Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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New ideas and proposals are discussed here. Before submitting:

• Check to see whether your proposal is already described at Perennial proposals.
• Proposed software changes that have gained consensus should be filed at Bugzilla.
• Proposed policy changes belong at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).
• Proposed WikiProjects or task forces may be submitted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.
• Proposed new wikis belong at meta:Proposals for new projects.

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Trans-wiki collaboration

First of all this may be more of a global Wikimedia issue, but I feel having a discussion here first would be more interesting and useful. Also, this post is, in a way, a means of getting some frustration off my chest. (Hopefully I won't bore you too much in the process)

I have an Wikipedia account since 2004, and have been an utterly satisfied user of the encyclopaedia for a long while now. Occasionally I do some edits, mostly fixing patent mistakes and reverting vandalism I happen to come across, but I never became a prolific editor. A couple weeks ago, however, I began to study programming following a particularly well written Wikibook, and I felt totally at ease with the Wikibook model (probably just because my brain is best suited to tasks more modular and self-contained than building the incredibly complex web of cross-linking articles Wikipedia is. But I digress) and began doing some serious copyediting of the book right away. I felt that I finally found my home in the Wikimedia projects, and so decided to look around to learn more about how Wikibooks worked.

My worries began when, on reading the RfD page of Wikibooks, I took issue with a particular book on physics, and decided, after checking some policies and deciding it was reasonable to do so, make an RfD against that book. You can read all the gory details on the RfD entry itself if you wish, but the issue which really concerns me is totally independent on whether that RfD will be accepted or not by the community. The problem is that at several points during the process it looked very appropriate to ask other Wikibookians with some knowledge of physics for their opinions, as it is done in a RfC around here. Unfortunately, it appears impossible to locate a single regularly active editor of any of the better Wikibooks on physics, or find a place where asking for comments on the RfD would be useful. In fact, many of the RfD discussions at Wikibooks, particularly those on "specialist" subjects like physics, get no input other than from the proponent and the (currently 12) admins (and, occasionally, from the main contributor of the book to which the RfD refers to).

A pertinent question at this point would be what Wikipedia has to do with my complaints. The answer is very simple. Wikipedia has millions of registered users, an useful RfC system, some functional Wikiprojects and lots of public recognition. Wikibooks has none of these things. The point I'm trying to make is that Wikipedia could use some, even a little bit, of its leverage and brain power to support its sibling projects. Maybe something like having smallish (10-20 people) rotating boards of contributors in the main areas of knowledge (natural sciences, humanities, computing...) dedicated to providing comments in discussions and working at improving books at Wikibooks (the members of the boards could well be permanent, but for practical reasons I guess a rotating cast of volunteers would work better). It wouldn't cost much to Wikipedia, but would help the smaller projects a lot. The way things are now, I am afraid most of the existing Wikibooks are condemned to remaining eternally as stubs, and I feel the Wikipedia community could do something about that situation.

Note that I didn't post this either at Meta or at Wikibooks, as I feel it would be more productive starting this discussion at Wikipedia. Hoping to read your opinions, whatever they are. And thanks for putting up with my lamentations. --Duplode (talk) 23:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I doubt boards would get off the ground. But the basic idea of cross-pollination has merit. Maurreen (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Encouraging cross-pollination seems worthwhile. Two ideas: find suitable wikiprojects on specific topics to try and link with; and create a Wikipedia Noticeboard specifically for transwiki coordination/collaboration. (There may already be something on Meta but that gets so much less traffic.) There's also Wikipedia:WikiProject Transwiki, which might perhaps be expanded. Rd232 ^talk 01:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to see some Wikiprojects making an effort at cross-wiki collaboration. Wikiprojects are built to organize groups of people interested in working on a particular topic, and it would be great if some Wikiprojects were to take some off-Wikipedia content and consider improvement of it to be part of their mission. Wikibooks needs groups with knowledge of a particular topic, Wikinews could use people organizing news relevant to a field, there could be groups knowledgeable about a specific subject adding words relevant to that subject to Wiktionary. --Yair rand (talk) 01:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Good to see positive responses... engaging Wikiprojects in the cross-pollination makes a lot more sense than my suggested implementation, as it uses an already existing infrastructure. Speaking of infrastructure, it is worthy to note the unified Wikimedia accounts we now have will prove incredibly useful for making it easier for collaborators. By the way, if this idea gets enough support to take off, how do you think it should be kickstarted - that is, finding the first few Wikiprojects willing to try out the system? By a global "call to arms" to recruit interested projects, or by several "private" talks with individual projects to spread the idea? --Duplode (talk) 23:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favor of trying talks with individual projects, there could be problems with a global "call to arms". (Just thinking aloud now, I can think of a bunch of Wikiprojects that it would be amazing if they could collaborate with sister projects. Wikiproject Video Games or one of its sub-projects working on Wikinews, some of the descendent WikiProjects of WP:COMP working on Wikibooks, WP:MED helping on Wiktionary...) Maybe the Wikiprojects could develop local "branches" on sister projects, and everyone could work together. --Yair rand (talk) 21:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Collaboration on content across projects is a good idea. Anything that can spread some of en.wikipedia's momentum to other projects is good. I'm less convinced about trying to collaborate on processes. When it comes to the behind the scenes stuff, even the smaller projects prefer to maintain their sovereignty. It could end up looking like a takeover - "We don't think your processes are running efficiently enough, so we're bringing in our own people to do it right." Mr.Z-man 15:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

"Collaboration on content across projects is a good idea. ... I'm less convinced about trying to collaborate on processes." I understand your point about not butting WP into other projects - but how do you distinguish between the two (content/process), and still have something that enhances collaboration, especially given the problem that en.wp has the most contributors? The best I can come up with is trying to create some equivalent "wikiproject" on the other project, and creating links between the two, maybe with some kind of regular communication. Would it be impossible to get a bot to help synchronise projects (not the entire wikiproject, probably, but a noticeboard subpage say)? That could help quite a bit. Rd232 ^talk 14:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Its not that hard to separate them. If all you're doing is collaborating on content directly via projects, that's fine. But if you're trying to overhaul their deletion process or RFC process or even just flood them with wikipedia users to make them go faster or if you're going over there to set up some new bureaucracy, then it becomes a problem. Mr.Z-man 16:10, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

These concerns are legitimate, but I feel the usefulness of having a larger pool of contributors make it worthy to find ways to deal with any new convivence issues that might arise. Of course, the wikipedians "recruited" via Wikiprojects to work in, say, Wikibooks would make their collaborations as regular members of Wikibooks, and would have to follow Wikibooks policies and respect the community they are getting into. It would be no different to what should happen if, for instance, I convinced some friends at college to make an improvement drive on Wikibooks about some subject we're knowledgeable about - except that done in a potentially much larger scale. --Duplode (talk) 18:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure, they would have to follow local policies, but there could also be enough of them in comparison to the number of regular Wikibooks users that they could get consensus to change the policies as well if they get in their way. What might be dealing with a convenience issue for us might look like a hostile takeover to people who have been on Wikibooks for months or years. I'm not saying we shouldn't collaborate with smaller projects, I'm just saying we need to be very careful not to make it look like we're seizing control from the regulars. Mr.Z-man 19:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Precisely what I meant above by 'there could be problems with a global "call to arms"'. I think this would be best started off small-scale, with a few projects helping out off-Wikipedia, preferably divided over multiple sister projects. --Yair rand (talk) 21:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Some sort of cross-wiki-WikiProject thing might be beneficial. There have been times on other projects where I've felt something was an issue, but there was no analog to a WikiProject I could go to and say "okay, I feel there's a problem in the domain of topic X, what do you all think?" For instance, I don't agree with the way the categories for roads/road sign photographs are set up on Commons. If this had happened on Wikipedia, I could consult with WP:USRD and work out a consensus, but it doesn't exist over there, so I couldn't go seek the input of people specifically knowledgeable about road photos. As a result, last time that I attempted to broach that topic, it ended up with two or three Commons categorizers shouting that I didn't understand Commons and me arguing that they didn't understand the reasons the photos had been taken in the first place, and thus their categorization scheme was silly. Very little got done. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 06:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You'll find that Wikibooks has a friendly small-town atmosphere, so don't worry about encountering the same situation. -- Adrignola (talk) 21:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a very important proposal. Unfortunately, if we do this we will be fighting against the software because there are no cross-wiki watchlists. There is currently a strategy discussion here (you may have to log in there separately even if you have a global account), and on the talk page I have proposed adding cross-wiki collaboration as an explicit goal. Hans Adler 09:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

In the short term, a bot synchronising pages across projects could to some extent make up for not having cross-wiki watchlists, no? Rd232 ^talk 15:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

(Without breaking the flow of the current discussions: I just told people at Wikibooks about this thread. --Duplode (talk) 15:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC))

I think it's a really good idea. Cross-wiki watchlists would help, sure, but there's plenty of users who have coped without them across an admirable number of projects. I think that the most feasible way to do this would be, as suggested above, have individual wikiprojects run "outreaches" to other projects. This kind of thing is a start.

A way to get more traffic (both reading and editing) would be to include these projects in a separate section of the interwiki bar. Maybe not the way the languages are structured, but there nevertheless. It might even be as simple as one link to a page listing all the Wikimedia projects, or maybe more like this:

More about Foo
Books about Foo
Quotes by Foo
Current news related to Foo
Definition of Foo
Pictures of Foo
Opinions? {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 05:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

{{sisterlinks}} --Cybercobra (talk) 06:11, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Oops. Yeah, like that, but defaulted into the left column for every article. {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 09:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

That would be nice if it could be part of every article. For what it is worth, I have made my attempt at to the math community here over at Wt:WPM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thenub314 (talk • contribs)

{{sisterlinks}} just isn't applicable on every article; fact of the matter is, enwiki's scope is far, far, far broader than any other projects', so cross-pollination (which I'm all for, as evidenced by my cross-wiki edits) isn't a simple "we need to get A talking to B". EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

How about adding some optional parameters to {{Talkheader}}, to generate notes at the bottom (just above the archive links, I suppose) that for contributions of type X1 (where X1 is, presumably, something that Wikipedia is not) consider Y1 (some specific thing on a sister project), for X2 consider Y2, etc.? It's technically simple to do, once we thrash out just what the wording ought to be; readily customizable for each article; and may actually catch the attention of more contributors than something left-column-ish or Wikiproject-ish. --Pi zero (talk) 18:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

re: to the comments above, I would probably lean towards Sonia's stance in that the key thing is getting potentially interested contributors involved (and thus Wikiprojects are important); and things like watchlists or how extra links to sister projects would be tailored to individual articles and subjects are mostly convenience issues. On the other hand, talkheader does looks like (another) great place to slip these links into. --Duplode (talk) 19:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Anyone want to just go ahead and try to organize a cross-wiki collaboration effort on a Wikiproject? Seems like it's time for some actual action, hm? --Yair rand (talk) 03:08, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I am attempting to at W:WPM, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest as of yet. But maybe I am going about it the wrong way... Thenub314 (talk) 11:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

That link goes to Words per minute, which I feel is not the intended destination. Can't find what is, to fix it. Rd232 ^talk 11:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

He meant to point us to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics --Duplode (talk) 16:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

First: great anecdote, and collabs across Projects is a great idea.

Second: the easiest way to support a project may be to drive traffic to it, particularly editing traffic. This doesn't have to have any particular structure (such as the rotating boards).

