver at least initially, since the toolserver is where most hacked up tools like this go, but this would be a very useful feature to be integrated into MediaWiki. It also fits with the ideology here of openness and usability. I was just thinking of this recently and how it would be similar to the concept of Linux filesystems, where everything, including devices, act as a file and can be addressed as such (procfs, device files, etc.) The watchlist is not a "page" in and of itself; it's more of a "virtual page", so any action performed with/on it that treats it like a "regular" page will involve some type of abstraction layer. We already have crosswiki contributions tools (here is one) on the toolserver which compile contributions from multiple wikis into a single page. I'm a little surprised that watchlisting of contributions has not already been implemented, as it is simply one of the next logical steps in the ideology of how improvements to the usefulness and usability of Wikipedia/MediaWiki are made, and it also fits very well with the open source software mindset as a whole. The idea of having such a feature be limited to being used by or used on specific users is preposterous. Everyone's contributions are already public; it does not make an ounce of sense to make a feature with takes public information and makes it more useful in a way that anyone could do themselves manually or with a script and then make that feature a restricted or private feature. There is no reason to add extra complication to a feature just because it is new when every other similar feature is publicly available and unrestricted. —danhash (talk) 18:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support. The benefits of being able to watch for frequent vandals far outweigh any supposed danger of facilitating Wikistalking, and if we really want to prevent users from abusing this feature, why not give it only to autoconfirmed users in good standing? ZZArch ^{talk to me} 22:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - It's not good to trace a user's edits. I think it will be approach more to Wikihounding than patroling. ●Mehran ^Debate● 09:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
  • The contributions feature has been and will be available. Your opposition is to the entire idea of tracking contributions, which the community and the software already support. Your comment is not about the proposed feature and is therefore not relevant. —danhash (talk) 15:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support for both IPs and registered users. It's not uncommon for warned users to "lay low" after receiving a warning, and return to vandalizing a few months later. There are several occasions on which I've failed to follow up on users after giving them a "I will block you if this behavior continues" warning because it's too much trouble. In the past I tried adding links to users' contributions to my user page for my own convenience - I'm not sure if making the list of watched users public encourages or discourages hounding, is this a good idea? If the devs aren't amenable to it, I might consider implementing a Toolserver tool for this, which would be quite simple and probably isn't against the privacy policy. Dcoetzee 22:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I would use this for the students in the classes for which I am an online ambassador. Then I can provide more timely assistance when they actually edit. There already is somthing for this on the tool server, but it is pretty locked down so that it takes a while to get new stuff in. I don't mind if it is a userright or available to everyone, the information is there already, it makes it quicker to access. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Trimming books.google.com links.

What I have been guilty of myself in the past is including what my search term was when linking in a google books link for a reference, for example (not mine) http://books.google.com/?id=6PrmTAKiy0QC&pg=PA153&dq=nubian+pyramids+kings++tomb . This goes to the correct book (the id= and the specific page, but also highlights nubian, pyramids, king and tomb in the text which I don't think is needed. I'd like to see all of the links to books.google.com reduced down to only the id and pg fields. First of all, where would it be discussed as to whether this trim down is appropriate, and secondly, if it is, would this be a reasonable thing for a bot to do?Naraht (talk) 11:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

There is {{Google books quote}} which may help in some cases. Helder 15:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I discussed this at Help:Citation Style 1#Web links, but that page has a specific focus. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you to you both, I didn't know about the various google related templates. I still think things can be simplified, I can't for example see any reason that the search term can't be simplified out of things, is there a better place to discuss this?Naraht (talk) 14:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be a simple task for a bot to do. You could ask someone at WP:Bot requests to code one up. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I found '<link rel="canonical" href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Nubian_Pharaohs_and_Meroitic_Kings.html?id=6PrmTAKiy0QC"/>' in the source code of the page linked above. The canonical URL should at least be commented out in the citation. – Allen4names 07:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Including the (top) in places like the recent changes

It would make some things a lot easier, like screening for missed vandalism and stuff. :| Glacialfox (talk) 19:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Care to clarify? Regards, RJH (talk) 21:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I get it. A "user contributions" list says "(top)" where relevant, but a "recent changes" list does not. Consider this listing of the 250 most recent changes in the Portal namespace. If a particular edit looks dubious, a "(top)" next to it would confirm that it still needs fixing.

But I don't find this a problem. With Navigation popups enabled, it is easy to see the "diff" of the edit and just as easy to hover over the "history" link to see whether anyone has reverted it. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay I see. Well unless a page is getting multiple edits in rapid succession, wouldn't every entry on the 'Recent changes' list be a '(top)'? Regards, RJH (talk) 18:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

What about ACTA?

What about ACTA?

Is it as dangerous as SOPA and PIPA?

How did Wikipedia's SOPA initiative miss it?

Shouldn't it have been the ACTA/PIPA/SOPA initiative? Should we be worried?

What are the ramifications of ACTA's being signed? (yesterday)

The European Parliament's appointed rapporteur resigned over this. Has anyone (WMF, Signpost) contacted that person for a statement?

How transparent were ACTA's negotiations?

How will ACTA affect Wikipedia?

How will it affect the Wayback Machine? That's the best place I know of to see historically accurate past versions of Wikipedia pages. (Templates screw up historical views of pages on Wikipedia).

How and when would ACTA go into effect?

What is happening in the Wikipedia community and in the Wikimedia Foundation about ACTA?

What articles about ACTA is The Signpost working on?

What, if anything, should Wikipedia do about ACTA?

