Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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The proposals section of the village pump is used to discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related (see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) for that).

Recurring policy proposals are discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). If you have a proposal for something that sounds overwhelmingly obvious and are amazed that Wikipedia doesn't have it, please check there first before posting it, as someone else might have found it obvious, too.

Before posting your proposal:

• Read this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.
• If the proposal is a change to the software, file a bug at Bugzilla instead. Your proposal is unlikely to be noticed by a developer unless it is placed there.
• If the proposal is a change in policy, be sure to also post the proposal to, say, Wikipedia:Manual of style, and ask people to discuss it there.
• If the proposal is for a new wiki-style project outside of Wikipedia, please go to m:Proposals for new projects and follow the guidelines there. Please do not post it here. These are different from WikiProjects.

« Archives, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212

Biography Info Box Nonsense

Well, perhaps nonsense is a bit strong, but can someone please tell me why biographies include the age of the person along with their birth date? Not only do I feel that since the age will change, subsequently needing updating each year, I also feel it is indirectly insulting to any reader. Are we assuming that the reader can't subtract the current year from the birth year?

In any event, crack open an encyclopedia. You will find birth dates (and dates of death if applicable), but to include the age as of the writing of the entry would be silly. The only time I can think an age may be noted is for death.

I guess I'd just like to know the reasoning for including the current age of the person in the biography of a living person.

DeeKenn 15:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a template in the infobox which automatically calulates the age so it doesn't need annual updating. I find it sto be a courtesy. Yes, it is very simple for anyone to do the simple math, but it saves you a couple seconds not having to think about it. I really don't see the point of complaining about it. Reywas92^Talk 16:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I find your last statement both rude and baiting. I posted a concern. If a concern is "complaining" to you, then why bother here?

Moving on, I find it unnecessary and un-encyclopedic. Regardless of Wikipedia's "dynamic" format, I find the information redundant. DeeKenn 16:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The main reason print encyclopedias don't do this is because the information would become outdated. Wikipedia isn't paper. I have not confirmed myself that the age is generated automatically, but were it the case instead that the age was entered manually I agree it would be beyond futile. At any rate, I don't even see an age listed on the example at Template:Infobox Biography. Is this the template you were referring to? BigNate37_(T) 16:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That template is a fine example of what it should look like, IMO. However, if you look at some of the actual biographies, there is a mark-up being used to automatically calculate the age. I did not know that, and to me that makes even less sense. DeeKenn 16:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind the age that much. What bothers me more is those damn flags. Can't people just read the word USA instead of also seeing the flag. :) Garion96 (talk) 16:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

So that everyone knows, DeeKenn is referring to the use of {{birth date and age|1931|03|22}} in the infobox field for date of birth, which gives a result of: (1931-03-22) March 22, 1931.

Add me to the list of people who think this is, at worst, harmless, and at best, useful. It makes the computer do the math, so the user doesn't have to. I don't understand the problem. --barneca (talk) 16:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Harmless? Perhaps. Useful? Not in my opinion. In fact, as I mentioned above, I find indirectly insulting. Furthermore, it is redundant. DeeKenn 16:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I find it very useful. I am good at math. Atropos 19:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Quaint, but far from useful DeeKenn 20:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this fits any definition of quaint that I can find. Again, I find it very useful; you aren't suggesting that you know more about what is useful to me than I do? Atropos 02:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so it's Template:birth date and age. There's a problem with this—it is not consistent across different pages. Any functionality like this should be either not used at all or incorporated into the infobox. Since the infobox's page itself describes how to use it and makes no mention of adding the age to the birth date field, I would suggest that the use of the age-generating template in infoboxes is improper. Therefore, if we truly want this age generating behaviour, it should be built into the infobox templates, otherwise it shouldn't be happening at all. BigNate37_(T) 16:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. At the very least, it should be applied uniformly. DeeKenn 16:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There is quite a bit of redundancy and non-uniformity in Wikipedia, and this is one example. Redundancy is often a good thing. Most of the information in the infobox is also located in the article; it is redundant. It is still convenient to have the information in the infobox. As for non-uniformity, for example, there is a similar Template:Infobox Person, which does explicitly suggest {{birth date and age}} as an option for the birth date field. There is a discussion (apparently, if I am a judge of consensus, successful) at Template talk:Infobox Person#Merge to combine them all. I am puzzled by your taking offense at being insulted by this, DeeKeen; no one is saying users cannot subtract. This little box simply makes it so they don't have to. I'm all for keeping it, under the heading Benefit:small / Cost:zero. --barneca (talk) 17:22, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you that redundancy is a good thing. "Good things, when short, are twice as good." - Gracián. Many Wikipedia articles are over-bloated with such redundancies. DeeKenn 17:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Everyone else, just end this. The simple convenience of telling us how old a person is even though the year is right there is perfectly fine, useful to some, and staying, even though it may be redundant and theoretically insulting. By reading User:DeeKenn's userpage, he must have a lot of concerns and we shouldn't take his comments too seriously. There, I said it. Reywas92^Talk 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This should not be dragged down to a personal level, and may I note that this is your second disrespectful post towards me.

