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 listed at Wikipedia: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, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213

Tag to prevent plotbloat

I propose that a tag is introduced for when a plot summary in an article reaches an optimum length. At the moment some articles e.g Goodfellas, No Country for Old Men are subject to constant revisions with users placing uneccessary detail, speculation or their own interpretations of what happened.

When a consensus has been agreed upon the tag would be placed before the article which could read The plot summary below is considered to be a suitable length for the article. Please read discussion on talk pages before editing it. Obviously the wording would have to be discussed but I think you get the idea. Users would of course still be able to edit the plot summaries but would hopefully give them pause for thought before firing in. Yorkshiresky (talk) 12:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You might try a <!-- Hidden comment --> that can only be seen on editing, but {{ambox}} style templates should only be temporary. Mr.Z-man 23:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed blanking

Well, I finally finished with Wikipedia:Proposed blanking and Template:Prob. Whew, it was hard writing all that stuff from scratch, but at last it's complete. (Wipes sweat from brow) Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would we want or need to blank an article? There's deletion on one side and cleanup on the other. bibliomaniac15 I see no changes 23:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

But deletion is so permanent! It's almost contrary to the idea of a wiki. See WP:PWD. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion is not permanent; pages can be restored or viewed by administrators. If you ask me, PWD and XD are some of the most WP:CREEPiest things I've ever seen. bibliomaniac15 I see no changes 23:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The idea of a wiki is easy collaboration. How is deleting something that we don't want (and by extension, don't want to collaborate on) contrary to that idea? Mr.Z-man 07:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of ways to allow easy collaboration. But the fundamental concept of a wiki is to focus on making things easy to fix, rather than hard to mess up. Deletion, as it currently exists, errs on the side of making it "hard to mess up" (i.e. by the user coming back and making the content visible again). And that makes it harder to fix as well, e.g. if consensus would have otherwise changed somewhere down the road, and the content would have been resurrected. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 00:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Blanking is temporary. Keeping all previous revisions in history doesn't just "not prevent messing up" but it encourages resurrection with little or no change to the content, which was decided by consensus to be deleted. Deletion on the other hand forces "resurrectors" to request a copy of the deleted material from an admin, whereby upon fulfillment of such a request, an admin takes the responsibility of making the user aware that restoration of the article in too similar a form will not be allowed. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:23, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Closing admins should provide rationale for closing decision

Since deletion debates are not settled by vote counts, but rather by strength of arguments and appeals to policy, I recommend that closing admins provide a rationale for their decision. A lot of debates include fallacious arguments along with the good ones, so I think it would be helpful for the admin to explain which ones form the basis for the decision. We have already seen with CSD that providing a reason, even if it's just a one-liner, is useful to others reviewing the decision. And the admin who deletes based on a PROD also provides a reason in the deletion summary. But AfD is different from PROD, in that many users provide input, and so a reference to the AfD debate can leave it unclear which were the decisive rationale(s) on the winning side. It would also further help avoid the appearance of it being a vote. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I've seen deletion debates closed with "decision was Delete," when the !votes were about equally divided, and there were cogent arguments on both sides. Or with, say, a clear majority of Delete !votes, but mostly bare (no arguments, or per nom or per Username !arguments), with cogent arguments for Keep; what, then, is happening, almost certainly, is that the personal opinion of the closing administrator is being implemented, but we don't know the reasoning. My own opinion is that the whole deletion process is a waste of time, that the encyclopedic project is more properly about the categorization of knowledge, and that no sane encyclopedic project would discard verifiable or verified information on the grounds of non-notability, though it might not be included in a print or other restricted publication. What, exactly, is the harm of having, for example, an article on a "non-notable" grammar school? Are verifiable facts about that school not "human knowledge"? You might call me an inclusionist, but that isn't accurate. I'd have layers to the encyclopedia, with a top layer being not only notable, but essential. Below that would be a layer that still requires something like present standards of notability, and below that a layer with only verifiability as a standard. The exact structure is something that would be worked out by consensus, but deletion is something that most sophisticated computer users have stopped doing with their own systems: disk space is cheaper than the time it takes to figure out what to delete, and, even if it is rare, the work wasted when something that later turns out to be useful, is, again, more valuable than the disk space; rather, they will actively categorize what they see as important, and leave the rest as an amorphous mass that can be searched quickly. I learned years ago about a technique for organizing files: Hold For Discard. When you know something is useful, you file it. When you know it isn't useful, you immediately toss it in the trash. If there is doubt about which category it belongs in, you toss it in a box called Hold for Discard. Periodically, you close the box and date it, starting a new box. After a lapse of time, when you haven't needed anything in the HFD box, you can toss it. With computer files, though, you can keep that doubtful stuff forever, you can bequeath it to your grandchildren (who can throw it away if they like, or not, depends.) If you never need it, what does a DVD cost? Weigh that against the work of going through it all to figure out what to delete, and, here, against the work involved in a single AfD.

What we should be doing as editors is classifying and categorizing knowledge, not deleting it. None of it should be deleted. Every minute, a torrent of information comes in to us from our senses. We pay attention to (we "note") very little of it. But we don't delete any of it; what is kept, though, is only what has been noted in some way, whether consciously or unconsciously. Collectively, as to human knowledge, if someone took the significant amount of time it takes to create an article, and someone provides sources for verification (whether meeting WP:RS or not, but meeting WP:V, i.e., what is stated in the article can be verified by anyone), it has been noted, and we delete it at our peril, just as we would be risking our own welfare by sealing off certain kinds of sensory input, or repressing what we have noticed. There had better be a good reason. Here, the reasons would be that the article is actively causing damage, the two salient examples being copyright violation and libel. And those causes for deletion don't require AfD.

So, personally, I wouldn't be putting much effort into fixing the AfD process. If we keep it, yes, definitely, a closing administrator (nor non-admin closer) should clearly state the controlling arguments, otherwise, we may reasonably suspect, the closer didn't even pay attention but just made a snap judgment.--Abd (talk) 13:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I don;'t think the above view will have much support. We're not a web preservation project, but an encyclopedia. But as even you say, if we have the process,we should do it right. so let's discuss that, which was the question raised. I think a closing rationale must do more than ate the result, but given a summary of the reasons and how consensus was judged--we do not want the admins opinion on whether the article should be kept or not, we want the admins judgement about what the people who contributed policy based arguments said. The point of the arguments is not to convince an admin one way or another. the admin merely sums up the discussion, taking account of the opinions that were based on a reasonable interpretation of policy--whether or not the admin agrees with the majority. DGG (talk) 02:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother. When Arbitrators are required to give a rationale for their votes, they ignore the requirement.[1] Why make another rule to be ignored? -- SEWilco (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Pointless process. The majority of AFDs are usually close to unanimous, a rationale would just be repetitive in those situations. If you can't tell by a quick review of the discussion why it was closed the way it was, ask. Mr.Z-man 06:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree this is pointless as most AfDs are pretty clear in what the outcome was going to be. Note that in controversial discussions it is quite common for the closing admin to leave a closing rationale. Hut 8.5 16:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The Black Crows Band Info

Does anyone have anything to contribute on this front...The Black Crows, their start in Marietta Georgia, etc. Or do "Wikipedians" consider this to pedantic to write about?

Anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.201.33.15 (talk) 04:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a whole bunch of information about The Black Crowes (note the "e"). Or are you soliciting help on the "Early Years" section of this article? -08:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nkocharh (talk • contribs)

I think it might be better to propose this on the article's own talk page. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 22:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Restore this version

This is an option in Twinkle, but why don't we just make it part of the software? It could be placed right after 'undo' on page histories and such. It's somewhat like the opposite of undo - undo removes what that edit changed, while 'restore this version' undoes everything since and reinstates that revision. It also never fails, whereas undo often can once other edits have occurred after the one in question. I think it would be a great help for editors to go with the undo function, and it really makes little sense to have one and not the other. It's a moderately big change though, so some feedback on the suggestion would be in order first. Richard001 (talk) 07:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, for starters it's dangerous. It wipes out all those subsequent edits. Rollback does this, doesn't it? And we restrict the use of rollback to vandalism, and we restrict access to rollback to a trusted class. It's easy enough to restore an old version, just not one-button. The current software, for users without rollback, requires us to pay a little more attention to what we are doing, to actually look at, preferably, each of those changes. But I can restore any article to a prior version simply by loading that version, editing it, and saving it. And we do have rollback, so the essence of this proposal would be to give rollback to everyone, that's all. An idea which has been pretty roundly rejected, given how much fuss there was over giving it to non-administrators.--Abd (talk) 13:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Rollback just allows you to undo the latest version (and any other versions by the same user), it doesn't allow you to go back arbitrarily far. Load-Edit-Save is fast enough, I think - it's rarely necessary to revert multiple edits by different users, so there's no need for a one-click way of doing it. --Tango (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Since I don't have rollback, I'm obviously unclear on the details. Load-Edit-Save is quite easy, and very rarely appropriate. I've seen it happen by mistake. This is Wikipedia, though, we get to make mistakes.... --14:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs)

If it was like undo it wouldn't exactly be one click but two. If you do any reasonable amount of reverting you get sick of the extra clicks and bandwidth wastage. Perhaps we could restrict it to registered users, perhaps even with a certain number of edits as well. Or perhaps we could even make it like the current rollback system (need to be approved), or require modification of settings (which is basically how you 'get' Twinkle). Twinkle is already far superior than the rubbishy rollback thing, so the whole trusted user thing is a complete waste of time really. Richard001 (talk) 05:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A method of identifying in an article claims which are disputed

Currently, if their is any information in an article which is disputed, it is only mentioned on the discussion page. But the majority of readers will not check the discussion page after reading the article, and will accept as fact anything which is found in the article. I therefore propose that there be some form of format-based identifier, for example a red dashed line under the text, to show that something is being disputed. When the issue has been discussed and concordance reached amongst the disputants, then the word or phrase in question could be rectified to reflect the outcome of the discussions and the format tag removed.

At the moment, it is possible for people to identify in the page claims which are unsourced, but there are cases when the use of this tag would not be appropriate, e.g. if there exist two or more equally reliable but conflicting sources. - R160K (talk) 18:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Inline templates has a collection of tags which can be added to a particular statement which seems in need of revision or substantiation. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Readers also have to use a certain amount of critical thinking. Just because a sentence doesn't have a [citation needed] at the end, there's certainly no reason be sure it's true. If the truth of what you're reading is important to you, you may want to use a better encyclopedia if the article is weak on citations. Richard001 (talk) 05:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Bots and the {{bots}} template

There is discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#nobots about whether or not bots should obey the {{bots}} template (especially in regard to user talk pages). Please chime in there. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

We all know what you mean; that you don't intend by your post to convey what the words actually say, but please be aware that "chime in" is generally a pejorative, usually employed to mean the insertion of an unwanted and unwelcome opinion.--68.237.2.101 (talk) 06:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Er... I was not aware that "chime in" was a pejorative. I certainly didn't mean it in any negative way... —Locke Cole • t • c 06:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That's why I said "we all know what you mean..." It's crystal clear from the context that you don't mean it in that way. I just thought you should be aware. See, for example, here for a definition:-)--68.237.2.101 (talk) 14:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I have never before heard that it was pejorative. My dictionary defines "chime in" as 1) interject a remark; 2) join in harmoniously. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

From various dictionaries listing only first entries (primary definitions):

To interrupt the speech of others, especially with an unwanted opinion.dictionary.com;
interrupt other people's conversation: to interrupt or join in a conversation between other people, especially in order to voice an opinion Encarta;
To break into a conversation; "her husband always chimes in, even when he is not involved in the conversation" interlingua;
chime in, cut in, put in, butt in, chisel in, barge in, break in -- (break into a conversation...Worldnet; etc.

I just wanted Locke Cole to be aware, not cause a ruckus; I apologize that this is spiraling into a larger discussion and thus causing the original post's topic to be obscured.--68.237.2.101 (talk) 15:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Now would be a good time for someone to update the Wiktionary entry; it does not mention the negative connotations of the expression. Waltham, The Duke of 22:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The pejorative stuff is merely a connotation, which is merely there sometimes when the word is used. Most of the definitions listed above do not have pejorative primarly meanings, only (in some cases) pejorative connotations. In my opinion, a connotation is something different from "what the words actually say." In my opinion there was nothing at all wrong with what Locke Cole said. In fact, I support Locke Cole's usage of the phrase. I generally oppose the sliding of meanings from neutral meanings to necessarily positive or pejorative meanings, and boldly using a word or phrase in a neutral fashion like that helps prevent that slide. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not about right and wrong, it's about word usage and primary meanings. "Merely a connotation"? Language is nuanced and delicate and choosing one word or phrase over another because of its connotation is what we must all do when we set pen to paper (or fingers the keyboard). For good or bad, the primary meaning of to chime in is negative, and of those who know the phrase, the majority will understand it under its primary definition (that's why it is the primary), and will thus read the initial post with a bit of puzzlement as to the word choice. The lady squatted has a different connotation than the lady kneeled; the physical act described can be identical, but the reader gets a very different impression from the one as opposed to the other. I don't understand what you mean when you refer to the "sliding of meanings from neutral meanings to necessarily positive or pejorative meanings". Words mean what the mean (including their connotations) until usage changes in society. There is often a lag time between a change in usage and dictionaries' reflection of that change, but the subject we are focused on here has not, I think, had a usage shift.--68.237.2.101 (talk) 02:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

To avoid taking up space here, I continue this discussion at my talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Simple English on top of languages everywhere?