I look forward to your replies. The Transhumanist 02:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Why would we care if the negotiations were transparent or not? Flaws in some countries' democratic processes aren't relevant to Wikipedia. Unless ACTA actually harms our mission, we can't get involved. --Yair rand (talk) 02:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

English Wikipedia is a world-wide mission. English is the second language pretty much everywhere that it's not the first language. Or close enough. The Transhumanist 03:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I think ACTA could threaten our mission someday, but there is not a clear and present danger. It's just in the negotiation phase right now. At this stage, the best thing to do is not to protest but to get our representatives in on the drafting process. If the US drafts a bill for ACTA compliance that affect us negatively, that will be the time to protest. Dcoetzee 02:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

But it has already been signed. How does that work? I thought treaties had to be ratified by the Senate. But this, which obligates its parties to certain actions, is being called a “sole executive agreement”. So my next question is, did it become binding on the US government when (USTR) Ambassador Ron Kirk signed it last October? The Transhumanist 05:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• While I don't feel ACTA is quite the clear and present danger that SOPA was, at least at this moment, I also think we should suggest to the Wikimedia Foundation that they produce a contingency plan for moving the servers to Sweden, in order to ensure a fallback position is available. Also, a backup of Wikipedia's data should probably be held there.—S Marshall T/C 12:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Sweden is a signatory of ACTA. Try a different country. --Yair rand (talk) 12:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
    • True, but it's much less likely to sign up to something like egregious like SOPA than the US is, hence the contingency plan.—S Marshall T/C 21:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
  • You would have better luck with Iceland. These folks strike me as the most committed advocates of freedom. ZZArch ^{talk to me} 04:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
    • We need a micronation. Name it Jimboland. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Renaming of the Local Embassies

I am not sure how difficult a task this would be, but I am suggesting that the "local embassy" feature on Wikipedia be renamed to a less confusing title. Currently, despite the numerous disclaimers, there are still visitors who post comments that might be expected at a foreign nation's embassy or consulate. Wikpedia is not a governmental institution of any kind, and does not need to have a program called the "local embassy," in my opinion. Below are two ideas for a new title:

• Inter-language assistance
• Multilingual Help Desk

These are not ideal titles, but could do as temporary ones until a better name could be selected, or a reversion to the "local embassy" title could be put in place. I'm venturing into fairly unfamiliar territory here, but, from my experiences, a renamed program would be more efficient and understandable. Thanks, DCItalk 04:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support 2nd As we could have a noticeboard. Simple, and "Inter-language" is not as good as Multilingual. ~~Ebe123~~ → report on my contribs. 00:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support 2nd However, considering this will affect all Wikimedia Foundation projects, shouldn't this be taken up at meta? Establishing a consensus here will be meaningless, as it will only receive input from English Wikipedia users. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 01:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support 2nd Sven Manguard Wha? 14:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support Either - The slightly strange banner at the top "This is not a real embassy" could therefore be removed, and it would also cut the messages of people looking for embassy-like advice. LukeSurl ^{t c} 23:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Could the English-language embassy be renamed 'unilaterally', or does meta need to be consulted to have a cross-wikipedias discussion? If the latter, anyone familiar enough with the workings of meta to post a message in the right place? LukeSurl ^{t c} 00:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
    • I placed this thread at the Meta main forum yesterday. dci | TALK 19:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

SSL and wikipedia

I think we need to implement SSL per default for security reasons.

Almost all important website have SSL now. --Tegra3 (talk) 07:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I mean for the login page. --Tegra3 (talk) 08:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

While having the login in via HTTPS will protect your password from casual network snooping, if you then use ordinary HTTP for subsequent accesses an attacker can still sniff your cookie and hijack your session. See also [4] and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 84#User preference to automaticlly use https. Anomie⚔ 16:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Create a namespace called "Wp;"

Per the strong arguments presented at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2012_February_3#Wp.3Bdrv, I propose we create a "Wp;" namespace. —Ruud 10:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. There are plenty of typos we can worry about; and while I could see an argument for autoredirecting semicolons to colons after namespace-like terms, it doesn't seem like it's a serious problem (22 hits in the past month Wp;afd). Let the coding team worry about more important things. --Quintucket (talk) 10:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Strong arguments are for the specific redirects, not the whole namespace. No need to cover every possible typo except very common ones, like wp;afd. One clearly defined syntax character is sufficient and we really don't need to complicate MediaWiki even more because someone occasionally mistypes. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - That wouldn't work, would it? If there were a namespace with a semicolon, you'd still need to type in the colon to make it work ("Wp;:drv"). Maybe you mean to have the mediawiki software treat the semicolon the same as colon? This proposal as it is doesn't fix the issue being addressed. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 12:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Does MediaWiki even permit a namespace name with punctuation in it? Oppose per JohnnyMrNinja, as it wouldn't solve the problem anyway. --Cybercobra (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't see a reason why not. It only forbids the reserved characters, like colon or pipe. Of course, that doesn't solve anything. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Clearly the semicolon is supposed to replace the colon here. Can anyone explain to me why redirects like wp;drv are pretty much unanimously supported, while solving this problem using a technical measure is unanimously opposed? I don't quite follow the logic here. —Ruud 15:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
    • The colon isn't part of the namespace. The namespace is just "WP". --Yair rand (talk) 16:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Read the proposal as "Make namespaces case-insensitive and allow ';' as a namespace separator" if you want to be pedantic. —Ruud 16:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
        • I don't think "pedantic" is fair. Nobody is opposing what you seem to want to achieve, because you didn't propose it. Maybe you don't realize that the only namespace this would apply to is "WP" because it is the only one with a capital letter after the first, and that lower-case "wp" already works as a namespace redirect (wp:Twinkle for example). This proposal is still called 'Create a namespace called "Wp;"', so that's what people are opposing. I think the idea of allowing semicolons in place of colons is a great idea, as there are many physiological reasons a person could have for mis-typing (other than being "lazy" as mentioned below), and that wouldn't effect the reader-facing article space at all. I'd recommend starting a new proposal for that idea, as this one is focused on what was actually typed. And please don't talk down to people for responding to what you actually wrote, instead of what you later said you meant. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

For the simple reason that redirects are cheap, but having the developers (paid and unpaid) devote time to it is very expensive indeed (they have plenty to do already). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

For the sake of argument, assume I would be willing to write the necessary patches myself. —Ruud 17:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

So do so, and then come back to the community to see if it's desirable...? If for the sake of argument you're willing to spend time to produce the code necessary to enable the feature, why not do so? On Wikipedia if nowhere else, it's more useful to spur the community (whether negatively or positively) with the technical side ready-to-go or even already-implemented than it is to drum up support from the community before the code is written. --Izno (talk) 17:22, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I've written the patch, it involved replacing a strcmp by strcasecmp and if (sep == ':') by if (sep == ':' || sep == ';'). —Ruud 17:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose ~ In my opinion, there shouldn't even be these redirects (I'd say people are just lazy...). Aside from that, the technical portion is not complete. It is simply infeasible as the technology currently stands. Also, as commented above by Hellknowz, there's only a need for these in a few places. --Izno (talk) 17:22, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