Sawyer, just because I am not thrilled with Wikipedia overall does not mean that I can not offer any valid suggestions/contributions. If you do not allow dissent, how can you expect progress? DeeKenn 18:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I see your point, though the first I was only disagreeing. Some just find it quite helpful to simply read a person's age, especially when just scanning, rather than doing the math. It definitely was never meant to insult anyone's intelligence. Reywas92^Talk 18:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how displaying a person's age, particularly if the birth date is common knowledge, could be a problem. It could also, somehow, be useful to some. I could see a problem if the counter kept going after the subject, well, died, but I don't know what happens in those cases, or whether the "counter" is removed after people die. John Carter 18:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait, so you're saying Beethoven isn't 237 years old?

According to the documentation for Template:Infobox Person, I believe the theory is that you switch to {{birth date}} after they die. Now, all we need is someone to create {{birth and death date and age too}}, so that a dead person's age at death is automatically displayed... --barneca (talk) 19:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If the behaviour was built into the infobox instead of being manually added in lieu of a birth date, then the infobox could simply inhibit display of the age when the death date is provided (or even display age at death). Aside from consistency and simplicity, the age-generation behaviour could be more powerful if integrated with the infobox rather than implemented in a separate template, because of access to all the infobox's parameters. BigNate37_(T) 19:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I also find the age calculation useful. Doing the arithmetic (including month and day comparison!) when we have a computer in front of us is like keeping a dog and barking. It would be nicer, of course, if it were used consistently in all articles on living people. To help this, when the date of death is not specified the infobox parameters should (correctly) indcate the reason for this (not known whether dead or alive, date of death unknown or merely not known to the author). The infobox parameters could then be used to correctly generate the relevant categories. To accommodate those cases where an infobox is not wanted, perhaps the template could have a parameter to hide the infobox and merely generate categories and formatted data.--Boson 19:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to add RSS feed for the Featured Content section

I love the featured content...um, feature. I was wondering if there has been thought given to generating RSS feeds for the featured content. This would allow people to see at least a clip of the featured article in their blog-roll / reader software they use. If a small intro blurb to the article was provided via an RSS feed I would think some people would end up more inclined to click through.

It would allow users to see the content easily without having to remember to visit the site daily. Just my two cents, and I apologize if this has already been suggested and rejected, I didn't notice it anywhere on this page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dmcnelis (talk • contribs) 3 August 2007.

Template:wrongtitle

I am primarily an Uncyclopedia user, but I came here because I'm good at looking at recent changes and doing stuff pertaining to that. I've noticed that certain articles have titles that are impossible to render in MediaWiki. We, over at Uncyclopedia, have a fix for this. I didn't write it, nor do I have any stake in it besides my own personal use of it on an article of mine (click to see what it does). Perhaps you could use this to solve your woes (note: I would ask at the forum there before I sporked it, just because they tend to be testy.) Cheers.-Ljlego 01:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I actually think our problems have been solved with {{DISPLAYTITLE:}}. —METS501 (talk) 01:34, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

English Wikipedia has similar template {{wrongtitle}} and similar code in Mediawiki:Common.js although it's much more conservative: it doesn't change the title if it wouldn't link to the same page. (Actually, now we can probably get rid of it and just use DISPLAYTITLE). The way it works at Uncyclopedia — change to arbitrary title and don't even warn the user — would be unnacceptable here.

By the way, if DISPLAYTITLE works at Uncyclopedia, I suggest using it when possible instead of {{title}} ∴ Alex Smotrov 02:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Gasp! Thanks.-Ljlego 19:30, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I changed {{lowercase}} a while ago so that it does use DISPLAYTITLE, but other uses are rejected by the software (as it only allows new titles that wikilink the same way as the old one). For the history of the {{title}} template (currently a redirect to {{wrongtitle}}) on Wikipedia, see User:One/Title and its talk page (MfD of userfied version (result keep), TfD of original template (result userfy)). ais523

User pages in search engines?

Moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal:_Mandatory_noindex.2Fnofollow_for_User:_ns

Wikipedia:Quotations

I have restored the {{proposed}} banner for Wikipedia:Quotations (WP:QUOTE) because it seems to have been replaced with {{historical}} a while back without discussion. If anyone can point to some discussion that formally rejected this proposal or otherwise discussed its removal from consideration, please note that on its talk page.

After a little time to get some notice for the old proposal, I would like us to review and edit it to reflect current practices and/or establish new ones. I am especially concerned about a growing problem with editors doing mass transfers of quotations from Wikipedia articles to Wikiquote with no regard for the edit history or other crediting required by GFDL. (See q:WQ:VP#Probable GFDL problems with improper transwikis for only the latest of heated discussions about this problem.) We at Wikiquote are beginning to simply delete these contributions because fixing the vast problem is far more work than we can reasonably do. (After all, there are at least 150 active Wikipedians to every active Wikiquotian.) Since simple deletion hardly serves Wikimedia's interests, we need to establish a formal, practical policy for where, when, and how to do this, and this proposal page seems to be the logical home for it.