What about putting the Simple English language link on top of all languages on all pages like it is on the main page?--Kozuch (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I already suggested this, see here -> (link) and the revelent discussion here -> (link). Although it was very popular amongst us, the developers have yet to implement it. -- penubag  (talk) 21:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice to hear. Hopefully, it will be available soon!--Kozuch (talk) 21:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't count on it, the devs don't really like the idea, but I did file a bugzilla report, I'm not sure how this works but maybe if you vote here (account creation required), they'll implement it faster. -- penubag  (talk) 02:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the Hebrew Wikipedia places links to English at the top of interwiki links. This was the result of a community discussion a few years ago. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 16:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Greatest Military leaders

I have a suggestion about making a Wikipedia "survey" about who the greatest military leaders of history are. A person can nominate let say three notable leaders and give reasons why they would be in the list. It should include people like Caesar, Atilla, Alexander the Great and other "titans" from the past. This would be an interesting event which can even be put on the main page to attract more people who love history. It would have an endtime of like a month or less and then an article will be made with the final list of a hundred leaders.Dakovski (talk) 20:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

WP is an encyclopædia, not a poll service, and the end product of your proposal would be tantamount to OR. Adrian M. H. 20:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Replace

• {{birth date and age}}
• {{death date and age}}
• {{Birth date}}
• {{Death year and age}}

with User:Gnevin/sandbox2 which gives User:Gnevin/sandbox, have a look , works like standard templates expect takes 7 fields , if the first contain a char is indicates its a birth box if it's blank it does the death stuffGnevin (talk) 00:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you have a look I've made some further updates Gnevin (talk) 18:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

{{AgeDobDOD}} in used with Albert EinsteinGnevin (talk) 18:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Language Settings

Copied from Wiktionary:Feedback Conrad.Irwin 01:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, I just noticed that i am not supposed to write about Wikipedia but about Wikitionary. I just found out that it existed and i had somehow stumbled onto it somehow. Well I've just finished writing a long message about Wikipedia now so I might as well send my opinion and suggestion for improval of Wikipedia. Maybe someone to do with Wikipedia as well will read it. If you know where this would be better in place you could copy it there and give me the link: <email removed>

Opinion about Wikipedia

I really like Wikipedia. Its the best source for knowledge in all areas I ever had and I use it very often. I also really like the fact that anyone can contribute. It simply makes it up to date and much better and much more complete than any commercial encyclopedia could ever be. And I really believe knowledge is and must be a public good of humanity and everyone should be free to share his knowledge and should be able to have part in this public good for free. After all knowledge should be spread and preserved and the best way to do this is to share it. I really like the idea of Wikipedia being free and having the option to donate if and whenever one wants to and according to what one can afford and what one is willing to give. When I get wealthy I will donate for sure. I don't contribute a lot, but when i see something wrong or something to be improved, that I know about, I take my time to correct or improve it. Thats simply because I like to share my knowledge to help others. And I really want to give something back to the comunity and to contribute to this great website, which has helped me a lot and is a blessing to mankind.

Suggestion for improval

I have one suggestion for a small improvement I would like and I think it would help everyone and disturb nobody. I grew up bilingual in german and english and as these happen to be the the two most present languages on this site I use it in both languages and switch between them very often.

I mostly visit wikipedia via the german Url www.wikipedia.de, which I find very handy (more intuitive than de.wikipedia.org), and sometimes I don't find what I need in german and want to search for it in english. And now it would really be very handy to have the languages on the left hand side all the time, wherever you are in Wikipedia in whatever situation (maybe with few reasonable exceptions). I know they are there for most of the time, but for example if you search for something and there is no article found, then the main frame and the sidebar are both nearly empty and there are no language settings on the left hand side. I noticed that the languages are displayed according to the search keywords and in which other languages they are found in the search result list. Similar thing with articles, there are only languages displayed for which an article about the same topic exists. That makes sence, its a good feature and should not be changed.

But if you don't find the article with an english searchword, maybe you want to switch to another language quickly and then you will miss the languages that are not listed at the side because there is no article containing the enlish keyword in the german wikipedia for example or because no article was found and therefore no language links are displayed. Or maybe you read some english article and would like to read about something else that has to do with the subject, but you can only think of the german word, then its handy if you can just click german and type in the word thats in your mind to find the article you want. These are just 2 examples for loads of situations that happen where you want to change the language of the site, preferably at one click and without having to press the back-button repeatedly or having to type a new Url.

So I think the section languagues that exists should keep its functionality the way it is, but there should be a second section as well for the languages the article or search word or section is not available or found in, lets call it "other languages" for example. At the same time the current language section should be renamed into "also available in" or "also found in" to make the difference between the two clear: "also found in" for corresponding sites/results found in other languages and "other languages" for the rest of the languages without any hits on the keyword/topic so you can still choose one of them at a klick if you want to.

So there would be a section working like the current language section and another new section beneath that, displaying the languages that were left out in the first, because the article, page or searchresults are not available in those languages, so that users can still switch to these at will.

The names I made up for the two sections in "" are just examples to make my idea clear, there might be better ones for the same thing and then they should be named whatever is best.

I think there are more such situations where the languages should be added on the left hand side in some form, preferably the two-section solution I suggested, because they are simply missing and there are equivalent pages in other languages and there is enough space to add them at the side.

For example if you visite the sidebar-links "content" or "recent changes" or "special pages" there are no language settings at the side. There might be more such situations to be found if someone knows his way through the site well.

I would be happy if that change could be done. I know its not a very big or important modification, but it makes navigation through languages much easier and more consistent, so it does not happen, that you wonderingly search for the languages and think they were somewhere here on the left hand side. Because exactly that happened to me once, when I was fairly new to the site. So changing the language could be faciliated and speeded up a bit. Seeing that there are so many views of wikipedia daily from all over the world I think even such a small improvement would repay the effort hundertfold by saving each of the millions of viewers a little bit of time each time they want to change the language. It would help everyone even if only a tiny little bit. Thats exactly the reason why I just spend so much the time to think and write and explain so much about such a small suggestion.

Thank you to whoever takes the time to read and consider my suggestion! Before you delete this, please send me a link to where it should be post it or post it there yourself and send me the link. Thank you. <email removed>

I would suggest the Qwika tool [2]. It searches in 1,158 wikis and (machine-) translates the text. JoJan (talk) 14:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea! And when you're looking at search results and click on one of the interwikis which you're suggesting, perhaps it should automatically display search results using the same search term you just used. I don't know whether that would be hard for the developers to set up. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

View oldest non-patrolled?

