Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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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 I don't believe this article would be deleted in a deletion discussion. 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)
    • Figure of speech, but revised nevertheless. Dcoetzee 12:50, 12 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)
    • I agree that coining proper names (as opposed to descriptive names) for topics should be disallowed. The concern I have is that some notable, encyclopedic topics don't have widely accepted names, or sometimes don't have any name, and as a result we tend not to write about them. The earthquake is just one example. My concern is that a rule which is not clear and explicit about permitting contributors to invent descriptive titles would exacerbate this effect. Dcoetzee 12:50, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Then we don't seem to be that far apart, since I would have been ok with moving 15 Khordad (Paramont) Intersection to (as stated in the article) Junction of Enqelab-e Eslami Street, Lotfali Khan Street and Qasrodasht Street, and deleting the remaining redirect.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose Article names should be the "most" descriptive, with redirects helping out for more complex article titles. That the article title may well be original research is fine and dandy because as long as the article itself is referenced well, the "missing" reference for the title doesn't matter -- it'll be repeated in the article itself. Banaticus (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It is certainly interesting to see the open acceptance of allowing redirects without regard for the content standards.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That's because WP:Redirects are cheap. Deryck C. 23:28, 18 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)
  • Support after reading other arguments. Stalking is probably not as big of a deal, and stalkers already stalk contributions, this will only make it marginally easier. On the other hand, this is very useful for rarely-editing users/IPs so every one doesn't need to be checked manually. Although I'd like for there to be a way to be excluded from this in cases of obvious stalking. Or some other kind of restriction. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:44, 12 February 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)
• Support - it's already possible to follow a user's contributions, this proposal would only make it slightly easier to do so. I think the concerns about 'wikistalking' are outweighed by the potential benefits of keeping an eye on vandals and other problematic users. Robofish (talk) 17:29, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose It will nearly be flooding a user's watchlist if the user whose contributions are being looked upon edits too frequently. Dipankan ^{In the woods?} 15:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • The proposal as I understand it was to show only the most recent edit of each of the watched users, which would obviate this problem. Dcoetzee 13:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support' I'd certainly find this useful in fighting vandalism. We can deal with stalkers, that's not a good reason not to make this tool available, particularly if it is a userright that we can grant or withdraw rather than a default. Dougweller (talk) 09:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: Not that I think this tool would enable more stalking, but perhaps if its implementation were very transparent it would help assuage some of these concerns. If the users/IPs being watched were visible on one of the monitoring user's subpages, anyone could see who they're watching and stalking can be easily identified. Likewise the addition of a "Who is watching me" link in the toolbox would be helpful for quickly finding everyone who has you watchlisted. Since it hasn't been created yet we can make a wishlist for the development of the tool, right? — Bility (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that such a tool would likely improve collaboration? WikiProject members, for example, would probably like to know "what everyone else is up to", because it might be fun to join in and help out. Wikipedia is all about collaboration, right?! Mlm42 (talk) 22:08, 21 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 [4], 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)

• Comment - I see merit in the idea of allowing semicolons in place of colons for wikilinks, so I've started a separate proposal below for that purpose - Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Allow semicolons in place of colons for wikilinks ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• A more general fix might be to tweak the search interface so that typing "something;something" would take you to "something:something" if the latter page exists. Similar to the way typing "wgn" in the search box takes you to WGN without the need for a redirect at wgn. Seems like that would solve the problem without requiring a lot of work, or introducing any unwanted side effects. 28bytes (talk) 21:28, 17 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)
• Oppose We really want editors to explain why they've made a change, to use the edit summary field properly. This would make it more difficult to get editors to do that as Hand That Feeds You has said. Dougweller (talk) 16:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Solution looking for problem. Propose bringing PC back for contentious BLPs instead. I'll support that. Begoon ^talk 08:22, 16 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 3,880,638 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)
  • • Well, they will act against their own, when the case is obvious enough. The problem is that they are far more lax with other Admins than with the average Editor. (Of course, they have good reason, as other Admins can turn around and block them, too.) What we really need is a recall process whereby common editors can remove abusive Admins on their own. There should also be an "equal punishment" standard for Admins. For example, if an Admin puts an inappropriate block on an Editor, they should then be blocked for just as long as the Editor was. This would quickly cut down on inappropriate blocks. StuRat (talk) 18:35, 18 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?[5] 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)
• I'll think about that the next time I catch an administrator with a drawer full of socks. --MuZemike 22:42, 11 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)

...which is what I was saying. I wasn't making a moral judgment that the old days were better. The point is that the premise of this proposal seems to be that there are a declining number of editors. I don't buy that OMG rogue admins are actually a big cause of that. Yes, admins being abusive may cause some users to leave Wikipedia. But editor retention is a much bigger problem. And given that ther eare a whole string of reasons which are both more intuitively plausible (that maintaining a mature encyclopedia is less fun for most people than starting a fresh one, hence there are less people willing to do it, hence "editor decline!") and more evidentially warranted—the WMF research into new editor retention has found that the big dropoff is between 1 and 100 edits. We have the same number of editors turning up and making their first edit, but we somehow manage to drive them off sometime between 1 and 100 edits. The issue is finding ways of ensuring more editors make that first edit (hence work like the WP:AFT5) and those new editors are sufficiently motivated to continue editing past the initial unfamiliarity (hence some of the fluffy stuff like WikiLove and MoodBar/Special:FeedbackDashboard).

Given that both of these issues have almost no relation to the behaviour of admins, I fail to see why all the arguments about editor retention have any relevance to problematic behaviour by admins. Problematic behaviour by admins is far more likely to affect long-term editors, those who are likely to actually bump into the admin corps in a non-trivial way. Problematic behaviour by admins is a problem (obviously) and editor retention is a problem. But the whole thrust of this debate has been to blame one for the other. I'm wondering how long it will take until admins get the blame for bestiality and reality television too. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Tom Morris. I think you are in denial. Many new editors experience problems with admins ignoring abuse of those new editors. Many new editors experience problems with deleted articles, external links, lists, edit reversions, and much more. They get warnings galore. They ask questions on the article talk pages, and on the noticeboards. They are routinely belittled, ridiculed, cutely insulted, etc., oftentimes in threads with admins participating. Now the admins may not be the ones actually doing the belittling, ridiculing, condescending, etc.. But their participation in the thread without stopping those activities by others is part of the problem. And I have seen many admins doing the belittling, ridiculing, condescending, etc.. And also using WP:Edit warring and other cudgels to block only one side of editing disputes. Oftentimes without following WP:3RR standards. There is soooo much obvious unfairness that is ignored by admins, or actively encouraged by admins by their own actions. You can continue to talk about the problems of new editors, but you should stop ignoring this part of the problem. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Tom Morris. I am not trying to get admins desysopped. A noticeboard for discussing policy violations by admins would rarely need to recommend that. Nearly all admins will listen to a consensus from other admins. At least temporarily. The fact that a noticeboard for this exists would also be an incentive because the admin in question would know that if he/she repeats the policy violation it will come back up again there. People who watch this noticeboard will be more likely to notice such repetition because it will not be buried in the noise of the many topics covered by a board such as WP:ANI. And the admin noticeboard will have a searchable archive as do other noticeboards. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:40, 11 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)

A separate noticeboard for policy violations by admins would be a lot more useful in solving this problem. WP:ANI has to deal with much more than this problem. Why would you be against a separate noticeboard for this? I have been on Wikipedia since 2005 and I see many abusive admins on the noticeboards. A noticeboard to point out policy violations by admins would by its very nature see much less abuse by admins than most noticeboards. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:27, 11 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)
• Support ANI is ineffective, lets deal with this properly and with a sensible scope. That should mean we can keep discussions "on topic". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 11:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - I do agree that some administrator abuse their position and powers; however i) they are not in the majority, and ii) a noticeboard about it is not the way to solve the problem. Firstly, although there will be cases of admin abuse, these cases are outweighed by the cases of falsely accused admin abuse. I have seen quite a few accusations of admin abuse; I have never seen an actual case of admin abuse. There may be a problem; if there is, it is much smaller that some editors will have us know. It seems to be a big problem, simply because people shout about it. It seems that those who are most enraged by an admin who deleted their article about their band are the ones likely to shout about it. We never hear the other side of the story because most admins are mature enough not to get into an argument, and instead ignore or calmly deal with such false accusations.

Secondly, we do have a process for dealing with problematic users. As we would with any other user, an RFC/U can be lodged against an administrator when there really are problems with power abuse. This is why I have always opposed term limits or recall procedures - they are unenforceable, compared to RFC/U. I agree that ANI is not a great place to raise a problem with an administrator: we all know that threads can turn very basty very quickly there. I don't see why a similar noticeboard which is just for complaining about administrators will be any better: if anything, it will attract the most disgruntled editors and become worse than ANI. We have a useful alternative in RFC/U, and we can do without creating another noticeboard for users to complain about admins who do a difficult but necessary job. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

ItsZippy. You wrote: "I have never seen an actual case of admin abuse." I noticed this on your user page: "I've been actively edited Wikipedia since August 2011." As I said earlier, I have been editing here since 2005. I went a long time without noticing admin problems. Then I started editing more controversial topics. Then I noticed many examples of admins violating Wikipedia guidelines and policies. My experience is fairly common. The number of active editors has been actively declining for years. As far as I know there has been no poll of editors who have left as to the various reasons why they left. That would be very useful. Or we could continue to give lip service to the problem. I am trying to deal with one of the reasons some editors leave. I know for a fact that some editors are leaving due to this problem. I don't know the numbers though. But does it matter? We have dozens of noticeboards: Template:Noticeboard links. We can add another one for this important problem. And anyway, what is more important than maintaining Wikipedia guidelines and policies? Admins should set the highest example. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

You are right - there are many editors here with more experience of Wikipedia than I have and, though I have never seen any administrator abuses, I do not doubt that there have been cases where administrators have abused their position and power. My perception of things is that there is less admin abuse than it seems there is. Of course, I do not have the numbers to hand, but without solid evidence that this is a real problem (you do not seem to have provided any diffs or links to examples of admin abuse), I cannot commit to or support anything. If we do not know the scale of abuse, beyond what we've experienced or heard through the grapevine, we cannot hope to produce a workable solution. I would suggest you spend some time gathering as much evidence as you can - doing that will allow us to make a decision based on the full facts of the matter, rather than what we just perceive to be happening. Until then, I maintain that the current procedure, using RFC/Us and ArmCom, is as sufficient for admins as it is for regular users. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

More facts are always good. But the facts are obvious to many editors. Note the support votes. Also, did you read all the discussions, articles, and pages I linked to. I doubt it. If you were more intellectually honest, in my opinion, you would change your vote to "I don't know." Or "Abstain." Because, as you say, you do not know the facts. The way you change your vote is to strike out "Oppose." Oppose.. Then type in something else. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