I would appreciate assistance in (re-)developing this potential guideline. I will also be requesting help from Wikiquotians, many of whom are Wikipedians, too. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Uh, on second thought, I think we can skip the question of the historical tagging. I've been led to understand that this can be a sensitive subject, and I don't believe we need to go into it here. Regardless of the history, we now have a compelling reason to have some guidelines on Wikipedia about quotations, even if they only address when to incorporate them in articles and when to move them to Wikiquote. (I'm sure there will be much more than that, but this issue alone is urgent justification for a page.) So let's just look forward on this. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah, thanks for the attack. "Historical" means inactive, therefore if there is no discussion on something, it is by definition historical. What did you think this was, a bureaucratic procedure? >Radiant< 10:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, I'm sorry that you felt I was attacking you. My concern was that I am not familiar with the formal processes of Wikipedia policy/guideline proposal approval and rejection. I spent a few minutes reviewing Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, Category:Wikipedia proposals, Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals, this page, and Wikipedia talk:Quotations, and found nothing that suggested there was a dicussion to close this proposal, merely a determination by a single editor that the proposal had lost steam. But my quick review could easily have missed something not obvious to a first-time policy proposer (as is true for so many processes within Wikipedia, which can indeed be quite bureaucratic and has many times the formality of most other Wikimedia projects), so I wanted to be sure I was not missing something.

As I try to be thorough, I stated my findings to date and asked for any information I'd missed. Within minutes of my announcement, I was warned that some might take exception to my implied criticism; thus my subsequent caveat above. Criticism was not my intent. My primary goal here is to ensure that Wikipedia and Wikiquote have a place to establish how they interact, because we at Wikiquote are getting tired of fixing or deleting massive GFDL violations by those of us at Wikipedia who have the good intention of transferring quotes from WP but seem unaware of the requirements for crediting contributions.

I have no quarrel with your historical tagging. I believe I understand the rationale, and clearly no one disagreed with it back then. But we surely need something now. I hope that you will accept my apology for this inadvertent offense, and that we can move on to the effort of resurrecting and updating this proposal. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I've been mostly offline for the past few days due to some computer shuffling. I hope to present a list of issues I see centering around quotations on Wikipedia before the weekend is over. There is already some activity on individual questions going on at WPt:QUOTE, and I hope that with the addition of my laundry list, we'll get some action going there. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedian of the Month

I think it would be a great idea to start a wikipedian of the month. We'll have candidates state their case for one month while editors vote for who they feel should be wikipedian of the month. At the end of the month the votes will be counted and whoever has the most will be wikipedian of the month.--Southern Texas 18:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

And where would the "Wikipedian of the month" be featured? On the community portal? Melsaran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, more backslapping? This kind of thing does nothing positive. At best, it massages a few egos and at worst, you'll see clique voting. Adrian M. H. 20:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

See previous suggestion at Wikipedia talk:Featured content/Archive 1#Featured project. To summarize: No. "Featured" status is for highlighting encyclopedic content, not for users, templates, categories, or anything else.

Things like this quickly devolve into the inanity that is currently at Wikipedia:Best User Page Contest. (Which someone really ought to MfD..) --Quiddity 21:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it would make editors more constructive because they would want to be wikipedian of the month and would work extra hard. It would be a plus for the expansion of the encyclopedia.--Southern Texas 21:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It's nice in theory, but in practice all this serves is to hurt feelings and exclude people. If you don't enjoy editing Wikipedia for the sake of editing, you probably shouldn't hang around --L-- 21:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with L. ElinorD (talk) 21:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

People should not need affirmation to know whether they are doing good work. Adrian M. H. 21:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

If somebody doesn't get it, it would be an incentive for them to work harder and would be a plus for the encyclopedia. There would be no votes against anybody, just for somebody and that can't hurt anybody's feelings because there won't be any insulting comments against people. If you don't vote for somebody you won't leave a comment and whatever votes they get will make them feel good. If they don't get any votes they will work harder.--Southern Texas 21:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No. If they don't get any votes, they will likely get very disheartened. Adrian M. H. 21:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact is that some people do need affirmation that what they are doing is good. I personally don't but I don't think people like this should be excluded. This will increase interest in productivitiy just like in a business with the use of the employee of the month. The competitive nature increases productivity. I think that admins should be excluded and there should be an edit limit. This will make more productive users and make articles better. Editors shouldn't be able to nominate themselves so they will at least get one vote.--Southern Texas 21:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Why wouldn't seeing that the editor got a barnstar or some other form of recognition be enough? John Carter 22:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Because that is rare for an editor with under 500 or even 1000 edits.--Southern Texas 22:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

