Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)

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The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
Before creating a new section, please note:

• Discussions of technical issues belong at Village pump (technical).
• Discussions of policy belong at Village pump (policy).
• If you're ready to make a concrete proposal and determine whether it has consensus, go to the Village pump (proposals). Proposals worked out here can be brought there.

Before commenting, note:

• This page is not for consensus polling. Stalwart "Oppose" and "Support" comments generally have no place here. Instead, discuss ideas and suggest variations on them.
• Wondering whether someone already had this idea? Search the archives below, and look through Wikipedia:Perennial proposals.

Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for two weeks.

« Archives, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60

Redesigning the About page

Hello, I am currently working on redesigning our about page. I started a draft at User:Interstellarity/sandbox where we can improve on the page and was hoping to get some ideas on how to redesign the page. I welcome anyone to edit my sandbox to improve the page. Interstellarity (talk) 15:40, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I was wondering if and when I'll get a response to this post. Interstellarity (talk) 15:57, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

To get the discussion started can you explain the background to this proposed change? What issues you see with the current page? BilledMammal (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello @BilledMammal,

The current About page is too long. I would like to make it more user-friendly especially for newcomers since many newcomers aren't willing to read that long of a page. I would like to shorten it like many about pages you see online. Many of the sections can easily be explained using links. Interstellarity (talk) 17:14, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

This. The current page reads like an article, not where some readers might be looking for out "About" information. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:51, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

The current page is here. It is pretty obviously far too long, but shortening it will require a lot of effort, as it suffers from the same problem that everything designed by a committee does: everyone wants to keep "their" bit in. Does anyone really think that anyone reads it? I certainly never have until now, and I've been editing for fifteen years. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:11, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

That’s exactly what I thought, but then I looked the page information and apparently it gets about 20,000 page views a day. I like the redesigned page, we need a simpler layout for it. Bluealbion (talk) 05:34, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I was about to say that no one even reads this. But then I realise that it has never had less than 10k views in the past 12 months and going as high as 40k views on certain days, averaging 20k daily pageviews. Obviously, a bunch of sections don't really belong to an "About" page. Take the "feedback and questions" section for example. I really like the new, shorter page, but I think some of that 20k daily viewers visit the page to read the sections that are about to be removed. Where do they go now? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 06:48, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

The viewership is because this page is linked prominently on the site UI, in both the site sidebar and (at least in Timeless) the site footer. IznoPublic (talk) 18:40, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

comments section

@Interstellarity: I think you have some interesting ideas. how is this proposal going? --Sm8900 (talk) 15:08, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sm8900: I’m not sure what you mean by how the proposal is going. Perhaps if I make the change, more people will comment. Interstellarity (talk) 23:00, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I see you've done that; good idea. The content is good, but I wonder if a more standard format would be better, as it is quite different from standard article format. BilledMammal (talk) 03:50, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Let's try a format that is readable for all platforms. Just make a normal page. Moxy- 04:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Help:Introduction to Wikipedia is in the format of the proposed About page. It is directly linked to home page and is right here:

Welcome to Wikipedia

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Narutmaru (talk) 09:03, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

• Hi there ! I think a change like the one are your proposing needs a RfC to get community approval. I personally oppose the change, the original version has more information and gave a better glimpse of what Wikipedia is about. Alexcalamaro (talk) 04:51, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Alexcalamaro: I respectfully disagree with you. While I'm not against an RfC to get community approval, About pages on many websites tend to be short and sweet. We should not provide more information than what is necessary for an About page to function to its original purpose. If we need to provide more info, we can use links to link to the appropriate page. The original About page is too long and not everyone has the time to read everything about it. We should provide at most 10 paragraphs of what Wikipedia is about so that people are more willing to read it. Interstellarity (talk) 11:59, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe we could reframe the discussion as a content v.s. title issue. I mean, the original article could be move to a new one titled "Introduction to Wikipedia" or "Wikipedia overview", and link it from a "see also" section in the "about" article you have created. Alexcalamaro (talk) 12:56, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Option to change/edit "edit summaries" once published.

