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:Do you want [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] back? (It died before my time, but I still remember hearing it mentioned as a bad idea). —'''[[User:Kusma|Кузьма]]'''<sup>[[User talk:Kusma|討論]]</sup> 18:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
:Do you want [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] back? (It died before my time, but I still remember hearing it mentioned as a bad idea). —'''[[User:Kusma|Кузьма]]'''<sup>[[User talk:Kusma|討論]]</sup> 18:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
::No, definitely not. Didn't even enter my mind.<br/>—&nbsp;[[User:Ohms law|<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR</span>]] <span style="font-variant:small-caps">([[User talk:Ohms law|Talk]]&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/Ohms law|Contribs]])</span> 20:06, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
::No, definitely not. Didn't even enter my mind.<br/>—&nbsp;[[User:Ohms law|<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR</span>]] <span style="font-variant:small-caps">([[User talk:Ohms law|Talk]]&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/Ohms law|Contribs]])</span> 20:06, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

== Feature suggestion: Wiki comments on a book ==

The Wiki engine is used by lots of sites, and I'd like to suggest a variation that some sites might find useful.

Take a nonfiction book in electronic form. I'm thinking about something where marginalia and other comments would be important—think any of the “annotated” books like Martin Gardner's "The Annotated Alice," for example. It could be an important literary work by Mark Twain, Shakespeare, or James Joyce. Or maybe an ancient work like the Bible, the Iliad, or the epic of Gilgamesh.

This is clumsily doable today. You could chop the work into chapters and anyone could respond like they do to a blog. There could be different threads on different topics. But a long thread with several people bickering back and forth endlessly is not at all like a paragraph or two neatly summarizing the facts and any controversy like you’d have in a Wikipedia article.

Some ideas:
- You’d want to be able to read just the book text without any commentary.
- Comments could be in categories that might vary by the book (“Chess” might be one for "Through the Looking Glass," for example). Readers could select which kinds of annotations to be visible.
- There might be short notes to the side (I’m thinking of how Microsoft Word shows additions with Track Changes) or long ones, perhaps added at the end of a section.
- The “annotated” books themselves might give ideas for how this might look on the screen. Here's a list: http://amzn.to/kNvv2Y

Revision as of 17:52, 4 May 2011

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

Before commenting, note:

« Archives, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61

The aim of the Village pump (idea lab) is to encourage the preliminary incubation of new ideas in a "non-polling" environment. When you have a new idea, it is not mandatory that you post it here first. However, doing so can be useful if you only have a general conception of what you want to see implemented, and would like the community's assistance in devising the specifics. Once ideas have been developed, they can be presented to the community for consensus discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

The formation of this page, and the question of its purpose and existence, are the subjects of discussion on the talk page. Direct all comments on those topics there.


New Permission

Moved to: User:Ebe123/Protected editor.

Cleanup templates -- almost as bad as ads; reduction ideas?

As we all know, Wikimedia takes pride in not covering the site in advertisements. Ads take up screen space, are obstructive to readers, and are generally just annoying to see. As more and more time passes, this is exactly how I feel about the cleanup templates. I am not saying at all that we should get rid of them, but I think we need to find a way to greatly reduce them in space used — closer to what is used for {{Expand section}} with the ability to place them side by side rather than only each below the next.

Think of it this way: we don't want ads on the site because then every page would begin with something like this...


...but many pages needing more than the most basic cleanup already start with something like this...

...or like this...