So presumably you would consider that even editors with so few edits could be nominated. Presumably by themselves, as few others would have noted the name in that time. On that basis, I would assume that what you're talking about might be something more like "Newcomer of the Month", for people with only one or two months experience. I would think such a process might be even more likely to make people leave, as these comparatively new people might be even more likely to react negatively if their new contributions wouldn't be enough to win. John Carter 22:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

S.Tex, why do you think this will increase productivity? It will cause a LOT of time wasting, polling, popularity contesting, social networking, effort, and drama that could all go into making Wikipedia a better place instead. And think about how many millions of editors we have- do you really think that selecting twelve Wikipedians a year will do anything but discourage others who know they will never, ever be popular or well known enough to make it? Also, what you say concerns me--- Why do you think Wikipedia should have editors competing with each other? We're all about collaboration, if we isolate ourselves we're doing nothing but harming the project. We already have rewards for making GA, FA, DYK articles, we already have barnstars, but do you REALLY think that people are going to put more EFFORT into the ENCYCLOPEDIA from this or just TIME into the popularity contest? --L-- 22:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It was just an idea to increase productivity and add more productive users. I'm sorry I wasted everybody's time--Southern Texas 22:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't be put off by one idea that was not well received. Adrian M. H. 23:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The idea is not a bad one; unfortunately, there's a good deal of history already to indicate that the execution often leaves a lot to be desired, which is a separate matter. And it isn't a waste of anybody's time to propose an idea that you think might work. Personally, I wouldn't mind it myself, but the history seems to indicate that it is likely to get unforseen and unwanted consequences. Unfortunately. John Carter 23:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

How about this, a new editor who does the most constructive edits in a given month can be called the wikipedian of the month.--Southern Texas 00:59, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Use a barnstar. Ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Awards about creating something like a "newcomer barnstar". Instead of inventing a new process, always try to use the ones already in place - that way you avoid extra pages of instructions to read, and in this case can give barnstars to many editors per month, etc. --Quiddity 04:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Quiddity and in regard to your most recent comment that is what the Exceptional New User Award is for. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (tαlk) 00:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Currency

I suspect that something like this may have been considered before, but if so then I don't know the outcome.

I think it would be useful to have a unified way that currency amounts can be quoted with templates, that result in useful links for the reader.

What I envisage (setting aside for the moment the fact that {{currency}} already exists as a redirect with a number of links to it) is a setup where you can enter something like:

{{currency|GBP|20}}

or

{{currency|CHF|30}}

and then this gets rendered in the article as something like "£20" or "30 Fr." (i.e. taking into account the symbol and ordering), but as a link which takes you to a page where there is a link to the relevant article (e.g. Pound sterling or Swiss franc) and also links to third-party websites showing the currently equivalent value of that sum in other currencies (something vaguely analogous to what is done with book sources).

This does somewhat depend on third-party sites supporting some URL format that embeds the query information appropriately, but if not then probably the prospect of traffic generated from Wikipedia would be enough to persuade those site maintainers to implement it.

No doubt there could be other template options like overriding the display symbol or possibly specifying a date for historical conversion, but this is the gist of it.

Does this sound desirable? Feasible?

I must admit that I probably don't have the time or knowledge to actually help with this, so it would depend on whether anyone else has the inclination.

Many thanks. — Alan^✉ 11:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia guidelines on currency are stated at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Currencies. If you want to make a proposal, the talk page of that guideline is probably the best place.

Having said that, I think there is may be some fundamental misconception here. First, it doesn't really matter if the euro to dollar ration is 1:1.37 or .95:1, as long as the reader understands that the two are roughly of the same value. That's because Wikipedia articles contain historical information: if an article says that "X purchased Y for US$100,000 in 2002", the current exchange rate is almost irrelevant. Second, as the MoS page states, it's always possible to use a piped link, as in ₮; the interested reader can then follow the link to the article, which (based my non-random sampling of one currency) will contain links to currency exchange sites, if the reader is so interested. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Interactive Multimedia Content: Scratch at Wikipedia?

Interactiv Media Content is missing at Wikipedia. There are many things that could be explained and learned more easy, if there was a method including it. Some other encyclopaedias include Interactiv Media Content as one of their bigest advantage against Wikipedia (e.g. Encarta). But where the datatype of other Wikipedia media seems to be obvious, interactive media has a problem.

• It should be strong "sandboxed" (to cause no harm to the user of Wikipedia)
• It should present itself in an alternatively printable way and a clear frame (like a picture)
• It should be based on openSource and common technology
• It should be easy created even by non-programmers
• It should have an educational background

Please feel free to enlarge this list. Most known ways to create interactive data like e.g. Java, Flash will not fulfill these demands.

I think that the new visual programming language Scratch could fulfill it.

Scratch is made by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab for educational purpose and has a strong growing community of teachers and students. It's sandboxed, framed, openSource, very easy to learn and has an educational background (originaly it's invented for school kids). Even if the Scratch Player is based on Java, it is the only Java program needed, because Scratch code is interpreted by this player and so much stronger sandboxed.