Occasionally due to touch errors or some oversight, editors (including me) may fail to provide adequate edit summaries or edit summaries that are focused on the point; I believe an option that allows for editing the "edit summaries" would be extremely useful.

Also, this feature can be useful if the editor accidentally leaves out the edit summary before publishing, so having the option to add or edit the edit summary is a sound idea in my opinion.

Fenharrow (talk) 10:55, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

If you're going to edit an edit summary, then you need to be able to supply an edit summary for the edit of your edit summary. That edit summary would need to be editable too. Further, we'd need people to be able to see the history of an edited edit summary, and to patrol edit summary edits and deal with bad edits that someone might make to an edit summary. All this seems more work than would be worthwhile when you could just make a dummy edit to enter a corrected summary into the page history. Anomie⚔ 11:04, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes. I have often wished that I could change an edit summary in order to pretend that I never make a typo, but have realised that this would lead to the infinite regression mentioned by Anomie. Most of the time we should be more relaxed about such things and just let them go, and on the odd occasion where the meaning is not clear then the dummy edit method works fine. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:26, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

After the edit is saved, only two things can be done with the edit summary, and both of those may only be done by admins: hide it in its entirety, or restore it to exactly what it had been before it was hidden. Both actions show in the deletion log for the page - see for example this log. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:52, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

If you make a mistake in an edit summary, make a dummy edit with the correction. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:08, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Fenharrow. Go to your Preferences and click on the Editing tab. Scroll down to Editor and check Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary (or the default undo summary). Never forget an edit summary again. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 08:33, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Ideas for revisions to Template:Basic information

I would like to propose some changes to Template:Basic information. this is based on valuable feedback and comments that I received on a prior proposal. this new proposal leaves most of the existing template in place. it mainly adds two new groups, at the bottom. I did relocate some links; I have highlighted these by using a label "MOVED" to highlight their new locations.

I welcome any and all comments, feedback, ideas, etc on this proposal. thanks!!

{{User:Sm8900/templates/template basic info two|state=expanded}}

--Sm8900 (talk) 14:35, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Section for comments (revision to Template:Basic information)

• The Help Desk link in "Getting Assistance" is redundant to the "Requests for help" link, which does a better job of explaining which requests go where. Everything in the Research row except the Reference Desk should be in the "Sourcing and referencing row". I fail to see the difference between "Wikipedia community" and "Community groups", and don't understand why the Data section belongs in the latter. I would instead propose:
  • Move the Signpost link to Wikipedia community
  • Move the Wikipedia Library and Resource Exchange sections to Sourcing and Referencing, and add the Library Newsletter inside the parentheses after Wikipedia Library
  • Move the Data section to "About Wikipedia"

The rest would be left as it is in the original template. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:08, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

thanks for your helpful input. Based on your comments, I renamed the section for "Community groups, news" to simply "Groups,news." the existing section for "Community" is for standing resources, under this proposal. the new section for "Groups" would be for group efforts which are intrinsically fluid in nature.

for that reason, the links for news are also included, as the news sources here illustrate new efforts, events and projects being carried out on a continuous basis by the community. the data section fulfils a similar role; it is for fluid databases and resources which provide updated data to reflect current and recent activity and changes in wikipedia.

I feel the two new sections at the bottom are useful as an addition; the point is not topical consolidation, the point is to highlight these resources due to their role as interactive and/or fluid resources for individual editors. the role of the library, the reference desk, etc is to serve as a current resource for current needs. the existing section for "reference and sourcing" highlights links to procedures for referencing, not interactive community resources. so in my opinion, that is why these new sections would be useful. I do appreciate your insightful comments on this. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 15:14, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• I think the organization could use a bit of work. The "information" section, for example, is sort of like a catch all and contains a real mix of stuff, there's reader facing stuff, editor facing stuff, bits of policies and guidelines etc. I would get rid of that section and move the links elsewhere, e.g. I would move the manual of style to the "policies and guidelines" section and delete the duplicate link to the simplified version. Plus it doesn't make a lot of sense to have an "information" section in an "information" template. Do you have a sandbox of this where other people can make changes? 192.76.8.78 (talk) 16:43, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

  {{ping|192.76.8.78}}, that is an excellent idea. Based on your very helpful comment, I have set up a sandbox at the page below. please do absolutely feel free to edit this in any way that you wish. and to anyone else, I can set up multiple additional sandboxes for anyone else's use; please feel free to let me know, if you wish. thanks!