How is this visually any more acceptable, particularly for non-editors who only visit to find a bit of information? — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 23:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Annoying on purpose. Visually they distract, and redirect attention to themselves. This serves three purposes: a) warn the reader that there may be factual or other problems with the article; b) alert readers who are potential editors that there's something they could fix, if only they clicked the 'edit' link for the first time...; c) alert current editors who come across an article (or indeed search by categories of tagged articles) what the specific problems and concerns are. Net benefit to the project. → ROUX  02:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our rejection of advertisements is not based primarily on visual appeal, but editorial independence. Rich Farmbrough, 14:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
However we can if we wish do this:
Rich Farmbrough, 14:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
It's technologically possible to create expandable templates - a smallish floating template that would have the icon and a key phrase like 'Content dispute', 'Help needed', or etc, but could be clicked to give more details. Don't know if we'd want to do that, and it would be a fairly major undertaking, if only because we'd have to make sure that changes to the current templates didn't muck up any of the possibly thousands of pages these banners are currently on, but it is possible. --Ludwigs2 14:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Roux. Essentially, the ugliness is functional. Rd232 talk 19:12, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, those templates only state the obvious anyway ("This article needs more references, blah, blah.") and I have rarely seen cases where an article was improved as a direct reaction to them. In most cases, somebody puts them on a page and then they stay there for years, because even if proper references have been introduced nobody dares remove the banners. It's really a social problem rather than a technical one: Some editors, instead of simply fixing/improving an article, prefer to tag it with a mostly useless cleanup template because that's less work for them than actually doing something about an article's deficiencies. These templates are also a cheap way to rack up a high edit count, which might explain why some editors are so fond of them. To which I say: WP:SOFIXIT. --Morn (talk) 20:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've solved problems in response to a template, but usually because the article was already on my watchlist for some other reason, and I saw the addition. On the other hand, tags that aren't addressed promptly are probably pretty worthless, if not permanent fixtures. (Exercise for the reader: Go open 100 articles in, say, Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2006 and see how many are incorrectly tagged as containing zero sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"I have rarely seen cases where an article was improved as a direct reaction to them." - how can you tell? This sort of anecdotal handwaving is worthless, unless for some reason you think it valid to only count cases where someone immediately fixes the entire problem and has sufficient confidence in the resolution to remove the template. Of course there's nothing to stop you doing a statistically valid study to determine the impact of cleanup templates over different periods (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year...) if you want... These things take time, and without attention-getting templates, they take even longer. Rd232 talk 01:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They say the obvious... to a human viewer. But the point of a cleanup template is that it enables an editor in the future to find it (through categories and backlinks from WP:TC etc.). And I think the suggestion that the only reason editors tag with cleanup templates is because they are lazy edit count whores is flexing WP:AGF! I've tagged a few articles with WP:TC templates, and the reason I do so is because I'm not necessarily knowledgable about what makes a reliable source for that topic. If I'm watching TV and doing some anti-vandal work while the advert break is on and run across an article that needs obvious cleanup, being able to notify other editors that it has some set of problems is quite useful. Similarly, if I run across a stack of new and unreferenced articles on, say, French politics: I don't know what counts as a reliable source in that topic, but it would be nice if the people who do know could find the article and fix problems with it. —Tom Morris (talk) 01:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(First, on a side note, reading my posts I know that the tone of my typically-long ones can sound a bit snobbish; I assure you that is not the intent. My apologies in advance, though, just in case.) I can see Roux's point, but I think the only reason for validity is because it is what we are used to seeing. On the "Feature Articles" is a little icon in the upper right hand corner. Typically the same is true for admins' pages. We also receive those administrative notices in or watch lists that we can dismiss when we choose. None of them are large, yet I doubt they go unnoticed by the majority. It's not about size; it's about effectiveness. The two aren't always the same. Mentioning again the two examples shown here already:

Can we not see those? Do we think that others cannot see them? What do the larger templates give except for an extended explanation of the template's purpose which is essentially the same as what the link always found in each template provides? If the person doesn't know what "Needs references" means, they can click the link and find out. They don't need it mentioned in the template along with a link visible in the same template for them to click to tell them the exact same thing in more detail. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 22:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A significant part of the purpose is to turn readers into editors. The "please help" bits are not optional extras. Rd232 talk 01:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point (in the way that you stated the first sentence.) I admit I had never thought about it in full from that direct angle — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 07:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]