• Question: If ANI doesn't work, why would this new noticeboard work? What's going to be different exactly? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:05, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose yes we have some problematic admins and some problematic behaviour by imperfect admins. Some of that behaviour, especially out of process deletions, contributes to our problems of editor retention and this place becoming a generally less welcoming place to be and makes it a less efficient place to write an encyclopaedia. We also have some effective ways to deal with that such as those admins talkpages, RFCs, ANI and Arbcom. The biggest weakness of those methods is that many editors hesitate to use them, and especially to use them at early stages. The second biggest weakness is that the process is complex, and a complainant has to get things raised in the right sequence, the classic mistake being to escalate too early and then see an RFC fail because you didn't first try to talk to the person you have a complaint against. Another noticeboard would not help the primary problem that people are hesitant to go through the vital first steps of discussing the problem with the admin concerned, and it would exacerbate the secondary problem by further complicating a complex process. So yes there is a problem, but this is not the way to solve it. ϢereSpielChequers 12:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The processes you describe for dealing with admins is not working adequately. And those processes are, as you say, complex. Their complexity causes the hesitation to use them. Their lack of effectiveness in many cases exacerbates the hesitation to use them. A separate admin noticeboard is direct and simple. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)--Timeshifter (talk) 18:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The current processes are complex and imperfect, adding another noticeboard would neither simplify things nor improve them. Any such noticeboard would be only an indirect way to resolve things, the problems resolved successfully would continue to be those where editors go direct to the admin's talkpage or where that fails, the cases where Arbcom desysops or otherwise circumscribes an admin. To persuade people to support such a noticeboard you need to make the case for the added complexity of an additional step that would sit somewhere between talking to the admin and taking them to Arbcom. How exactly that fits in beside ANI and RFCs would be hard to define and would inevitably create complexity. ϢereSpielChequers 00:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Going to an admin's talk page is oftentimes a waste of time. What then? There is nothing simpler at that point than going to a noticeboard specifically for dealing with the problem of violations of guidelines by admins. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Thanks for all the discussion. I see that some people get it, and some don't. Many of those that oppose a separate noticeboard seem to think that the current methods for dealing with admin problems are adequate, regardless of the scale of the admin problem. If those methods were adequate, then why the many support votes? Others that oppose the noticeboard do not see much of a problem with admins. I ask them, did you read all the discussions, articles, and pages I linked to? If you don't see the problem, but others do, then should you not seek more info first before voting either way? Those that have been around here awhile, see the problem, but oppose a separate noticeboard; I do not see that you have proposed any other realistic solutions. You are dreaming if you think WP:ANI, WP:Arbcom, etc. can handle the problem. They haven't so far. We may not know the scale of this admin problem and how much it helps cause the continuing loss of active editors. But as the saying goes "a fish rots from the head down." If we can't fully hold admins accountable, maybe Wikipedia is paralleling the problems in banking regulation and social inequality in general. In any case I have made some efforts to "Occupy" the Village Pump for awhile since I am no longer really actively editing Wikipedia articles. I am part of the 99% who aren't admins. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 18:41, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Question Is there anything above that links to an example of a problem? Do you have any evidence that there is a problem? Johnuniq (talk) 09:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

See my previous replies to various people. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support: per ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ and Bus stop. Though I've not seen such abuse, but the above comments show that this would help. --lTopGunl (talk) 11:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose While admins do sometimes become abusive, those incidents are few and far between. ANI and ArbCom are the best place to go to; a new noticeboard won't solve anything, it just shuffles the problem to a new page. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:00, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Also, TS, you're really not helping your proposal by comparing yourself to the Occupy movement. There is no "social inequality" here, just people who disagree on editing a web site. You are not oppressed, and implying that admins are akin to corrupt bankers is appalling. Finally, saying that those who believe this is being adequately handled by the current system "are dreaming if you think WP:ANI, WP:Arbcom, etc. can handle the problem" is condescending. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It is not condescending, because it is accurate. I did a lot of editing of the Occupy articles a few months ago. And your understanding of the Occupy movement is appalling. Bankers are just doing their jobs for the most part, which is to make as much money as they can within the law. Few have been indicted for crimes, because few have committed crimes. The laws are the problem. They are lousy laws, or vague, or inadequate. Just like some of the inadequate and arbitrary laws here at Wikipedia. Such as WP:Edit war. Many admins are stretching the guidelines and wikilawyering to the limit of the guidelines and beyond. They get away with it many times because there is no simple and direct way to bring up violations of guidelines by admins to one single place. The 99% of us who are not admins can not compete with the crony adminism (kind of like "crony capitalism") and the Alice in Wonderland nature of the Byzantine bureaucracy of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's problem is less of a problem with the quidelines themselves than with the enforcement of those guidelines. All bureaucracies and governments are susceptible to this problem of entrenched authority, stagnation, transparency, accountability, and inequality. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

You still haven't explained what your new noticeboard would do. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

See my previous replies to various people. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I've read those. It still doesn't explain what it would do... but alright. Let's play that game. Suppose I was an admin — "Timeshifter, you're a fuckin' asshole." — now what? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:37, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

You have a right to your opinion. :) See again my previous replies to various people. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

So I call you an asshole, and you say I have a right to my opinion. Why do you need a noticeboard then? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Please try to refrain from using words which will trigger vandalism alerts if you can. It would make our job much easier. Thanks!Jobberone (talk) 04:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Lol. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The users who are empowered to deal with admin abuse are other admins and Arbcom. We currently have methods for alerting both groups to an admin abuse issue; these are ANI and the arbcom-l mailing list. What would this new noticeboard do to improve that communication? Yunshui 雲‍水 14:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It would focus more attention concerning problems with admins in one centralized location. More would be learned about the scale of problems. Other admins would learn by watching what happens here. Admins and average editors would know that there is accountability in one place. Direct and simple. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support  IMO, we have a problem at Wikipedia of Somalia-style warlords.  I don't know that this proposal is the best, or even a good solution, but it is better than ignoring the problem.  Perhaps it should have a six-month trial period.  Unscintillating (talk) 18:15, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Strongly Support: This is an excellent idea. This is what I call improving Wikipedia. It is high time a specific mechanism of accountability be in place for admins. ANI simply isn't enough, is too general and sometimes becomes a Punch-and-Judy show. I think an admin complaint board would be just the opposite precisely because it isn't ANI. Why not put forth this idea elsewhere? It is an excellent policy idea, and I think this village pump is something of a joke sometimes.--Djathinkimacowboy 14:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Although I support the idea and in addition to my comments earlier in the discussion this endeavor is unlikely to succeed. In order for anything to happen in result of a discussion about an admin, an admin or beauracrat would have to take action to do anything and they are unlikely do to so. Its like the current situation in the US Congress to hold congressman accountable for insider trading. It would work against them so there not going to support it. --Kumioko (talk) 14:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - This idea is the first step to chaos. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 14:59, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and soon followed by Armageddon, and the end of the world as we know it. See Chaos theory. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, IMO, putting another layer over ANI (which... let's face it... would be resorted to in a j'accuse manner, WOULD be no different from having a special court to try police officers in for doing their jobs, instead of the common courts. Oh, and the one doing the accusing would of course have their ANI put on hold until the thread on the admin is concluded. Holy Byzantinism Batman! Best, Markvs88 (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Oh come now, Markvs88. This proposal doesn't "put another layer over ANI". And I don't see any j'accuse taint present in a complaint that has supporting diffs- which everything ought to have. To compare the proposition to a special police court in which to try police officers is misleading. The proposal is, in fact, something the police already have, and it works fairly well: Internal Affairs. This proposal is an Internal Affairs for Wikipedia Administrators. That strikes you as wrong? Let me point out that it is the citizen who generally initiates what will become an IA investigation- it occurs when citizens complain about what the police are doing wrong, not just when one cop gets another cop in trouble.--Djathinkimacowboy 16:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Markvs88. And what is wrong with J'accuse? That is a proud moment in history. Emile Zola's remains were laid to rest in the Panthéon in Paris. He is a hero. Whose side are you on? Alfred Dreyfus was railroaded by "admins" in the military. Are you on the side of secret courts? I am opposed to closed noticeboards. I am simply for another open noticeboard strictly for dealing with admins problems. And no special rules different from any other noticeboard. Open noticeboards and open media. Alfred Dreyfus was liberated eventually because of the court of public opinion and public discussion. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Djathinkimacowboy: It doesn't? Here's the deal: if you want to consider the IA route, will this board be open to all editors or to just Admins and those invovled in the incident? If the former, it is another layer of ANI. If the latter, then it still forks the resolution process, slowing down whatever issue is at hand. I really don't see how this would do anything that ANI already does not.

Timeshifter: Yes, Zola is a hero, etc. My point is that while he took on the establishment, he did it in public view and in existing courts. The founding of this seperate board would IMO engender even the most trivial things to be taken to the "Supreme Court". Best, Markvs88 (talk) 12:45, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It is just another noticeboard. See: Template:Noticeboard links. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:56, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Concur with Timeshifter above. And may I add, a much-needed noticeboard that is specific- one we specifically don't have now.--Djathinkimacowboy 16:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Your earlier query, Markvs88, was not answered, sorry. I suppose you can read, and see that Timeshifter wants something where anyone can go and make their case against an admin for very specific reasons. So, yes, any editor can go, bearing in mind an admin is nothing but an editor with a few extra and mostly undeserved buttons. This whole new board forces others- mainly admins probably, but also respected editors, anyone- to review and respond to the cases raised there. Of course I have to ask, what does it matter anyway if people ignore it like they ignore everything else here?--Djathinkimacowboy 01:24, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Groupthink can be a big problem. That is one reason I want a separate noticeboard for admin problems. Groupthink, when it happens, will be more obvious to many people watching such a dedicated noticeboard. Therefore, there will be less and less of the kneejerk "admins-rarely-do-wrong" groupthink on a dedicated noticeboard over time. Also, over time as problems are resolved, it will become obvious that admin problems are not being overlooked. Since it is all out in the open, the wider audience reading the noticeboard will have an overall moderating effect. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:03, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: It must also be indicated that if Timeshifter succeeds in this, it may actually help supplement an ANI (should the need arise). In this way the average editor all the way up to disagreeing admins would have the bare bones of their difficulties out in the open. This might distill a conversation or discussion in a good way. A new layer over ANI?- perhaps, but it is a necessary one. May I also say, I am unhappy with the way past discussions are archived and I hope Timeshifter will consider a humble addition that there be some clearer way of archiving closed/resolved discussions on his new board.--Djathinkimacowboy 01:30, 23 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)

To be blunt, this falls under the category of "New person comes in, dosen't bother to try to find out how everything is currently set up, or if those setups are effective, and launches broad proposal to make big changes in order to fix problems that don't exist." Respectfully, I suggest that you withdraw this and make an effort to understand how Wikipedia actually works before you submit another proposal for your class. Further, I suggest you tell your professor that, based on the course description and your description of your task, I would have to say that your course is fundamentally flawed; it's based on unrealistic assumptions of how Wikipedia operates, how our community operates, and most critically, how administration is perceived and how RfA works in practice as opposed to on paper. By all means, direct him here so that he can read the direct quote. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:40, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The reason why I did not want to post the project as a proposal is because of my understanding that the whole things is unnecessary for the most part. I know that many Wikipedians are opposed to classes like mine because of what past classes have done and how students are generally ignorant of how Wikipedia works, but I plead that everybody might take a calmer approach toward what I presented. The project I presented was NOT a proposal in any sense. If nothing else, it is simply an exercise for students to learn project management. My post to the idea lab simply asks for ideas. I have a project to finish, and I want to take it a step further by making it something that might be useful to Wikipedia. Quoting from what I said before, "If the project turns out to be a failure or if it is not something the community is looking for, we assume that the prototype will be scrapped." To summarize, I am just looking for ideas and I am not looking to barge in and change Wikipedia; sorry if my previous posts were unclear about that, and sorry if posting to sections other than the idea lab cause any confusion about the matter.