Sandbox page: User:Sm8900/templates/Sandbox draft template basic info 

Sm8900 (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll make some edits in a couple of hours when I get some free time! 192.76.8.78 (talk) 17:00, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

that's terrific! by the way, I absolutely agree with all of your specific points entirely, in your comment above. please feel free to go ahead and fully make every one of the edits and revisions that you suggest above, to the fullest extent. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 17:01, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Now that we are at 74% using mobile view and only 25% of normal view scrolling to the bottom of the page...these templates are basically not used anymore.....thus dont care about them anymore. That said less is more....I Would recommend trimming of links not more.Moxy- 17:17, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

@Moxy, I would be totally glad to implement your suggestion to trim some parts of this template. especially since I feel that the grouping of the various pages in the existing template is not necessarily intuitive, or easy to use for the average user, editor, etc. however, i would still want to add the links that i have suggested to add, in my currrent proposal above. I would be glad to consider some other areas elsewhere in the existing template, where the overall size of this template could be trimmed. so if you wish, if you have some existing links in the current template that you think that you might wish to trim, reduce, etc. feel free to elaborate. i do appreciate your comment here. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 17:22, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

What, is this happening again? We have had Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 40#New: Template:Introductory pages for pages helpful as introduction, Help talk:Contents#Proposal for changes to nav box and Template talk:Basic information#Proposal for changes to nav box (possibly more), and I smell WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:29, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, I think I was pretty clear that I had a prior proposal on this item, in my opening comments above, when I said this is based on valuable feedback and comments that I received on a prior proposal. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 02:26, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Note on proposal

hi all. I am currently working on a revised version of this proposal at the sandbox link above, using some valuable edits provided by the IP User who has commented above. Since one commenter has alleged WP:MULTI on my part, I may try to use this existing section to achieve some kind of consensus for the proposed changes. I will resume discussion once the sandbox version is fully ready for discussion.

just for the record: for my prior initial proposal on this way back, my steps were as follows: (1) I first introduced the idea here at Village Pump for general brainstorming; then (2) I formally proposed the changes at the talk page for this navbox, and then made the changes to that navbox; then (3) the changes were reverted by a highly-respected and experienced editor, who asked me to propose the channges at the talk page for Help:Contents, which I was glad to do. when the proposal did not achieve consensus there, I waited for quite some time, and then came here to offer a totally new and alternative proposal.

In general, I am always open to all comments and viewpoints, on any proposal. I think the whole point of WP:Assume good faith is to reserve any blanket criticism for actual misconduct. any good-faith effort to bring this to the community in a fair-minded, open, and positive way, does not fall under WP:MULTI, even if one disagrees somewhat with any, or even most, of the interim steps; since the whole point of WP:MULTI is to deter people who seek to present a wholly-rejected proposal in a separate forum, without any connection to previous presentations. in the case of a proposal where one venue leads directly and positively to the next one, then any such concerns would be less relevant or applicable.

I truly appreciate the kind attention that I have received here from the community, and the valuable input above. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

NEW PROPOSAL

I would like to submit the revised navbox below as a new proposal. I have adopted some suggestions from comments here by other editors, as specified below;

• I have withdrawn any proposal to add new sections.
• We have removed over ten links, due to being overly technical/obscure or not needed for new editors. the list of removed links is at this page section.
• As a result of the above, the total size of this proposed navbox is smaller than the existing active version.

I would welcome any comments. Thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:17, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

just a quick placeholder comment, to keep this talk page section active in order to enable any comments to be made, and to prevent it from being archived prematurely. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 13:11, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

one more reply, just to leave this topic open for feedback for just a little while longer. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 23:53, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

comments on new proposal

section for comments.

Rough Idea: Word Links Box

Option to include a modifier in any given article.

If included, and another article makes mention of it and has a special collapsible "Word Links" box, that word will appear in the Word Links box in alphabetical order with a link to that article.