  Judging by the RfD at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2012_February_3#Wp.3Bdrv, I would say that there is a rather clear consensus to implement some method of semicolon namespace identifiers, and this proposal is in my opinion the best way to deal with it. (Personally, I'd prefer to have the namespace identifiers as clear as possible as well, but I see a consensus otherwise, and I won't argue against that.) ZZArch ^{talk to me} 08:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Strong support if the RfD for Wp;aiv etc. closes as keep, which it probably will. If there is a community consensus that the semicolon typo is common enough to create redirects, then this is perhaps the best way to treat this issue. If you take a look at [5], you'll realize that there are a bunch of WP:CNRs that mean absolutely nothing to the readers, and that is a serious issue that we need to address. ZZArch ^{talk to me} 08:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Moot - colon is required for namespace pages to work properly.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Vital articles

I note that Wikipedia currently isn't currently contributing its resources very well. Many really important topics have relatively poor articles, while a lot of effort is going into writing articles about single pop songs. It's great that Wikipedia has expanded past traditional encyclopaedia topics, but I think we should give more attention to our most popular and significant articles. I notice that the 4 award is a good way to motivate editors to get their creations to featured article status. What about creating a similar process for vital articles ? You could get two awards for each article: one for getting a vital article (on any of the four lists) to GA status, and another one when it achieves featured article status. There could be a third awards for collaborations. --He to Hecuba (talk) 12:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

People edit what they want to. Anyone can award WP:Barnstars for good work if they wish, but it shouldn't be automatic. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Surely it would be a good idea to encourage people to edit articles which are viewed more rather than those which are viewed less ? --He to Hecuba (talk) 13:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

How would we encourage that? As The Hand That Feeds You says, everyone edits what they want. We already have Wikipedia:Version 1.0 with importance scales and things like bounty board. You can propose new barnstars, but it's also not as big of a motivator. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I think there are rather a lot of editors who edit to collect recognition. Increasing the recognition given to those who work on vital content would only improve the participation in the improvement of the vital articles. Make a pretty userpage icon and a formal page like the 4-award one, and you might see a noticeable change. --He to Hecuba (talk) 14:53, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I think people will always edit what they are interested in and competent enough to edit. I've heard people say before (often in response to proposals to disallow all the articles on trivial television characters) that people will only edit what they can. A 13 year old who edits a lot of Pokemon articles really well probably has little interest in philosophy or history and is unlikely to try to improve them. I don't think we can make incentives to get people to edit important articles, because those who are interested and capable do, and those who are not will not (or should not) regardless of what awards we offer them. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry He to Hecuba, but I agree with everyone above except you on this one. You are, of course, free to award barnstars based on your own judgements. In the recent past, another user made a rather major fuss about the representation of core/vital articles at FA, and all of his proposals were resoundly shot down for much the same logic you're running up against here. Additionally, the more written about and important a subject is, the harder it is to improve. This limits the number of people willing to wade in and try to help, and limits their effectiveness. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, obviously we can not force ot even motivate a single individual to work on a particular article or even on an article from a set of articles. But we as community may decide that this particular set of articles is important for us. Then we can think of motivating random people who are capable to work on these articles but are not aware of their (inferior) quality. This motivation can be done for instance through advertising the list via the main page or the village pump or the menue on the left, through asking Wikiprojects to highlight the articles which pertain to theor scope, or in some other way.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Editors contribute to Wikipedia for a variety of reasons. However, Wikipedia doesn't have an "achievements" system like an Xbox. I'm sure there are some people who edit for the recognition, but mostly folks edit because they want to improve the encyclopedia. Internet glory is short-lived, and Wikipedia glory is even more fleeting. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Why do so many editors focus on "easy" obscure topics rather than "hard" vital articles. Surely you're helping the project more by working on the vital article ? In any case a system like my proposal above is only going to encourage the improvement of Vital articles. --He to Hecuba (talk) 19:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

As someone who's edited both sorts of articles, it's because most editors get their "kick" out of a) seeing a finished article b) getting articles to which they've contributed to GA, AC, FA etc. c) the thanks of other editors mostly comes in if you're helping someone else. By all means make an award, sure. Mostly barnstars and stuff are made by people who like to give out that one themselves. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I'll make a request over at Commons for someone to make a pretty symbol for the award, and then I'll thrash out the details. I'm going to try making a pretty icon myself, as the graphics lab seems to have a slow response rate. --He to Hecuba (talk) 19:19, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I can't create any templates (bad at wikiformatting) so I'm going to need help if we're going to do this. --He to Hecuba (talk) 19:53, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I doubt "we" are giong to do this. There's really not a need for it. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It's simple, He to Hecuba. As others said, most people edit topics they enjoy. People want to see good topics on THIER interest, so if they have the inclanation, they improve it. Often an editor will have a favorite minor but still notable x, so they work on that. Or a somewhat specific general category of y within field z. A fan of 19th century composers just might not care about Indian philosophy or Weak interaction to pick a couple of disperse topics on the list. They much more likely would want to see articles on Joachim Raff or Stephen Heller brought up to par. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi He to Hecuba. I suspect I'd share your assumption that articles on individual popsongs aren't our most important articles, but if you go down the road of trying to organise volunteers to spend their time editing that which is important to others rather than subjects that are important to them then you will have some serious discussions as to which articles are more important than others, and how one measures importance. One way of measuring importance is to look at the number of hits that an article gets. Sadly on this measure we probably have hundreds of articles on popsongs and indeed popstars that get more hits and would therefore be considered more important than Warham Camp. But number of hits is a feasible way to rank all our 3.9 million articles by "importance", so if you win the argument that we should somehow identify and prioritise the "important" articles, don't be surprised if the pop songs that you consider unimportant get ranked as more important than your own personal favourites. ϢereSpielChequers 01:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Writing articles on obscure topics like pop songs is easier because there are fewer sources, fewer egos to conflict with, and the articles tend to be shorter and more straightforward. You just summarize each source, pick a few sentences and staple it together. Writing broad articles like European history or Existentialism is much more difficult. You need to consult dozens of full-length books just to achieve a GA level of broadness or completeness, let alone FA. You need to synthesize far more information. And someone will come along and tell you whole interpretations are missing or misinterpreted or non-neutral: you don't get this with pop songs. The broader articles may be more rewarding to improve, but the investment is orders of magnitude beyond what most editors are interested in doing for "fun". —Designate (talk) 02:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with several of the above comments saying that we should not rank topics by importance, since it is not the job of an encyclopedia to decide whether Jazz is less important than Vegetables. But I'd also like to point out that we already have a project-based grading system, where projects note that this is an important article for the subject. This is currently only shown in the talk page, if we want to make sure that important articles, of all subjects, are paid attention to, maybe we put this somewhere on the sides/top/bottom of the article page (although article page space is a precious resource and an article may be part of several projects) Jztinfinity (talk) 07:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd rather that stayed on the talkpage but that people who were interested in such topics could opt in to having the ratings from topics they cared about be displayed. ϢereSpielChequers 07:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