On New pages patrol, by experimenting with the offset parameter in the URL I discovered that there are more than 14,000 pages that have not been patrolled - and who knows how many older than one month. Could we get an "oldest" button to make it easier to patrol old articles before they disappear unpatrolled from the list of new pages? Sbowers3 (talk) 03:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as changes go, this would (hopefully) be fairly non-controversial. It would require a software change though, I would suggest filing a request on Bugzilla. Mr.Z-man 17:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Multiple watchlists

For organizational purposes, it would be nice to be able to maintain more than one watchlist. I've been cleaning up my watchlist every couple months but I usually end up deleting things I actually want to keep, just to get the list cut down to a more manageable size. I'm tempted to maintain an external text file or something so I can move chunks of listings in and out of the raw watchlist editor depending on what I want to look at, but would it really be so difficult for the wiki have that kind of functionality already built-in? I can't see it being an additional resource hog. Equazcion •✗/C • 15:23, 12 Mar 2008 (UTC)

See m:Help:Watching pages#Related changes feature for "additional watchlists". Although they do have some drawbacks: such a list is not private, you have to explicitly put links to talk pages, there are less options to filter the changes. —AlexSm 15:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that is helpful. However, still, I think multiple watchlists for each user is a good idea. It would offer a lot of convenience and benefit for very little performance cost, if any at all. Equazcion •✗/C • 15:38, 12 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I was going to propose something like this! I suggest that each item on a watchlist have a "flag" or parameter which could be a bit, an integer or a short piece of text which the user associates with the item.

Suppose you're going to be really busy for a few weeks. Then you want only the few articles most important to you to show on your watchlist during that time. But then afterwards, when you have some time and want to see what's happening in the general areas you're interested in, currently you have to start from scratch rebuilding your watchlist. Under my proposal, you'd only have to click one setting, "show all items" or "show all items with priority level of 5 or fewer" etc. If it's a text parameter, you could click "show all items that I've tagged with "medicine" etc. depending on what your interests are at the moment. You could also label things as "watchlisted during RC patrol" or "watchlisted when I posted a message there" so you'd know why the heck things are on your watchlist. It might also be useful if the date the item was placed on your watchlist could be (optionally) displayed. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, similar solution, probably even better since you'd be able to see all "watchlists" at once if you chose to, but also be able to filter based on user-defined tags. I actually like that better. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:28, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I like that, too. However, I think I ought to mention an already existing tool: the ability to monitor changes in all the pages that link to a specific page. John Carter gave me the idea, and applied it on SBS's Templates page; all changes made on pages linked to from that page can be seen in a list accessible from a box in SBS's main page. I can tell you, it helped me clear my watchlist a long way. One can create a subpage in one's userspace with all the pages one is interested in watching; one may categorise its contents as one wishes (with headings and sections) and has the ability to hide links (or, indeed, entire groups of links) whenever one wishes by turning them into HTML comments. This tool, which I have only recently learnt about, has many potentials in my opinion. Waltham, The Duke of 20:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that's the related changes feature, see the first response to the original post above. It's a good temporary solution but the watchlist is so much more functional, easier to use and read. I think it should be expanded to include this functionality. Equazcion •✗/C • 12:30, 16 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Making Did You Know archives easier to access

I have been informed that on 31 January 2008, a "Did you know" feature was featured on Frederick Madison Allen,but I have not been able to find it. Do you know where I might find it? Is there way to make back editions of "Did you know" easier to access?ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It's at [3]. There are archives at Wikipedia:Recent additions, but they only go back to early February, otherwise it would be easy to find using "What links here" on the article.-gadfium 04:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Would it be feasible to modify the template put on the article's Talk page to include a link to the actual DYK diff where the article appeared? Sbowers3 (talk) 18:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject namespace

Wikiprojects tend to have specifically defined naming conventions, numerous subpages, and sometimes work outside of normal conventions (like having their own rules of style, own elections, etc). Would it make sense to create a Wikiproject namespace, similar to the Portal namespace to centrally place all projects and help clear up part of the Wikipedia space? MBisanz ^talk 07:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see the utility of this. There are probably lots of areas that could be "seceded", if I may freely use the term, from the Project (or any other) namespace, but as long as there is no conflict between either the scope or names of the pages in a namespace, there is no real gain to be made by subjecting Wikipedia to such a change. After all, there is no real confusion between WikiProject pages and other pages in the Project namespace (which would be resolved by such a measure), and I don't think that a separate WikiProject namespace would change the situation with WikiProjects much. If one wants to find a WikiProject, there is the place to do that. Waltham, The Duke of 21:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be a positive development. With so many major pages already titled [["Wikipedia:WikiProject" Something]], it's a virtual namespace already. I don't see any reason not to create this namespace, with the WikiProjects having evolved into such a mature part of our infrastructure, and one that could potentially in future take advantage of the distinct organization of a separate namespace. Wikipedia could probably take a cue from some of the other Wikimedia projects, which have not been so conservative in keeping only to the "obvious" namespaces.--Pharos (talk) 00:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is funny. I find no reason why this should be done, and Pharos finds no reason why it shouldn't be done. I am not against splintering off the WikiProject section, as long as there are some real arguments about the benefits such an action would produce. "Future benefits" is not enough for me; if we discover later that this is useful, we can move the WikiProjects then. It's not like it will be that much harder then than it is today... There is no actual urgency about the matter. Waltham, The Duke of 03:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

As you indicate there is no urgency to this proposal. But given that wikiprojects have their own naming conventions, internal policies, coordination system, and a project naming that is so standard that 95% of projects could be bot identified. Help spaces could have remained part of Wikipedia and Portal part of Mainspace, but it just seems to make sense to split them off. That and there is the annoying name overlap of Wikipedia policies like SPAM and RFA and the corresponding Wikiprojects. MBisanz ^talk 03:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

An argument against: Searches checkmarking "Wikipedia" would not include a WikiProject space which would have to also be checked. Some people would fail to do that and not find the information they want. And many people from other language Wikipedia's would expect to find such pages in the Wikipedia space which has a common name in many languages. My English Wikipedia work occasionally causes me to visit Wikipedia's in languages I don't know. It's nice that the interface is generally consistent so you know where to click even if you cannot read the text. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The default search currently includes the article, Talk and Wikipedia namespaces. There's no good reason it couldn't include the new WikiProject namespace as well.--Pharos (talk) 05:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I could swear the default search included only Main and that we could customize our own defaults. but I could be wrong. MBisanz ^talk 05:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, that is what Help:Searching says. And I've had no idea about it up to now, but, to be honest, I've never explored my preferences really thoroughly. I only activated pop-ups and wikEd last week, imagine that.