One thing we could consider is setting up a more effective banner system to sharing project-related messages for editors -- so that editors would see notices of other projects related to their interests, or randomly selected notices about something cool going on across Wikimedialand.

Third, Yair is right :) Maybe one big WikiProject here devoted to collaboration and barnraisings across Projects would be enough, could have weekly or monthly drives, and could call on specific WikiProjects here for each of its efforts. –SJ+ 15:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I just say that I wish to add my support, as many have, to the idea of trans-wiki collaboration - it makes sense to me. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

So who's up for proposing a Wikipedia:Wikiproject cross-wiki collaboration? (New wikiprojects are supposed to be proposed here, right?) --Yair rand (talk) 22:39, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I've proposed a Wikiproject dedicated to cross-wiki collaboration at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Cross-wiki collaboration. --Yair rand (talk) 23:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Integrated watchlists

The main reason Wikipedia editors don't edit much at Wikibooks, etc. is multiple watchlists.

Please see:

• Wikipedia:Integrated watchlists --Timeshifter (talk) 05:14, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Hm, I don't really think that's accurate. Having separate watchlists might be a little inconvenient, and make it harder to keep up with things across projects, but I don't think that they're really causing people to not edit on multiple projects. --Yair rand (talk) 19:59, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I also don't think that's accurate – in fact, I'm not sure why you'd want to watch pages from multiple projects on the same page. There are no main reasons why editors from one project don't often migrate to others, but I would say it's largely an issue of not being aware that they exist. It's also difficult to acclimate to a foreign project, where the rules and atmosphere are completely different. Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Lack of an integrated, global watchlist is the main reason I have heard from people as to why they don't edit much on other wikis outside Wikipedia. The other reasons are also true, but much less used as reasons why people don't participate. Most registered editors on Wikipedia are aware of the other projects in my opinion. The other cultures on the other projects are a slight hindrance, but not a real reason why people don't participate in my opinion.

The Commons is the second most popular wiki in the Wikimedia universe, and its culture does not really hinder people. What hinders the Commons is the lack of a global watchlist. Many people start on the Commons, and then stop. Illustrating Wikipedia is so important that some people continue editing on the Commons in spite of having to use a separate watchlist. But others hate having to upload images to the Commons, and continue uploading to Wikipedia instead. If there were one watchlist there would be no essential difference, and many more people would upload directly to the Commons.

This user supports global, cross-wiki, integrated watchlists.

I personally prefer separate watchlists for Wikipedia and the Commons, because I do a lot of work on the Commons, and like to keep image work separate from Wikipedia work. But I would like to integrate all the other wikis with the Wikipedia watchlist. People could make their own choices about which watchlists to integrate and consolidate. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:07, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

This is really a technical issue, and integrated watchlists are probably not going to be available for a long time. We need to discuss more how we can get people to contribute on sister projects, even without more helpful software. --Yair rand (talk) 22:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

See related discussions:

• Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Why does Wikimedia need more than one MediaWiki installation?
• Wikipedia talk:Integrated watchlists --Timeshifter (talk) 15:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Based on my own habits and those I've observed of others, I think TimeShifter is right. People will often, for instance, create a page at one of the non-Wikipedia projects, and then totally forget about it, even when people are posting comments to the talk page or making major changes or whatnot. If it doesn't show up on the watchlist at the project they're most involved in (which is usually Wikipedia), it's not really on their radar screen. Who has time to check a bunch of different watchlists frequently, and who has the inclination if one's involvement in the project is minor, and therefore there are not a lot of watched pages? Heck, if it weren't for unified login, I probably would check my watchlists on other projects even less frequently than I do now.

Having said all that, this is indeed a technical issue and someone just needs to bite the bullet and put the time in to figure out how to implement this, and then to implement it. That someone could very well end up being me, although the way things are going, I'm not sure that I'll end up taking an approach that Wikimedia will be amenable to, so someone else might have to come up with an alternative method that uses CentralAuth. Really, if people would put as much time into coding as they do into debating, we would have some pretty good software by now. (See m:Mediawikianism.) Tisane (talk) 21:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

If mw:LiquidThreads used the regular watchlist, then it could be used at WP:Village Pump (technical). Threads on an issue such as integrated watchlists wouldn't be duplicated numerous times, and then buried in the VP archives. Developers would be more inclined to participate. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:12, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, it is a trivial matter to put a link to the pertinent VP archive in a centralized location, e.g., Wikipedia:Integrated watchlists, and thereby keep the content of those conversations from being forgotten. But devs tend to use Bugzilla; that way, they can subscribe to the Bugzilla listserv and/or to particular bugs that they have an interest in, and get an email whenever someone makes a comment.

I want to raise another issue about this proposal, which is that, by encouraging cross-wiki participation, integrated watchlists will likely increase homogenization across Wikimedia projects, as users bring the values and norms of their own preferred wikis to other wikis. I personally think that's a good thing; we could use some cross-pollination. But the downside is that, Wikipedia being the 400-kg gorilla of the group, the other wikis will probably tend to be pushed even more in the direction of Wikipedia-like standards. E.g., strict adherence to "reliable sourcing" and notability, etc. But I think it's unavoidable; really, our only alternatives are for those wikis to remain neglected, or for them to become homogenized/dominated by Wikipedia-like standards. I don't think that's a false dichotomy. Wikipedia really reflects the standards of the Wikimedia Foundation in purest form, and it seeks to ultimately make all of its projects conform to those standards. It just hasn't made it a high priority for those smaller wikis, because no one really cares about them all that much, since they don't show up much in the Google search results. Tisane (talk) 23:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Er, I hope this doesn't sound incivil, but I completely disagree with everything you just said. Carry on. :) --Yair rand (talk) 01:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Bugzilla is not that great. It does not use wikitext, and it can't be put on a watchlist. Same problem of lack of integration (format and watchlists). Also, email addresses are exposed (other logged-in users can see all the email addresses). The other wikiprojects were set up by the Wikimedia Foundation, and the main rules were created by the Wikimedia Foundation. So the homogenization can't be voted in by users. Integrated watchlists would gradually cause higher placement in Google results for the other wikis as they became more popular, and more and better content was created. I have websites and blogs, and have watched how Google results improve as particular pages become more popular. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:57, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Bugzilla has a lot of drawbacks, but it remains one of the main tools used by devs. It has a lot of other useful stuff too; e.g. bugs can easily be marked as duplicates of other bugs, resolved bugs are denoted as such by a strike like this, and it is in general less cumbersome to work with than MediaWiki. If you want the devs to code something, you pretty much have to put it on Bugzilla (as has been done with this proposal.) Probably a better approach would be to code a MediaWiki extension to provide the functionalities that Bugzilla offers, but that would probably be a major pain in the neck to code, and there's no guarantee it would be particularly well-integrated with the rest of MediaWiki; for instance, mw:Extension:CodeReview isn't integrated with watchlists either.

I think that as the other wikis start showing up higher in the search listings, Wikimedia and its editing community will become less slack about enforcing certain values, such as notability. Right now, for instance, Wikiquote has a notability essay and quotes can theoretically get removed for lack of notability, but it isn't enforced all that strictly. That will probably change when the project becomes more high-profile, much as Wikipedia became stricter as the project matured. Tisane (talk) 14:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

There are differences between Wikipedia and the other projects. Tutorials are accepted in Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Wikipedia does not allow tutorials. Some sections in a tutorial will not be notable, but are still necessary in order for the tutorial to teach people effectively. Also, reliable sourcing is different in Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Editors who know their subject can be the source for parts of tutorials. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

If your username is Example%%%%% and if you have edited at English Wikiversity, then you can leave a message at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Example%%%%%, inviting editors to leave a message at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Example%%%%%, which might say "You have a message at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User_talk:Example%%%%%." -- Wavelength (talk) 03:12, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Like Yair rand, I feel it is important to state my disagreement with Tisane's position. In particular, I will refer mostly to Wikibooks (the project I have more experience with), but the argument is extensible to the other projects as well. The main reason why we have a different project culture and editorial guidelines is because the activity of writing books is inherently different from writing an encyclopaedia, and the differences call for different practices. Otherwise there would be no reason for the existence of the sister projects, and everything would be done within Wikipedia. The viewpoint that we do not adhere to certain standards just because we have less visibility (and therefore nobody cares) is mere prejudice. If you abstract it from the current context (Wikimedia projects), the notion is analogous to the anthropological stance of seeing people from very different cultures as "primitive barbarians" that must be "civilized". Of course, some principles (reliable sourcing, maintenance of NPOV) are more or less universal, even if the extent of enforcement that the editorial needs of the project call for might vary. The key point is that each project has their own appropriate editorial guidelines, and the admins and contributors work hard trying to enforce them. Disregarding that is not only inaccurate but borderline disrespectful.

This argument lends support to a closely related observation Yair rand made earlier on the discussion: that the lack of cross-wiki cooperation is not just due to technical obstacles. There are cultural issues involved, and one of them is people not understanding the point of the smaller projects, falsely believing that all of the human knowledge can be feasibly covered by the encyclopaedia umbrella.

Finally, a corollary from the perspective of a Wikibookian. To me it seems that the general feeling at Wikibooks is that more contributors would do good to the project, and there is no significant fear that an influx of, say, Wikipedians could harm our project culture. Just as much as the values of newcomers could modify the project direction they also would necessarily adjust, to some extent, their views and behaviour, since our practices are coherent with the goals of the project (which are different from the goals of Wikipedia). --Duplode (talk) 20:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S.: I noticed Tisane's proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Why does Wikimedia need more than one MediaWiki installation?. Just to keep things clear: unifying the underlying infrastructure is actually a very good idea. The argument I made on the paragraphs above doesn't apply to that proposal - it concerns content and editorial decisions, and not software infrastructure. --Duplode (talk) 20:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I contribute extensively to two projects. Wikipedia and Wikimedia. A watchlist that covers all projects and a talk page that covers all projects would be great. Communication should be more seamless. We should each have one central talk page.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

An integrated talk page is an interesting idea. I would centralize all my talk pages except my Commons talk page. That is just me. Others may want other integrations. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:03, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Switch back to the old skin as default

This vanishing topic was moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/May 2010 skin change/VPR.

WMF paid for this?

This vanishing topic was moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/May 2010 skin change/VPR.