Here are some Scratch Project that could ilustrate that, even if they are not created to do so and some are made by children:

• Do You Know Europe?
• Heart simulation
• Vacuum
• Simple Electrical Circuit
• Photosynthesis
• Composer
• Lego Model Creator
• Architectural Stamps

At a Scratch-Forum we had a discussion about connecting Wikipedia and Scratch and I was encouraged to suggest it here. When having a look at The home of Scratch don't laugh about the sometimes childish projects: Children are our future and the potential of a technology they love is big.

Thank you for your feedback in advance. Mtwoll 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

One way of doing this would be to enable uploading of scratch files and then allow the java scratch player to be used to display them, perhaps either on the image description pages or inline on other pages. This would require an extension to be written to enable this. Tra (Talk) 21:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I am leading the development of the Scratch on-line community. I would be happy to help in making it easy to push projects hosted in the Scratch website into Wikipedia if this is needed. I have seen pictures from Flicker in Wikipedia. Is this done manually or is there some automated system? In any case, let us know if there is anything the Scratch team could do to let non-professional programmers contribute programmable media to Wikipedia. andresmh

In the past, Wikipedia has avoided hotlinking media from other websites (apart from Wikimedia Commons and some Toolserver scripts, which are sister projects). This is mainly because if the media is on another website, it's not possible to connect it with a Wikipedia username and see the full revision history and there's a risk that third party servers may fail, or the media may be deleted or modified in a way that is unsuitable for its use in Wikipedia. There is also the problem that it is very easy for someone to just link to anything that may violate someone's copyright.

This is just in a general sense. Depending on how the Scratch site is designed, some or most of these problems might not apply but it's still best to be on the safe side and not hotlink media on third party sites. As for the Flickr pictures, those were downloaded from Flickr then uploaded separately to Wikimedia Commons.

Even without hotlinking, having Scratch projects embedded in Wikipedia pages would still require developer involvement, since an extension would need to be coded for the MediaWiki software to make it possible to type in a reference to the Scratch file in wiki-code and generate a link to the applet. Enabling Scratch uploads also requires developer involvement, although it is much simpler by comparison since it just requires adding a file extension to the whitelist.

As for what you can do at the moment, the only currently possible way of including Scratch files in Wikipedia is to link to the page on the Scratch website with a basic hyperlink. Tra (Talk) 03:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Resources

Hey all, I would like to know if there is a group of wikipedians dedicated solely to helping others find sources for articles? I have access to quite a few databases and would like to help out as many people as possible, so a central location for such requests would be helpful. --Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 06:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. (some of these are inactive and should probably be merged). See:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check (main)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange (newest, active)
• Wikipedia:Research resources (oldest, tagged as inactive) (see also the links in its top-right navbox)
• Wikipedia:Library (offline resources)

Hope that helps. --Quiddity 17:12, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, there is (was?) an effort in creating a library listing? That's a surprise to me, especially since I came up with a similar idea independently and created User:BigNate37/Library... BigNate37_(T) 17:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

This does help :), I might be back with some proposals. Cheers--Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 11:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Do consider these as well:

• Wikipedia:Newspapers and magazines request service
• Wikipedia group at LibraryThing.com

And there are a number of pages in the Wikipedia namespace that simply list resources; I'm omitting them here because you asked only about Wikipedians helping others. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

US-centrism

I think we should make "6 August" the standard preference, rather than "August 6". According to Calendar date#mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy (month, day, year), the "month day year" format (which is very odd, I must say) is only used in the US, and on a few little islands. Melsaran 21:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

• Then the article should probably be fixed - Month Day, Year is the standard format here in Soviet Canuckistan as well. WilyD 21:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Be bold, I'd say :-). Melsaran 21:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable adding original research to an article. WilyD 21:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

When it's the "standard format", it's probably not too hard to find a citation, and when you add a citation, it is generally not OR. Melsaran 22:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Autoformatting and linking - dates can be entered in such a way as to display differently, depending on an editor's preference. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but the default setting is month/day/year, you have to change your preferences to enable the normal setting. Melsaran 18:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by default. Isn't the software default to leave what the author put in? And doesn't the Manual of style carefully avoid specifying one or the other? I imagine any change would mean an inordinate amount of effort being devoted to edit wars.Or are you talking about dates generated by Wikipedia? I would be careful about using the word "standard". The only standard (in the ISO/ANSI/DIN sense) I know is ISO 8601, (and the equivalent BS, EN, DIN and ANSI standards), which specifies YYYY-MM-DD.--Boson 20:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Eh, no, I meant that the standard preference is mm/dd/yyyy, i.e. that's the preference set when you create a new account. Melsaran 21:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Since I immediately changed my preferences when I set up my account (I think), I didn't remember what the default was. I suppose I assumed that the top item (no preference) would have been the default. I presume "anonymous" users see what the author wrote. Thanks for clarification! --Boson 21:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