*can. :^) --Izno (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that would display all ratings not just the projects you cared about. But even so it is probably good enough for those who want such a thing. ϢereSpielChequers 19:47, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment. One thing I've often thought is that it would be nice to be able to distinguish between articles I consider important and articles I don't in the RCP. Of course as mentioned above, there's no good way to do this. I may not care if somebody vandalizes an article about a rap group, but I would care if somebody vandalizes an article about an obscure school I've never heard of in New Zealand. (Real examples. When I saw these in the RCP, I didn't take ten seconds to fix the one, but watchlisted the other.) Other people are likely to feel that both are uninmportant, or even that the rappers are more important than the school. In terms of actually improving articles, well, as mentioned above, I improve what I damn well feel like. I've got a long list of articles I want to work on. Many of these would, as Designate mentioned, require me to go to a library and look stuff up, so it's unlikely I'll get to those now if ever. On the other hand, I don't get many barnstars, and don't really care if I do. I fix Wikipedia if something annoys me, (I'm easily annoyed) not for recognition. But maybe that's just me. —Quintucket (talk) 09:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: He to Hecuba, after reading this thread again, I have a suggestion for you. I agree with you that some topics (pop songs, television programs and popular culture) are disproportionately represented, and things like philosophy, history and science have less coverage. For that reason, I focus much of my content editing attention on my areas of interest - philosophy and theology (take a look at the articles I have said that I am working on at my userpage. In some cases, I have asked others to work with me, and in others, people have asked me to help them. Therefore, I suggest you carry on with the great work you are doing - a quick look at your contributions suggests that you are editing topics which not many other people want to improve - and find other editors who may be interested in working with you (try looking at contributors to Good and Featured Articles in the topic area you are interested in, or look for some WikiProjects that grab your fancy). Incentivising people to do something they are not interested in will not work (they'll either not do it or do it badly); however, encouraging people to work with you on things that they may have an interest in always does. I wish you the best of luck in editing subjects that few other people are editing. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll take the tip (it seems this has been a point of contention before) and carry on with my articles on saints. Thanks for the reply. --He to Hecuba (talk) 16:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The issue is really fundamental to human nature. I like to think I edit Wikipedia for noble reasons, and some of my reasons I think really are noble, but I would not edit it if I did not get a measure of enjoyment out of it. I want to be motivated to edit core topics and take on the complexity involved in doing so but I'm just not, and so, I will now go back to my obscure topics that am working toward GAs and FAs. Should I feel guilty? Maybe. But it's not going to change where I'm off to.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to pontificate on the cnetral thesis of He to Hecuba's proposal: how can the Wikipedia community make it easier to improve more important articles (say, those listed at WP:Vital articles)? Those who spend our time writing articles, will probably agree that the challenges to writing useful content include the following:

• Researching & writing the actual article. Don't laugh; writing an article which usefully covers a given topic is far harder than it appears at first glance. First one must do the research -- actually identifying & collecting the materials to write the article -- which requires one to go beyond performing Google searches. Then the writer must evaluate the sources: not just deciding which sources are better than others, but which sources are best for a given article or point. Then comes organizing the content that not only makes it useful for the reader, but natural & fluent.
• (There is also the issue whether an article should attempt to be exhaustive on its subject -- effectively replace all prior writings -- or serve simply as an introduction. It's an old issue in writing reference works, but one that no one on Wikipedia has seriously considered. If Wikipedia articles are intended to be exhaustive, then it is an impossible task, for research & interpretation always continues; if articles are intended to be introductions, then the task is difficult but possible -- although that would then lead to the question of what makes for a satisfactory introduction to a given topic.)
• Difficulty of the subject. Why do people write articles on pop songs, tv programs, & professional athletes, & not on neglected Vital Articles like Sea, Fiction, Diety, Furniture or Sexuality? Because those are simpler. For example, to write a decent article on the Philosophy of Plato, one would need to begin by reading all of his writings, then the secondary literature on Plato, then try to figure out what is worth including & how much attention to devote to each point; in other words, the kind of labor that leads to a Master's or Ph.D. in the humanities. Heck, even the professional experts have trouble writing good, useful articles on many of the subjects included at Vital Articles. It may comfort some folks, albeit cold comfort, that even the professional encyclopedia writers do a less than adequate job on some of these topics.
• Need for rewriting. Many of the existing important articles are either cut-n-paste jobs from antiquated public domain sources, or have been chewed to pieces by rival factions. Not only need our would-be contributor need to succeed at the challenges I set forth above, but deal with the pushback from other editors over the content. Some of these would likely be cranks, trolls, & other troublemakers, but some are acting in good faith because they ar concerned that our would-be contributor might be a crank, troll, or other kind of troublemaker.
• The rating process. Think it takes a thick skin to edit on Wikipedia? It takes twice as thick of one to get an article through GA or FA -- & that's if you can find someone who will look at an article beyond grammar & punctuation. One reason Wikipedia has a chronic systemic bias is that people are reluctant to provide input or feedback on topics they aren't familiar with: not just subjects that relate to non-Western countries or popular culture, but any topic the average person is not quite comfortable with. Any subject involving the humanities -- except for history & biography -- tends to scare people off. Those five articles I listed above from Wikipedia:Vital articles are good examples: how many people reading this rant would feel comfortable providing feedback about any of them, were they to appear at WP:Peer Review?