WP:Usurpation

Currently, if a user who has made no edits and who's username is about to be taken does not object in 7 days to the usurpation, then the usurpation occurs. I feel that this should be extended to 14 days, to ensure that the user has sufficient time to become aware of the matter and object to it (if they want/need to). Immunize (talk) 23:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd oppose that. The fact that they need to have made no significant contributions is an important part of justifying only waiting 7 days. No one who has really used the name significantly is in danger of being usurped, so I don't see the problem. You shouldn't be able to "reserve" a name just by registering it and then not doing anything with it. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Although I understand you point of view, I feel that, given that this action is irreversible, it would be reasonable to give users at least 7 more days. Immunize (talk) 23:50, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I wonder, is it possible (for someone) to see if a user has logged in, and when? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I think Checkusers can, am I right? (And as an aside, since I usurped this account I've been regularly receiving password reset requests from a variety of IPs.) {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 07:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

2 questions:

• What if the editor who's username is about to be taken is preoccupied with RL at the time. I'd suggest a month. --Philcha (talk)
• What if it's a universal login username? --Philcha (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

• Again, the "no significant contributions" usually takes care of this, but if the account was recently created I think the 'crats also decline to grant the name.
• The 'crats will typically decline in this instance to prevent SUL collisions. –xeno^talk 17:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• Unnecessary - the vast majority of usurp requests go uncontested. This really ought be discussed at WT:USURP, in any case. –xeno^talk 17:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Extending the wait time to 14 days just makes the long-time editor have to wait longer to receive his/her new usurped username. Because they aren't active, it is highly unlikely that they will return to Wikipedia anytime soon, and so this shouldn't really be an issue. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 17:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

When you say "significantly contributions" does that mean that in some cases users with say, 1-2 edits to the sandbox could be usurped? Immunize (talk) 23:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Mark the entire contents of Category:Wikipedia_proposals and it sub cats as failed

There appears to be a large number of failed or stale proposals in Category:Wikipedia_proposals . Would there be an issue if I used AWB to mark these as {{failed}} with no restriction on active proposal being re-added Gnevin (talk) 08:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Be careful, some may really be essays rather than active proposals so don't really need that pejorative label plastered on them. I think you should do this manually on a case-by-case basis instead of trying to automate it. Fences&Windows 16:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Well maybe mark them all as Essay so. If still think it's an active proposal they can RV without objection Gnevin (talk) 16:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that the reverse applies too: proposals which were clearly rejected should be marked as such rather than identified as essays. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:47, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Well there are hundreds of pages here and I ain't volunteering to read them all. So if we can't agree to a template to use then I guess nothing will happen Gnevin (talk) 23:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Any suggestions as what to do here currently there are over 300 proposals listed there Gnevin (talk) 21:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

No suggestions, but I too would advise restraint on auto-tagging everything as "failed", and just letting the watchlisters sort out any problems. That's not really solving anything, except emptying out a slightly large category tree.

If someone did want to put the effort into reading them all (and their associated contrib-histories and talkpages), then updating the pages with a mix of {{Essay}}, {{Draft proposal}}, {{Failed}}, {{Historical}}, and {{Promote}}, would be the ideal mission. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Or, if there are 2, 5 or 6 pages proposing the same thing from different angles, it may be a good idea to merge them into a single page MBelgrano (talk) 11:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Good article symbol on GAs

We currently have a star on FA. I do not know if this has been discussed before but what about putting the GA symbol on good articles?--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Comes up at intervals and does not gain consensus - see Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Indicate_Good_Articles_to_readers - Peripitus (Talk) 06:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the very day you asked the question this started being rolled out. A straw poll revealed a 55-19 consensus at the project page, so they're making it happen. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 14:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Suggested Portal: Childhood and Parenting

WP might consider creating a portal for this topic. Parenting already has a substantial template but there's nothing on the Portal page that directs the potentially very large audience for this topic into the Opus.
I waited a year for it to magically appear before this suggestion. (I'm a parent but no other qualification to do it myself.) Twang (talk) 06:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

You could always propose it and see if there are enough interested editors. This may not be a very broad topic with particularly interested members, though.—  Hellknowz  ▎talk  19:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Browser Statistics

I'd like to see Wikipedia publish anonymous browser statistics based on the wikis' logs. We already have wikistats for page views. We used to have Wikipedia:Browsers, which is now inactive, and even a bug has been filed.
Over a year ago I spoke via IRC with Domas Mituzas who runs wikistats, and according to him the statistics he gets cannot identify a unique user, to this needs to go higher than him.

To web developers, browser statistics are an important tool to measure when browser support can be dropped. It is currently impossible to determine browser statistics (see Browser market share). Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites on the internet, its visits are not skewed to a certain user base, it strives to create a summary of all human knowledge. Please make this information available. --bitbit (pka Nezek) ^(talk) 10:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportClients.htm and friends. Happy‑melon 11:23, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I have somehow missed that in the browser statistics article. --bitbit (pka Nezek) ^(talk) 16:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Will Wikipedia survive if in the future most of its editors leave?

No, it will collapse; vandalism will gradually rot it. Hence, one has to think what will keep people to it. More videos are urgently needed. People are developing a desire to watch videos all the time nowadays. Hence one should be including more and more open videos that are relevant to the article in wikipedia. --194.219.142.101 (talk) 10:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you that Wikipedians keep this project going. I am not however sure if I like embedded videos. Medpedia uses them as one can see here [1] and it just clutters things. They would also be hard to change and edit further.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:55, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Doc James, I agree that the example at Obesity is bad, because the same information can be provided in a fraction as text. OTOH I've used small clips at Cnidaria and Annelid to show how these animals move, which quicker and easier for readers than the equivalent text. --Philcha (talk) 15:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

OTOH use of videos as citations is a mess:

• Hard to hear the speech, because of interruptions and other broken sentences.
• Videos are often longer than a section of a book. When citing a book, one must provide a page, and I suggest they should also be required for cited videos, so that one does not read the whole video.

You've completely misdiagnosed here. Poor newbie experiences are the looming problem; don't know how the heck you came up with "not enough videos" as the most pressing issue. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Videos attract readers. Wikipedia is a top-10 (top-5?) website. We currently have no problem on that front. The problem is trying to convert them from readers to editors, then trying to get them to stay. Mr.Z-man 14:49, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Cybercobra and Mr.Z-man that keeping would-be editors is the problem. New editors and WP want to work together, but WP's policies and guidelines, most of which are justified (e.g. WP:V) are obstacles for would-be editors. I'm in the early stages of a personal project to try to guide new editors through the first stages as they come in through the door. --Philcha (talk) 15:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

When I said editors I means users; i.e. with no users, no editors (even if you have a problem with converting them to editors). --79.130.5.74 (talk) 09:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Copied from this thread at Jimbo's talk page.

On all pages that are not protected/semi-protected, the tagline should read: "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You can edit this page." followed by a button marked "edit" linking to a very short, simple few sentences about how to, and a link to the Talk and Edit pages of the article. That, alone, would double the editor activity overnight. I think that would be a good thing. Anthony (talk) 18:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Call me an elitist, but I don't know if we really want to generate an income of editors which are still unable to understand that anyone can edit Wikipedia after so many years of its existence and the subtitle in the main page. --Cyclopia^talk 19:22, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

If we make it easy and obvious, stupid people might start editing? Interesting hypothesis. Only one way to find out, and it could be undone. Anthony (talk) 20:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

This is all quite interesting and should be raised with the usability team. Based on my non-Wikipedia experiences (at Wikia), encouraging more people to edit does not result in a reduction in quality, so I disagree with Cyclopedia's view. But, in the end, it is, as Anthonyhcole says, an empirical question. Most things are. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:59, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
End of excerpt.

I have asked at WP:Project Usability if there are any technical obstacles. Is that the right forum to discuss whether this should be implemented? Anthony (talk) 12:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe another important step is to massively simplify the body of "instructions" we give people - help pages, policies, guidelines and all sorts of other inward-looking pages that have multiplied and expanded over the years without any attempt to control them, and which really must freak people out when they arrive here, particularly when they start getting linked to them by way of "explanation" of certain things. I'm sure this must turn a lot of people away - and even well-established editors are not served by having this information presented in such a warpedly irrational manner that causes constant doubt and misinterpretation.--Kotniski (talk) 13:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

If someone has just come to Wikipedia to correct spelling sure. However if one has come to promote their current fringe views using self published books we need guidelines and policies to help established editors deal with this. The problem is not the number of policies it is often that the policies we have are not enforced (take WP:COI as not applied here for example). If one does reasonable work one can edit just find having read few or none of the policies. Wikipedia needs to promote the creation of top quality evidence based articles. This requires consistency between articles and an in-depth explanations of how to accomplish it.

In reply to the commend above I have no problems with the limited use of video as done by Philcha in these example. While I think it adds to the project it will make little difference in getting people involved.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree we need policies and guidelines. But we don't need the mass of words and pages that we currently have (which are often impossible to tidy up since certain editors attach an almost religious significance to them, believing that every word and nuance is vital to Wikipedia's continued survival, however illogical and incomprehensible the text actually is). Short, clear instructions would be to everyone's benefit, and would make enforcement more of a realistic proposition too. (That's not to say there isn't a need for detail on certain matters, but most of our texts at the moment don't add substantial detail, only waffle and deliberate fudge - it's much easier to get everyone to agree with you if you write something that everyone can interpret in their own preferred way.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think trying to reduce the number of rules and procedures as a way of attracting new users is a Sisyphean task. The reason we have so many policies and so much procedure is because we have so many users. Compare it to traditional education. If you have a student:teacher ratio of something like 5:1, you can rely less on textbooks and lectures and more on individual communication. But if its more like 30:1, then the teacher is forced to rely on lectures and reading textbooks since there isn't enough class time to work with each student. The more new editors we have, the less time we have to work with them individually and we're forced to communicate using template messages and links to policies and help pages. We might be able to trim and consolidate some rules and procedures, but if you do it too much, it will just naturally grow back as people realize that it was needed. Rather than actually reducing the amount significantly, I think more effort should go into organizing so that its presented in a logical fashion and self-guided tutorials so that new users can learn without having a textbook thrown at them but without the need for one-on-one discussions. Mr.Z-man 15:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be no shortage of people of very low intelligence who find no problem in figuring out how to edit Wikipedia. If potential good editors are put off it isn't because it is too difficult. Dmcq (talk) 15:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. To make such an assertion, you would need to not only know how many people do figure out how to edit, but also the number of people who don't figure out how to edit (a number very hard to come by). I consider myself an intelligent person, reasonably proficient with computers, but I found editing a very scary and confusing experience at first (and still do, at times). Our markup language is not intuitive. We have a lot of rules, some of which are very important to anyone editing (i.e. wp:V), and others which are much less important for new editors (wp:DP, etc.). I agree with Mr. Z-man: we could certainly use some more intuitive, self guided tutorials to throw in a welcome template, rather than just link to a bunch of rules. Actually, we do have a tutorial: wp:Tutorial. It would help if we actually linked to it in prominent places, like, I don't know, on the editing screen, or even on article pages near the edit button. Buddy431 (talk) 18:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Buddy431, I don't think I've seen wp:Tutorial - WP is poor at delivering information to those who need it. The project I'm working on: --Philcha (talk) 19:01, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Goes through the first steps of a newcomer's attempt to edit/create an article.
• Uses a formal, conversational style, hoping to make the newcomer relax.
• Makes citations easy, as I think WP:V and citations are the major obstacles for newcomers.
• Provide a "lite" introduction to the most important policies and guideline, hoping that over 90% of the sitations are covered by about 20% of the text in the policies and guideline; and hoping that I can tell newcomers when more than the "lite" introduction is needed, and where newcomers can get advice.

I agree with Philcha on the above point. We needs a good process for welcoming and introducing people to Wikipedia. One of the problems I have encountered is a lack of awareness about sourcing. Thus I have created a page explaining how to find good sources for both text and images pertaining to medicine to go with out guideline outlining what good sources are W:MEDRS.