User:Sven Manguard, with respect, the project will continue as planned. Frankly, I'm surprised to see you shooting down ideas (being developed in sandboxes I might add) before they've even been expressed to you. Why not see what the students put together before shooting them down? Why not offer suggestions for how the resources available to admins should be improved? Furthermore, why not direct our students to resources that can help them to understand as opposed to just saying that we don't understand, which does little else than WP:BITE. Our students are indeed learning about Wikipedia's culture, and the place of the admin in that culture. You will be impressed by the quality of our work, just give us a chance. --Jaobar (talk) 06:55, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

When those ideas are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Wikipedia actually works, you might want to reconsider the entire proposal. If your foundation is flawed, your construction won't stand up.

As for directing the students to help, Help:Contents is on our sidebar to the left, and the Wikipedia Help Desk has plenty of people willing to answer questions about Wikipedia policy, procedures and editing. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, criticism without any explanation. This isn't helpful at all. If in your opinion we aren't understanding something, please, enlighten us. I should point out that our analysis of what you do is going far deeper than what you are suggesting. We are working with a number of very experienced admins behind the scenes, who are perfectly fine with what we're doing, as far as I can tell. --Jaobar (talk) 17:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Neither the description of your course, nor the proposal that I took issue with, gave any indication that either you or the proposer made any effort to try and understand Wikipedia and how Wikipedia operates. Understand that we get people who don't bother to figure out how Wikipedia functions but want to change it or repurpose it coming through this page or the main page on a weekly basis, our collective patience for such things has... thinned. If you're working with members of the community or the WMF, you need to say that explicitly and up front, not because it should change anything (which is debatable), but because it very much does. You also need to be very careful in your wording, because the community responds very differently to "we want to study X" and "we want to change X". The former is generally tolerated, with the caveat that a vocal minority of Wikipedians will be on your case about privacy and the handling of user data. The latter is only ever tolerated if it is clear that the person making the proposal is well versed in Wikipedia, and isn't trying to make the change for their own benefit. You're running into trouble because the 'well versed in Wikipedia' isn't showing through, and the proposal makes it seem like this is being done for the benefit of a college class, not for the benefit of Wikipedia. A final note: many users, myself included, will take objection with the course description's implication that Wikipedia is a social network. It might be, depending on the definition, but when people see 'social network' they think 'Facebook/Twitter', and quite the crowd here really doesn't Facebook/Twitter, or people associating Wikipedia with Facebook/Twitter. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I think creating some kind of "portal" that documents all the current administrative (and maintenance?) processes would be useful. Both for Wikipedians and as a learning experience for the students. Reorganizing existing processes is probably not a realistic goal for a class projects, but if you want to make a proposal at the end of the project no one will stop you. —Ruud 18:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I could see something lovely coming of that. Or a meta-portal. Or a portal that introduces readers to clusters of backlogs. Or a portal for people trying to digest the significant policies. Or a portal for tracking wik-drama. Also, seeing a biting comment from The Hand That Feeds You made me smile; I hope no readers were harmed in the process. – SJ + 08:12, 16 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)

• Comment  We don't allow editors to revise old revisions, why do we allow software to revise revisions?  Unscintillating (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support  I think that this is possible and practical, by adding a time parameter to the picture-retrieving subroutine.  Unscintillating (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Allow semicolons in place of colons for wikilinks

There is a proposal above by User:Ruud Koot that is being derailed because of the wording of the proposal, originally asking for a new namespace (and that proposal is inspired by the RfD of Wp;drv). Rather than try to unsink that ship, I thought it best to start a new proposal. To be clear, I don't care one way or the other about "shortcut" wikilinks such as "wp:DRV", those are about the convenience of typing less. This proposal is simply to allow wikilinks in the text of a page to include semicolons (;) in place of colons (:). This is not a matter of shortening, it is a matter of allowing a small amount of grace for a common typo. This wouldn't effect any article titles, as we've always had colons in article titles (like Mega Man: The Wily Wars), and that has never caused a problem. All page titles will still have colons, all guidelines will say to use colons, so this will only show up when a mistake is made. Semicolons do not have a special purpose in wiki markup, so there should be no conflict there. This wouldn't effect articles, as articles rarely have cross-namespace links. This would primarily effect talk pages, and what people type into the search bar. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support: But this is less our issue than the developers'.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Agreed, but the devs are unlikely to act if there is not support from the project. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:30, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: I see no reason not to make this change, which will make Wikipedia a little easier to use. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 14:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• Opppose A good deal of extra complexity for extremely little benefit, since such typos are very easy to fix. Note the claim that having colons in article titles causes no problems is very incorrect, see WP:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Colons. The following seemingly-useful existing articles and redirects would be affected were this change to be made:
  • ; would become [[:]]
  • ;( would become (
  • ;) would become )
  • ;P would become P
  • ; ; would become  ;
  • ;login: would become login:
  • ;o) would become o)
  • ;p; would become p;
  • ;qjkxbmwvz would become qjkxbmwvz
  • ID; Peace B would become ID: Peace B
  • ID; Peace B (single) would become ID: Peace B (single)
  • ID; Peace B (song) would become ID: Peace B (song)
  • S;G would become S:G
  • TL;DR would become TL:DR
  • Tl;dr would become Tl:dr
  • W;t would become W:t

There are also a number of redirects to Emoticon that would not really be affected, such as ;-) that also exists as :-), and a number of redirects that are not particularly worrying as they exist only because of the semicolon-for-colon typo. Anomie⚔ 15:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Oppose. This is markup syntax and unless there is a very good reason, I don't see why this is needed. This would only hide mistakes until corrected, instead of making them obvious. While this may make Wiki a little more typo-proof, I don't want to imagine how many times colon variable is hard-coded in the actual MediaWiki code. And since ";" isn't used, it may have been used internally with no backward-compatibility. Not to mention all the scripts, bots, and tools that are parsing markup and are not from WMF. Effort is really best spent elsewhere instead of catering to the very small minority that don't want to fix typos. We already have most common typo redirects. And not to mention what the intuitive meanings of colon and semicolon are in punctuation. Also semicolon is a reserved URI character ([6]). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Anomie and H3llkn0wz. —Ruud 13:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - we can create specific redirects for common mistakes. This is a very complex solution to a problem which is not very significant. --He to Hecuba (talk) 13:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: I would have supported this but H3llkn0wz has raised a reasonable point. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:49, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Anomie, H3llkn0wz and various other problems. There are good reasons markup and programming languages very rarely accept alternative punctuation characters (and if they do then it's usually only to get compatibility with something existing). I guess it would cause so many problems that the developers would simply refuse to implement it. In addition to confusing and breaking lots of scripts, bots, tools and pagenames across lots of wikis, it would also confuse many users. A semicolon is automatically interpreted as a colon if but nearly only if there is a namespace before it? WhatLinksHere and other features on a title with colon will present pages where no colon can be found because somebody used semicolon? If you see a wikilink with a semicolon then you manually have to change it to a colon, or look for a colon, when you use certain features but not other features? Wikipedia is already confusing enough. Don't replace one minor problem with many other problems. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hellknowz. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:20, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - My initial support was because it would cause no real problems. As numerous editors, far more technically able than myself, have quite solidly refuted this notion, I oppose. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Such a typo is easily detected and fixed by anyone, since it shows up as a redlink and the intention is obvious. In fact I've never seen anyone make this typo in the last 8 years, presumably because they're fixed rapidly enough that I never notice. As Anomie notes, trying to accommodate this would break existing stuff. Dcoetzee 14:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

How about this?

(I made this comment at the "wp;" thread above before I saw this one.) A more general fix might be to tweak the search interface so that typing "something;something" would take you to "something:something" if the latter page exists. Similar to the way typing "wgn" in the search box takes you to WGN without the need for a redirect at wgn. Seems like that would solve the problem without requiring a lot of work, or introducing any unwanted side effects. 28bytes (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm all for search engine's semantics improvements. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

An even more general fix would be the search engine taking you to the article with the closest Hamming distance or some other appropriate string metric. —Ruud 00:21, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Possibly, although that might have some unwanted side effects: e.g. if you decided to start an article on "Favorite show (season 4)" and it kept sending you to "Favorite show (season 3)". 28bytes (talk) 00:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

But that would apply to your proposal as well. It should be coupled to some system as used for our redirects or Google's 'Did you mean ..?"/"Showing results for..., search for ... instead". —Ruud 00:39, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

No, I was thinking of simply adding a check to see if a colon was intended instead of a semicolon. Specifically, once the end of the current search logic is reached and it's about to send you to the "search" page, do one more check to see if a page exists at the location typed if A:B were swapped for A;B. A more comprehensive "auto redirect" would be overkill, I think. The problem with the current functionality is that A;B will not automatically return matches on the search page for namespace A: but will return article space matches, which is almost certainly not intended if the text entered starts with "wp;" (or "talk;" or "user;" etc.) 28bytes (talk) 00:46, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Relevant bug: "Did you mean . . ." search feature to automatically spellcheck all search terms. Something like this should really be part of that feature. Dcoetzee 13:57, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Restoring long-lost edits using the newly released historical database dumps

As recently announced on the Wikimedia techblog, some historical database dumps of Wikipedia from 2001 onwards are now available for download. The history of most Wikipedia pages from 2002 onwards is fully available, but there are several pages where this is not the case, mainly due to deletion-related accidents; examples include the pages on the Sicilian Mafia, New York City, Glasgow, and Ali. I have compiled a list of these cases in my userspace at User:Graham87/Page history observations. I would like it to be possible for admins to import old edits from these historical dumps to the English Wikipedia, similarly to the way this is done for the Nostalgia Wikipedia (see User:Graham87/Import). Ideally, these import operations would be done through read-only wikis like the Nostalgia Wikipedia, which would have the added benefit of making it easy to find out what Wikipedia looked like in 2003, for example. These read-only wikis would not be indexable by search engines for privacy reasons. I can think of perhaps only a few hundred English Wikipedia pages that would benefit from this treatment, but others may find more similar pages in the future, which is why I'd like the ability to import these old edits to be available to the greatest possible number of people. If there are no strong objections to this proposal, I plan to file a request on Bugzilla to ask the sysadmins to look into this matter. Graham87 11:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Would the ability to import the old page history be available to administrators only, or be a separate right given out to any trusted user ? --He to Hecuba (talk) 11:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It'd probably be available to administrators only, as part of the "transwiki importer" user right. Graham87 14:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I know this would be an underused function, but it sounds like a good idea. MBisanz ^talk 15:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd support implementation (by adding to admin toolset), would be useful and no potential for abuse. --He to Hecuba (talk) 18:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there no way of creating some bot that would just be able to import all the old/missing edits? It seems to me that there are hardly likely to be many, must be simpler than creating a new ability/adapting an old one or whatever--Jac16888 ^Talk 02:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it could be done using a bot , but the bot would have to be granted special permissions to import the old edits, which would once again require sysadmin intervention. Also, it would need to be rigorously tested because any mistakes made by the bot (e.g. importing unneeded redirect edits) would be very difficult to undo. Graham87 05:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Importing is disabled for ENWP. I think ENWP is viewed as the place that all wikipages originate, like the wiki garden of eden; once a page leaves it can't come back. I tried to get a histmerge done with a page that moved to Meta and back again (WP:MMO), but it can't currently be done. Of course, it could probably be enabled for a one-time task such as this. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 06:50, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Importing has been enabled on the English Wikipedia since December 2009, as I eluded to above. I notice that a user tried to import the page that you're referring to in January 2009, which was before the functionality was enabled here. I've just imported the Meta edits to Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an MMORPG. Imports can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests for page importation, but this thread is as good a place as any, I guess. :-) Graham87 09:44, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. mabdul 16:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I've just filed this as bug 34465. Graham87 08:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

UID interface to Wikipedia

This is a proposal to come up with a systematic means by which members of subsets of Wikipedia articles (chemicals, protiens, railway stations, etc etc) can be accessed by means of Universal IDs.