In short, it's far easier to write useful articles on specific, tangible yet less important topics like saints lives, pop stars, computer software, & towns or villages in Asia than it is to write an article on an important yet broad, & comprehensive subject -- such as the sacred, music, or urban development in Asia. Which is why we have lots of the specific, tangible articles, many of which are surprisingly good, & few useful articles on important yet more generalized topics. And while I don't have the solution for this problem. fixing it will require more than a new kind of Barnstar or other attaboy. And it disappoints me that no one -- on Wikipedia, the WMF, or its many critics -- appears to understand the nature of these issues, & has proposed any solution which attacks the actual problems & not the symptoms. -- llywrch (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of us understand the nature of these issues (see my post above), but that doesn't lend itself to a solution. We could certainly have financial incentives (a bounty board for vital articles, or just hiring people directly) but that creates distortions. The subjects are always going to take huge amounts of research, no matter how much we improve the interface or make the community more welcoming. It comes down to the handful of eccentric people who want to do all this work for free. I don't anticipate any "solution" will make that happen. —Designate (talk) 19:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your comment above. It was too succinct & to the point for me to catch. ;-) Although insisting that anyone posting at WP:AN or WP:AN/I had to provide constructive criticism at WP:REVIEW first might be a small step in the right direction. llywrch (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Reinstate the use of Pending Changes for the userspace only

Since we wouldn't be talking about content disputes, the main disadvantage of PC is avoided if we use it only for the userpage namespace (User:Example, etc.). It's one great way we can prevent userpage vandalism.Jasper Deng (talk) 19:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Much as I'd like to see PC comeback I'm not convinced that userspace is the best place for it. What I would like to see is something that stopped almost anyone but the user from editing their userpage (admins, rollbackers and reviewers perhaps). But as for your proposal I'm not convinced that we could get the necessary volunteers to check huge numbers of userspace edits. Especially when most of the time you are checking user:myspacer adding an innocuous userbox to their own page - worst case it would provoke more userbox wars as people MFD them rather than patrol them being added.. ϢereSpielChequers 19:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

We don't have to apply it to all userpages, just those of admins and reviewers.Jasper Deng (talk) 19:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

My userpage was probably vandalised more frequently before I became an admin than it has been since. I'm not seeing a need for some sort of additional protection for admins and reviewers, - rollbackers, especially those who do loads of vandalfighting might benefit, but we can always semi their userpages if needed. The userpages that I worry about are those of the infrequent or retired users who might not notice for years that their userpage has been vandalised. The way to prevent that is to restrict editing of the userpage to the user and admins. Subpages for guestbooks, sandboxes etc would still be editable by anyone. But who needs to edit a userpage other than the user and very occasionally someone taking out copyvio etc. ϢereSpielChequers 23:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

PC gets closest to that. My thing here is that other pages in the userspace like drafts can be targeted too. See my latest comment below.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No PC is not appropriate for userpages. PC is designed for a collaboratively edited encyclopaedia where we want everyone to be able to edit any page, but have a problem that some newbies are vandals. Userpages are not collaboratively written, they are written by the user, we don't need to allow collaborative editing on them. Just allow the user to edit their own userpage and some trusted users such as admins and maybe rollbackers and reviewers to remove seriously deprecated content such as copyyvio. As for subpages, I'd leave them out of this or allow the user to choose whether to switch on collaboration. ϢereSpielChequers 09:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Clarification: This is a proposal for PC to be an option for protecting userspace pages. It should, in general, be used only for the userspaces of admins and reviewers only.Jasper Deng (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that admins and reviewers would be able to choose to have their userpages reviewed? ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It's for things like User:Example/subpage. See WP:PC for details. Admins can choose full protection, but reviewers cannot.Jasper Deng (talk) 20:36, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds utterly and completely pointless, protection stops userpage vandalism just fine--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Not for the most determined (those who use autoconfirmed socks). It should just be another option on the table. Why not?Jasper Deng (talk) 20:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't happen very often, and when it does it's better they're using those socks to vandalise userspace pages than articles.--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I mean, my userpage was indefinitely protected fully because of harassment from them. I was considering PC but unfortunately it wasn't on the table.Jasper Deng (talk) 20:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

In addition, I welcome users to contribute to things like User:Jasper Deng/IPv6 and other essays in my userspace, but I need to make sure that they still reflect the way I want them to be.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I think userpages and other pages in userspace should be edible by anyone. This proposal would discourage slight improvements, such as I did for example here. Also this would make NFCC 9 Enforcement more difficult than it has to be. For example it would make it impossible for DASHBot to make edits such as this one. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

DashBot only leaves messages on User talkpages so would not be affected by a change to userpages. ϢereSpielChequers 09:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Please take a look at the second diff. DashBot makes edits enforcing NFCC#9 and this proposal would prevent the bot from doing this. These edits are useful, so I don't see the need to implement changes that make enforcement of an established policy more difficult than it has to be. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 10:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

DASHBot can be made a Reviewer. That's all it'll need.Jasper Deng (talk) 01:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Bringing back a contentious feature in what I consider an elitist (and therefore contentious) way cause far more heat than necessary. I've had my page vandalized as recently as yesterday, don't let it bother you, just revert and move on. This might help. Sven Manguard Wha? 14:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - I see no real reason for this. If someone's userpage is vandalised, there are effective steps that can be taken to prevent this. There are issues with potential contention, and it will add to what is already a minor problem in perceived ownership of userpages. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:06, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
  • My concern here is mainly for other userspace pages like drafts.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Why does a draft need PC? →Στc. 02:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Well, maybe not drafts, but essays for sure.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Why does an essay need PC?--Jac16888 ^Talk 15:31, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• If it's my essay, I want to be able to make sure that it remains within my opinion, and free of vandalism.Jasper Deng (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• So check it frequently, and request semi-protection if it gets messed with too often. Oppose per Sven Manguard. Rivertorch (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thats what your watchlist is for. This entire suggestion just comes across as an attempt at collecting more hats, perhaps you should stop worrying about your userpages so much and go write some articles--Jac16888 ^Talk 19:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose as the entire point of PC is to prevent articles from being in a sorry shape for the public. Userpages aren't the front side of the Wiki, and this just seems an extra layer of obscurity to people wanting to edit their own pages. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Changing to a moderated/clerked system at WP:ANI

Following recent events and discussions at ANI (including a withdrawn deletion proposal for the page) I have made some suggestions for clerking or moderating of that board. The discussions are here if fellow editors would like to join in. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Fictional couples

I have created this Project proposal that must cover fictional couples of any fixed medium, print or electronic, such as soap opera couples, Relationship of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and Sam and Diane. I wonder if you can join in the linked title rather than here. --George Ho (talk) 06:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Articles created listing tool

I see that the Toolserver facility for listing articles created by a particular user is no longer available. (See here.) I should think that creating a replacement for this tool would be fairly easy for anyone with a little relevant experience. Anyone like to do it? Perhaps a script hosted on Wikipedia might have advantages over a toolserver tool, as toolserver tools have an annoying habit of suddenly disappearing (as in this case) if the user doesn't log in to toolserver for six months, and none of us will be here for ever. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

New File Upload Wizard, now ready for testing

I've been working on a script to guide new file uploaders through the sourcing/copyright/fair-use jungle in a more easy-to-understand way. It is now in a working state, ready for testing. If all goes well, it might be made into the default uploading mechanism for new users, in the long run.