If article Fruit makes mention of article Apple and article Banana, and both article Apple and article Banana have WordLinks = True, and article Fruit has a Word Links box embedded at the bottom, the Word Links box will have Apple and Banana in that order with links to both those articles.

This avoids sea of blue, doesn't have issues with see also (because if an article mentions a specific kind of handcuffs and is about a famous person, that wouldn't normally be in see also), and allows users to in some ways still look up the information through linking.

Lede or Follow (talk) 17:36, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Lede or Follow perhaps I'm just being dumb here, but I don't understand what it is you're proposing, how it would work or what issue it aims to address. As I understand your proposal you tag an article with "wordlinks=true" then any article that links to it will have a link appear in a box at the bottom? Or are you proposing to remove inline links entirely and move them all to one giant box based on mentions?

I don't see what the point of duplicating/moving an articles' links to a box is? If you introduce a term that is unfamiliar to the reader then surely it's better to link it in the article text, in context, rather than expecting a reader to remember what they just read and find it somewhere else?

Whether a link is useful or not depends on the article you are reading, doesn't it, not what the other article is? A link to something like February would be useful in an article on months, but including it in the article of every event to take place in that month would be excessive.

What are the issues with Sea of blue you are trying to solve? Wouldn't a box full of links be much worse from a usability/readability standpoint? What issue do you see with "see also" sections?

Does Special:WhatlinksHere do some of what you are suggesting? A list of articles that link to this one? 192.76.8.78 (talk) 18:16, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikiacademy, Wikividhyalaya, Wikischool

Bonjour touts! The youth of the world is facing an educational crisis. Many are not able to access education, and for many school fees is too much. Following COVID-19, and online education, I request that we start a Wikimedia School, for students from Class 1-12 and even university topics. This proposed school will follow a curriculum that is well understandable, and will also instigate scientific temper in students. It will bring out the talents of students, and allow people, who might not have received an education, to live a much more prosperous life, helping the community and be a global citizen.

It can also act as a platform for existing schools to utilise, to improve education in their own schools. This, if started must have teachers (qualified enough) from all over the world and can also help in cultural exchange.

Not all can access the internet or has access to smartphones and other website recepting devices, some do not have any at all! Electricity is also scarce in many regions.

Thus, we should make sure that it is flexible, to cater to the electricity shortages many face, along with doing humanitarian aid like improving electricity and providing a device to those who truly need it.

All this must be done free of cost, without ads.

I hope this rough proposal can be taken to the next level and actually done.

Narutmaru (talk) 09:19, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

This is covered by Wikiversity. Dege31 (talk) 13:50, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Special:CreateAccount accessibility

The accessibility of Special:CreateAccount is no good. I created phab:T306314 for that which was just closed by Tgr as invalid. The way I see it, the "Request an account" link should be titled "I can't solve this CAPTCHA" instead of "Request an account" and link straight to https://accounts.wmflabs.org/. A "Request an account" link could be placed elsewhere (top or bottom probably) of the form to link the hostile Wikipedia:Request an account for, I don't know, vandals or something.
It's already uneasy for people to be forced into asking for help because we failed to determine they are human beings, the very least we can do is not make them jump through stupid hoops. If for some reason we aren't capable of that (too many vandals frequenting accounts.wmflabs.org? but they won't be stopped by the hostile on-wiki wizard, will they?), we should just omit the link entirely. Being plain inaccessible is marginally better(!) than throwing walls of text at people who are visually impaired. Which is what we do. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that WP:Request an account is too long and offtopic for someone who can't see well and/or is using a screen reader. It's also (unintentionally) a little condescending to visually impaired users, as able users are expected to behave without having to listen to the username policy and related warnings. We should have separate landing pages for people who can't create an account due to CAPTCHA and people who can't create an account for other reasons (IP block etc). Daß Wölf 23:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz I'm pretty sure our editors have been trying to be useful and helpful, not "hostile" to people, so maybe focus on a few things that could address some of your other concerns: Wikipedia:Request an account can certainly just be edited, and the button moved to the top, that should be an easy thing if there is some agreement. We could also make adjustments to the system messages at MediaWiki:Createacct-imgcaptcha-help and or MediaWiki:Createacct-captcha-help-url. I think the former is a better option instead of dumping someone at that external tool first, but I'm don't feel very strongly on that. Would need to test using an external link there - but that's doable. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:56, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I wasn't referring to any editor with the word "hostile", I was referring to Wikipedia:Request an account itself. It must have grown to become the monstrosity it is today, Wikipedia:Request an account (revision from 2008) was frankly better than what we have today. For people who were blocked and try to re-register it's perfect, but that's not what it's used for. If it was just the landing page my fury would be misplaced, but if only.. It keeps pushing to "just create an account yourself, you're not trying hard enough!", on the next page the second-to-last option is "I cannot read the CAPTCHA due to accessibility issues" and when you finally get to the bottom of the last page it gives you a trap button to leave first and a destructively styled button to ACC second. How welcome would that make you feel? Yes, I could edit those pages, but there's nothing there to salvage. If there ever was something that just defines WP:TNT, I'd say this is it. An external link on the system message works fine: [1]. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 23:07, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz Good news on that test, I don't have a strong feeling on this, but think we land that on a project page - but then make the link to have someone else make that account for you right at the top. Primary reason, if that external tool is down for any reason I don't prefer one of our highly visible messages going directly there. But you are right, it is far from ideal for someone to follow in that situation. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:18, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Xaosflux, that's a very good point, downtime just happens. A project page with the link at the top would be better in that regard. From a UI standpoint I'd prefer going straight to https://accounts.wmflabs.org/. Are there some useful stats on the uptime of that page? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 00:52, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Outstanding 'to-do' notifications.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T88781