The subjects of many wikipedia article have unique IDs assigned to them. Chemicals are identified by their CAS registry number, for instance; protein sequences are identified by a range of UIDs such as UniProt; nucleotide sequences and their protein translations by GenBank ... UK railway stations by NaPTAN, etc. As you'd expect, UIDs are used to provide access to all sort of database repositories. Techniques include web service interfaces, APIs, etc. UIDs make information available on a systematic basis.

UID are already widely used on wikipedia, notably in infoboxes of articles. But right now, any info wikipedia has about a subject is (as far as I know) mostly inaccessible by the UID. Searching for the Ensembl UID for Rhodopsin, ENSG00000163914, brings a pretty useless result.

Equally, right now, any number of software products exist to search third party databases for information by UID. Other than by article name, wikipedia will tend not to feature as a source.

The proposal, then, is make such changes as are sensible to make wikipedia articles accessible by UID through the normal web interface. There are a number of ways this could be done; I come here for thoughts and direction both about the general idea and also the specific implementation. A low-tech example implementation is to create a redirect for each UID - e.g. Ensembl-ENSG00000163914 - and expect it to redirect to the article, Rhodopsin. A better approach would be to reuse the data already in infoboxes to seed the interface, so that we're not double entering data.

If it needs answering, the "why do this", "what use will be made of this" questions resolve to "because we can", "who knows", "until we do we'll not find out" and "if we don't, then we prevent these things from being realised". Those seem good enough reasons to me. Grateful for proposal and implementation detail feedback. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely endorse this proposal - I'd be happy to be considered a co-proponent - which accords with moves to increase Wikipedia's metadata and machine readability; as well as interoperability with other websites and apps. Alternative formats (and there will be others) would be Ensembl:ENSG00000163914 or to set up a UID namespace, for example: UID/Ensembl/ENSG00000163914. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:39, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Support redirect system. Redirects are cheap, and I can't see how the it would interfere. If other commenters have a negative outcome in mind, then I may need to re-evaluate. At the moment I can't see it. Not sure what "A better approach would be to reuse the data already in infoboxes to seed the interface, so that we're not double entering data." means. Automatically creating (or even maintaining) redirects based on infoboxes could be suitably trialled and implemented, I would think, if that's the sort of thing you meant. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:45, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "who knows" is a sufficient reason to spend the time & resources of the WikiMedia on fixing a problem which does not yet exist, when they could be used to fix problems that we do know exist. If I've just not fully understood the proposal (which may well be the case), just let me know. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It's hard to say, ItsZippy. Who knows what's in your head? What I know is this: right now anyone who has an app which uses UIDs finds wikipedia inaccessible. If we re-use UIDs to enable access to article text, it becomes utterly trivial for any third party dealing in UIDs to access our content. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't know a great deal about UIDs. If you think it's beneficial, then I won't be opposed. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Rather than onwiki namespaces, it might be possible to do something using a simple lookup database - toolserver.org/UID/Ensembl/ENSG00000163914 spits out the relevant article, with the option of adding /en or /de to the URL to select the desired language, etc. I do like the idea very much - I can see an obvious application involving LCSH headings resolving to specific Wikipedia articles, for one thing! Please let me know if you go ahead with this...

One other approach would be to increase our use of hidden infobox fields, and make sure they search properly. It's not much help to prominently display relatively technical identifiers in an article, but if we used something like persondata - a hidden metadata template - this would be a great use for it. Including this alongside the referrer database or redirect would also help ensure we don't get errors creeping in due to page moves (which is likely if we start using geographical or personal identifiers); we can have a script patrolling for mismatches and flagging them. Shimgray | talk | 22:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Why would we put something on the toolserver, when Wikipedia itself can host it adequately? Also, I'm not in favour of hidden fields. We should be displaying UIDs in infoboxes; but that's a separate issue and should not be conflated with this one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm certainly not wedded to the idea of an off-wiki solution (and toolserver was just an arbitrary suggestion), but I think it's worth considering the benefits. The model I'm thinking of here is the very successful QRpedia, which does a similar trick of going through an intermediate layer before resolving a specific Wikipedia article, rather than leaping straight to an enwiki address.

Firstly, in the short term, it's simpler. We can set up a test database of these links elsewhere as a demo without approval, since it doesn't have to tie directly into the wiki; going straight for onwiki namespaces involves getting consensus before being able to do a practical demonstration, which risks becoming a vicious circle... (Transferring a proof-of-concept database to the wiki should be relatively simple, if the namespaces are later enabled - it'd be a matter of running a script to populate the redirects. The converse is true, as well, of course!)

Secondly, it has greater potential for future development. Using an intermediate layer makes it a lot easier to expand the functionality with things like:

• adding alternate-language capacity via the same URL, without having to seperately query xx.wp and xy.wp and xz.wp to see if there are entries in the preferred languages. (I can imagine a case where a database would say "We need results in Polish, alternatively falling back to German or Russian, and if all else fails use English.")
• more versatility in what we send back - some users might want microformat metadata, some might want full articles, some might want mobile ones, some might want us to spit out a copy of just the lead or the infobox image, etc.

...to take a couple of examples. Shimgray | talk | 12:47, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

This seems desirable, but probably needs a project page somewhere so ideas can be worked through. Is it wanted that a Google search for "ENSG00000163914" would include Wikipedia in its results? And/or a normal (article namespace) Wikipedia search? (Currently, a Wikipedia search finds nothing unless searching in the template namespace.) Roughly how many articles might end up with a UID? How would they be maintained? While a bot might happily create thousands of redirects, there should be some planning for how the results could be maintained. For example, there could be a master list somewhere, and a bot would make the redirects from that list, and would periodically report any changes to the redirects that disagree with what is in the list. Johnuniq (talk) 10:08, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes; a project would be a good idea. Google searching would be one benefit, but the primary purpose would be so that other websites (online databases) and apps could programmatically create URLs like, say, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UID/Ensembl/Foo, where "Foo" is a UID, and be redirected to the relevant article. Hopefully, this would also, eventually, be possible through the API, too. The use of categories would serve to provide lists of such articles. A bot could create the redirects, by scanning, for example, sub-templates of {{PBB}}; like {{PBB/6010}} for Rhodopsin. I like your ideas of a bot reporting suspicious changes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:36, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Tagishsimon, POTW, ... will you please stop having good ideas before I have them! .... :-) I'm currently talking to Library catalogue folks in Sheffield. I think we have an agenda! (ItsZippy - our resources are volunteers - the resource is infinite! We just need discussions about where the value and the enthusiasm best match. This might be one of them Victuallers (talk) 10:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I have created WikiProject Unique Identifiers for discussion and coordination of all UID related matters. Please join! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

A google search for ENSG00000163914 within the en.wikipedia.org domain gives {{PBB/6010}} and Rhodopsin as the top two hits. It is also worth noting that at least one external database can be search for ENSG00000163914 (see for example GeneCards) that leads to a link that points back the the Wikipedia Rhodopsin article. I don't see any harm in adding these types of redirects, but at the same time I do not see any particular advantages either, especially considering that search engines can rapidly locate the desired article. For the rhodopsin article alone, there would be an almost endless list of possible redirects starting the rhodopsin ensemble accession numbers for a half dozen additional species, the refseq RNA and protein IDs, UniProt IDs, etc. Boghog (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

The particular claimed advantage is that a third party database using UIDs can link to wikipedia articles at something like nil marginal cost. Given that we have UIDs in articles, leveraging them to create redirects is also pretty much nil marginal cost. There may be many redirects to a single article, agreed, but I don't see that as a problem. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:03, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, consolidating those editnotices under the Editor

I remember making a proposal to this extent earlier at some point, and quite a few people agreed with my idea. Yet, nothing has happened, the only change made was one apparently forced by WMF legal. I still think that consolidating the messages down there into just one area would make a whole lot more sense. Maybe something like this:

---

For articles...

And for talk pages

How's this? ViperSnake151  Talk  20:26, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support - I like the idea; it will make the important notices clearer and more comprehensible. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:02, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment You're missing the reference to foundation:Terms of use that is required by Wikimedia (see meta:Licensing update/Implementation#Terms for edit screen). And I fail to see how either of the above gigantic boxes are more consolidated than what we have now. I'd oppose this, except that I hide the whole mess with my user CSS anyway so I wouldn't see it. Anomie⚔ 02:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, "both the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license and the GFDL" is linked to that. Wouldn't that be enough? ViperSnake151  Talk  13:37, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Oh, it's an easter egg link. It seems to me that "CC-BY-SA 3.0" and "GFDL" should instead link to the texts of those licenses, and a link with the text "Terms of use" should link to the terms of use. Anomie⚔ 15:43, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support and add "not forum" point for talk pages. --lTopGunl (talk) 11:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

'Comment: yeah, I looked and thought about the last proposal as well. But it got bogged down in the need for the legal team to have a look. Since none of them were around, it was rather pushed into the long grass. Also as I recall WikiEd or somesuch reorganises the lower sections. Speak to Geoff or someone and come back with approval, I think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Yes, please, speak to Geoff. The language of that wording is very specific ("by clicking the save page", implies affirmative consent, for instance). It's really really important that the WMF's Legal and Community Advocacy department be made aware of what language is decided upon here, prior to implementation. I know that Geoff will work with you, but there are some things that have to be, for legal reasons. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 09:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

New Page Patrol survey report released

Hey guys! Just a note to tell you that (finally) the report on the NPP survey we ran late last year has been released. All comments and suggestions are welcome on the talkpage :). I'm really, really sorry for the delay; I finished this in early December. I'm not too happy about the long turnaround time either ;p. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

That looks like it was a lot of work, Okeyes. Thank you. A minor comment: there are about three charts in there where the text is nearly impossible to read until you click on the graphic. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:19, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that :(. I've got to regenerate a couple of them anyway when I have some free time, so if you want to point out particularly problematic ones I'll add them to my to-do list :).

Okay. The two that were the most difficult to make out on the article page were:

• File:Types of editing patrollers engage in.png
• File:Why patrollers engage in NPP.png

But these two are also somewhat of a challenge:

• File:Other locations where patrollers work.png
• File:Difficult patrolling elements.png

Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk)

Thanks for the list; I'm going to stick them on tomorrow's to-do list (got a bit wrapped up in usability studies today, I'm afraid) and should have them available Monday at the latest. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Ech. Okay, looks like it's a problem of spacing; I'm afraid I can't actually work out how to fix them :S. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 02:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• I used to do new page patrol. I gave it up because I quickly wearied of being bitched at by admins disagreeing with CSD tags. To be clear, I didn't care that the CSDs were declined, it was the lack of good faith and accusations I was wasting admins time. Nobody Ent 14:02, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Like me. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 00:55, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Funneling certain upload categories straight to Commons

Free images (barring a few special cases) are supposed to be uploaded to Commons, not here. Despite this, we have several hundred thousand locally hosted freely licensed files, and between 50 and 100 freely licensed files are uploaded locally each day. Many of the uploaders are new users, or new to uploading, but a few have been asked multiple times to use Commons, but don't (and don't use Keeplocal or give a reason to not use commons either).

My proposal is simple: In the local upload wizard there are several options. I propose we redirect a few of them:

Tame proposal: the following two

• For the option "It is a work from a US federal government source", which currently links to a local upload page, instead have it redirect to the Commons upload page for US federal government works.
• For the option "It is a work from Flickr and its author has released it under a free license", which currently links to a local upload page, instead have it redirect to the Commons upload page for Flickr uploads.