You've missed mentioning RFC 2550, which is similar to ISO 8601 for present-day dates. BigNate37_(T) 21:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

As I recall reading, this is a very big can of worms to be fiddling with opening. As I understand the matter, the debate was bitterly divided and never resolved—just depreciated due to the upgrade to the software which allows linked dates to be displayed based on user preference. As far as the comment about Canadians using month-day-year, this is in popular use due to cultural proximity to the US. As far as I know, as a Canadian, the proper form is day-month-year here as well. I may be wrong, but to my knowledge saying month-day-year is the official form in Canada is akin to saying the inch is the standard unit of length—most people using it doesn't make it correct. I'm also less inclined to respect WilyD's comment based on his use of the term Soviet Canuckistan. Are we supposed to take the comment seriously using slang like that? BigNate37_(T) 19:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ohh..... I read the part about Canada in Calendar date#mm/dd/yy or mm/dd/yyyy (month, day, year), and thought it was another of those stupid Americanisms that Canadians tend to import. When WilyD said "Soviet Canuckistan", I thought it was probably some region in Russia or something. I had no idea that he meant Canada :-). Melsaran 19:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Still, I don't really understand how the debate could have been so "bitterly divided". The US is the ONLY country in the world that uses such an illogical system (month/day/year), save a few little islands. Aren't we meant to be a global encyclopaedia? Why focus so much on the US? Melsaran 18:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The default date preference is no preference. --- RockMFR 20:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

For wikilinks? Oh, that could be. Still, the default setting for articles such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_11 (notice the URL) is mm-dd, so without setting a preference, your default setting for date articles is US-style. Melsaran 20:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you're going to have a very hard time trying to find consensus to move these articles. --- RockMFR 20:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

What are the arguments for preferring a chiefly American and highly illogical date notation style over the style that "the rest of the world" uses? Melsaran 20:45, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because the those date articles were created first using the month-day system. After that, there was no point in changing it. Sometimes, it's just better to leave things the way they are and avoid getting involved in a pointless argument that will go nowhere. --Farix (Talk) 04:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm also not sure how it's "highly illogical." It's just a date format. -- Kesh 19:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

There's an argument to it's illogicity when it's a full date, with day month and year. When it's just a month and day, I don't see how it can be argued as illogical. SamBC(talk) 19:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

August 11, 2007 might be illogical, but August 11 by itself is no less logical than 2007-08-11.

Yes, I meant the mm-dd-(yy)yy format. When you use 'August 11' in an article, and you are consistent, you also use "August 11, 2007", which is illogical. Melsaran 21:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing illogical about MM DD, YYYY format. It is just one of the excepted ways of formating a date. What is illogical is continually complaining about it. --Farix (Talk) 01:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Man, I can't believe nobody got the RFC 2550 joke. Blah. BigNate37_(T) 15:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

"Dog Day" coming up

This might not be the place to mention this. However, August 16 is the feast day of Saint Roch, the patron saint of dogs. Do you think this could be mentioned on the main page? Is there another place to make this kind of suggestion? Thanks. Steve Dufour 14:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I added it to Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 16 so it should show up on the main page. ←Ben^B4 14:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Steve Dufour 14:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone else took it off, saying it was not important enough. Steve Dufour 16:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

That removal was done by Tariqabjotu. I thought his edit summary "that's pushing the limits of notability" to be a bit high-handed. I wondered by what lights Tariqabjotu set himself up to judge the relative notability of one particular catholic saint over other catholic saints. I'm not catholic myself, though, and I am certainly not qualified to make such a judgement. I looked at List_of_saints#R and see that there is a list there, But St. Roch is not listed. I looked at List_of_saints_by_name:R, and see that the page does not exist, though List_of_saints_by_name:A does exist. I see that Category:Roman_Catholic_saints does not include Saint Roch. I see that there is a page for Saint Roch which redirects to Roch, a page about the Saint Roch. It looks to me as if some work needs to be done in this area. -- Boracay Bill 23:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

From Talk:Main Page#"Dog Day" coming up: "Not important enough, methinks." (from Mets501); "I agree with Mets501." (from PFHLai); "if there is other stuff that comes up that is arguably more important it could be removed" (from Nil Einne); "It probably isn't so important. I just thought that St. Roch's feast day coming in the dog days of summer was kind of cool." (from Steve Durfour, the person who raised this point himself). I'm not sure where you get the impression that I "set himself up to judge the relative notability of one particular catholic saint over other catholic saints" or how you see the edit summary as "high-handed". This was a judgment of the relative notability of one particular holiday over another and it seems quite clear few see this as a very notable event. Someone had to remove the item (I just got to it first) and the edit summary accurately portrays the rationale behind the holy day's removal – it falls just short of the (unwritten) notability requirement. If you read something else from that, that was not my intent. -- tariqabjotu 01:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Treat WP:SELF refences as we do sister projects

We currently avoid references to Wikiepdia's mechanics, on Wikipeida, per WP:SELF. I think we could formulate a way of doing so, where appropriate, by using side-boxes similar to those for Wikitionary, WikiQuote etc.; so that, say Manual of style could have a side box saying "Wikipedia has a Manual of Style". This would replace {{selfref}}. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 17:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

But the sister project and portal side-boxes are linking to encyclopedic-related material. Whereas selfrefs are leading to meta material. They are unconnected, so this would be very confusing for everyone.