I have an idea I would like to put forth to add a new tab of a page one can edit, or some form of flagging option one can activate and deactivate, to appear on the interface to remind regular Wikipedia account users of outstanding things to do on Wiki. they may otherwise forget. Basically, some form of notification to inform the user of his/her/their outstanding commitments of things they either wish to do themselves, or have agreed to do at the request of another user, but have not yet committed to.

The sandbox, in my opinion, is insufficient for this, not least because no visual notification exists to inform the account holder of something outstanding. (Maybe some form of check box like exists in the developer tab in Microsoft Excel?) Regards, --Kieronoldham (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@Kieronoldham can you describe that workflow a bit more? As far as what can be done already: editors can make a page, such as Special:MyPage/ToDoList, and you can use a script to make a tab point to that page. What type and in what conditions would you be looking for "visual notifications" to fire? — xaosflux ^Talk 23:23, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Sure, Xaosflux. Basically, when you have a talk page message, or something is reverted, or you are mentioned in a comment, you get the color "visual flag" that something is for your attention at the top of your user page and you need to read the notification; what I think would be beneficial is when you intend to commit to something (e.g. add references to an article or warrant removal of a tag etc.), some notification can be "flagged as outstanding" on your interface. Maybe something one can tick or otherwise mark as done as opposed to not done, and the color "visual flag" disappears or decreases from 3 to 2 if you have honored one outstanding to-do commitment, but, for example, have two remaining as outstanding? (Happy to expound further if required.)--Kieronoldham (talk) 23:43, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Just something automated that one cannot fail to miss/forget to see when logged in as opposed to relying on memory, Xaosflux. I did not know about the script.--Kieronoldham (talk) 23:47, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I use User:SD0001/W-Ping, which lets me mark a page for a future notification via watchlist. Certes (talk) 23:58, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

That is intriguing, Certes. Would help many, for sure. My concern is just how many of the registered editors worldwide are this savvy, though. Would be ongoingly fruitful for Wiki. if editors had the "constant recap" I am suggesting atop their user page by default. I believe (and obv. this is just my own opinion) something of the nature I am putting forth as an idea should be default on the interface. Just my opinion, obviously.--Kieronoldham (talk) 00:06, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Kieronoldham: I think phab:T88781 describes some software functionality that may be needed for this to be able to work. Another avenue would be bot-based, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RemindMeBot thought about this but the operator never went to trial. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:11, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