Please help reviewing and testing: Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard. Feedback, bug reports and suggestions welcome. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion to make {{Multiple issues}} the new article cleanup template

Partially based on the comments I have seen on cleanup related template's for deletion lately I have started a discussion about making the Multiple issues template the new cleanup template here. Anyone wishing to comment on this idea are invited to. --Kumioko (talk) 20:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

A noticeboard about rude, abusive, or policy-abusing admins

Note. I moved this here from the idea-lab village pump since it is a proposal. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see a new noticeboard started. One for reporting and sanctioning rude and abusive admins. Rude, abusive, or policy-abusing admins are one reason the total number of active editors is steadily declining. See User:Timeshifter/More articles and less editors for initial info, and then come back here for discussion.

I helped start this idea-lab village pump, and so I know it is possible to start more village pumps and noticeboards. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It already exists at WP:ANI. Reaper Eternal (talk) 21:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That is not specific enough. We need a specific noticeboard solely for reporting and discussing rude and abusive admins. People should be encouraged to go there, and the title of the noticeboard must be clear. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Strong support. I haven't personally had interaction with abusive admins, but this seems to be a major problem this encyclopedia is facing. Abuses of administrator priviliges are wholly unacceptable and cannot be tolerated on this website. We must demand very high accountability from people in whom we vest the community's trust, and we must be able to know that our administrators need to remain mature and responsible, using their priviliges only to make this encyclopedia a more efficient and welcoming place. A noticeboard dedicated just for this purpose is entirely necessary. dci | TALK 22:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• About 95% of the "administrator abuse" complaints are on closer inspection actually cases of administrators being abused by rude editors. wp:ANI has its problems, but those are not specific to administrator abuse cases and would not be solved by splitting that out to a separate board. You can also mail arbcom about it if you prefer. Yoenit (talk) 00:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom. You are kidding, right? They are way too busy to handle the many cases of day-to-day abuse by admins. Many admins like to claim they are being abused whenever their abuse is pointed out to them. That is why we need an independent noticeboard whose sole purpose is to sort out what is really going on. Over time the admins and other participants of this dedicated noticeboard will be able to figure things out better. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I see, you are on a divine mission to defend the encyclopedia from windmills abusive administrators. Have fun. Yoenit (talk) 01:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit summaries of yours like "not in touch with reality" just shows what an idiot you are. Have fun. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

And it's comments like those that administrators face every day from abusive editors. Not you persay, but imagine how many times administrators get called names on a daily and constant basis because folks just don't like something or other? "Abuse" is so loosely thrown around when folks are angry without real appreciation or respect for the word.--v/r - TP 14:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

re Yourit: 95% of the "administrator abuse" complaints are [...] administrators being abused by editors. Sure. And most airplane crashes are not caused by pilots, but by gravity force. -DePiep (talk) 22:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC) (me no admin)

Comment. Here are some links to previous discussions and articles concerning the declining number of active editors, and various reasons for it, including abusive admins:

• User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive_93#Declining number of editors and donations.
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-01-02/Interview. Interview of Sue Gardner.
• Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-01-02/Interview.
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-12-26/Opinion essay.

The English edition of Wikipedia has grown to 3,870,047 articles. See: Template:Numberofarticles and history of Wikipedia.

Active editors over time.

The “holy-shit” graph. Active editors (blue) and the one-year retention rate (red) on the English Wikipedia.

Editors are leaving for various reasons. Many editors have been driven away. See also: User:Timeshifter/Unresolved content disputes and User:Timeshifter/Userboxes. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per Yoenit. Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 02:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

One of Yoenit's ideas was to use WP:ANI. If you look here, and skim/skip to the discussion at the end, you will see that the people experienced with WP:ANI want more noticeboards, not less. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

In fact that is a minority view with little support. I think most people prefer to keep AN/I as a single board. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 08:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Y'see, Timeshifter — this thing is an excellent idea, but hopeless. Said noticeboard will either need enforcement or will simply be a private rant-'n-vent group. Enforcement can only be done by admins, and they won't act against their own group. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I can assure you that Wikipedia has countless records of admins taking action against abuses by other admins. 05:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BD2412 (talk • contribs)
    • Nope. Not enough> Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 05:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - While ANI is great for general incidents, there needs to be a place, with a closely followed archive, devoted specifically to reporting issues with administrators. Among the constant barrage of lugens, the occasional real administrator-caused issue is lost and forgotten in the current system. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support The community needs a better way to deal with admins who exhibit problematic behavior. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I think many good editors flee this project upon encountering administrators who fairly consistently but with subtlety and skill support what amount to violations of WP:NPOV. I think admins should be put under special scrutiny. I don't expect it to happen, but the suggestion above for a special noticeboard for reporting suspicions of improper activity on the part of administrators in my opinion is a very good idea. Bus stop (talk) 03:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment What abusive administrative behavior are we trying to correct? Improper blocks?[6] Or page protections?   Will Beback  talk  03:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

All kinds. Many people could give many examples. Some are rudeness, some are abuse, some are misunderstandings, some are abuses of admin power to get something done faster, some are poorly-implemented guidelines, some guidelines themselves are abusive because the guideline itself is vague. On and on. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

But those are problems with all editors.   Will Beback  talk  04:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