Radical proposal: the above two plus

• For the option "It is entirely my own work and I am willing to release it irrevocably under a free license.", which currently links to a local upload page, instead have it redirect to the Commons upload page for own work.

I think that this is very much needed. Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 23:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd support us giving better direction to users. But would prefer the wizard to give them some choice in the matter, which possibly means another step along the lines of "we think this image should be loaded here, and will take you there in 10 seconds or you can click to continue; if you really don't want to load it onto the commons then click here". --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

If it's doable, sure. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I already did this a week ago. I was reverted. Dcoetzee 14:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I know. I'm following BRD. You did the bold, someone else did the revert, I'm doing the discussing. Sven Manguard Wha? 14:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Just noting here that I believe the Wikipedia:Upload page is actually not very well suited to its task in general, and I may soon propose exchanging it with an entirely new Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard I have been working on. I'm still working on various ideas about how to integrate that with Commons. My favourite idea is to actually have two submit buttons, one of them saying "Yes, I want this file to be available in all Wikimedia projects in all languages" and the other "No, I want this file to be available on the English language Wikipedia only" (with the first button sending the upload request straight to Commons without a need for the user actually going there, provided they have a unified account.) – However, I do have a certain concern: there is currently a conveniently large overlap between those users who will ignore our Commons recommendation and upload locally, and those users who upload copyvios. As many as 70% of all files uploaded locally by new users get deleted for copyvio-related reasons (F3, F4, F9, PUF). It is far easier to monitor uploads by new users and filter out the bad ones if they are first done locally. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

No I disagree with that. Once they have released it that is that. The only control is what licence it has, such an action s putting extra licence conditions. Perhaps what you could say is whether is for use in articles or whether it is some temporary for use on a reference desk or talk page where one could by default delete after some months unless it is used in an article or otherwise marked as of longer term educational use. I'm not even sure that is worthwhile. Dmcq (talk) 22:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, it never crossed my mind the wording I was thinking of could be understood as an additional legal restriction on the licensing, rather than just a practical matter of where to store the file. Okay, the wording can be tweaked. What do you think of the general idea though, technically? Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:28, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Automatic edit summary

I have a proposal concerning the omission of edit summaries. If a user who edits an article leaves the edit summary blank, their changes (such as text inserted/removed to the article) will be shown, making it an automatic edit summary. However, if an edit summary is provided by the user, then that edit summary will be shown instead. The reason for this proposal is that there are far too many edits without edit summaries, leaving it inconvenient and time-consuming for other editors who want to view changes which have not been explained. Not only will this promote the use of edit summaries, but it can be used to view and stop vandalism to an article as the vandal's edits will be visible. Till I Go Home (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

• Question: The edit filter (the way we would implement this) is dumb. How can you expect it to provide such a detailed edit summary? Or, are you talking about putting the diff into the edit summary (impossible)?Jasper Deng (talk) 05:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Whatever is inserted or removed will be shown in the edit summary (e.g. if "abcde" is inserted in the article then the edit summary will say "abcde". Till I Go Home (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

We can't afford to do that, especially for page blanking, unless we greatly expand the edit summary field (which is not feasible).Jasper Deng (talk) 05:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps if none is given, something descriptive could be added. For instance, "X characters added/deleted to Y sections" or something of that nature. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Editsummary field has a limit, so we actually can add (as much allowed in that limit) the text that was added or removed with an indication of which ever on a blank editsummary. --lTopGunl (talk) 11:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

This makes a lot of sense to me. In fact, for small edits I routinely copy paste the text I added into the edit summary. My Wikipedia:Persondata-o-matic tool automatically produces detailed edit summaries describing exactly what was added, removed, or modified. For larger edits we'd just need a bit of technology to automatically summarize the edit in a useful manner (e.g. I could imagine an automatic program producing "Add paragraph to Cuisine section beginning `Fish are commonly eaten in Japan...'"). Dcoetzee 14:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The issue really is that editors don't leave proper edit summaries. This proposal would hide the problem by putting automatic text in for the edit summary. At least seeing it blank is an opportunity to educate the user to proper Wiki etiquette. Plus, no computer system is going to be smart enough to explain why the edit was made. You can look at the diff if you want to see the edit itself. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
  • It seems like it would be easy to add some kind of marker to visually distinguish automatic edit summaries from manual ones, so that nothing is being "hidden." Moreover, intention can often be inferred easily from the content of the edit (for example, if it's "changed serius to serious" you can reasonably infer it was a spelling correction). If an editor omits an explanation or justification for a controversial edit, they're more likely to be reverted and have to explain it on the talk page, so the incentive to include one is still there. Dcoetzee 15:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: It seems unlikely that such a thing could be done accurately. I love the idea, I just think it is technologically unfeasible. How is the editing process itself supposed to detect then summarise edits not summarised by the editor? See my proposal below... I do actually think my proposal is a better idea because what has been originally stated here is a branch of the problem I have addressed below[7]. My idea in its basis is to try to strongly encourage edit summaries but also to make it clear what the edit summary IS and what it is NOT. Why make things easier for those who are already abusing the edit summary?--Djathinkimacowboy 13:04, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Addendum to my comment: There is another problem revealed here: many editors do not fully comprehend how an edit summary should be written. I believe some of them don't even see the box when they edit, or simply don't know what to put. I myself as a raw newbie used to mark too many edits as 'minor' because I did not know the proper definition of a minor edit. See, we need to push editors to provide edit summaries, understand it well, not use it as a text-messaging service and be clear about why the summary means so much. Of course there are editors who simply want to make it hard for others to see what they've done and refuse to summarise anything.--Djathinkimacowboy 13:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• OpposeThis will automatically incorporate any attacks, copyvios or other bad edits ("poop fuck shit hahahahahah") into the edit summary. It's bad enough when they occur and aren't revdeleted, but now, instead of being hidden in a prior version and only likely to be discovered or viewed if a user specifically looks at prior versions, will now be evident just by looking at the edit history.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• If a lack of edit summaries is such a concern, and I'm not sure that it is, a much simpler and easier solution would be to have the "prompt for edit summary" option in prefs enabled by default --Jac16888 ^Talk 13:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I proposed that in the past and it was rejected but I still support.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Agree, partially: If there is one of two things we can try: a simple prompt to encourage edit summaries with emphasis on what an edit summary is; or, a simple indicator of an edit's length, such as we now have with the indication of words added/removed in the diff.--Djathinkimacowboy 14:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Fuhgettaboutit. - Purplewowies (talk) 21:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

"My contributions" link for anonymous IP editors

There should be a "my contributions" link visible somewhere to anonymous IP editors, like there is for registered users. It should probably be called "contributions from this IP" or something similar, though, because the contributions may not be those of the current user of the address.

It has always bothered me that I have to jump through some hoops to see the contributions from this address, either by going to Special:Contributions and then having to figure out the IP address to type in, or to look at the history of an article I know I've edited, find one of my edits, and click on my address to see the contribution history. If there's an easier way, I don't know what it is. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If you want to see your own contributions quickly, just use Special:MyContributions. Due to dynamic IP-addresses, I'm not sure how useful the link would be. --He to Hecuba (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. In that case, I amend this suggestion to ask that Special:MyContributions appear on the list at Special:SpecialPages. Currently it doesn't.

Some IP addresses are static, and some dynamic ones persist with the same customer for months, depending on the ISP. Such is the case with me. It wouldn't be useful for AOL users, who get a different address on each HTTP request. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 22:41, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

For an easier way to see your contributions, simply click edit on any unprotected Wikipedia page, type four tildes (~~~~), which can be done automatically using the edit pane button, click on show preview, and then click your linked IP address.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Strongest possible oppose: there is already a mechanism for watching one's contributions: create an account. The my contributions thing is guaranteed to be abused by bad-faith dynamic IP users, who would only add select contributions to their lists and then pretend that this is all they did. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • What would stop them from doing this right now, consider several easy workarounds are available? Why would they suddenly start doing so with this change? Yoenit (talk) 14:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Nothing. They do this, and I see no reason why we should facilitate such behaviour. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:03, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks Czarkoff, I have rarely seen a more blatant example of disregarding WP:AGF. There is NO requirement to create an account on Wikipedia to participate here.

    Going to a page and typing four tildes to see my IP address, or hunting for one of my contributions in an article history, or looking up my own IP address to type it into Special:Contributions, are all unnecessary hoops to jump through.

    There is no valid reason I can see to make the anonymous IP experience deliberately more difficult. Anons don't get a watchlist, and that makes sense from a technical standpoint. However, an anon who wants to perform maintenance to some articles should have a way to see past articles of involvement. Special:MyContributions is the way to do that, but currently there is NO way for that link to be found. All I'm asking is that Special:MyContributions appear on the big list of other special pages at Special:SpecialPages, which is supposed to be a comprehensive list. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 15:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

    • Er, I'm not following. Yes, there's no requirement to EDIT Wikipedia, and there never will be. But people ARE "strongly encouraged" to get an account. I'm not opposed per se to making it easier for IPs to see their contributions, but to say that "There is no valid reason I can see to make the anonymous IP experience deliberately more difficult" is silly. There's a VERY valid reason -- the whole POINT of making an account is to make things easier, on everyone. You might have a static IP but for even so it's not your account. If you ever move, you'll change your IP and someone else will potentially use it. It's not "you" any more. Not to mention editing from elsewhere. So yes, if you want an easy way to find all your contribs, register an account. If you refuse, well there's other ways of keeping track what pages you edited -- your broswer's bookmarks for instance. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
      • Pardon, but where is the argument to exclude Special:MyContributions from Special:SpecialPages? Where is the argument that a comprehensive list of special pages must omit this particular link? 66.159.220.134 (talk) 19:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
        • There seems absolutely no reason why it should be omitted from the list. I'll post a request on the administrator's noticeboard asking for it to be done. --He to Hecuba (talk) 13:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
          • The only way to do this is to change the MediaWiki software, as these special pages are marked in the code as "unlisted" and this cannot be overridden; to request such a change, file a request on Wikimedia's bugzilla. Anomie⚔ 19:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Your reading of WP:AGF is plain wrong: nobody is supposed to assume the good faith of each and every human being. This policy is the editing policy, it is applicable on individual talk pages. Still, anonymous IP edits are not difficult at all, and there was a good way provided to facilitate tuning of the editors' experience: registering the account. You are not obliged to state your personal details if you don't want to, but re-inventing accounts just to save the ability to indicate your IP instead of random word just doesn't make sense at all. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:03, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
      • • • • • I believe what 66.159.220.134 is proposing the implementation of a link to Special:Contributions. Accounts already have it through a button called "my contributions" in the top right corner. It is technically feasible to add such a link to an IP editor. For example, if 66.159.220.134 clicked the link, it would lead to Special:Contributions/66.159.220.134. I don't see how that could be abused, it would merely be adding a helpful feature that accounts currently enjoy. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 20:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I have the Firefox search pulldown set to Wikipedia and generally just type "special:my" into it, so it auto-finds MyTalk and MyContributions, and that's how I usually get to my contributions page. Browsers also have a feature called "bookmarks", so overall I think the proposed new feature is of minor benefit as best. 67.117.145.9 (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppopse: This would remove a big reason to create an account and could be as a tool for sockpuppetry: just hop to a new IP and there's all the articles edited by the last one. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 14:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is a reason to create an account, but it is technically possible to add an IP editor as well. With that said, the second part of your comment is plain wrong. IP editors already have a Special:Contributions page, it is just hard to find because it isn't in a prominent location. Sockpuppets already know the process, and they know how to get to IP contribution pages. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 19:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, some socks already know the process. I get where you're coming from, but I still feel there's no reason to make it easier. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 12:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