This is a rather interesting idea, and I currently have (as far as I'm aware) a monopoly on non-WMF echo notifications, but I'm not sure yet how exactly to implement this. Xaosflux, I got reminders for a while: User talk:Alexis Jazz (Diff 1038415593) but at some point I just stopped getting them. Not sure if it works now. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@DannyS712: is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 68 still in operations? — xaosflux ^Talk 09:24, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux @Alexis Jazz it should be - I've scheduled a reminder for myself that should be posted in an hour. I won't be around then, but when I'm back later today if it wasn't posted I'll spend some time investigating DannyS712 (talk) 11:05, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I got the reminder, so it should still be working DannyS712 (talk) 00:26, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

@DannyS712 thanks, my test worked too. Don't think this is the most user "friendly" system for someone like Kieronoldham to take advantage of, but it would work. (I am not complaining here - your bot, your rules - and thank you for following back up!!). I don't think Alexis_Jazz option with T306211 would work - since it relies on a continuously running script (though I suppose it could be turned in to some sort of crontab processor that runs on every page load via your user/common.js). So seems like there are 3 possible options:

1. phab:T88781 gets done one day and new workflows could be built (don't hold your breath)
2. phab:T306211 gets done one day, and get coupled with (a) a userscript/gadget that runs on page loads and (b) a crontab type per-user file (e.g. User/cron.json) that
3. A bot based option that does this stuff in batch in the background. Someone could build a userscript that would help manage the file that DannyS712 bot task 68 uses to make that a bit simpler to use maybe.

If anyone else has ideas, we'd love to hear them! — xaosflux ^Talk 13:33, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux what would make the script be more user friendly? I'm open to suggestions, though I may not have time to implement them DannyS712 (talk) 19:05, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

@DannyS712 will follow up on your usertalk :) — xaosflux ^Talk 19:13, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Make every word/term able to be defined.

In Wikipedia, it should be that while RightCtrl is pressed every word/term would become colored and clickable (with underlines for terms) and a link (if there is) to a Wikipedia page opens and if there's no page a short definition is shown for the word/term with the ability of showing more about it and its acronyms and everything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AdamMichaels784 (talk • contribs) 16:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiktionary. You're describing, essentially, Wiktionary. casualdejekyll 17:20, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I think they are defining something more like an interface that lets you click any word to get to the Wiktionary entry. BD2412 T 17:24, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

The way that they've described sounds extremely annoying from a user perspective, but perhaps some kind of right-click option? I'm not sure how workable that is with the current set-up. Theknightwho (talk) 23:59, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I believe that control+click (or a similar combination) does this on most web browsers. See also Wikipedia:Wikipedia doesn't use Allwiki. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:02, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Idea: In policies and guidelines, place links to the discussion pages that shaped them -- so all Wikipedians can easily learn of the decision-making processes and rationales behind policies

Hi everyone.

• The "problem": When you lookup Wikipedia policies and guidelines it is very difficult to find out the decision-making that has shaped them.
  • In other words, there is a lot of deliberation and effort that has gone into shaping those policies, but those deliberations become hard to know about unless you were taking part in them.
    • When I look up policies, I often wonder: What were the pros and cons that were weighed in choosing a certain policy? What were the arguments made? How much support did the final decision get?
• Why it matters: Wikipedians more easily learning how a policy decision was made can:

1. Make Wikipedia policies more robust and stable because all the underlying argumentation is accessible to everyone
2. Conversely, it can also help update some policies by more easily knowing when a policy was decided based on circumstances or arguments no longer applicable.
3. Reduce potentially unnecessary discussions when new Wikipedians not privy to the original decision making repeatedly propose changes that may have been already repeatedly considered previously.
   1. This also helps avoid "biting newcomers" by not having to resort to "shutting down" well-intentioned proposals that seasoned editors from their vantage point see as redundant.
4. Make new proposals or changes to policies much more grounded, constructive, potentially productive, by the proponent and any others being aware of previous deliberations.
5. And maybe redundant but in other words: it creates a more transparent system of institutional knowledge, so that the deliberations and decision-making of earlier generations of wikipedians are visible to later generations of wikipedians.