True, but when someone with a loaded gun calls you an asshole, it feels a little different. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Although I agree that the overall number of editors has declined the reasons for that are many, including but not limited too: As we create more sister wikis, the folks that live there will be less apt to edit the english one and edit the one for their native land; As the number of articles increases the number of obvious articles needing creation reduces, biting newby's makes them stay away, its too difficult to be an admin, too much fussing about little things, too hard to make changes, too many rules and guidelines, etc. These are all comments I have personally seen from people who leave and don't come back. This is not just limited to a couple of rude admins. --Kumioko (talk) 04:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Noticeboard about policy-abusing admins. Section break

• Comment I must say I worry about the potential problems such a noticeboard could create. Call me a pessimist, but I think that if not strongly moderated, it could easily turn into something like WQA where disgruntled users go simply because an admin took action against them ie: "Admin X deleted my article/blocked me because of X, they are abusive". I do see the need for better dealing with admins that go off the rails, but am not quite sure if this is the way to do it. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 04:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It won't work unless other admins make it work. My personal experience when reporting violations of Wikipedia guidelines by admins is that a large percentage of the admins ignore the problem, go into defensive mode, and eventually insult me in one subtle way or another. Usually, but not always, a few admins step up and analyze the problem clinically and methodically according to the specifics of the Wikipedia guidelines and policies. Those are the admins holding Wikipedia together. They point out gently to the admin where they have not followed the guidelines, and they point out problems on my end if any. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. What are we gonna name it? WP:WHINING? WP:MUDSLINGING? WP:DISGRUNTLED? WP:WEWANNABYPASSTHEARBCOMBECAUSEWEARESOIMPORTANT? ZZArch ^{talk to me} 05:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, anybody who points out when an admin goes against a Wikipedia guideline or policy is a whiner. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If it's a valid concern, bring it in front of other admins. If other admins don't respond, bring it in front of ArbCom. If ArbCom doesn't respond, leave and find a better place to contribute to. Just, for the love of $DEITY, don't open a board so that every other common vandal can whine and clutter up the place. ZZArch ^{talk to me} 06:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Good idea: if admins don't solve admin's bad behaviour, others should go the long route. -DePiep (talk) 22:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Why not? Unless we are tossing the burden of proof out of the window too? Are you requesting admins to formally defend every single decision they make that some random editors walk by and say, "hey, I don't like that!" ZZArch ^{talk to me} 23:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are indeed cases where some admins' behavior is inappropriate, but we don't need an entire noticeboard for it. WP:ANI will suffice, and indeed is a better location since it will get more eyes onto the situation. If an administrator is genuinely out of line, it's really not difficult to rouse the community about it. --Elonka 06:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:ANI is way too busy, and some there are trying to split it up. We have dozens of noticeboards. See Template:Noticeboard links. Not one is just for dealing with admins violating Wikipedia guidelines and policies. What is more important than accountability of admins to Wikipedia guidelines and policies? --Timeshifter (talk) 17:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose There is no evidence that there are a sufficient number of cases involving policy-abusing admins to warrant a new noticeboard. The linked subpages of User:Timeshifter do not show a problem with policy-abusing admins. Those who follow WP:ANI and WP:WQA know that nearly all cases of someone claiming they received abuse from an admin are without merit. In a small number of cases (really small) an admin has "abused" an editor in the sense that after being goaded beyond human endurance, the admin used some crude language to tell a tendentious and unhelpful user that they should go away—we are dealing with humans, and just as editors should not be told to duck off, so admins should not have to tolerate IDIDNTHEARTHAT nonsense indefinitely. My alternative proposal (which also is not going to happen) would be for the establishment of a fast track process to remove unhelpful POV pushers because it is the latter who are causing quality editors to leave the project, not admins. Start with warnings that quickly escalate to topic bans, then blocks. Johnuniq (talk) 06:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Isn't that true. I personally gave up contributing to another Wikimedia project because of a POV editor on a page I maintained. ZZArch ^{talk to me} 08:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Johnuniq says "we are dealing with humans". Sure, admins are human. But poor admins should be subject to scrutiny for shoddy behavior. Elonka says "WP:ANI will suffice, and indeed is a better location since it will get more eyes onto the situation." I think a noticeboard for potentially wayward administrators would have no shortage of eyes on it. Bus stop (talk) 09:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Strong oppose I agree that rudeness and abuse is a big problem but admins are not the problem. We have WP:WQA for dealing with rudeness a bit amicably and WP:ANI when that doesn't work. Personally I don't know or care in most circumstances if people are admins or not and they normally use admin powers only for straightforward admin duties. WP:ANI deals with admin problems fine and there's no need to treat admins different from anybody else. If anything my main complaint about Wikipedia is that it doesn't have strong enough mechanisms to deal with content disputes effectively, if there were better mechanisms to cool them down and stop them being so disruptive then I believe a lot of the aggro would go. Attacking admins when there's no great problem there and not doing anything about content disputes which are a major problem and cause general aggro is just a recipe for total anarchy. Dmcq (talk) 10:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that that content disputes are a serious problem. See User:Timeshifter/Unresolved content disputes. But admins not following Wikipedia guidelines and policies is also a serious problem. In fact, from my observation the two problems are intimately connected in many cases. When I first started as an editor here in 2005 I went for a very long time without problems. Then I started editing more controversial topics, and then observed the anarchy that passes as content dispute resolution. Little or nothing has changed since 2005. In fact, in some ways it has gotten worse. The Wikimedia Foundation is busy with other things. Arbitrators are overwhelmed, and their purview is not content disputes anyway, though in fact nearly all conduct disputes they handle are rooted in content disputes. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - drama is a bad thing. More noticeboards => more drama => less time spent writing articles. --He to Hecuba (talk) 10:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Noticeboards also solve many problems. This allows the editors to go back to editing. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Splitting to a new forum will not solve a social issue. And how would this differ from Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC) (disclosure: Admin)

WP:WQA is only for civility issues (WP:Civility). Admins not following Wikipedia guidelines and policies goes beyond just social and civility issues. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Admin abuse? Killiondude (talk) 17:53, 10 February 2012 (UTC).

"Abusive admin" would be the more correct term, Killiondude. Abusive by violating Wikipedia guidelines and policies. From the same WP:WikiSpeak page:

administrator n.

The be all, and end all of Wikipedia. Alpha and omega, the ultimate wikipedian. Administrators are the role models all wikipedians should strive to emulate. They display superior intellect, outstanding article building abilities, captivating physical attractiveness and, above all, a stupendous and awe-inspiring modesty.