What is the specific problem with {{selfref}} that you are trying to address? --Quiddity 18:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree what real problem is there with Template:Selfref? --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (tαlk) 00:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with (I assume) Quiddity. There's a huge difference between linking to Nelson Mandela quotes or the text of the US Constitution and linking to information on how to work on Wikipedia. In particular, the latter would be useless to a reader. Atropos 05:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible articleissues template

The {{articleissues}} template was created to merge seperate issue-type templates into one. This cuts down on the screen space the templates use and is more organized. The template is currently collapsible but there is a disagreement on if it should be initially collapsed or shown on page load. I think the discussion on this would benefit from more opinions to help reach conesnsus. --Android Mouse 19:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed proposel

this one needs views from a wider audience. Please feel free to go there and comment. Regards, Navou ^banter 19:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI redraft/refactor

There has been a lot of mention recently on WT:COI of the unwieldy, wordy, and poorly-structured nature of the current COI guideline. It has thus been suggested that some interested parties (not as in a conflict of interest, obviously) get together to find a better way of writing the same guideline in a more usable way. There is no intent here to change the meaning of the guideline, just to make it more usable.

Discussion of the redraft/refactor is invited at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/redraft, with the current intent to initially 'recruit' participants and discuss the aims of the redraft before putting together a precise plan of action. SamBC(talk) 20:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal To Split Lake Wylie Article

The article Lake Wylie, South Carolina has content for both the town of Lake Wylie, South Carolina and the body of water known as Lake Wylie. Lake Wylie redirects to Lake Wylie, South Carolina. I propose that this article should be divided into an article for the town and a separate article for the lake. Below are my argument points:

• Much of Lake Wylie divides the states of South Carolina and North Carolina which means that not all of Lake Wylie (the lake) is actually in the state of South Carolina. Therefore the article name having ", South Carolina" is incorrect and misleading for somebody talking about the lake which is partially in North Carolina.
• An article which tries to wikilink to the lake of Lake Wylie can't do so without confusing people with the town of Lake Wylie, SC which may be totally unrelated. For example, many other towns are located on the shores of Lake Wylie (the lake) so it would be ridiculous for them to mention that they are located on Lake Wylie and have it link to an article on a different town 20 miles away that just happens to share that same name as the lake. See Catawba Nuclear Generating Station and you'll see how the article mentions how the power station is on a peninsula on Lake Wylie - but they're talking about the lake and not the town.

This is both a proposal to gain consensus and a request for somebody with more experience to please take the action so I don't accidentally mess it up. I suggest un-redirecting Lake Wylie and placing everything about the lake in that article, while leaving everything about the town in South Carolina in the current Lake Wylie, South Carolina article. --Fife Club 16:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:BOLD. Go ahead. >Radiant< 12:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Yup, the more I think about this and the more I see tons of articles link to Lake Wylie but meant the lake only and not the town, this really is a slam dunk decision, isn't it. When I get a chance in the next day or so I'll personally take care of it (and add some better fact citations while I'm in there). --Fife Club 13:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to include Info on ATC Squadrons

Hey I was wondering that someone should add info on individual air training corps squadrons around New Zealand. I'm sure they would appreciate it. Wes45 21:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe they would appreciate it, but it is clear that individual air training corps squadrons, along with individual scout troops, boys brigade companies, etc are not normally notable, and should not have an article devoted to one squadron. May be the oldest is notable. Is there a broad article on air training corps squadrons in New Zealand? --Bduke 22:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Pop-up

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 August 12#Template:Pop-up that concerns a template that allows popups to appear when the mouse if over an item. It can be used to translate terms. The argument there is moving towards deletion with the argument, that I agree has a lot of weight, that footnotes are less annoying and more general. However, I think the debate needs to be on a wider basis so I draw your attention to it here. It may turn out to be a key usage in future or it may just die. --Bduke 22:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Guideline suggestion - Strikethroughs

As far as i know - the pump for proposals isn't to discuss trying to get some new stuff handled. I think some guidelines need to be established for strikethroughs. Any thoughts on this? I don't think we need an entire article, but certainly something with it's one "section" and even a direct wiki shortcut would be sufficent. We will of course need to talk about what the guideline says. Thoughts? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  12:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• The short guideline is "don't". What problem are you trying to solve, exactly? >Radiant< 12:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