• Idea: In the policy pages, near specific pieces of them, place small unobtrusive links to the discussion(s) that created or modified them.
  • Further, to be practical, I would propose this apply going forward (new decisions get linked to their policy outcomes), but without requiring reconstructing and linking all past discussions to all existing policies, which I understand would be a near-impossible task (which speaks to the system being opaque in having decision-making and outcomes quite difficult to connect after the fact).
    • And to be clear: I am not positing that the currently the policy-making discussions are completely lost; they do exist deep in the wiki and someone really motivated could dig into the years of history of conversations in the Village Pump to painstakingly reconstruct a specific decision. The point here is to make easy to find them by creating a link between the policy outcome and the policy deliberation process.
• Because this is the idea lab, I am not coming here with a ready-to-implement proposal, but a more general idea/rough draft so get a sense of whether I am going in the right direction with this. What does the community think of the general sentiment? And, do you have any ideas on how to better implement it? Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 18:19, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@Al83tito the refernces system can be used, along with the project talk. For example see Wikipedia:Administrators#Notes - is something like that what you are looking for? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:54, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux Yes! The footnotes of Wikipedia:Administrators#Notes are a good example, and more specifically footnote #7 links to the discussion where a decision was made. That is indeed a real-life example of what I'd wish we could consistently do going forward. And while somehow first I thought of placing links adjacent to each piece of policy, the footnote system is more natural since we usem them all the time in actual articles.

This certainly sounds like a good idea, if it's not already done for most policies and guidelines, in that it promotes transparency and avoids reinvention of the wheel. I haven't thought about this for long yet, so there may be downsides that I haven't thought of. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

• I like the idea, but I am not sure if it is practical. One issue is that most policy and guideline provisions have evolved over time.

A particular provision might have first entered a policy back in 2006 - but it might have been reworded in 2010, tweaked several times between 2013 and 2016, and then reworded again in 2020… etc. Each rewording and tweak has (or should have) a related talk page discussion - and sometimes more than one. So deciding which discussion(s) to link to in the footnotes would be difficult. Blueboar (talk) 00:03, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blueboar if I understand you correctly you make two points: 1) it is too difficult now to go back in time and figure out all the multiple discussions that led to the shaping and reshaping of a piece of policy. And what I thinks is your larger point: 2) whether looking backwards or forwards, policies typically may be reshaped many times that it is too difficult to track all the decisions points even if we start from this point forward.

And you make good points that those are real hurdles to reckon with. I would like to brainstorm here , after identifying these challenges, if they are surmountable. I have some thoughts about potential remedies:

1. This proposal would only apply going forward, so no unreasonably exacting rule is retroactively applied on existing policies and guidelines today.
2. Wikipedia as a digital encyclopedia has the advantage that the space for footnotes is unlimited and mostly unobtrusive, so that multiple footnotes can be added to a piece of policy as it continues to evolve for a good number of years without creating clutter.
3. By placing in-line citations at the side of each piece of policy (each sentence of paragraph as appropriate), we can keep track of individual decisions at a more granular level. The more granular we go, the less likely is that a small piece within a policy page would be changed so frequently and therefore create a problem of a too-large a cluster of in-line citations.
4. I believe that many pieces of policy are quite stable, and therefore would not suffer from a challenge of "overcitation".
5. Conversely, if some piece of policy undergoes numerous proposals and modifications, I think that makes it all the more valuable to place citations there to point to all the arduous past work done by the editors to come to that policy, and so any additional modifications benefit from the knowledge of all the past deliberations. I think that in the long term it would foster more stability in the rules, and better informed new proposals.
6. And finally this potential a proposal could state that linking to policy bits to discussions would be a requirement only when the modification is significant (not trivial). Editors often make judgement calls on how much or little to reference a claim, for example, so I think this rule would go along those lines.

As I was pondering more about this I realized that another simplified way to put forth this potential proposal is that what this idea is about is extending the core principle of Verifiability to also apply to Wikipedia's documentation on its policies and guidelines. Since verifiability is so central and esteemed in Wikipedia, and we have plenty of experience implementing it through reasonable in-line citations, I think we could find a reasonable way to apply it to the documentation that governs the project.