So, this is a problem solved, I suppose. If one wants to search WikiProjects, one sets it in one's preferences. Waltham, The Duke of 18:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Old proposal to view review version

A while ago there was a proposal to make visitors see the last reviewed version of a page rather than the current, potentially vandalized one. This proposal was supported by most users, and the people who own the website said that they liked it, but it was never implemented. What is the point of this place if people can propose good ideas and they are never acted upon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.45.183 (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Flagged revisions Adrian M. H. 21:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In August they said that they would do it in "a few months", and it's now been seven months. The idea has clearly been abandoned by the higher-ups. We need to find someone who knows how to change the site's code and get them to change it for us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.15.164.67 (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The extension is still under development. Its currently being tested on the test wiki and IIRC, the discussion here really didn't result in anything being resolved. Mr.Z-man 17:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

April Fool's main page

See Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page. Are we doing this again this year? Anyone else interested in helping? The "joke" is that everything on the main page is a completely factual (yet unusual or unexpected) collection of information. - Chardish (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-03/Dispatches. Corvus cornix_talk 18:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

CSD R2 and T1, and userbox migration

I propose that, to take the userbox migration solution into account, CSD R2 and T1 be amended to read:

R2. Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User talk: namespace from the article or template space. If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.

T1. Templates in "Template:" space that are divisive and inflammatory and have been copied to user subpages.

NeonMerlin 21:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Requests to alter the criteria for speedy deletion should go on the talk page of the CSD page Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion Harryboyles 03:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Tightening the screws

I propose that page creation should be done by autoconfirmed (accounts at least 4 days old) rather than new users, as is currently the case. Previously, IP editors could also create pages, but as spam increased and the encyclopedia began to fill up, this was changed to registered users. At this point, I think it's time to take things to the next level. There are three reasons for this. First, it will stop casual spammers and vandals from uploading their "product" here - of course waiting four days is hardly implausible, but it's almost guaranteed that some people's zeal for disruption will fade within four days. Second, it's not a heavy burden on legitimate new users interested in contributing. Such individuals understand the harm caused by spammers and vandals and are sure to be patient enough to wait their turn and then upload their new article. Third, the overall effect will be an improvement on quality and will ease the strain on new page patrollers: less junk uploaded (in an encyclopedia that, at almost 2.3 million articles, should certainly be focusing more on quality than on quantity by now) and better articles. Biruitorul (talk) 15:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds sensible, and worthy of support. -- 16:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fullstop (talk • contribs)

Wouldn't it be nice if we knew who supported it?

In any case, it is discussed whether unregistered editors ought to be able to create pages; even if this movement (which actually seeks to have an "experimental" measure abrogated) does not gain support, it is highly unlikely that we should actually move to the opposite direction. Personally, I have no idea what I'd like to see. Waltham, The Duke of 18:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course we should know who supports and opposes it - that's why we have this board, to throw out random (well, hopefully not totally random) ideas and see if they gather any traction. IP page creation was banned in December 2005 (apparently) and it seems to have been a pretty successful "experiment", and quite long-lasting too. The question is if we should go on to the next level, at least on an experimental basis. I think I've outlined a good case for it, but I welcome opposing views. Biruitorul (talk) 19:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. In fact, I support letting anons create new articles and upload pics. From wiki: "Wikis are generally designed with the philosophy of making it easy to correct mistakes, rather than making it difficult to make them." Let's keep to that as much as possible. We want to encourage people to create articles on impulse. I agree this change would probably reduce vandalism, but I don't think it's worth the decline we would probably see in production in the long run. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 04:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

You make a fair point. However, the shift in focus from quantity to quality started long ago, and I see this as a small step in that direction. Let's face it: at 2.3 million articles, the encyclopedia is pretty complete and then some, and making people wait a little while before adding yet another article (no matter how good it is) isn't going to put a substantial dent in quality. As for philosophical concerns: we are indeed "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but just as we are in fact "the free encyclopedia to which any logged-in registered user can upload an article", we'd be "the free encyclopedia to which any logged-in registered user with an account at least 4 days old can upload an article" - not a major ground shift. Biruitorul (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea, and it would be good to do some investigation of articles created by non-autoconfirmed users to see how many get deleted and what level of quality they are. Personally I suspect most of them will be deleted one way or another. Right now, increasing the number of articles we have isn't a very high priority compared with other tasks. Hut 8.5 13:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we should do some investigation. That's where this proposal should start. I just took a very cursory look at 20 New pages. Eight of them were by non-autoconfirmed users. Of those, four had already been marked for CSD. Three others probably will be speedied. The eighth is a good article that needs cleanup but probably will survive. That's a tiny sample; we really should get much more data. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll be doing mine, you yours, and let's report back in a week, two, what have you. Biruitorul (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

New Theme

If you check, for example, the Spanish, Portuguese, or French versions of Wikipedia, you'll see that they sport a nicer theme than the English version. I think that theme should be the default for all versions of Wikipedia because it provides a nicer experience. Peteturtle (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Revert restrictions

Recently, there was an incident reported to WP:AN3. It wasn't a direct violation of 3RR; rather, two editors were at odds, and instead of reaching compromise, they were edit warring across multiple articles. They never violated technical 3RR, but an admin had to end up protecting the pages. So, I notified both editors of my decision to restrict them to two reverts a person should they interact again in the near future. I did this for multiple reasons; first, it kept me unbiased, so that I could still help mediate the dispute. Secondly, they wouldn't be able to get around the technical definition of 3RR. Third, I didn't feel right about blocking two well-established editors for something they really shouldn't have been doing, and wanted to offer a chance to reconcile and compromise. Protecting multiple pages didn't sound fun either. However, this was misinterpreted as an abuse of power, and it was quickly pointed out to me that policy does not cover any of this; the closest would be either getting ARBCOM to do it or getting consensus at ANI.

Now, my idea is; wouldn't it be acceptable for admins to administer actions like this? Instead of blocking established editors and alienating them, or protecting pages and stopping others from contributing, you just temporarily stop the two from interacting with each other negatively. They can still compromise, edit other areas of the encyclopedia, and contribute meaningfully; they just can't edit war under the threat of a block.

I'm bringing this here as a proposal, but also as a means to get some suggestions and commentary from peoples out there. So go on, have a go. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 22:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

If you think that the edit warring would best be halted by blocking, then go ahead and block as normal. The block can be reviewed if inappropriate. I don't like the idea of you creating apparently permanent special restrictions unilaterally. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Temporary restrictions, temporary. Forgot to put that in. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 22:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Without a specified ending period (which as I can see hasn't been established), it's as permanent as anything can be on Wikipedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that restrictions of that sort are unreasonable, though it's a good idea to post a notice to AN/I if you're going to 'think outside the box'. Remind the involved editors that 3RR is an electric fence and not an entitlement (or whatever the precise wording is) and that edit warring across multiple articles – 3RR or not – is disruptive and eminently blockable.