There aren't any serial sockpuppeteers that don't know how to get to a contributions page. This change will only make it easier for IP editors to find out what edits came from their IP. How on earth is that a bad thing. The page is already generated, it can't be abused, so what is the problem here? Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 15:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support it is quite sensible to have a tab for IPs to see their contributions. Although they don't have an account, they may want to check back on a page they previously edited. Before creating an account, I edited as an IP, and it was very annoying trying to check back on edits I previously made. There is no requirement whatsoever for users to create accounts. Providing a link to an IP's contributions page would be extremely beneficial for IP editors. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 19:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - None of the oppose rationales seem to make sense. Yes, it would be possible for an IP user to abuse this feature, but that is already possible. If a committed vandal or sock-puppeteer is going to abuse the fact that they can see their IP's contributions, they will do so regardless of whether there is an easy link for them to use. Preventing such a link will not deter those who actually want to abuse it. Despite what people have said, there is not requirement to create an account; users only encouraged to create an account insofar as some pages describe the benefits. Nowhere does it say that IP users ought to create an account, just that they can and that there are benefits to it. IPs are human too expresses most of my feelings nicely. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 20:28, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Wikipedia:Role accounts. Where is the page showing the Foundation supports such a feature?.Switched to Conditional support below. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

This oppose doesn't make any sense. IP editors are not role accounts. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 15:37, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Strictly speaking they are not. Yet no editor owns a specific IP address and there is nothing prohibiting another user from making edits under the same IP (see WP:SHARE). Furthermore anyone wishing to have the benefit of having all their contributions shown in one place should simply register an account. I don't see the net benefit of this proposal. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

IP editors are already capable of editing. They already have a contributions page. This proposal is about making it easier for IP editors to actually find their contributions page. Presently, they have to figure out what their IP address is, visit Special:Contributions, and enter their IP. Either that, or they have to edit a page and use the contributions link on the history tab. There are many, many IP editors that are more active than some logged in users. For example, User:220.101.28.25, an IP editor has almost 12,000 edit. Account registration isn't required. It is an option open to allow IP editors extra tools (i.e. rollback, adminship, scripts, edit protected pages, etc.). What is the harm in adding a link to their contributions page in the top right corner near the login button. The page already exists, so how can a simple link be abused. All it will do is make it easier for IPs to find their contributions page. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 16:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

You say "Account registration isn't required.", but neither is editing under an IP. It seems reasonable to me to require anyone wishing to have the benefits of an account to register an account. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Conditional support under the caveat that it is called All contributions from this IP or something similar and with a note saying something like This is the contribution page listing the edits performed from this IP address. Please note that the edits might be attributable to several distinct individuals. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support per Alpha Quadrant. None of the opposes make sense to me, how can one abuse a Special:Contributions page? It's a page no one has control over and it already exists since it is dynamically generated; linking it would be useful for many unregistered contributors just like it is useful for registered contributors. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 09:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I can't give a better rationale than CharlieEchoTango or Alpha Quadrant, so this support is per their comments. I too, fail to understand what "abuse" this virtual, dynamic list of contributions is likely to cause. There are many very productive IP editors to whom this would be a boon, and I can't see any reason to deny them what appears to be merely a convenience link to a page that already exists, unless there are technical issues. Begoon ^talk 04:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support at Special:SpecialPages but oppose on every page. Most unregistered visitors are only readers and many would be confused by a link for edits made by "their" IP address. In most cases there will be no edits anyway, but checking this and only displaying the link if there are edits would probably be too expensive. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

  Logout and type Special:MyContributions into the search bar. IPs already have this page. I don't think it would be that difficult for the devs to work something out so that it only displays for IPs with actual edits. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 04:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

  That's an interesting idea, to make the link visible only if the IP has edits. Another idea would be to have Special:Contributions default to have the username field pre-filled with the username or IP address as appropriate. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 23:06, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

  I doubt devs will add any "conditional" link because of caching issues, for the same reason mw:Manual:$wgShowIPinHeader is disabled here (I think you can see the result of that option here: http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Main_Page in the right top corner). — AlexSm 02:40, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Wider consenus before enabling gadgets as default (enabled for all users)

I would like to propose before any gadgets is enabled by default (for users) that it needs to go though a decent discussion for this, parahasing MZMcBride's comments here, That gadgets have generally been opt-in in the past compared to opt-out, which isn't quiet the case now. These can also cause load issues (For example a gadget on en.wiki managed to ddos bugzilla: the other day and resulted in it being disabled by Tim) and the user sandbox gadget had very little discussion before activation.

tl;dr: Defaultly activated gadgets should be treated the same as changing site wide js/css. Peachey88 ^{(T · C)} 02:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I disagree with the classification of 15 supports, 3 opposes and several comments as "very little discussion". The bugzilla crash is bit of a mess though, perhaps we need to ensure that people test stuff with default off before they turn it on. Yoenit (talk) 11:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure testing with the default off would really have caught the bugzilla one. According to the request, it had already been in use on one of the beta wikis for a while. Anomie⚔ 16:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with Yoenit, and I think you overestimate the amount of discussion that goes into changes to the site-wide js/css, too. Anomie⚔ 16:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I'll go tell Okeyes (WMF) about this. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

  Okay; someone summarise precisely what the issue or suggestion is, please? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

  The issue: The Bug tracking helper gadget was created and set as "enabled by default" after a request from MarkAHershberger (talk · contribs) with little or no on-wiki discussion, and overloaded bugzilla. The "my sandbox" link gadget was created and set as "enabled by default" after discussion on this page that Peachey88 somehow missed.

  The suggestion: To require discussion of some sort (what sort, exactly, has not been specified) before any gadgets are set as enabled by default in the future.

  I'll leave it to Sven to explain why he thought you would be particularly interested in this. Anomie⚔ 19:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

  Probably because I'm the community liason for the Engineering department ;p. Okay, I can't promise this is how it will be done, but I will have a talk with mark and a few high-uppy people to discuss it with them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

  If the High-uppy people are on the case, I think there's very little to worry about. Thanks for the quick response, Okeyes. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

  Well, you say that, but it's a US holiday today and then there's 3 days of on-site training, so I can't promise an immediate response. I've spoken to Mark, though, and he apologises for any disruption caused. Gut feeling, speaking as an editor: he's a damn good bugmeister. He's looking for better ways to report bugs and better ways to engage the community over deployments; genuinely one of the best staffers in Engineering (along with User:Sumanah) for engagement. This deployment is not reflective of SOP. I agree there needs to be more involvement when we enable-by-default, and I'm liasing with the relevant people to work on it. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 04:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Global watchlist

It would be nice to be able (as an opt-in only) to have a single watch list for all accounts in different Wikimedia projects (Wikipedias of different languages, Commons, etc). — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 13:49, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree. However, I think this type of proposal should be coupled with a post to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) to check with the developers for technical feasibility and server expense.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:52, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

You could try enabling either User:Yair rand/interwikiwatchlist2.js or User:Yair rand/interwikiwatchlist.js. They're a bit buggy, though. --Yair rand (talk) 18:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

This has been a long-term feature request for about as long as I can remember; see, eg, bugzilla:3525 from 2005. This essay talks about the various proposals; I am not sure what the main sticking point is, but it looks like it'll be a large project to implement! Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

You could ask someone who has a contrib-watching bot to share their bot's code. I know of a few users that hang out in private IRC channels and have bots on IRC that ping them each time something on their watchlist is edited. I fail to see why a bot couldn't watch multiple feeds (i.e. multiple different projects' recent changes). Sven Manguard Wha? 21:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Categorising archived talk pages

I see that the talk page on the article on Diabetes mellitus has been archived, and - unusually for archived talk pages - we can actually see the dates of the archived contributions. Can I suggest that this becomes the norm for archived talk pages? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that it currently takes a lot of human work to find out when sections start and end. Also, there is the complication of people starting sections at the top of the page that are never moved into chronological order, or people replying to years-old threads. Oddly enough, the way that the archives were presented at the Diabetes mellitus talk page should have made it even more clear to people that old messages were effectively being archived to a black hole for the last two years. And that's the other problem with automated archiving and manual archive boxes ... when archive 15 is created, will somebody remember to update the archive box? Or will messages be archived into a void once again? Graham87 06:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for this. I am not sure how the people who edited the talk page of Diabetes mellitus managed to do what they did - whether they did it manually, or used some clever technology that helped them to achieve this result. If they did use some technology (which I suspect they did), it is a pity that they have not made it more widely known to Wikipedians! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like not only the index to the archives but also the archives themselves were created manually by User:Coro, and sometimes with big delays.[8] PrimeHunter (talk) 01:09, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Content rating (again)

I'd like to propose adding content rating to articles and images. Unlike previous proposals (e.g., Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 24#Content ratings), the ratings assigned to an article (or image) would be:

• initially optionally assigned by the first author of the article (or the original image uploader)
• modified from that point onward by community consent
• based on a very simplified age-rating scale
• optional for any given article (or image)

I think these modifications improve upon previous proposals, in particular by allowing the Wikipedia community at large to decide en masse what an appropriate rating should be for any given article (which includes all geographic/political regions and tastes). This takes advantage of the Wikipedia philosophy of allowing many contributors to decide, by consensus, what is best for a given article (or image).

The "simplified scale" I have in mind could be a simple setting to describe the minimum age of the audience that the article is suitable viewing for:

• all audiences – suitable for any viewer of any age
• mature – not suitable for young children
• explicit – contains material of an explicit, adult, or inflammatory nature

The ratings used employ a simplified scale, which is an improvement over previous proposals. Each level is purposelessly left somewhat vague, rather than assigning specific ages or legalistic definitions. Any more specific detail than three or four rating levels is probably too much work, and pointless from a practical point of view. While it's possible to add more dimensions to the rating, such as whether the content contains potentially objectionable material dealing with politics, sex, religion, etc., it seems more useful and more practical to simply assign a single, simple value to the entire content of a given article (or image).