Thanks! Al83tito (talk) 17:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blueboar: My digging through old archives suggests that the more ancient parts of policies and guidelines tend not to have had extensive or explicit discussions that led to them, which complicates part of what's going on. The more ancient forms of WP:NPOV were (to some extent) created by Bomis employees for NuPedia without apparent extensive community discussion. NPOV is core to Wikipedia, but it's also something that (according to older versions of the page) partly predates Wikipedia itself. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 18:13, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• On reading through the comments here I would still support this proposal with the proviso (as should be the case with anything, whether policy, guideline, essay, procedure, or something else) that it should be treated with a bit of common sense. If it cannot be done in a particular instance then don't do it, but I would have thought that in most cases where it could be at all controversial it could be done. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:46, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• It's worth pointing out that we already do this, sometimes; see the notes on Wikipedia:Drafts, for example. RfCs and other discussions are also often linked in edit summaries. I think it's a good idea and I don't see any reason why you (anyone) couldn't add more "references" like this, if you find the relevant discussion. Although it's important to bear in mind that it's by design that most of our policies evolved without explicit discussion, and lack of a reference shouldn't be taken as lack of consensus. As Mhawk10 says, some of our most important principles were never formally discussed because they have been accepted from the beginning and shaped subsequent policy. – Joe (talk) 07:44, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Overzealous archiving

I've noticed a lot of article talk pages have "|minthreadstoarchive =" set to "1". If you are like me and want your watchlist to be actually remotely useful and not fire hose of ANI replies, you have the "latest edit" filter turned on. This has the unintended effect of hiding any new discussion threads opened on the talk page. That is, if "|minthreadstoarchive =" is set to one, any new topic to a talk page will be obscured from my watchlist when a bot comes by 12 hours later to archive the oldest thread. In my watchlist, I can only see that a bot archived one discussion thread. I cannot see that Randy in Boise has proposed to delete the main page.

I can't think of a legitimate reason for discussion pages to be archived on a one-for-one basis. Solution: "|minthreadstoarchive =" must always be set to ≥ "3". Thoughts? Schierbecker (talk) 00:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Schierbecker, I think you're expected to exclude bot edits from your watchlist. (which I don't because reasons) But with the "latest edit" filter enabled that won't help IIRC. It bugs me too, but what can you do. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 04:22, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't exclude bots either for the same reason as above. My only solution has been to nuke half my watchlist and to check more diligently. Schierbecker (talk) 04:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Sources collecting / Further reading

What is the best way to "collect sources" such as all related and reliable articles from websites? I can use browser bookmarks or user space but my idea is to have a list of sources close to article to use not just by myself but others as well. Personally I don't like "Further reading" section in the article and it can list only few works due to limited space. Is this a good idea to add "Further reading" section at the top of talk page? Maybe Talk:Article example/Sources is better idea (I assume it's less noticeable and may be missed)? What is the best way to arrange such list? Chronological order and division by language or website? It would be helpful especially if Google search not show up all results anymore and search is a lottery by algorithms or page is deleted (in some cases without link you can't find the article in Wayback Machine especially if website has more than 10,000 pages - you can't search in archived version inside of Wayback Machine). It's similar idea to "Reliable sources" section of wikiprojects just more detailed with direct links to articles stick to article/group of articles. Eurohunter (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

{{refideas}}? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:28, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Interesting. Is it good in case if you have 100, 200 or 400 links? Eurohunter (talk) 17:15, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Maximum is 21, and I kind of doubt that a list of 100, 200 or 400 links would be of much use. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:10, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@Eurohunter: See Template talk:Refideas#22 refideas limit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Gambling section needs a cleanup

The entire gambling section is a mess; the citenotes are filled with spam. The reason for this is that there's good money in spamming your blog all over, since this gets you good SEO, which is the name of the game when you're competing with two entirely undifferentiated skins over the same backend software.

Take the Asian Handicap article, for instance. How do we know that Joe Saumarez Smith coined the term? The only primary sources I could find for it are Vegas Insider and BetAsia, which are both owned by one Joseph S. Smith. And yet this claim has undergone citogenesis, being found all over the web.

Also in the same article, two out of six citations are obvious spam.

I know that in cryptocurrencies, there is a strict moratorium on adding new shitcoins. Why isn't there some rule against adding links to new domains for gambling articles?