If you're feeling charitable, offer them a choice—they can take the 2RR, or you can just block them immediately if they start to fight again. There's no reason to make a lot of article uneditable if it's only a pair of editors who can't behave. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Blocking is fine because it is a one-time, easily reviewable decision. Creating restrictions that are active for a long period raises many questions: Are other admins bound by the new rule - what happens when another admin sees 3 reverts and decides blocking is inappropriate? Can other admins unilaterally lift the remedy or would that be wheel warring? The specific remedy also has problems, being easy to game in the same way 3RR is. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say that admins could impose anything up to a block as an alternative to a block, but without some sort of consensus or arbcom mandate, such a restriction would be really difficult to maintain. Mr.Z-man 23:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Better yet, why not refer them to WP:BRD? That's the standard way of dealing with conflicts on a wiki. There's an essay out there somewhere that says that when someone reverts you, it's better to leave the wrong version up there and discuss it on the talk page. The idea is to persuade them to revert themselves, or get the consensus on your side. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 04:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Since it's an essay, BRD is just "a nice thought" right now. Warring editors won't likely take heed from reading it. I think that if it's apparent that editors are warring across multiple articles, they should be blocked for 3RR. Why punish everyone else for the actions of a couple of poor editors? I've been told many times that 3RR isn't a definite line and that 3 reverts don't need to show up in the same article (or even at all) in order for a revert war to be declared and the participating editors blocked. In other words, you don't get to make 3 reverts in 24 hours anymore. So either move 3RR to a different name and make changes in order to reflect that, or perhaps merge 3RR and BRD somehow. That's already the practice anyway, as far as I've seen. Equazcion •✗/C • 04:29, 16 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales should be admonished and officially requested to step down.

To clarify a bit here, in the past I rejected some of these claims as conspiracy theories. And I am neutral because I think that a great deal of posters at Wikipedia Review are trolls (see my edits and comments on the Wikia article).

However, considering all of the recent stories in the news, it is getting a bit ridiculous. It's like nobody's going to say anything unless somebody manages to snap a photo of Jimmy walking out of Wikimedia's offices, with a black ski mask and a bag of money. Even then, people would argue, "But the glove doesn't fit!" (A reference to the O.J. Simpson trial)

Recognizing the facts involved here:

• The frequent appearance of impropriety by Wales and the Foundation (i.e., several controversial employees, including one which embezzle $5k and the Foundation simply fired them, telling no one).
• The financial mismanagement in FY 2007 as evidenced by the F7 2007 financial report
• Danny Wool's allegations of Wales being careless with Wikimedia funds, to the point that his foundation credit card was taken away.
• The allegations of Wales tampering with Rachel Marsden's biography, when she was involved with him in a relationship.
• Jeff Merkey's allegations that Wales offered to accept a bribe to promote a favorable version of Merkey's biography.
• Various inconsistent statements made by Wales and the Foundation.
• Jimmy's failure to appropriately address these concerns, brushing it off as if there is no story to tell.

For the sake of the Wikipedia project, I propose that the community formally admonish Jimbo Wales and demand that he resign as chairman emeritus. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the good thing about caring only about freedom is that you don't have to mess with all this chit-chat mess ;-) I think you should clarify the points for those who haven't heard yet (for example, mismanagement? inconsistent statements? failure to address concerns? etc).

As a side note, I thought the edits happened before the relation started, but as I said, I don't care about all the soap opera. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, Several controversial employees? Who was the second? What evidence from the 2007 financial report? You mean the audit that came up clean? I think Wales declared he had a COI with Marsden and left the editing to the OTRS team, I don't think he ever edited her article. Mr.Z-man 04:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

As a non-CPA accountant I looked over the 2007 Financial Report and saw nothing obviously wrong. Sarcasticidealist (talk · contribs) who has experience in non-profit finance looked at them and saw nothing obviously wrong. If your refering to increasing costs for employees as opposed to increasing money spent on technology, I'd say the magnitude of the change is far from financial mismanagement. MBisanz ^talk 04:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Allegations are not necessarily truths. Merkey's claims have been proven to be false. Corvus cornix_talk 04:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, let's "recognize the 'facts'" involved here. As a public figure, Wales is going to be subjected to scuttlebutt and rumor and not a one of the allegations on your lumped together list of indictments are substantiated facts. Indeed what we have here are a mix of unmitigated gossip, dubious allegations, some believable but not damning issues, and nothing I can see that lead straight to the gibbet where you appear to be now waiting, metaphorically speaking.

The Rachel Marsden matter is a non-issue—pure rumor. Wales admits a relationship. So what. The rumor part of it is that he edited her biography while he had that conflict. The only apparent statement from anyone in the know is from Wales, here, where he details that he first met Ms. Marsden in February of this year, but that he edited her biography two years ago as part of OTRS duties. Until someone shows differently, there's nothing here. If there's anyone who has ethical concerns ("married man"), Wales has publicly stated he was separated from his wife at the time. The details of Wale's personal life are otherwise irrelevant.

Jeff Merkley's allegations of bribes are just that, allegations. Until proven, they remain nothing but. But they certainly appear unbelievable, at least to me; not because I know Wales wouldn't do such a thing, though I've seen nothing that would indicate he would, but because he doesn't strike me as dumb enough to do so. Let's speculate for a moment. First, $5,000 a year is not peanuts for a person but it is to the foundation. If Wales would do this for a measly 5k, we would be seeing twenty other reports from all the other shills he promised the same or other preferential treatment. Second, Wales is...ahem...an experienced editor. He well knows how transparent edit histories are. If there was a quid pro quo here, this would be the height of stupidity because of how exposed he would be upon Merkley simply revealing that the money donated was for these favors, and about which Wales would have to know would be damning if made public. Of course, I could be wrong, but I'm operating under the same lack of substantiated facts everyone else is.

Embezzlement by an employee. Pretty damn common, especially for an organization of any size. How exactly does this tar Wales? Maybe if you could show that Wales directly failed to supervise this employee in a manner that he should have and that would have ferreted out the plan, then you'd have something to run with. Do you? As for that they told no one, I'm not sure what duty they would they have to disclose this; they might even have had a duty to not disclose.

Various inconsistent statements made by Wales and the Foundation. Mummery. Where's the "diffs" i.e., this is totally unparticularized. Put up....