  Possibly Juan was referring to this recent (now archived) discussion: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive#Strikethroughs as a Resolution to Subjects of Questionable Neutrality? Not at all sure though. And yes, what Radiant! said. I can't think of any circumstances when strikethroughs should be used. --Quiddity 16:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• That was "part of it", but strikethroughs of one's own comments probably wouldn't upset anyone. There have been a few instances when i have seen "strikethroughs" used - sometimes it seems quite appropriate, other times, I'm not so sure. Bare with me if you can - (and this is a hypothetical) User A refractors their own comments from an article talk page; and then replaces it with a new comment. The reasons are legitimate and done in good faith. However, the removal of said content renders some portion of the discussion unusable. It would seem logical that User B can re-insert the refractored text, but use a strikethrough to reflect the "change of opinion" issued by User A. WP:TPG doesn't really acount for this. One of the first responses I came up with is that a user removign their own comments could be looked at as a form of ownership; but that was the best reason i could come up with for not doing something like that. I think user b should reinstitute the comments as it keeps the flow logical...however, they should be struck as they don't reflect the "current" position held by user a. Am i making sense or have i lost everyone :-) I've also seen some comments on various WP:BAN pages discuss strikethroughs, but i think they are inconsistent with a lot of people's views and are not advisable (like going and striking a banned users comments is detremental and does not contribute to an environment of happy people. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  17:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Not sure I see the problem. If a user objects to their own comments being struck through by others, then they can remove it themselves. Striking through your OWN comments should always be allowed, and I have seen situations, such as at FAC with long lists of requested fixes, where people have striken through others comments in good faith, and this has not been a problem... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Requesting photo and licenses (a method proposal)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Uploading images#Requesting photo and licenses (a method proposal). 01:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Move tool be restricted to admin control

Any thoughts about making the move ability be restricted to administrators only? It might be a good idea as:

• Allowing everyone to move an article discourages practicing the regular procedure which is listing the move on WP:RM and have it properly discussed before any move may occur.
• Unilateral, controversial moves are on the rise, resulting in:
  • Painstaking move wars.
  • Good faith editors following the right procedure by requesting the article to be moved back on WP:RM, sometimes not receiving enough consensus for that to happen thus leaving us with an unilaterally moves article, unfairly perpetuated at its new location simply because someone moved first and now it's hard to have it moved back.
  • Did I mention painstaking move wars?
• Closing move discussions would become an admin-only task, as already are most other tasks that require determining consensus or the lack of it on Wikipedia.

Please submit your invaluable feedback on this proposal.--Húsönd 01:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• That's an awful large burden to place on admins, and it also assumes that they are always going to act in the best interest of the community. Admins are no different from basic users, they just have a few more tools. WP:RM is an avenue available for two reasons a) when technical difficulties prevent an obvious move and b) assistance is needed with a controversial move. It's not a bad system as far as I can tell. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  01:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think it's that much of a burden, the backlog on WP:RM is cleared fairly quickly and admins already do most of the work there. Usually the most tiresome work comes when an article has already been through a move war. The point is, all moves should go through WP:RM (even the so-called obvious, especially because they're often not that obvious and thus promptly contested), and all move discussions should have an admin to determine consensus. Húsönd 01:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Do you have any figures on the number of moves per day, the number of which are contested and didn't go through RM, and the number that do go through RM (and the number that go through RM trivially)? SamBC(talk) 01:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The regular procedure is not to discuss it on WP:RM. That is the procedure for contentious moves. WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY. If a move is not contentious and serves the encyclopedia, there is no need for lengthy discussion; there's no need to add move the the list of things that admins must do. Move wars can be dealt with by move protection, similar to edit wars. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• (double edit conflict) This seems draconian. I also echo Juan's concern about the burden. In the last 24 hours, there have been some 1,500 page moves on Wikipedia. Granted, a lot of them were bundled with talk pages, some were the result of bureaucrats performing renames, and some might have been prevented by proper prior discussion. Considering, however, that WP:RM typically gets less than a dozen requests per day, I think that we're talking about a difference of at least an order of magnitude. Also, instead of move wars, I can see people shifting to cut-and-paste wars, leaving even more of a mess to clean up. — TKD::Talk 02:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• I would really oppose this. Like anything else, while vandals and edit wars and the like exist, this proposal will not make them go away or reduce damage to the encyclopedia in any way, it only makes wikipedia harder to use. I have moved a few pages myself; in the VAST majority of situations, most page moves are non-controversial. In situations where it is controversial, there are mechanisms for dealing with it; and those mechanisms are adequate... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, this proposal will obviously not get any support so I withdraw. Particularly due to TKD's well reasoned point. Still, regarding Jayron32's comment, I must say that the mechanisms for handling situations where a page is controversial are far from being 100% satisfactory, especially when the page has experienced a move war. But restricting the move tool to admins only might indeed not be part of the solution.--Húsönd 02:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of BJAODN

BJAODN was recently speedy deleted, speedy restored, speedy cancled out of MFD, and is now on DRV at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 August 14/BJAODN. If you are interested in these pages, please contribute at the DRV. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 05:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)