Eventually, of course, the rating system could be used as the basis for a filtering system, whereby each user could decide for himself what content level he'd like to be able to view or restrict from view. Articles without a rating could be treated, according to each user's preference, as any of the given levels or allowed/blocked by default. This would be useful in particular for young students to be able to limit their exposure to potentially objectionable content. However, any rating system should not be usable by political or government entities to censor content for users without their consent. — Loadmaster (talk) 16:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - per Wikipedia is not censored. While there are some topics which are inherently unsuitable for children (anal sex etc.), this rating system would cause significant problems, because explicit content of educational value in an article would be removed not for educational reasons but to achieve the desired content rating. The only solution would be to have multiple versions of many articles for different content ratings, which would create a lot of unneeded work. Wikipedia's target audience is adults anyway, and any such system would make it easier for government entities to censor the site. --He to Hecuba (talk) 16:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Firstly, I don't think that WP:NOTCENSORED is an adequate objection, as this concerns self-censorship, which is not the same as Wikipedia imposing censorship. Nevertheless, a content rating system determined by community consensus would be almost impossible to use. The problem is that Wikipedia is global: something that is explicit in one culture/country/religion/social group/whatever is completely acceptable in the next. It will be nearly impossible to achieve any level of consensus on 90% of issues because opinion is so divided. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose . The proposal is of good faith and intentions, but it's impractical. Firstly, per NOTCENSORED as basic Wikipedia principle. And secondly per inability to cater to all the groups anyway. There are many different scales in different countries, for different age groups, with different criteria, often hugely different per culture, race, background, religion, etc., etc. We'll just end up adding everything to "mature" or "explicit" unless we decide to discriminate against some groups (hyperbole). WMF is already making image filtering and I think that's as much as we need right now. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Even in just the United States one could not find a consensus about what is inappropriate for some people and not others. It's also a slippery slope. If you impose a rating scheme for explicit sexual content (which is apparently what this proposal is all about), where does it stop? Are we going to then make a rating scheme to warn whether content might be inappropriate for the children of the devoutly religious, or the children of die-hard vegetarians? 66.159.220.134 (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: Already in discussion by the foundation. See meta:2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content, especially meta:2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content: Part Two#User-Controlled Viewing Options. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: Mentioning WP:NOTCENSORED is entirely missing the point of my proposal. There is no censorship, simply the capability of assigning a tag to the content of each article (or photo). It's all voluntary, and any filtering capability that uses the tags would be completely under the control of the user, which is certainly not censorship. And thanks for the discussion link, Gadget850. — Loadmaster (talk) 19:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose We don't need a troupe of ESRB-wannabees or Tipper Gore-esque mothers going around making subjective judgements about page contents. It can only lead to drama. As an aside, there is just about nothing on Wikipedia that is more explicit than the average kid is exposed to in middle school. Parents just live in denial. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:32, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. As a backdoor technique for imposing the effect of censorship without technically censoring, it's a great idea, but that's not an effect worthy of encouragement. Our job, as encyclopedia builders, is to cover every topic as thoroughly, accurately, and neutrally as possible. It is not our job to deem any of those topics unsuitable for certain readers. We're not here to act in loco parentis, and even if we were, facilitating the suppression of reliable information wouldn't be the best approach. I very much wish Wikipedia had existed when I was a child; it would have been invaluable in counteracting the well-meaning misinformation—not to mention the deliberate disinformation—with which my peers and I were bombarded. Rivertorch (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are already plenty of third-party web filtering tools which will work on all websites. Why would you need a filtering system for just Wikipedia, especially when it will be incomplete? —Designate (talk) 03:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I support a Wikipedia-specific content labelling system, for various reasons (it could exploit the category structure effectively, for one; it would allow more precise filtering than that done by existing crappy generic software). But I think it should be conducted by a third party, off-Wikipedia, strictly using their own resources. Nothing else will ever gain consensus. I also think it should be customised to the needs of the individual user, rather than based on broad cultural standards. Dcoetzee 14:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Censorship is bad. Also, there is enough editorial overhead on wikipedia already: reverting vandalism, maintaining categories & templates, citation bloat & misuse... I see no value in adding yet another (highly subjective) thing to do. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. So, at least under a scheme of classification preferred by many editors, rating is censorship. No problem; there's plenty of content rating already going on, provided by for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Greece/Assessment and it does little harm and much good. Talk:Bosphorus Bridge has been rated several Wikiprojects and this censorship has been similarly beneficial. Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment even goes so far as to decide which articles deserive to be distributed. So far as there may be a proposal that a new project's content rating system should be treated differently from the older ones, that's the detail with which I disagree, but otherwise, if you want to start a new Wikiproject mainly about an innovative kind of rating, the big question is whether you can interest enough raters to pay attention to the new project. Not me; content rating is a boring business. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)Content rating against target audience and content rating against article quality are different though. WP 1.0 assessments are more or less objective. On contrary, system as proposed here is by definition subjective as different views, laws, cultures, religions, etc. treat the same topics differently. It's not that we cannot categorize, it's that if we were to make this judgment by editor consensus, we would be imposing Westerner world-view content rating system, as that's where most Wikipedians are from. I support personal content filtering, but not in this vague way. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support I think this would need a lot of work to smooth out the corners but we do need to provide support for self censorship. I think self censorship support based on the category system is the easiest first step but some fine tuning on some individual articles and media use could also help a lot. Dmcq (talk) 16:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment At any rate the proposer is going the wrong way making it a "Proposal" question. That makes it a WP:SNOWBALL for consensus. The thing to do is to WP:SOFIXIT. That is, start a WP:WIKIPROJECT or make over a moribund one and begin rating or assessing or whatever the word is for the usual subjective judgments of such projects. There are of course plenty of ways to rate for various kinds of audience, such as Russian Orthodox children or Hindu women or farmers from Australia. So, start assessing for any criteria that seem useful to the purpose. The Project Page as usual will provide a summary of any conclusions that may be reached as to standards and methods, and a Talk Page for reaching them. Rather than make a whole new Project, an old dusty one such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch could be refurbished, renamed, and repurposed. Yes, it's a whole bunch of work for someone who cares. Not me, as I only care enough to give a bit of advice. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Since it's clear though that there isn't a consensus for this, the people working on it would be expending a great deal of effort trying to build a system that will never be displayed in the mainspace and will never be built into anything users can interact with. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:07, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

My experience is that users are only any good at judging small changes. For anything large you should just ignore what people think as they've no idea what they want before they get it. Of course many ideas are rubbish but only doing things because people want them in advance is a recipe for slow death. Dmcq (talk) 02:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Reeeeeeeeeeeealy? To me, you just said "Since no one here agrees with my position, everyone else is wrong". Wikipedians are pretty good at deciding what they want and don't want. Some things get bogged down in process, and some things we live with even though we don't want, but don't try and say we don't know what's good for us. We're not hapless children, and that kind of attitude isn't going to make you any friends.Sven Manguard Wha? 06:48, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I did not say 'since no one agrees with my position'. I said that people were unable to judge big changes it was best to try out ideas instead of shooting them down based on initial reaction. Your statement that Wikipedians are pretty good at deciding what they want is so wrong on so many levels. Wikipedians are extremely bad at deciding what they want and arguments go on for ages. The decision processes in Wikipedia are abominable and creaky and do not use good techniques for optimising the benefit of decisions. You have assumed that what people decide they want is what they would be happiest with if they had actual experience of it, you have no evidence from Wikipedia that the decisions have any optimality in this way or are even halfway to middlingly good. Unfortunately the fate of most innovation is to be met by scorn and yet our world is based on the perseverance of people who have 'known better'. As I said even so most of their ideas are rubbish but I would encourage in this case that support of self censorship be developed and tried out and I see it as fully in in line with the aim of Wikipedia to educate as widely as possible. Dmcq (talk) 11:28, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

To reiterate my argument above, I absolutely think someone should do this - but they don't need our help, the content label specifications/database can be created and maintained entirely off-site by a third party. So proposing it here is unnecessary - just do it. Dcoetzee 06:21, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Most school districts have content filters on their computers. Some parents buy filters for their computers at home. It is a great deal easier to delegate responsibility for a child's well-being to a piece of software than it is to sit down with a child and explain how the world works, and how it's filled with things that might be disagreeable or unpleasant or strange. Mind you the second option is much better for the child than the first one is, because only the second one actually works, but it's really not my place to tell someone how they should parent their children. People are free to create their own filters, so long as they are off site, or use opt in only user scripts, however the only way anyone would ever truly be able to ensure that their children aren't exposed to "mature" content would be to create a mirror and strip out anything disagreeable. If it's done on Wikipedia, especially if it's done in a public way, it's a) going to trigger a lot of discontent from the Wikipedia user base, and b) it's going to get targeted mercilessly by shock vandals. High use templates are an appealing target, but templates especially designed to weed out shock value present a target too good for those people to resist. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:48, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose ...until we have excellent reliable sources demonstrating without doubt that an uncensored Wikipedia has harmed somebody, and we have a way of restoring the morals of those editors forced to do the censoring once they see the evil content that needs to be censored. HiLo48 (talk) 06:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Wikipedia is not supposed to force anyone's view regarding what is and is not acceptable to view on its readers per WP:NPOV. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 07:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment Aren't these oppositions misplaced? They oppose what hasn't been proposed. Please bear in mind the different and distinct things that are called "censor". What is proposed is "censoring" in the sense of assessment. There's already a fair amount of "censorship" in that sense by dozens of Wikiprojects and ought to be more. As for "force" and "evil content" perhaps those ought to be proposed and perhaps they ought also to be called "censorship" but thus far they lack relevance here. Jim.henderson (talk) 09:50, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
    • Well, my opposition comment had nothing whatsoever to do with censorship, and everything to do with imposing an unsubstantiated opinion on readers as to what is or isn't suitable content for children to view. That's what this proposal is all about, to warn readers about specific content that may not, in fact, be objectionable at all, and doesn't cover the whole range of topics that are unsuitable to the children of every population group. We have WP:DISCLAIMER, and that should be sufficient. 66.159.220.134 (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose If something like this has any chance of real success, it needs clear and objective criteria for its categories. If it's at all subjective, we'll likely wind up with endless arguments and edit wars over whether some image "really belongs" in one of the categories or not. And that's just not worth it to make some third parties' censorship easier. Anomie⚔ 01:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: this is just setting things up for endless wars over whether this image is "all audiences" or "explicit". --Carnildo (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Category:Freedom of speech - Crosswiki Sister Link project coordination

• Commons:Category:Freedom of speech

• I've added a Sister Links template to Commons:Category:Freedom of speech, as a way of coordinating Crosswiki sister Wikimedia projects together along the topic. If anyone knows of any other Sister Wiki site links in other languages, and/or other websites, that aren't yet included, please feel free to suggest them at Commons:Category talk:Freedom of speech.

• I'd be most appreciated to anyone interested in this topic who'd like to help out!

Thanks for your time, — Cirt (talk) 06:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

New bot tasks

Hello everyone! Last year I requested approval for a bot, 28bot, that would detect and revert edit tests (e.g. someone inserting "'''Bold Text'''" in the middle of a word). Approval was granted and the bot has been humming along reverting a handful of edits each day, with a 0% error rate. Yes, that's not a typo. :) Its articlespace contributions can be found here.

I would like to request the community's permission to add the following two tasks to the bot's chore list:

1. Revert any edit that adds "[[Special:Contributions" to the article text. These occur when IP users attempt to "sign" using ~~~~ inside an article. While it is theoretically possible that a user would make a useful edit that just happened to contain ~~~~ by accident, all of the "signed" edits I have seen so far have been either edit tests or vandalism.
2. Revert any edit that contains 2 or more additions of edit test text. Right now the bot only reverts if edit tests are the only text added. If, for example, a user adds '''Bold text''''''Bold text'''hi everyone''Italic text'' the edit is not reverted (only logged) since additional text ("hi everyone") is present. In the edits I have examined, a single accidental edit test sometimes accompanies a valid edit, but cases where 2 or more edit tests accompany useful changes are vanishingly rare.

If this request gains consensus here I will request a BFRA for the added tasks. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thanks for your consideration, 28bytes (talk) 22:56, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• At first glance, the first is a no-brainer. In the second, I'm not so sure, because it's hard to distinguish good faith edits.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• • Could you prepare a list of the past two dozen or so instances of what you're desribing in task 2 so that we could look at what's being added along with the extra tags? What I'm worried about happening is people treating '''Bold text''' like a <b>, so you'd get something like '''Bold text''' Meaningful addition that should be bolded '''Bold text'''. If that's happening, I'd be hesitant to approve the task. If that's not happening, then I don't see why we'd object to the task. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:09, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Here are a dozen logged by the bot that I reverted manually: [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] These would be reverted automatically as part of task 2. There are others that have been manually reverted by other editors; this page shows the edit tests logged by the bot. Using the following line as an example:

• Edit tests found on page Secular music (history) JB

...the "JB" means that two edit tests were found: a "[[File:Example.jpg]]" (the "J") and a '''Bold text''' (the "B"). The edit that introduced those also wiped a chunk of text for no apparent reason. Under task 2 the bot would have reverted that automatically. Regarding '''Bold text''' Meaningful addition that should be bolded '''Bold text''', I have personally never seen that (or its "italic text") counterpart, although I can't rule out the possibility that it's been done.