2007 financial mismanagement. I'm not saying there wasn't but just saying it without saying what you mean by this as if it's a well know fact is opaque.

Danny Wool's allegations are the most believable, that Wales may have been a bit lax in his bookkeeping on trips and didn't stay at motel 5, but I see no crime being spoken of.

So until something tangible comes out, if ever, all I see is a smear list that is made up mostly of hot air, as are the sensationalist news reports. By the way, if Wales is under indictment a month from now (I'm speaking loosely—some eventuality that puts flesh on these rumors), I will not regret this post. It is then that I'll see a reason to ask him to "step down", and not before.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

"Merkey's claims have been proven to be false." I have been following this case from the sideline, and while I have seen a lot of allegations, counterallegations and denials, I haven't seen any proof either way. So could you please point me to the proof that Merkey's claims are false? Aecis^Brievenbus 15:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

If you don't like the way Jimbo does his job, or anything else about Wikipedia in general, click Special:UserLogout and let the rest of us build an encyclopedia. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 05:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a false dilemma. I am not firmly in either camp, but to suggest that the only two alternatives are complete acceptance of the status quo or departure is incorrect. Certainly, there are some things that need to change about Wikipedia. --B (talk) 06:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

What a load of @#%$, going through your post by line:

1. "The frequent appearance of impropriety . . ."

   vague or lacking specifics. . . whatever.

2. The financial mismanagement in FY 2007 as evidenced by . . ."

   by the report? I have yet to see anything concrete here either, but insinuations are great!

3. "Danny Wool's allegations . . ."

   italics mine, allegations, are you serious? The word can be replace with "unsubstantiated rumor"

4. "The allegations of Wales tampering with Rachel Marsden's biography, when she was involved with him in a relationship."

   Allegation again, but no tale is any good without a little sex thrown in for good measure.

5. "Jeff Merkey's . . ."

   Got to stop you right there, did you ever see any of his edits? I did, and suffice it to say, that I can't describe his issues with regard to (a lack of) credibility, without violating WP:NPA.

6. Various inconsistent statements made by Wales and the Foundation.

   Again no specifics. At this point it just looks like you're padding out the list.

7. Jimmy's failure to appropriately address these concerns, brushing it off as if there is no story to tell.

   To the extent that he addressed some issues, I thought it adequate or overdone or ultimately, not really needed.

Zenwhat, surely you some better way to occupy your time? I know I do. I can't even tell why you're here. And in case you misunderstand me, I am not asking you to "flesh out" the crap above, I'm done here. R. Baley (talk) 06:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

• This is a ludicrous proposal. Danny Wool is a disgruntled ex-employee with an axe to grind, Brad Patrick has stated that Jimmy is all square financially with the foundation - and the sums involved are in any case tiny. The Marsden case was a bog standard OTRS matter that got out of hand when Jimmy started communicating privately, at which point he sent the OTRS list a mail recusing himself from further editing, something which I believe he has held to. Merkey is simply wrong, and has been told so. He is a great guy, but with a long history of firmly grabbing the wrong end of the stick and then laying about everybody with it. There have also been complaints to the State government and I believe the IRS as well form an editor who was banned for spamming, conflicted edits and sockpuppetry - those complaints which have been lodged have all been dismissed out of hand, as far as I can tell. So we are placing a lot of faith on the words of disgruntled axe-grinders and at the same time failing to extend any kind of good faith in favour of Jimbo. The vultures who are trying to get someone to put the knife in so they can have a go at the resultant corpse, they disgust me. Have you any idea how many operations as small as the Wikimedia Foundation have a profile that high? I would say it's in single figures. Of course a few mistakes will get made along the way and a few feathers ruffled, but it is one hell of an achievement and without ever taking on commercial sponsorship. Andnow you want to censure the man who created the whole thing? Get real. Guy (Help!) 08:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Which of the two CheckUsers and various admins that contribute to Wikipedia Review do you feel are particularly trollish (i.e. liable to place a block on your account simply for the lulz)? Indeed, which of the other WP editors who also edit WR are trolls (and as you know, trolls just love to banhammerclub together), in your estimation? LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Before this motion to declare the chair vacant comes before the assembly, might I ask whether the member plans on electing a new chair, or has some different system in mind altogether? Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 14:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

What motion? this isn't a community matter - in the sense that we can make suggestions to the foundation but they don't have to listen to them. What we decide here has no authority at all at the foundation level. What policy proposal that can actually be carried out by the community is being proposed? We can restrict him as an editor and an admin on wikipedia but that's it. His legal relationship with the foundation is a foundation issue. (and what's with the bullshit "assembly" speak? is that suppose to impress someone) --88.105.110.62 (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Chairman, I call the member to order! :) Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 17:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

If you wish any action to be taken, please be far more specific in your allegations. A few vague comments about known troublemakers making unsubstantiated allegations are not enough for a proposal like this. Also, who embezzled 5 grand? I seem to have completely missed that... --Tango (talk) 16:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

• Isn't it just about time that Danny and his crew either put up some hard and fast evidence or shut up completely. Here we are again someone wanting Wales swinging from a lampost with not one scrap of reliable evidence. Do we have photographs of Wales emerging dishevelled from the Russian massage parlour, do we see the receipts? In fact has anyone seen any of these receipts for anything. I have seen no proof for anything, of anything. In most places in the world it is for guilt to be proven, not innocence. Has Wikipedia suddenly become very different from the rest of the world? Giano (talk) 16:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Why does anybody care what Jimbo Wales does in his private life? Yes he founded the project and is the chairman but he actually has very little to do with how this site has developed in terms of content and how it is developing. The extent of Wikipedia and the encyclopedia we see today is 99.9% the product of the people who have made it what it is not the man who founded it. Why does anybody care about what Jimbo does? Yes he founded this site and had a damn great idea in doing so but there seems to be some misconception that he is or should be some kind of saint. He's just a man like anybody else for franks sake and if you look at the overwhelming good of what he has done for the internet you;d think twice about getting into these petty squabbles about his unfitness for the position. Why don't you just give the poor guy a break. This is just another case of an attention seeker trying to bring down something so strong ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 19:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

We in wikipedia make a point of operating on the basis of reliable, verifiable information. I have seen neither any reliable or verifiable information of misconduct here, only allegations. I cannot see how it would benefit the project at all if we were to demand that every official step down any time unsubstantiated allegation are made. John Carter (talk) 20:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I heard an article desperate calling to be cleaned up somewhere out there. If you guys don't mind, I'll be going out now. bibliomaniac15 20:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

where is the proposal in this? --Fredrick day 20:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, I should point out that Jimbo is *not* chairman. He used to be, but User:Anthere is the current chair of the board. Secondly, if Jimbo's private life is interfering with Wikimedia (which the allegations say it is), then it is certainly our concern. If he is successfully keeping his private life separate from Wikimedia (as all the evidence suggests he is), then it shouldn't be our concern at all. --Tango (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that Jimbo really has gotten himself into a fine mess this time. Rachel Marsden is a very vocal and visible television personality and will not hesitate to denounce Jimbo from any venue she can find, including the O'Reilly Factor and other cable news shows. Of course the media will be all over this as the latest in Wikipedia's stumbles.