What we need is a Wikiproject to coordinate the efforts of introducing and attracting people to Wikipedia. I know we have the usability project but we could use a Wikiproject here.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem with all or most of the tutorials to date is that they're still just text-based wiki pages. Editing is a skill, not a set of facts to be learned. It is difficult to learn a skill by reading alone. What we need is something slightly more interactive - it will probably need to be done at least partially as a MediaWiki extension or with JavaScript. The Commons upload system is probably the best thing on-wiki that I can think of. Rather than just saying on one page "pick a license, fill in the info template, and add some categories" it breaks it all up into separate input boxes with pop-up help boxes for each item. Mr.Z-man 22:06, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

How about this: On pages that are not protected or semi-protected, change the article tagline from "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." to "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You can edit this article." followed by an "EDIT" button which leads to this page:

• If you're changing the meaning of the article (rather than just correcting spelling or similar) click here to see if the issue is being discussed on the article's "talk" page before editing.
• To begin editing, click any of the [edit] links within the article and type into the box at the bottom. When you're finished, type a few words describing what you've done and why into the "Edit summary" space below that. Then hit "Show preview". If you like the result, click "Save page".
• Changes of meaning that are not accompanied by a "citation" (a number like this^[14] linking to a textbook or other reliable source among the references at the bottom of the page), and changes that don't conform to Wikipedia guidelines may be deleted by other editors.
• To learn how to insert a citation click here
• For a simple, concise outline of the guidelines governing article composition, click here
• If another editor is mean to you, click here
  Anthony (talk) 19:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I do agree some improvement could be made. I could support "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia you can edit". It is only three more words. The content after you hit the edit button could also use some work. We mention verifiability twice while once would be sufficient. We mention plagiarism twice while again once would be sufficient. What we have know is:

Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. See the Terms of Use for details. If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. All text that you did not write yourself, except brief excerpts, must be available under terms consistent with Wikipedia's Terms of Use before you submit it. Please note: When you click Save, your changes will immediately become visible to everyone. If you wish to run a test, please edit the Sandbox instead. Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources. Please maintain a neutral, unbiased point of view. Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites – only public domain resources can be copied without permission.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:05, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I am not proposing tweaking. I am proposing a radical simplification, friendlification, newbiefication of the entry process. In this proposed change, the "EDIT" button after the tagline is a newbiemagnet that drags them into a page that in very simple un-sacry terms, helps them make their first edit or two. The point of the tagline change is the prominant "EDIT" button, that takes the newbie to the friendly intro page. All the copyright and plagiarism stuff on the edit page can definitely be made much friendlier in both content and presentation. But I am suggesting the insertion of a teenie-weenie tutorial (linking to WP:Tutorial) before the edit page for newcomers, with the fundamentals explained in friendly simple terms. Anthony (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

These sound like minor tweaks to me :-) I agree that some of what we have now is less than friendly. What we change too however must be unobtrusive. Long term editors do not appreciate being distracted as was shown with the last fundraiser banner.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Changing the tagline got voted down a mere 2 weeks ago: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_62#Improve_the_WP_tagline. Seems improper to propose such a similar revision so soon. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Superficially similar. It doesn't have to be the tagline. I had read the discussion you linked to and thought the tagline would be a convenient spot for it. But the newbie edit button could go anywhere so long as it is next to "You can edit this page" and is prominent. Tagline just seemed the obvious candidate to me. Anthony (talk) 21:45, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

We have a tool for how to create disease based articles here

Medical Article Creator	Edit
	Help

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

What a great tool. Wish I'd known about that for the last 8 months. Anthony (talk) 05:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a lot of support for improving the reader→editor indoctrination process: "Poor newbie experiences are the looming problem."(Cybercobra) "keeping would-be editors is the problem ... I'm in the early stages of a personal project to try to guide new editors through the first stages as they come in through the door. (Philcha) "I believe another important step is to massively simplify the body of "instructions" we give people. (Kotniski) "...more effort should go into organizing so that its presented in a logical fashion." (Mr.Z-man) "We need a good process for welcoming and introducing people to Wikipedia." (Doc James)

I'm suggesting a line on the article page that says "You can edit this article." followed by an obvious "How to edit" button, leading to a page like that I outlined above. Very simple and readable, linking to more detailed guidelines. Surely that would be a vast improvement that we could implement almost overnight. Anthony (talk) 14:54, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I would support an become involved in a Wikiproject whoes purpose is to create pages that act as a central clearing house for stuff like editing tools and resources. And that improves the introduction of people to Wikipedia. This would also be a good way to get established editors interested in theses ideas and propose potential changes to the editing format.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Good Articles icon

In case someone is unaware of it (I was) there has been a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles, where many users agreed to create a simbol to indicate good article status at the article mainspace, similar to the star of featured ones (and not just at the talk page, as it was done so far). The template Template:Good article has been created and it's already being added to articles.

This is not a proposal I'm making, but a comment of something that is already being implemented. It's still listed at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, so if the consensus achieved at that page is considered enough, this should be removed from that page MBelgrano (talk) 14:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, heh, I just did [remove it from 'Perennial']. Maybe someone can revert me if consensus changes (again). - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 15:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Icon = good idea. Well done! (Are you planning to do a big AWB run and add it to them all?) I just signed up at Wikipedia:Bot requests#GA symbol to do it. ╟─TreasuryTag►most serene─╢ 15:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• Query—some Good Articles appear to be absent from Category:Good articles. Why is this, and what should be done about it? ╟─TreasuryTag►hemicycle─╢ 15:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

  The category was only created yesterday! :) The new template adds to it... - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 15:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

  Ah, that would explain it! ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 15:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

• I think that the Pass part of the Wikipedia:Good article nominations, page needs to have this template explained so that users passing a article for GA now that they need to put this new template up on the GA status articles as of now. Like "put this template Template:Good article on the newly GA granted articles front page".Or similar.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 20:14, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Can we get a bot to do it automatically?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it, as featured/good articles cannot be detected—they are human decisions, unlike protection, which is technical and can be detected by a bot. —MC10 (T•C•GB•L) 17:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I think Jmh649 meant detect Talk: page good article tags. FA bot already does this per request and GA can have the same.—  Hellknowz  ▎talk  17:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes exactly because people are currently adding them manually but you have the talk page tag that the bot could go on.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I ment more like having it on the Pass part of the Wikipedia:Good article nominations page so that the editor closing a successfull GA-status article knows that the template exist and can put it on the articles front page. As the template is so knew its possible that some editors arent aware of its existance.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 17:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

It could be point 5. on the Pass list.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 17:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Thinking ahead, may be the FA bot needs to be updated to remove the {{Good article}} template when applying the {{Featured article}} template. Keith D (talk) 19:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

My opinion about illicit/prescription drug use and how it's manners of use are described on Wikipedia

Resolved

 – Wikipedia is not censored. ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 21:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

As a person who was just diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder as well as Adult Attention Deficit Disorder - one of the medications I was prescribed ( among a couple of others ) was Ritalin. I researched all the medications in a variety of areas. What really shocked me was when I researched Ritalin. Not only does it describe it's uses, effects, contraindications and the usual *stuff*, it also describes it's use as a street drug and even describes how some people like to "crush" it and "snort it" for a quicker high, when abusing the medication. I would have never even considered such a thing and wouldn't even know this was possible until I read it described on this particular page. What bothered me was that college students use this a lot to cram for exams, which is a well known fact and mentioned in the article. Most disturbing however was the description of how to use it in a crushed and snorted form, which I imagine could seriously cause problems for anyone, college student or not, and even lead to death. I wonder if leaving this sort of information out of drugs that can be abused in this manner is censorship or perhaps a smart thing to do?

Editing a page to delete the ways a standard prescription medication can be made to be more "potent" and "a quicker high" is something I think is worthy of debate.

I am wondering if anyone agrees with me or feels like it's just a fact, like it or not and it does need to remain under that specific topic ( or any other similarly abusable drug for that matter)

Is this so parents can prevent it from happening if they happen to see a straw with a mortar and pestle in their child's room? I don't think so. I think it is a way to teach creative and dangerous ways to abuse particular drugs.

Any comments?

BTW - If I were 18 or 20-ish, was on Ritalin for ADD and help with studies and attention problems, at that age - I'd be all over it. I'd be crushing and snorting and thanking Wikipedia for "turning me on". Alas, I am a 53 year old adult with no desire to ruin my life or health.

I have never posted anything, edited anything or even know if I'm in the right place to start a discussion on the matter.

Leeeeenda (talk) 21:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)leeeeenda <Methylphenidate>

Well I hope this information helps people realize the importance of keeping this type of medication locked up and helps parents realize the potential seriousness of managing this medication use by their children. People may steal it from their kids or their kids may sell the stuff. For those who are involved in this type of behavior Wikipedia is not needed as they will have figured it out with the help of their friends and other resouces. Wikipedia however is not at how to guide. WP:NOT. Will look into it further.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:16, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored in any way. That would include descriptions of drug use, which, I'm sure you can see, has encyclopedic relevance. ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 21:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Well not censored we do not provide how to instructions. It does not look like there are how to instruction in this case however. Here is the first google hit one gets when one types in "shooting ritalin" [2]. I do not think Wikipedia is what people need to be worrying about. I guess the main reason people bring up concerns here is we are one of the only sites that will actually license and address peoples complaints.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

No, we don't provide how-to instructions per se. Inevitably, describing the way in which drugs are used could potentially indicate to someone how-to do so themselves, but that is not our responsibility. ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 21:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I looked over the Methylphenidate (Ritalin) page - didn't see much anything that was how-to related to remove...unless I am missing something here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Bots to fill proper accessdate

I have moved this from misc. to proposals, continuing from inactive VP Misc.

I propose that:

A bot may add missing |accessdate= parameters to referenced templates with |url= parameters¹ setting the |accessdate= as the date this url² was first³ added to the page.

¹ Such as, {{cite web}}, {{cite news}}, {{cite journal}}, etc.

² Not the reference itself, as editors/bots may have reformatted it.

³ The bot should adequately check for vandalism/temporary removal, so tools, like WikiBlame should be used cautiously.

I presume it is very reasonable to assume access date matches the addition date in vast majority of cases. The problem pages are those with referenced content copied over (bots can easily ignore links added in the first revisions for new pages). The second is when users are accessing and adding material after the url is already added (although few editors, as far as I know, actually update the access dates afterwards). So the false positive rate should be quite small.

A couple bots currently in development are inadvertently assuming the addition date to be the |accessdate= in order to retrieve archive (e.g. Wayback) links for linkrot battling. I believe the benefit of editors knowing the access dates to work with dead links much outweights the possible mistakes. It would be nice if this discussion can be referenced for current and future bot development. —  Hellknowz  ▎talk  16:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm very cautious about a bot adding data like this. It makes the assumption that the access date associated with a URL reference is the same as the date that the URL was first added. Strictly speaking they are not the same thing - though probably it's not a bad guess. The problem I would have is that "probably". I think you grossly underestimate the number (not merely proportion) of false positives - and bear in mind that human editors would not so easily be able to identify a false positive so they would likely go uncorrected.

Add to that the technical problem of even knowing when the URL was first added. Some problems:

• Suppose a reference was added and removed several times (not necessarily in quick succession or through vandalism, but over long slow periods) - which date are you presuming was the "access date"?
• Or if the statement associated with the reference was updated as the website was updated (so the URL remained on the page but the correct "access date" changed).
• Or if a user lazily copied over a referenced statement from another article though the content of the URL had changed in the mean time?

Now, while I've no problem in saying that most time this bot process would make a good guess, it is that proportion of the time that it would incorrectly presume an access date multiplied by the vast number of edits this bot would make that worries me. This process would likely make hundreds of thousands of good guesses ... but thousands of incorrect ones. Would the benefit of adding a (best guess) "access date" parameter out-weight the this? Hardly. --RA (talk) 21:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea and strongly support it. We could put a little subscript afterwords saying "bot added" or just "bot" that upon clicking goes to a page which explains all the potential drawback or errors. You know like correct 19 times out of 20 :-) We do not stop publishing just because 5 percent of everything is wrong.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:23, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Should Breaking Stories be written away from mainspace first?