(If anyone removes this, I'll block them.)

Paul Blart role-playing as Dirty Harry.

--Timeshifter (talk) 20:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support, but useless proposal. Admins don't turn in Admins ever. Editors loose a debate for this reason. First they have the WP:WHEEL argument to stay away from each other (=do not overturn another admins decision -- any more questions?), that is: they are not allowed to even criticize another admin. On top of this, as a group, they have no responsability. They are the soldier-guards for WikiPower. Think WiKapo. An editor cannot defend themselves agains an Arrogant Admin. No way. -DePiep (talk) 22:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Blah, blah, blah, more vitriol and smoke screen. And we are opposing WP:WHEEL too... Are you asking for administrator wars? ZZArch ^{talk to me} 23:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Yes, there is a problem with declining editor numbers. I fail to see how abusive admins are a significant part of that. There's a whole stack of candidate reasons for it: lack of visual editor, the shooting gallery at Special:NewPages, lack of friendly welcomes for users <100 edits (an explanation that research done by the WMF has endorsed), too many rules (I mean, really, a notability standard for civil aviation disasters?), the fact that unlike back in the day you can't just come and create the page 'Africa' and type "Africa is a continent" and hit save, BITEyness towards newbs (hence the experiments to improve Huggle notices etc.)—but abusive admins don't seem pretty high on that list. So the justification for this seems to me to be a load of codswallop. As for the issue of admin abuse? Yeah, there currently isn't a good way of handling it... not because there isn't a noticeboard for discussing administration issues (WP:AN, WP:ANI), but because when there actually is abuse of admin tools, it is a whole load of work to get them desysopped. But this proposal doesn't fix that problem, the actual problem. If there was a process for community desysopping or community reconfirmation, the venue wouldn't matter. If those were in place, then a discussion could take place on AN or ANI like we do for community bans. Unless a procedure is in place for acting on admin abuse, there's no point spinning a board off. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see how abusive admins are a significant part of that - neither do I. But that does not prove that Admin Abuse does not exist, nor that it does not steer away editors. WP doesn't interview gone editors. Editors on the brink of leaving - how do you treat them? -DePiep (talk) 22:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Your perception that "unlike back in the day you can't just come and create the page 'Africa' and type 'Africa is a continent' and hit save" is totally correct. You know why? Because pages like Africa have already been created a long time ago. New editors these days generally create things like "X is a singer" or "X is a writer" or "X is a guy". If we are saving all these pages like we saved Africa (because anyone with half a head knows that Africa is notable), this page would have become Messypedia. ZZArch ^{talk to me} 23:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: This week there has been a lot of fruitful discussion at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard and I hope those who have visited WP:ANI in the last 2-3 days may have noticed a difference. Whether or not a separate board for admin abuse comes about, if anyone is having problems right now with what they perceive as abuse by an administrator, please don't hesitate to bring it there. You will get help and it is simply not the case that admins do not criticise other admins. (Anyone who has been watching there will know this is so...!) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

You are playing it down to editors having experienced problems, like incidents. The issue at hand is: it is sytematic, and there is no remedy provided.

Oh, and by the way, nice to get so much attention from higher levels. Kim Dent-Brown, are you sent somehow to direct this off road? ~Deviation intended? Already 2-3 days at ANI and it is solved? Must be done by admins then. -DePiep (talk) 23:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

DePiep, I'm afraid I don't really understand most of your comment just now. I was simply offering AN/I as a venue until a decision is made about a separate board. But I don't think a systemic problem is going to be solved by a new board anyway. No, I'm not from a higher level and haven't been sent by anyone; this was a genuine offer of help. I'll undertake to assist anyone who wants to report a case of abuse of admin powers at AN or AN/I. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Noticeboard to waste time

Let's do that. Make a page where people can vent and rant and nothing ever happens. Great idea. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 22:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Idea Lab discussion: Admin Portal

I recently posted a new discussion at wp:VPI#Admin Portal, but due to low traffic, it was suggested that I post a notification on the policy and proposal VPs. I am a newish user, so if this post is a violation of any VP rules, please remove it--I understand. Vert3x (talk) 14:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

History revisions should use historical file versions

Recently I've seen an editor denigrated at Wikipedia Review and on RfC/U for keeping an embarrassing image on his user page. The impact of the harassment has been substantial. But actually, the file was altered on Commons to make it much more 'embarrassing' than it had been. The result is that anyone could link to his contribution history and it comes up as a page that never existed. The 'remedy' applied appears to have been to delete all the past revisions containing the picture, but that makes it much harder for me to look at the past issues of relevance to the RfC/U, and is no good general answer.

So why don't we just fix this? Change the display of versions from the File History so that they use the historical version of the file from Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons, so that the page displays the same way as it did?

(You could also do this with transcluded pages)

Wnt (talk) 15:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

But if the prior version was removed or altered for cause (like copyright or usage issues) then that would also be a "bad result." I would suggest that where an image is altered for any reason, that links in userspace be noted and an "original image unavailable" notice be returned. Wouldn't that accomplish as much as you wish? Collect (talk) 15:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the point in that. If an individual revision was a copyright violation it was likely deleted; if not, including it in a historical version here is no different than displaying that historical version of the file page at Commons. Wnt (talk) 15:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Most non-free files have had the old versions deleted per F5 Unused non-free media. Of course, user pages should not have non-free files, but you would have to have some mechanism to differentiate. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd be OK with having a deleted version end up as a redlink in the history version - though of course a bluelink would be a better outcome. Wnt (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Redo the code for Wikipedia's fundraiser pages so their contents are readable on Facebook posts

https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserLandingPage?uselang=en&appeal=Appeal-Sengai

When I post that link on my Facebook page, it should display this preview:

I was born a poor farmer in rural India in 1936. Today I rely on and edit Wikipedia.

I want Wikipedia to be here for all future generations. This is our annual fundraising drive to pay for the servers, small staff and other infrastructure that keeps Wikipedia on the web for free...

But instead, the preview displays the following:

$( document ).ready( function () { // Disable submitting form with return key $( 'form' ).bind( 'keypress', function(e) { var code = ( e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which ); if ( code == 13 ) return false; } ); } ); /* This CSS is responsible for the overall layout of the LP*/ #LP-table {…

What can be done to repair this behavior? --Boozerker (talk) 22:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)