But the clincher is that Marsden has the quasi-pornographic statements of Wales himself...and that is enough to keep the story going for months! Everyone loves a good sex tale, regardless of all the other COI stuff...

Personally, I think Jimbo should consider stepping down. Average White Dork (talk) 20:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally I think he shouldn't, he should stay on and not even consider stepping down. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Reducing barriers to entry

I've been talking to non-Wikipedians about their experiences with the project for a while, and have published some IM interviews in my user space. I intend to do more, and I highly recommend talking to your non-Wikipedian friends in the same way. Another way to observe is to read the questions people are asking about Wikipedia (and the awful answers they receive) in the Yahoo Answers! Wikipedia section.

I think we have some really major issues with outsider perception of the project. I'd guess that the majority of people visiting our site from a Google search have not a clue as to how the site works or that they can contribute to it. This is bad because it fuels the endless criticism we receive, and because it prevents these people from becoming contributors. Fixing these misperceptions and reducing barriers to entry should be one of our first priorities, and I don't think it's really even that difficult. Wikinews seems to be better at all of this than we are. Some ideas:

1. On Article pages, you usually click "edit this page" to edit the entire page, or click the section edit links. But on Talk pages, you rarely edit the entire page at once. You're either adding a new section or editing a pre-existing section. For this reason, the new section link (currently identified with a completely inconspicuous "+" sign) should be made more prominent, by changing the button to "add comment" or "new section" or something along those lines, and the "edit this page" link should be made less prominent, maybe just saying "edit". I have tried to implement this in the past, and others have implemented it on other wikis, but some people are really resistant to any change to the interface. I don't understand why.
2. In the corner of every article should be a short notice to the effect of "See a problem with the article? Fix it yourself or leave a comment". Obviously this could be worded better, but the idea is that clicking "fix it yourself" would be just like clicking "edit", except that there would be a "newcomer box" above the edit box explaining the basics of how the site works and how to edit and find more help. Clicking "leave a comment" would go directly to the "new section" screen for that article's talk page, again with a "newcomer box" above it. You would just be presented with a blank box to fill in with the text of your comment, press save, and go on your way. This way when someone sees an error, we can at least get notified about it, instead of them pressing "edit", being overwhelmed by wikicode, and giving up. I'd say we should even go as far as removing the need to enter four tildes if you're editing from this link. Your signature would just be added automatically after the comment (and would show up in the preview screen).
3. Check out Talk:Elephant, and try to see it from a newcomer's perspective. That's a lot of yellow boxes, no? I think we should greatly reduce the prominence of most of the templates (especially the pointless WikiProject ones). I also wonder why the {{talkheader}} box is not at the top of every talk page. I predict some people will complain about it being annoying when you already know about editing. But this a situation where you make the default behavior cater to newcomers, and let the experienced editors hide it with javascript or css. At the least, we could always display it for unregistered users.
4. I've tried to change the tagline to more clearly spell out the way the project works (linking "free" to free content, since you know everyone visiting thinks it just means "free of charge", and adding "that anyone can edit" at the end, for instance). We even had some support from Jimbo, but it ultimately went nowhere. There is apparently no shortage of Wikipedians willing to resist change. I'd like to renew this campaign again someday, but I haven't found the energy.
5. Always endeavor to reduce complexity of code and interfaces, instead of adding more and more features without thinking about how it complicates the user experience. Ideally, the code would have very little special syntax in it, like the good old days, and all the boxes and categories and tables and interwikis and so on would be added, not with code, but with real "Web 2.0" interactive tools like Flickr's tagger. This isn't something that can be implemented in a day like the others, but something to always keep in the back of your minds.

Please discuss. — Omegatron 06:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Support in principle. Just today, I ran into a newcomer who couldn't figure out how to add a new comment (as opposed to adding to an existing comment) to another user's talk page. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Great ideas, all of them!

One little addition: when someone adds a comment via the "leave a comment" box, there could be some little symbol or quirk or "This message was added via leave a comment box" or something added to it so that established users will know that it's been added via that box. Some established users might want to regularly use that box, but it would help if such messages are marked so that people can be aware that it might be from a new user. (Not that new users should be treated any differently than established users, or vice versa ...) --Coppertwig (talk) 18:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Article linking proposal

This is a proposal to simplify locating the relevant text in a linked article - and given that's software based i might try to lodge it over at Bugzilla, but alas, I am a noob.

It would be handy when clicking on a link to be able to have the option to go directly to the main (or first) part of the linked article which is directly relevant to the article the reader was just reading.

For example, I was reading about the Double Layer (Stern potential) and there was a link to Milk, which is obviously a large article. It would have been great if I could have selected, perhaps as a right-click option, the whole article, or the point in the article directly relevant to the Double Layer. Of course, I can easily just do a "ctrl-F" and find that, and I realise funding is not easy for wiki.

Apologies if this has already been raised, but I couldn't find any reference to it. And I have no idea how easy/possible this proposal is, but it would certainly make searching easy for the average reader.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Countskogg (talk • contribs) 09:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe something like this: [[Milk#Physical and chemical structure|Milk]], which produces Milk, a link to a particular section within an article. It's not exactly what you requested but it is something editors can do now. What you really want is a form of Artificial Intelligence, which takes you to a place based on the context of where you came from. Sbowers3 (talk) 10:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I just changed the milk link in double layer to [[Milk#Physical and chemical structure|milk]] which displays as milk. Is that what you were looking for, Countskogg, or did you particularly want to be able to right-click and have a choice? I wonder whether a userscript could be written to give that sort of choice. I'm not sure that it's needed. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Abuse of Process

It would be nice to have a formal system for levelling sanctions on those who are gaming the system, or abusing the processes on WP. People who file fallacious complaints, or charge others with CIVILity violations which are clearly trumped up (like accusing people who want to enforce NPOV or LEAD or even just disagreeing with FRINGE proponents of being unCIVIL). I am observing an increasing amount of this sort of gamesmanship, and it makes the project less and less pleasant. If we could have clear guidelines and examples of Abuse of Process and suggested sanctions, it would make it easier for admins to enforce it. And easier to point to a policy that would hopefully slow some of these abusers down a bit. Otherwise, we are headed for a lot more trouble in the future.--Filll (talk) 20:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)