I have been watching the article and talk page of Gaza flotilla clash, which is obviously a recent event. As a breaking story there have been many sources backing up many viewpoints. My worry is, as in all recent events, there will always be initial misinformation from even the best of sources. My feeling is that we should wait until everything settles before writing this article on main space, and that perhaps writing an article such as this would be more productive if it was done away from main space, at least for a little while anyway. I would like to point out that there has been no warring on the article, nevertheless, for future articles like this I think getting it right as possible before putting it on mainspace is important for the reader. Cheers! Jack forbes (talk) 16:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding no edit warring: quite true (and I've mentioned the overall good conduct of the editors at ANI), however: the article was semi-protected early on, and it's subject to a 1RR restriction (it falls under the Israel/Palestine editing restrictions).

I mentioned to Jack forbes on my talk page that there is an issue around the media taking its cue from Wikipedia, which in turn takes it cue from the media, which in turn...

...and I agree with Jack forbes - though I wonder... I've not followed the whole Flagged Revisions debate: is this something that would help here?

Cheers, TFOWR^{idle vapourings of a mind diseased} 17:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think this would be exceeding difficult to accomplish and not necessarily in the best interest of Wikipedia. It would become confusing for other editors were editing is actually occurring. We already tag articles regarding currently occurring events thus in a way warning our readers. Next question is how one would decide when to return it to the main space? I would not support this initiative.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

My thinking is that this would, in principle, be no different to editing any fully protected article. Gain consensus on the talk page, then someone (OK, an admin) updates. TFOWR^{idle vapourings of a mind diseased} 19:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The media also takes it cues from each other. I do not think this is a sufficient argument to limit the presentation of current events on Wikipedia. The NYTs for instance wrote an article about Wikipedia in which it made a mistake. I wrote the NYTs regarding the need for a correction. A few dozen other papers repeated the mistake of the NYTs without verifying it. This happens and we will not change things here.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I think this would impede the spirit of Wikipedia, where all changes are live and all edits are visible for anyone to edit. Having a current issue article less available than others seems like an extreme measure for a problem that should be solved differently. I don't have a lot of experience with current issue articles, but surely stricter revert/sourcing rules can be applied instead? If the article is protected and only admins can edit consented changes, then there is no reason to keep it off mainspace. Also, there are enough tags and notices for readers about current event article state. To be blunt, this is more to do with everyone wanting to be the first on the scene... —  Hellknowz  ▎talk  19:24, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

e/c I know that there is a warning to readers that it is a current event, but I don't believe any kind of warning is sufficient if the article gets it wrong. There will be many readers who would read the article only once and walk away thinking they now have their facts, warning or not. We are an encyclopedia, not a news agency. Encyclopedias are expected to have a higher standard than news agency's, who are not averse to sending out news reports without too much verification and then changing when the reports are updated. Jack forbes (talk) 19:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

(undent) I hope are readers do not come here for the "Truth". Nothing is ever so simple. Even the great field of science is updated on a continual basis. This does not mean that we should not cover stuff.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand that we should cover stuff, but on a minute to minute basis? Have we become a news agency rather than an encyclopedia? I do think the best way to go is to write it up away from mainspace in the way suggested by TFOWR. I've had my say so will drop out for a while and see what others think. Cheers. Jack forbes (talk) 19:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

This page 2009 flu pandemic was written on a minute by minute basis and is now a GA. It also was one of Wikipedias most visited page during the pandemic.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:54, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a big, pretty "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY" right in the disclaimer. Users who don't read disclaimers and microwave-dry their pets are at their own fault. —  Hellknowz  ▎talk  20:02, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Current event articles are one of our main draws for readers; let's not remove one of our most popular features. Also, I think WP:NOTPAPER is relevant here; the only reason we think of typical encyclopedias as not having such articles is because it only very recently became feasible to publish so quickly; new medium, new possibilities. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:06, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the general feeling that we shouldn't tie our hands behind our backs just because it can be difficult to judge reliability of information about recent events. Of course we should do the best job possible in regards to NPOV, reliable sourcing and so on, but ultimately it is up to the readers whether to evaluate critically what they read or just blindly accept what is written - be it about recent events or distant history. --Duplode (talk) 20:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that Cybercobra makes a good point. That printed encyclopedia's aren't able to respond quickly to events doesn't mean that they wouldn't like to if they could. Malleus Fatuorum 20:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to comment at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC

Everyone is invited to comment at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC. Two requests for arbitration are now on the WP:RFAR page related to GSCC and some arbitrators have said they are interested in seeing how the RfC goes before deciding whether to take up a case.

User 2over0 began the RfC with this "Statement of concern":

"Articles related to climate change have been one of Wikipedia's problem areas for a number of years now. Most of the disruption boils down to often heated or uncivil disagreement over the proper application of WP:WEIGHT and WP:SCIRS, though sockpuppetry and single-purpose accounts out of touch with wider Wikipedia norms play their roles. Near the end of last year, the Copenhagen Summit on climate change and the Climatic Research Unit email controversy contributed to a surge in interest in this family of articles; that furor has largely died down now. Whether the long term or the short term patterns have been more problematic is an open question, but a few days into the new year the community established Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation, giving uninvolved administrators wide leeway when acting to quell disruption in this topic area, and establishing a Requests for enforcement board for discussing the same.

"Several editors in the discussion establishing this extraordinary probation opined that the community should review it after a few months had passed. It has now been about five months, and I would like to open this question for review."

Please comment there. (This seems to be the first invitation on this page to comment there, but if I'm wrong about that, please just archive this.) -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Todays Good article section on main page

Hi, i was thinking wouldnt it be nice to have a Todays Good article section on the Wikipedia Main page. Just like we already have Todays featured article. I dont now exactly where but perhaps the Todays features picture, or expanding the main page for this section. Especially now since the new template for GA articles I think that Todays Good article could be nice. It would also in the long-run improve the overall standard of the articles on Wikipedia as more people would open their eyes to these articles. Swedish wikipedia also have this exact thing already and it looks great.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 20:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the main page should be keep reasonably small. There is not really any room to add GA content. The Swedish main page appears to be about twice the length of the English one.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah but it still not a major issue. actually i think i would be helpful for wikipedia. also it would indeed increase the interest for making articles atleast to GA status as it would mean that the article has a chance of being seen on the main page. as of today people perhpas dont care as mutch.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 20:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

For me its about quality and the overall quality on articles would increase with this suggestion.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 20:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Will anyone even glance at such a GA section? Hardly anyone (only 10% of readers or so) looks at DYK. PleaseStand ^(talk) 20:52, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this is clutter for readers. But this is also highly motivational for editors. Some articles will never be FA but can easily become GAs. I suspect having "your" GA article appear on the front page is quite inspiring. But this has to do with humans and not really presentation of material. Of course, for most readers this is nothing but additional clutter before they hit search button. From encyclopaedic standpoint, it's not too stellar to advertise "almost" perfect articles. —  Hellknowz  ▎talk  20:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

First of all Pleasesand, yeah only 10% of readers looks at DYK wouldnt it be better having Todays Good article at that place? Hellknowz I would rather have a Todays Good article section which helps articles improve the overall quality of articles on Wikipedia than having the current DYK section which only 10% of the people on this site reads. I would suggest that the high motivation this would bring for possible GA articles would stand higher than having a DYK section which almost no one cares about. I would also say that Yes I think people would glance at this new section, people are interested in helping improving GA and FA status articles as Todays Featured article has proven.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

To have the Todays Good article section at the place where currently the DYK section is placed would be the perfect place for the section. It would be motivation for users to work on articles they might not have done without the TGA section that i am proposing.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 21:28, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(undent) We have the little plus signs. That should be all we need :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I say we create this new Todays Good article section soon.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I bet someone could fix this immediatly. right?--ÅlandÖland (talk) 21:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Was that 10% number just pulled out of thin air? How was that determined? Mr.Z-man 21:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I guess the person mentioning it had the numbers. And if they are true as i suspect a Todays Good Article section instead of a DYK section is mutch better. It would also as i mentioned earlier help Wikipedia out mutch better than the DYK section which currently doesnt have almost any interest from the users.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 21:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

A easier way would be to do just like o Swedish wikipedia and have the Todays good article section lower down on the main page so we dont have to remove any other section.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 22:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

And Chinese Wikipedia have very similar main page format. First FA, then below it is ITN, followed by GA, and lastly DYK. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 12:20, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

IMO, a TGA blurb would detract from TFA. I'd rather retain the present layout. Resolute 23:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The goal of TFA is to act as a magnet for readers, by showing the best we have to offer on the main page. The typical GA is vastly inferior to FA, since it's essentially two random guys' work: one writing, the other approving. FA, on the other hand, undergoes an in-depth scrutiny by many experienced editors, and has to meet its own stringent quality requirements, much stricter than other articles. Bottom line: having a TGA would devalue our front page significantly and reduce WP's attractiveness to newcomers. Crum375 (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

That's clearly complete rubbish, as the quality of the overwhelming majority of DYks is execrable, but they're still featured on the main page. It's also complete rubbish that the typical FA is "vastly superior" to that of a typical GA; I could show you very many FAs that wouldn't get through a GA nomination, usually because of their poor sourcing. Having said that, I'm indifferent as to whether GAs appear on the main page or not. I don't really see that becoming a 24-hour target for vandalism is much of a reward or incentive for anything. Malleus Fatuorum 23:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Considering the last statement here... the Todays Featured article section should also be removed. As it sometmes brings vandalism with it to the article in question. But that is often easily fixed and I still think that Wikipedia would gain from having a TGA section on the Main page. And it would not as previously stated by some take away any shine from the FA article on the main page, Swedish wikipedia has already proven to be successfull in having both FA and GA status articles on the Main Page so i still suggest i Todays Good Articles section on the Main page.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 23:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The sensible thing to do would be to feature any article at TFA, regardless of whether it's an FA or not, so long as it meets some minimum criteria. But when was the last time you something sensible happen here? Malleus Fatuorum 23:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose in its current form - Articles featured on WP main page should be FA, by definition. And please do not remove DYK in any way. It is one of the things that helps news decent articles to go through and gives incentive to both new and old editors in creating content. I'd support a section, say ,of "GAs of the week" along with the DYK, however. --Cyclopia^talk 23:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Support Cyclopia suggestion, i agree with you a GA of the week would be a good way to go. I believe that is the closest thing we will ever come to the original suggestion.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 23:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Cyclopia confuses "definition" with "convention". Obviously, any article could be featured on the main page, but convention has determined that "featured" is synonymous with FA. I'm a little puzzled as well by this idea of a weekly GA. What would be the point of that exactly? Malleus Fatuorum 00:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Having a weekly GA article would increase the overall interest in making articles better i believe. The users need a "carrot" to make more articles GA ready, today it is a huge step between GA and FA which could make an editor not makign those crucial edits that will make an average article into GA for example. But with this new GA of the week i believe people would first of all get to now what a GA article is all about and make people more interested in making articles since they could end p on the main page sooner or later.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 00:08, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose TGA, or any other idea to dilute the front page quality. I accept DYK as a good marketing ploy because of its tease factor. Crum375 (talk) 00:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

10% uses the DYK.. how is that marketing?,. When we could get a better section on the main page why not make it?--ÅlandÖland (talk) 00:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• I would support replacing either DYK or ITN (or both) with TGA. DYK seems to do little good, creating ever deeper backlogs, and as Malleus says many of the articles are not audited for quality at all. The other day I found an article on DYK with several typos and unencyclopedic contractions. ITN is fundamentally flawed because it directly contradicts our effort to avoid being perceived as a news service. We might need a couple people to scrutinize each GA before it appears on the main page, but we should be doing that for TFA as well. Juliancolton (talk) 12:07, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I must say I like ITN and it brings a little bit more exposure to our sister project Wikinews. It does not matter what DYK is based on. May as well have it based on some of our better work well keeping the same format.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support TGA. There has been some hoax DYKs that slip through the entire review process (see this page for details) which ended up as BLP issue and subsequently deleted. It's time to replace short, less reviewed in depth and duration with something that actually carries more content and conforms to more MoS guidelines. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 12:20, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, GA is a designation that does not mean anything to most readers—I had no idea what a GA was before I became an editor. This doesn't directly help readers, it seems more like back-scratching for editors. Furthermore, this would add clutter to the main page and, as some editors have already said, take some of the specialness away from TFA. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:01, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Allow some DYK hooks to go into newly promoted Good Articles?