While I'm diff-hunting, here are some recent examples of "task 1" edits that the bot would have automatically reverted: [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] 28bytes (talk) 23:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Most of the task 2 stuff you listed seems more like deliberate vandalism than anything else. Still looks like it'd be positive contributions, so hey. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - Those additional tasks look useful, and the bot seems to have been appropriately marking such edits thus far - allowing it to revert them shouldn't be an issue. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Biographical articles about living persons

Biographical articles about living persons should include at least the year of birth of the subject, if not the full date of birth. The place of birth should also be included. This is the minimum information that one would reasonably expect from an article in any encyclopaedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.82.92.42 (talk) 07:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear - do you mean that in cases where the year or place of birth cannot be reliably established, we should not have an article? I agree that we should include the best information we have on these things from reliable sources. Begoon ^talk 07:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

If they aren't mentioned in secondary sources I do not see why one should go ferreting around for them. Primary sources should only be used for things secondary sources show are of note. Dmcq (talk) 10:11, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I can see the merit in that point of view, too. Begoon ^talk 10:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Please read wp:BLPPRIVACY for our policy on this. Yoenit (talk) 13:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Ahem to thread starter, who uses IP. I object to adding birth dates and places without sources; let's compare that to our past relationships. Asking a person about an age and birth place can be considered disrespectful, especially if a young mate asks his very old mate about his age. People have their own rights to publish their own dates and birth to right sources, not to the wrong hands. That's why I recently removed unsourced birth dates and places and replaced them with categories of "missing" or "unknown" data. --George Ho (talk) 14:08, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

When reliable sources can be found to attest to a person's DOB, that will be there anyway. When there are no reliable sources, it would be inappropriate to insert a DOB which we cannot support with evidence. I don't think any policy changes are needed. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:18, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Several redirects to Kepler (spacecraft)

User:Article editor redirected lots of pages which are extrasolar planets discovered by the spacecraft (For details, see Special:Contributions/Article editor, these edits are in the first and second page currently). I don't think they are constructive, since French, German and many other wikipedias have already had these articles. The redirects may leave these articles uncreated for a long time. --Makecat_Talk 10:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to creat them then. Yoenit (talk) 13:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The existence of a redirect does not prevent the creation of an article at a later date. They tend to serve as a placeholder until a full article about a subject can be created. If you think that articles could be created, go ahead and create them. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirects are useful substitutes for articles in this case, and per Itszippy in no way prevent the later creation of articles on these topics. --He to Hecuba (talk) 17:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia official help desk at Twitter

Hello. Twitter is one of the most important social networking sites and more than 100 million people have their account registered in Twitter. There should be a Wikipedia help desk at Twitter, as many users who find it difficult to edit or have any problem, may ask their queries there. Many users (mostly newbies) find it easier to operate Twitter than the MediaWiki software. They can have their queries solved there easily, and replied quickly.

If this proposal is approved after a community discussion of 1 week, a account will be created, and a panel of experienced users will be chosen. The community can vote whether the user should be a part of the team, or not. A user who is a part of the team can easily access and reply to the queries which are waiting to be replied. If you feel that it should be created, then please put a hash symbol, write either Support, or Oppose. The voting period will end after one week. Dipankan ^{In the woods?} 08:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - first, there is no way to answer most questions in 140 characters. Second, this is going to end up as the IRC help channel where the ones responsible are outside of the control of the community. Who will create the account? Who will chose the "panel of experienced users"? How will that panel be accountable to the community? I'm all for finding new ways to help users, but I'm not supportive of doing so outside of Wikipedia. What next, help from Facebook? From a forum? etc... CharlieEchoTango (contact) 09:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

  Probably I will create the account. I said, only trusted users may have access to it, and I'm fully confident that they will never mess it up. If this is approved, another discussion will be put up to vote for the users who want to be a part of the team. The idea behind is that New users often find it difficult to navigate to pages, project pages, etc. If they ask in there, they will be given a quick link for help pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dipankan001 (talk • contribs) 09:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Question Please describe how this will work, from the new user arriving at Wikipedia, having a problem, deciding to ask for help on Twitter, getting help. Particularly I am interested in what prompts him to choose Twitter help. Is this some new help option you want to show on every page, offering help from off wiki? Otherwise how will the user know of the option? Basically, at this point, I can't see what it really achieves, but maybe you've thought it through more than you've explained? Begoon ^talk 12:08, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Now, if you put a hash(#) and write about Wikipedia in a post, it relates to Wikipedia, and nowadays, especially about the SOPA, many users put hash and write #wikipedia. They may even post #wikipedia if they get a reference, like this "I got from #Wikipedia" If the account is named "Wikipedia help desk", they will most definitely reach there and find it. As I said, more than 100 million people have signed up for twitter. It's a great place for attracting newbies to contribute to Wikipedia. We can put up a notice on the Help Desk, stating that help is available in the official Wikipedia help desk at twitter, just giving them a link. If you have any better ideas about this, please tell here. Dipankan ^{In the woods?} 09:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Just use your own personal account and answer people's questions if you so choose. There's been OTRS discussion about this and I believe that was the preferred method of going about it. Also, I don't believe the Foundation wants to be held accountable for volunteers using an "official" account to answer questions, which is part of the reason why OTRS emails have a disclaimer in the footer that explains a volunteer is answering them. Killiondude (talk) 09:27, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Why do you need approval here to set up an account on Twitter? Just set up your account and start using it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't have any personal account on Twitter- but I'm quite knowledgeable about it. Ok, you might not call it official, then just plain, a voluntary group, who replies to the Q's. It is better for a consensual review before anything comes to pass by. Dipankan ^{In the woods?} 10:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per CharlieEchoTango. If you want to answer questions on your personal account, do so. However we shouldn't have any 'official' forum (anything that uses Wikipedia it its name or claims to be Wikipedia or its representative) channel off of Wikipedia. (In addition, I am in favor of explicitly stating that the IRC channels as unofficial, which will solve so many issues). Sven Manguard Wha? 18:13, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Charlie and Sven. I doubt much meaningful communication can take place in Twitter's soundbite-sized space. Our questions tend to require more length of discourse. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - People are suspicious enough of IRC as it is. There is great work going on in regards to helping new users on Wikipedia with the Teahouse and Feedback Dashboard. An off-wiki feature is unnecessary and will mean we lose control of running our own support mechanisms. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 22:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Let starting a new section create a separate subpage

I propose to change the software (if that's technically possible at all) such that when a new section for example here at the village pump is being created, this also creates a subpage with the name of that discussion. As an example, say I start a discussion named Allow the creation of blah blah, then a subpage should be created at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Allow the creation of blah blah. When I click the 'Edit section' link, then I should go into edit mode for the corresponding subpage. The entire discussion at the section Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Allow the creation of blah blah should be a transclusion of Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Allow the creation of blah blah. That would be useful because it would allow to watch only specific discussions at a long board such as the village pumps. Perhaps make it an option that can be enabled or disabled at any page in say eg WP namespace by a group of users having a special userright. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 09:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:LiquidThreads is already in development and is supposed to remedy this problem and many others. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I have never been a great fan of LQT, since I don't think our current discussion system is broken in a way that warrants it's entire substitution by an entirely new system. This proposal would solve a problem while keeping the current system. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 10:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I hate LQT. It's even harder to follow than our current discussion system. Has anyone really tried to find out if people want this? Dougweller (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

(Oh no, not again...) Any form of LQT that could be feasibly used on the English Wikipedia doesn't exist at the moment. The current "LiquidThreads" project as you've seen it is not going to be used here according to the developers. The eventual threaded discussion system which the WMF is going to build is going to arrive here in a long time, bearing little resemblance to any system you've seen, and quite likely not using the name "LiquidThreads". The current version of LiquidThreads has been requested, buggy and unfinished as it is, by a good chunk of the larger Wikimedia projects, but not English Wikipedia. There is absolutely no point discussing LQT2 here, because even if the community does get consensus to use it, the request will be refused by the developers just like they did in response to the requests of the Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, French, Swedish, Chinese, and Hindi Wikipedias. The WMF is going to work on a threaded discussion system because they see the current discussion system as a barrier to participation, and that view isn't likely to change in response to the community discussion about an entirely irrelevant topic. --Yair rand (talk) 17:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Add hovertext to preview citations in articles

Could we add hovertext to wikipedia citations? So if you hovered your cursor over a citation - like [1] or whatever - a textbox - like this http://code.google.com/gme/images/hover70.jpg - would pop up with the citation info, preventing the need to scroll or browse to the citations section?

I don't have the chops to do it myself, but wanted to put the idea out there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.148.24 (talk)

Do you mean automatically? Citations are created with Cite.php so it could be done there or maybe with JavaScript. If you just want a simple tooltip, you can add a titled span around the ref in the wikitext. — Bility (talk) 18:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Reference Tooltips. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Republic of China -> Taiwan move request

It has been suggested that this requested move should be advertized more widely. The proposal is more complicated than a simple move, but the essence of the proposal is to change the title of the Republic of China article to "Taiwan". Cheers, Mlm42 (talk) 03:21, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Search Box at Bottom of Page

I was just wondering if there was anyway Wikipedia could add a search box to the very bottom of the page just like the one at the top of the page. A lot of times, I will be looking at long articles and be in the bottom of the pages looking at references and it would be nice that if something struck my mind to look at I wouldn't have to scroll all of the way to the top. "The Duke" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.93.243.145 (talk)

Try the Home key to get quickly to the top. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Tagging articles with KML missing to add them to a hidden category

A new (to en.wikipedia) method of providing links to Google and Bing maps has been devised, for articles on linear features (roads, railways, rivers, etc) and bounded areas (counties, states, electoral districts, etc) - discussion is here: method for creating map links for linear features & outlines.

Now there's a proposal to tag articles suited to such map links, to add a hidden KML missing category where a KML map link is missing. Discussion here. Please join in and/or acquaint yourself with the KML method; it's really rather good. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal - complete unified login for all eligible accounts

I have created a proposal at Meta, to complete unified login for all eligible accounts. Unified login is a relatively new feature to the WMF wikis, allowing each user to have a single combined account in every project. Users that only have an account on one wiki would extend that to all wikis, and users that already have accounts on multiple wikis would have them combined. It was initially an opt-in for existing users, but it is now done by default for all new users. This leaves us with three groups of users: those with UL, those that cannot complete UL because of a naming conflict on another wiki, and those with no conflict that have simply not completed the process. I am proposing that account unification be completed for all eligible accounts without requiring the user to take any additional steps. This would make UL the rule rather than the exception that it currently is, and bring us closer to the goals of universal watchlists, recent changes, interwiki page moves, etc. This would be especially helpful on Commons, which has so many images that were originally uploaded at another WMF wiki, enabling better attribution without interwiki links. I propose that it be carried out as a one-time process rather than a continuous automatic software process, allowing users to still adjust ULs as they see fit.

If you have any opinion one way or the other, please reply at the proposal at Meta. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 01:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)