(spawned off from above TGA proposal)

• Idea What if we decide that, say, 50% of the DYK hooks are into newly promoted (first time) Good Articles, instead of only into new, or newly expanded articles? Comments? Crum375 (talk) 00:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• GA promotion stats
• 2008 discussion on WT:DYK

I would support it. Good idea.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 00:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Far too sensible. You'll never get support for that idea. Malleus Fatuorum 00:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia will never evolve or change to the better if we dont even consider making changes every now and then..--ÅlandÖland (talk) 00:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't evolving, it's fossilising. Nothing will be changed by this discussion. Malleus Fatuorum 00:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

We have to wait and see about that.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 00:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Support I would support the DYK hooks coming from good articles. We could recognize the work of many contributors and draw readers to some of Wikipedia's better content. We have 3.3 million articles and we need incentives not to create more articles but to improve the ones we have. BTW Wikipedia does changed. We did add the little GA plus sign to all the GA articles to recognize in part the excellent work done at the GA reviews.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Support i definitly support this suggestion. I also agree that it would recognize the work of many contributors.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 10:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Good idea. I'd limit GAs to 1-2 hooks/day , but apart from that, excellent suggestion. --Cyclopia^talk 11:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support and I'd even suggest all of Did You Know is taken from newly created good articles. I've never understood why new, unreviewed articles, many of which are glorified stubs, should take a spot on the main page. We ought to be showing our better, audited work. Aiken ♫ 11:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• I doubt there are enough newly promoted GAs to fill 50% of all hooks, unless we significantly spread out the updates more. There have only been 15 GAs promoted since Monday. Juliancolton (talk) 12:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Perhaps with my idea, efforts could be moved to reviewing GAs, rather than brand new articles. Aiken ♫ 12:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Eh... still, DYK is updated every six hours, and GAN currently has 220 nominations. That would be enough for 10 or 12 days, assuming no major influx of nominations, before we run out. Juliancolton (talk) 12:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support. What a brilliant idea (playing on the pun for the former name of featured articles). I echo Aiken's concern. You can't "delist" a DYK even if it turns out to be a hoax (see this page for details) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 12:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• DYK normally runs 32 hooks/day in 4 updates, no matter what. This number sometimes drops to 24 (3 updates) when we have too few nominations. Thus 50% is too many for GAN. Another DYK specifics, we always have many more nomination than necessary, and the review process can be fast. This way we can handle emergencies and keep the flow. The speed of GA review is unpredictable and I would object rushing GA promotions just to keep up with the DYK pace. Materialscientist (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree, but I'd say there is no need for a fixed pace. We can keep DYK pace as it is, and instead let the GA stay for 1 day or more. --Cyclopia^talk 12:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I have added the GA stats link above. On average, we should have at least 4 newly promoted GAs available per day. Crum375 (talk) 12:20, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment DYK is getting quite backed up. It use to be that a DYK hook would appear on the main page within a week of being nominated. Now it sometimes takes two. Maybe GA hooks could get their own section like ITN or something.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 12:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment We could run the GAs a little longer and keep some of the DYKs based on the newest articles. If this increases interest in creating GAs we may not eventually need the DYKs based on new stubs. In some format this will definitely be an improvement both for our readers and Wikipedia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Please don't remove DYK based on new articles. They are a big incentive for creation of new content and usually help attract attention on new worthwile articles, letting them grow. --Cyclopia^talk 13:41, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I see nothing wrong with simply adding newly promoted GAs to the DYK eligibility list, which is currently new or newly expanded articles. A new GA DYK hook could have the new GA icon on it as an indicator. Crum375 (talk) 13:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I like that idea. It always kinda bothered me that an article loses its DYK possibility forever just because it was never nominated in the first place, or something. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment We could have two subsections under the "Did you know..." heading. One that says "From Wikipedia's good articles:" and one that says "From Wikipedia's newest articles:" Have three to four of each. We do not use the star for FAs so not sure we should use the GA symbol for GAs on the main page. Might look too cluttered.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I would make it "From Wikipedia's newly promoted good articles:" — I think the newness is more attractive, plus our goal is to create new GAs, not new DYK hooks into existing GAs. Crum375 (talk) 14:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This is a perennial proposal that has been rejected before, and I don't see anyone above trying to address the issues that were raised in the last iteration of this discussion (linked from the top of the section)—issues such as creating a large backlog, undermining the "new" concept of DYK, and giving main page recognition to a designation that is essentially project-internal and meaningless to most readers (I certainly didn't know what a GA was until after I had spent a few months editing). Granted, consensus about GAs seems to be changing recently (see, for instance, the recent decision to add a GA icon to articles, a decision which has been opposed several times in the past), but without some direct discussion of why the issue has changed for DYK since the last time this was discussed, I don't see any reason to overturn consensus just because someone happens to have asked a different crop of editors this time. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• The idea is to only allow newly promoted GAs. The stats tell us that this would only add a few more eligible candidates per day, but hopefully it will create an incentive to improve existing articles, as opposed to just creating new ones. Crum375 (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• consensus can always change. SpinningSpark 14:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• I am aware of that, I have been here a while after all. But I am asking if there is a reason for the change (i.e., can someone address the issues brought up in the past?), not just for someone to mindlessly parrot policy. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • You mentioned that we want to promote "newness", so the idea here is to only allow newly promoted GAs. This also addresses your other point about backlog, since there are only a few newly promoted GAs per day, and only a subset of them will be listed as DYK candidates. On the plus side, this will add motivation to not only create new (or just physically expand) articles, but to improve the quality of existing ones. Crum375 (talk) 15:04, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• The idea received a fair bit of support 2 years ago. Geometryguy and other have since put a lot of work into the recent GA review to make sure that all the current articles meet the criteria. The current GA criteria are also being more strictly applied. As this paper states "the low hanging fruit" have been picked [3]. With 3.3 million articles we need to promote improving the content we have rather than creating new content.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:07, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for addressing the question. I can see now why this is a legitimately new proposal (instead of just a repetition of previous ones), but for now my vote still remains in the Oppose camp. This is because GA is a designation that is more or less meaningless to readers and therefore this would be more of an encyclopedia-internal drive, which shouldn't be put on the front page. I agree that we need to be shifting out goal from content creation to content improvement, but main page space is not the only way to do that, and we shouldn't be burdening out readers with encyclopedia-internal issues. We can do other content drives that keep themselves behind the scenes. That being said, it is possible that readers' understanding of the GA designation may change, given things like the recent decision to put a GA icon in mainspace; therefore, this proposal may be worth revisiting in a few months, after we've had time to objectively measure what impact that change has had. But I maintain that, as long as GA remains a meaningless designation as far as readers are concerned, it shouldn't be on the front page; all it does is show them the messy inner-workings of the encyclopedia, which are interesting to editors but not to casual readers. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think the recent decision to display GA icons to readers is a very clear sign that we now feel the GA designation is rigorous enough to be useful to readers if they knew about it. If you're waiting to tell people about GA until they already know about it, you are not so much putting the cart before the horse as expecting the cart to also be the groom and stableboy. :D Happy‑melon 10:17, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah i really like this idea. It will increase the overall quality of the wikipedia.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support. A lot of excellent hooks never get on to DYK either because the article took more than 5 days to construct or because the excellent hook fact went in more than 5 days after creation. This would give the article a second chance to get on the front page and to much higher quality than the usual brand new article. SpinningSpark 14:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Of the four new GAs per day, how many were already DYKs? I assume we wouldn't re-run new GAs that had already been on the front page. I like the idea of a new section including new GAs and FAs - after all, as long as the FA promotion rate stays above 1/day (or, given the backlog, as long as it stays anywhere near 1/day) most FAs will never see the front page either. Adding a DYK-like list of new GAs and FAs might be a better idea. Alternatively, I'd say reserve one entry in DYK for newly promoted FAs and GAs. But in that case, I'd say restrict it to content that has not seen the front page before. Guettarda (talk) 14:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree that no DYK should be allowed if it has already been on the front page in any way, and all "newly promoted" GAs should be first time GAs. Crum375 (talk) 14:40, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support. One or more DYK hooks devoted to new GAs, in the same DYK section, is a good idea. Binksternet (talk) 14:43, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, placing newly promoted good articles in DYK goes against the purpose of DYK, which is to promote new content creation. I would strongly oppose creating special rules for GA DYK hooks that would increase the complexity of the DYK process. I don't think a "Today's Good Article" section would be a good idea either, as it would detract from Today's Featured Article. Personally I think the way to promote good articles on the Main Page would be as part of a Featured Topics section, but that's a different proposal in and of itself. –Grondemar 15:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Only allowing newly promoted GAs is encouraging new content, except it focuses on new quality, instead of new quantity. Crum375 (talk) 15:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
    • "Newly promoted" and "new content" don't correlate. Sometimes an article goes from nil to FA in less than a month (Akutan Zero). But far more often the hook-worthy content is already there for years. I'd put it otherwise, promote old content as in FAs and GAs, old as in seasoned, trustworthy rather than stale. East of Borschov (talk) 15:54, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
      • I think the front page focus should be two-fold: enticing readers to dig in, and encouraging editors to improve the content by giving their work recognition. In my opinion, the DYK is a good mechanism for both goals, but I think it is more attractive to new readers when it's focused on "newness". And that new content can be either new quantity, as in "new articles", or new quality, as in "newly promoted GAs". Crum375 (talk) 16:04, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't object to recognising new GAs on the Main Page in a separate section, but not in DyK. DYK and GA are sufficiently different themes, both in the time involved and nature of work, to be kept conceptually separate. MickMacNee (talk) 15:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Make quality the aim, even if that means fewer DYKs per day. Get rid of stub DYKs, they only encourage silly competions. --Philcha (talk) 15:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose DYK serves a categorically different purpose on the main page then GA. As the "baby brother" of FAs, GAs already have a clear delineated path towards being featured on the main page. Also, I'll add, that when DYK frequently has a two week backlog (as has been the case numerous times this past year), it would be a misguided approach to open up even more noms to the process and create an even larger backlog. Maybe this proposal would have merit if we frequently encountered the opposite scenario of DYK not even having enough noms to daily fill the slots. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 15:58, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support including newly promoted GAs in DYK, to promote quality improvement. I don't believe this should be any particular number or percentage of the DYK items; just allow new GA hooks to be submitted along with the rest, and use whatever makes the cut. --RL0919 (talk) 16:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support the basic idea, but 50% seems far to high so I'm inclined to agree with RL0919's suggestion that new GA hooks be submitted in the same way as new article hooks. Alzarian16 (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes support this new suggestion. I mean it will really step up the quality of the overall Wikipedia. It will also work as a "carrot" for people to do the extra work that will make an certain article into GA-status article.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad you support it; do you need to support it twice, though? (They do say vote early and often.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Oops didnt ment to sound like i supported it twice.. :). Lets hope it passes tough.--ÅlandÖland (talk) 17:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• I don't really like this idea as I think DYK as an ecouragement for new/inexperienced editors (here is something a new user without knowing lots of manual of style etc. can contribute and get to appear on the main page) is a great idea and having a fixed number of GA's taking room from these new articles would be something I would oppose. However I would be agreeable to having new GA's appearing on DYK so long as: (1) they stay for the same period of time as DYK's (2) there is no fixed number of GA's required at any time (3) they must be nominated within 5 days of promotion to GA (same length of time as a new article has to be nominated) and (4) they cannot reappear on DYK if they have already been on DYK before they became a GA. I think that at the current rate of GA promotions DYK could just about cope with those extra articles, but if this just becomes a proposal to remove/reduce new articles on the main page then I am against it. Davewild (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support the idea of recognizing GAs on the Main Page, not sure about this particular implementation. DYK says it is from Wikipedia's newest articles; that at least will need to change if this passes. Ucucha 17:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support I think this is a good idea. From what I've seen recently, Wikipedia has been somewhat stagnating lately -- in the early days, it made all the sense in the world to focus on article creation, because we needed more articles. Now that we have over 3 million articles, how many more do we really need. What needs to happen is to get editors focused on quality over quantity. While some have argued that we shouldn't focus on our internal processes to the public, we need to get some of these processes known more, which will in turn increase awareness and participation in them. Increasing the presence and awareness of GAs on the main page is one way to do that (though I would still be opposed to adding a 'GA of the day' -- overkill). WTF? (talk) 17:47, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - There was recently a discusion at DYK about increasing the minimum article standards (Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 55#DYK rule change proposal: increase prose), and I'll repeat here what I wrote there:

DYK is not based on article quality, beyond a certain minimum standard, and adjustments to the minimum standard won't change that. Every qualifying article gets a one sentence listing for n hours, and a Featured Article gets the same coverage here as one that just barely meets the minimum. The point of DYK is not to highlight the best work (or even good work) from Wikipedia; there are other venues for that. The point of DYK is to highlight new contributions. We want them to meet certain minimum standards, but the minimums are deliberately set low. It's an easy recognition that new editors can get without even knowing about it beforehand, and as such it's a way to retain those new editors. Also, by listing new contributions on the main page, it serves as an entrance point for potential new editors to jump in and contribute to an existing article. It can be a lot easier to contribute to a new or recently expanded article than to one that is stable as, for example, a GA or FA.

cmadler (talk) 18:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think this proposal is necessarily in conflict with these points. The proposal emphasizes "newness" in the form of newly promoted, i.e. newly improved articles. This is very similar to the current DYK rules allowing newly added quantity, except here we propose newly added quality. As far as creating "an entrance point for potential new editors to jump in and contribute to an existing article", I think anyone enticed by the current DYK to add quantity to an existing small article, can similarly be enticed to add quality to an existing article. And the bottom line is that since there are only a few newly promoted GAs per day, this would not significantly detract from the current emphasis on quantity, but will add a bit of quality, which can't hurt if our goal is to improve the encyclopedia. Crum375 (talk) 18:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Newness != newness. Newborn is not the same as newly deceased, though they're both "new". There is a difference in kind here. Further, newly promoted does not mean newly improved. I suspect that a good portion of the time, GA promotion is more "newly noticed". For that matter, GA criteria (like FA criteria) specificly require stability. cmadler (talk) 19:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't know about others, but all my own GAs required a serious investment of time and effort to get them promoted. Are you aware of any case where it was just "newly noticed" and quickly promoted without recent improvement? If so, it should be easy to verify on the article's history. And you are right about the "stability" requirement, but that means that there are no recent edit wars among editors reverting to their favored versions, not that it hasn't been recently expanded or improved. In fact, even FAs, which have the same stability requirement, are often expanded significantly just prior to nomination. Crum375 (talk) 19:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• • In all honesty, I try to stay as far away as possible from the GA/FA process, so no I can't point to specific examples. cmadler (talk) 20:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • The very person who started the discussion that started this, User:ÅlandÖland, is an example. He has a GA credit for Oba Chandler; as far as I can tell, what happened with that article was some other people did a lot of work cleaning it up to address issues from previous reviews, then disappeared, then ÅlandÖland and made some small edits (mostly adding footnotes to existing text) and nominated it for GA. The article itself was certainly not newly improved. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• Support: The "incentives not to create more articles" rationale I think is a very good one. I do think the backlog issue is an important one, though. I would frankly address this by modifying the criteria for new articles (e.g. perhaps have a simple point scale on which each new artice is rated for appeal and uniqueness, and cull only the top rated articles rather than trying to list every one submitted). --Mcorazao (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Interestingness criteria, and increasing the competition at DYK, is something that has been talked about many times (I myself have sometimes espoused it) but never gains consensus. The problem is that there's no objective way to evaluate which hooks or articles are interesting or boring, and if we let it happen just naturally (i.e., by removing nominations that don't get reviewed in 5 days---the idea being that the interesting ones will attract attention and the boring ones won't), people might complain about unfairness, standards would fluctuate wildly based on who happens to be free on certain weeks, and it would be open to gaming (people agreeing to review one another's nominations, etc.). To be honest, while I think it would improve the quality of DYKs, I don't think it will ever be workable. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Makes sense. --Yair rand (talk) 20:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• More input anyone. The more opinions raised the better.?--ÅlandÖland (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Grondemar's comments above hit the nail on the head. DYK serves an important function in encouraging entirely new content and thereby expanding the scope of Wikipedia. Cbl62 (talk) 04:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
• Support, I think it is a good idea because it puts interesting and quality articles on the front page that readers wouldn't otherwise come across (a cool thing about wikipedia). It could make readers (and writers) aware of the whole GA/FA process. I never even knew of DYK/GA until someone nominated an article I was poking at. I think that finding out about the "behind-the-scenes" stuff can open the door to new editors. I think it could make them more interested in wikipedia in general, not just the lone article/subject that got them to the article/talkpage in the first place. I think that's how it was for me anyway. So I think this idea is a benefit for readers and writers. I think that we should be careful not to drown out the newly-created-DYKs, but maybe with the influx of potential GAs the quality of the DYK-hooks would rise; maybe we could be more critical about the DYK-hooks that go on the front page?--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 09:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - I think it significant that virtually all the "Support" votes here come from people who do not contribute to DYK, while most of the "Opposes" come from those who do. Well, I guess an idea seems a lot rosier when you personally will not have to deal with the consequences of it. Right now we feature 32 hooks a day, with an extra half dozen hooks a day from GA we would either have to have more hooks per update or run more frequent updates. It's more hooks to verify, more updates to prepare, and we are already chronically short of manpower as people generally get burned out very quickly at DYK. And is it really fair that non-participants in the project should be allowed to vote to dump more work into someone else's lap? I have my doubts about that. Gatoclass (talk) 11:59, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

• It's hard to predict, but given the GA stats, you might get 2-3 new GA candidate hooks per day, compared to the current 32. I think the emphasis on quality vs. quantity will send a message and have a beneficial all-around effect, and will more than make up for that slight increase. But if that's still too much work, I can see the GA project nominating and vetting its own daily GA hook and providing it to the DYK pre-approved and ready to use. I think it would be better to do it in one centralized place, however. Crum375 (talk) 13:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

• It seems highly speculative that making GA status a means to having articles displayed on the Main page would have no effect on the volume of articles being sent to GA. Currently GA status allows for a cutesy green plus sign to be displayed at the top of the article and, for those into such things, on the user page of individuals involved with the article. It is a false assumption that this incentive is able to motivate our entire community of article writers. This proposal would add a new and highly desirable benefit to dealing with the GA process. If things haven't changed significantly since I studied psychology and economics, this proposal would result in a large increase in new GA nominations and promotions as there would finally be an answer to the question, "What is a good article good for?" --Allen3 ^talk 13:58, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think this should be done be the GA group rather than the DYK group. Thus the people at DYK who are overworked would have their work load reduced by say 25% - 50% depending on how much we want to have come from GAs.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:05, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
• (ec)If we allow ourselves to speculate, yes, this could increase the number of new GAs on WP, which would obviously be a beneficial effect. But the complaint I was responding to above was that it would create too much work for the DYK team, though one could also imagine that allowing GA hooks would give the DYK a new life, focused on quality and not only quantity. And therefore it's possible that the DYK vetting process could attract new helpers with this new twist. Crum375 (talk) 14:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

• (re Gato) It is also a bit worrisome that several of the "Support" votes are WP:JUSTAVOTEs like "support, good idea" (ÅlandÖland (all 3 of his votes), Binksternet, Yair rand) and several are supporting or proposing things that are different than the current proposal (Aiken's support is not for this proposal but for eliminating DYK entirely; RL0919's is essentially for a different nomination process; Ucucha says he supports the spirit of this change but not the specifics of the proposal). Looks like a classic case of voting with bold letters starting before enough discussion happened. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

• CommentWe should be directing out readers to our better work. This is good for them as they get to read something that is well written, broad in scope, and true to the best of our ability. This is good for Wikipedia as people will realize that a large portion of Wikipedia is well written. It is also go for Wikipedia as as stated above it will increase peoples interest in improving content.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:22, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment What about a combination of both sources? We can provide articles for the DYK section from either new articles or newly promoted good articles. It can have the best of both worlds, and wont risks the supply of articles from running out during a time with few promoted good articles --MBelgrano (talk) 14:17, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

• Yes I think that is the current suggestion. Have a portion of the DYK from the newest articles and a portion from the GAs. This will either attract more people to the DYK task force or the people at GA could put them together.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:29, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Robot reader

I was just reading slashdot and noticed they have a robot reader. [4] Here is one open source text to speech program [5] Would there be interest in attempting to combine this into Wikipedia? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Text-to-speech software is not good enough to do any sort of automation of WP:SPOKEN work. This is an example of what espeak produces. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I have a great text to speech program at home that uses dictionaries of spoken words. It is very listenable but unfortunately is not public domain. This is for people who cannot see text. But I guess they usually have there own programs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

RE:Good Lists

A few weeks ago, User:Iankap99 proposed Good Lists. After disputes with, User:Raaggio, Raaggio left with the question "Why do you propose this? Is there something about the current system that you dislike or find dysfunctional? If there is, then point it out. But if there isn't, then I think proposing this for the sake of proposing isn't very productive." About three days later, I responded saying the following.

“ I see what Iankap99 means, in the grading scheme template, the GA editing suggestion reads:

• Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.
  

The FA editing suggestion reads:

• No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.
  

Unlike with lists, there are seven different classes for articles. I'm not proposing that there should be seven classes for lists as well, but there should be more classes to give a more specific definition of what the article's quality can be classified as. The FL editing suggestion reads:

• No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available.
  

The List editing suggestion reads:

• Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized.
  

Here is an example of a list (according to the suggestion): List of aikidoka
Here is an example of a recently added Featured list: Pussycat Dolls discography
Here is an example of an article that is in-between (GL quality): List of Slipknot concert tours, List of Metallica concert tours
The GL editing suggestion should read something like:

• Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured list on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.

”

I think I brought up a good point, especially with the examples. CrowzRSA ^{19:08, 4 June 2010 (UTC)}

Discussions and layout

Why is this site's architecture and organization so labyrinthine? The design and flow of the site is painfully hard to use. That is, if you are participating in the community aspect of the site, for merely reading the articles the site serves its purpose wonderfully. But when trying to contribute to the site people immediately become lost. There are many tags, many templates, many bots, different edits, many categories, many types of users, many portals, and many groups.

The site specific informational pages such as the FAQ, various portals, or special pages for some reason aren't designed for ease of reading and comprehension. There is a plethora of links on each page, that all lead to inevitably more lexicon thrown at you.

Do people really think that the current state of the discussion page is the most effective way to talk about the article? Rather than reading an actual discussion on a topic relating to the article, I get yet another wikipedia article in which I can't tell where statements end and the comments regarding it begin.

My suggestion simply that there should be an effort made in revising and simplifying the community aspect of the site.

Make the hierarchy of pages simpler. Revise major hub pages, such as the portals, to include a clear information hierarchy designed to improve the ease of comprehension. Change the discussion pages from another article to an actual forum of sorts. And a more liberal application of the "page in a nutshell" banners, those help

I realize that the site is large and inevitably will always be increasing in complexity. I realize that most if not all progress and edits to the site are made by volunteers. Neither of these things should stand in the way of improving usability however. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.147.56.13 (talk • contribs) 03:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussion pages aren't "another article", they are forums. People make posts and other people respond to them, just like I am doing now. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:25, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Formal recognition for Gianos special status as Editors Champion?

How about we leave the drama and bickering at AN and ANI?
The following discussion has been closed by Resolute. Please do not modify it.
By elevating Giano to the status of editors champion, drama can be reduced by curtailing the inevitable outcry after he successfully defends a constructive content building editor from harassment. It will also help fill the void vacated by Jimbo Wales when he retreated from his role as founder, thus lessening the countervailing influence on the admin corps. Background: Giano has recently been instrumental in ending a campaign of harassment against one of our most prolific content contributors who is also a practicing scientist and one of our best researchers. Prior to Gianos intervention majority opinion seemed to condone the harassment, but Giano turned the tide ending what has been described as a "reign of error" and a "terrifying wiki-experience on an almost epic scale" . During this defence Giano was blocked by an administrator, and naturally the block was swiftly lifted. This led to an outcry that has seen a perma ban proposal against Giano, partly justified by the argument that everyone should be treated equally under the rules. If we don't want to IAR regarding Giano, its surely better to amend the rules rather than loose a peerless and stylish article creator like Giano who also happens to be a noble and effective defender of content building editors. The need for a Countervailing influence. The admin corps combine the roles of policing with maintenance. This means that power is concentrated in the hands of a group with a natural tendency to side with vandal fighters, deletionists and drive by tagers in their disputes against content builders and inclusionists. Granted, Arbcom exists, but they are invariably all drawn from the admin corps and are constrained in their ability to intervene. Granted, there are many admins who retain independence and obviously go about their work with the greater good of the community in mind. Its not disputed that in the main the admin corps has done a great job keeping order here and can be congratulated for the projects success. But there still seems to be some degree of group think when one looks at the ANI board. Thus, rare editors like Giano whos shear force of personality allows him to effectively intercede on behalf of content builders is invaluable for the health of the community. Details of proposal Giano is formerly elevated to the role of editors champion, where he is granted immunity to being blocked while engaged in defending editors from attacks, in cases where the attackers are supported by more than one admin. This role does not mean Giano should be a point of contact for challenging any one decision from an individual admin. He is not encouraged to continue pursuing his case once attackers have backed down, there is no need to expect anyone to make a full apology if they don't wish to. As Gianos special status is already the de facto state of affairs, its suggested this proposal should not need full consensus to be implemented, only majority support. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC) I'm afraid the sysops will have their way, anyway. Giano may have some time left, but the sysops will finish Norton quite quickly. East of Borschov (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2010 (UTC) I hope not, it looked like there had been a reversal of opinion thanks to Giano, even an admin that had previously been against RAN spoke up in his favour (see RANs talk page). Even an arbritator weighed in to protect one of RANs images, see here. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:35, 5 June 2010 (UTC) I think you're fundamentally confusing the RAN issue with your proposal to give Giano the right to be a rude editor, and are anyway over-inflating NYB's status as "an arbitrator" – he did not close that discussion (yes, he closed the discussion rather than "protecting an image") with his Arb hat on. As I think you probably knew. ╟─TreasuryTag►co-prince─╢ 18:38, 5 June 2010 (UTC) TT, NYB is not the only arbitrator (acting as an individual admin) to have expressed a view in relation to this mess you created, and none have made comments favourable to your positions. Further, if you think administrator (and arb-hatless) NYB's close did not save that image from deletion, then try overturning it at DRV - you might learn something from the response. EdChem (talk) 19:15, 5 June 2010 (UTC) As you wish. ╟─TreasuryTag►Speaker─╢ 19:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC) The sad thing is, this is probably a real proposal. Welcome to the reality of Wikipedia 2010. It's truly a fucked up place. MickMacNee (talk) 18:30, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Oppose as the single worst idea since Abraham Lincoln said, "I'm tired of kicking about the house – let's go to the theatre tonight!" ╟─TreasuryTag►constabulary─╢ 18:32, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Oh, and at least the (absurd) title of "editors champion" could have the apostrophe in the correct place, surely? ╟─TreasuryTag►constabulary─╢ 18:36, 5 June 2010 (UTC) its [sic] suggested [sic] this proposal should not need full consensus to be implemented, only majority support – yeah, and while we're at it, fuck that. ╟─TreasuryTag►You may go away now.─╢ 18:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC) If you dont like the title what about Editor's Tribune ? It has pleasing parallels with the immunity those champions of the people had in defending the powerless back in ancient Rome. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Good god, no and I say that as someone generally supportive of Giano. I really hope this is a joke; it would have all the problems of AMA but none of the (supposed) advantages. – iridescent 18:41, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Fred, I know this meant as some light hearted and much needed releif, but "Doom and Gloom" above have already shown up failing to see that, it aint a good idea. Probably best to abandon. Lets all have some laughs later.  Giacomo  18:52, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Im serious about the proposal, allthough as you say there is a fun side to it. Even if folk see it only as a joke, they may agree on the need for a countervailing influence and that could lead to expanding the role for crats, arbs or something else. But for sure if you dont want the role , we should archive the thread. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC) It was a kind thought and I appreciate it, but it will be wrongly construed.  Giacomo  19:07, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Comment - (ec) While at first blush this proposal is ridiculous on the face of it (and therefore presumably meant humorously), after some consideration, it makes some sense. As long as Giano is, effectively, untouchable, why not make him an Ombudsman, and allow him to use his special protected status to bring to the community's attention inequities and transgressions which are otherwise difficult or impossible to get anything done about? We don't have an effective procedure for dealing with admin misbehavior – yes, there are procedures, but there only efficacious in the very worst situations, and every proposal for dealing with normal day-to-day admin/editor conflicts runs up against the quite reasonable fear that such procedures will be used to harrass admins to the detriment of their ability to police the project – so why not give him the chance to see if he can use his special status to help the project rather than to hurt it? Perhaps he would overcome his behaviorial shortcomings if given semi-official capacity. (Also noting, per his insertion of himself into the TT/RAN situation, that whether we confer Ombudsmanship on him or not, if he chooses to act like one, in the current circumstance there's little or nothing that can be done about it, as long as there's some admin somewhere willing to unblock him, and other admins hold back for fear of wheel-warring. Unfortunately, that's the observable reality of the situation.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Giano has as much power to raise issues as anybody else does already. I think everybody is just wrong if they genuinely think we need such a position, those people really seem to have no concept of what Wikipedia actually is, and certainly never learn from the perrennially failed 'editors club' proposals. Sure, it's a bit screwed up that certain admins cannot be removed, and filing an arbcom case is like going to the Supreme Court, but that's not going to be improved by deifying Giano even more than he already is. The only special power Giano has over any other editor, is to be able to include in his campaigns rank incivility and out and out personal attacks, knowing as he does that most admins will not stand in his way, because he has this behavioural flaw apparently unreformable by any sanction, where he cannot tell the difference between raising a valid concern, and appending an insult to the same, as he simultaneously goes on some long and winding screed about Them and The Conspiracy. There's a huge history as to why he does this, but seriously, it's fucking old and it's fucking dull, and it usually has nothing, not one goddam thing, to do with the issue of the day. It excites his followers, but it's all rather cultish tbh, and doesn't do a thing for the average joe. Infact, just like User:Ceoil recently, it can even be damaging if you get too swept up in it, and simply forget some of the basic prinicples of this site. MickMacNee (talk) 19:45, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Sure, everybody else has the same ability to raise issues that Giano does, but the rest of us don't have carte blanche to hang on by the teeth like a terrier and keep gnawing away at it. That kind of behavior from one of the rank-and-file would soon be rewarded with a block, with no friendly admin hanging around waiting to undo it. To be clear, I don't think it's right or fitting or beneficial to the project (generally speaking) that Giano (and some others) have this special status, I'm just going by what I've observed in the past 5 years, and it's clearly the de facto status quo that they do... so, as long as that's the case, and attempts by the community to deal with him are toothless – sorry, Mick, but you knew that your community ban proposal wasn't going to fly; the community can agree to ban someone, but unless all admins are willing to enforce it, it's just electrons on a screen – why not try to co-opt it into something useful? It probably won't work, given the personality involved, but it's worth a try, and if it doesn't work, we're no worse off than before. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:18, 5 June 2010 (UTC) "May the last King be strangled by the guts of the last Priest..." LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Ban FeydHuxtable. If anything, this proposal is evidence that FeydHuxtable should be banned for shit-stirring. Yilloslime TC 19:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Its not vigilante justice when its state-sponsored. And LOL @ Yilloslime.--Milowent (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Question—could the proposer(s) please explain why anybody with an "editors [sic] champion" role should need the ability to attack other users? Thanks. ╟─TreasuryTag►Speaker─╢ 19:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Thats a good question, allthough your concern was taken into account. As per the details section of the proposal: He is not encouraged to continue pursuing his case once attackers have backed down So the proposal is specifically not intended to give anyone aid in making personal attacks - quite the reverse. For the record I didnt agree with the "odious" remark. I know I said your original mass noms ammounted to harrasssment, but on reflection i think you were probably acting in good faith, my judgment was impaired due to the recent loss of ANobody and the attack on RAN happening almost directly after. Its the mass pile on harrassment against a single outstanding editor that really objectionable, especially as on Wiki it seems to be impossible for any ordinary individual to defend themselves for long without being blocked. The special status for Giano, combined with his repuatation and patrician qualities should enable him to perform his important role of defending out numbered content contributors with less need to attack while doing so. Sometimes in these dramas, unlike content disptutes outside of AfD where personally I've always been able to settle matters amicably, it seems unavoidable to be a little negative if you want to stop aggressors getting their way. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:30, 5 June 2010 (UTC) "Less" need to attack? When is there ever any need to attack, may I ask? ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 19:50, 5 June 2010 (UTC)