I liked that point that banners end up sitting for months or years, even after the problems are gone, or of decidedly little interest even to the person who made the banner. Maybe these are good reasons that banners should evolve over time to get smaller?-Tesseract2 (talk) 20:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some (not I) could argue the opposite. If the banners are what grab attention to what needs editing and something hasn't been edited after a long time, then maybe the banners just need to be bigger (ha!) But seriously, I do still feel something could be done. This all sparked from a post a ran across recently by User:MuZemike proposing more uniform templates that (or based on what) he had created (all found here). I agree with his concept, but by chance they are also smaller than current:
... but my view leads to even smaller:
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help us improve it if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions.
This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it.
This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite it from a neutral point of view. Blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic, should be marked for speedy deletion. using {{db-spam}}.
Please expand this article using the suggested source(s) below. More information might be found in a section of the talk page.
A bit crude in my coding making it easier for me to create these, but you get the idea. I still feel they are easily noticeable. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 06:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. It's need: copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling • rewriting from a neutral point of view. (Blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic, should be marked for speedy deletion. using {{db-spam}}) • expanding by using the suggested source(s) below. Please help us improve it if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions.

Hmm? Przykuta (talk) 17:21, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

haha... erm... no. :D — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 06:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Icons

Perhaps the various tags could be replaced with icons located to the immediate right of the article title.

What I envisage is icons of the same font size as the article title, and in the form of a relevant image covered by a red crossed circle. The nature of each icon may be stated as alternative text (e.g. "This article needs...").

To avoid too many such icons, the current tags could be simplified down to a handful. For example, the orphan and dead end tags could be subsumed into a insufficient links icon. And all the references, refimprove, unreferenced, references-blp tags, some of which duplicate each other, could be subsumed into a insufficient references icon.

When adding an icon, an editor could be forced to enter a concern parameter indicating what is wrong. The concern, (in either WP:USETEMP or tag form) could then be automatically entered into the talk page. Once saved, each icon may then act as a link to the relevant section in the talk page. After all, shouldn't these sorts of tags be on the talk page. Isn't that what the talk page is for. How many times have we come across a tagged article and found that the talk page hasn't yet been created or if it has, it was only to add it to a WikiProject.

The obvious criticism I can see of this idea is that icons may be less noticeable than tags. However, considering how dominating tags can be, almost anything would be less noticeable. Nonetheless, I think readers would soon notice these icons as they wouldn't appear identically on every page if at all. And, of course, serving the same function as tags, they'd still add articles to hidden categories.

LordVetinari (talk) 03:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just re-read User:Shanes/Why tags are evil and it seems he already mentioned icons there. Must have been at the back of my mind when I thought of the idea described above. Thought I'd add this in case I get accused of stealing ideas. LordVetinari (talk) 05:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing me to that essay. I had never read it before. Do we really know that the size of the tags (or the tags at all) draw in new people to edit? More specifically, do we know that the tags draw in new people to make edits specifically focused around hoping to get that tag removed? How can we possibly know if we only stick with "how it's always been done" instead of taking a chance? My personal opinion is that smaller tags would not change a thing for better or worse relative to the already-declining number of new editors. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 06:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can't speak for others, of course, but tags didn't motivate me to edit. I read articles on Wikipedia for years before I started editing. Back then, I usually ignored the tags as nothing more than meaningless maintenance stuff. As a reader, it meant nothing to me. When I did eventually edit, it was in response to my own opinion of the article content, not others' opinions as presented through tags. More so as a reader, tags were to me little different to the ads that clog up the dictionary.com website: the reader has to search through the page just to find the text. That's as annoying as google search results that don't lead to pages relevant to the requested search.
My view is that maintenance tags have three purposes:
  • To 'tag' an article for maintenance (i.e. add it to a hidden category)
    • Icons will do this as well as anything
  • To advertise to the reader that an article has been recognised as being below standard
    • Icons, in the form I've described, may fulfil the same purpose. This is especially likely as readers will come to notice that not all pages have icons and those that do don't necessarily have the same ones.
  • To encourage readers to become editors.
    • As mentioned above, tags had no effect in my case. I also don't think people need to be told that a crap article is a crap article in order to motivate them to edit it. People join because it fulfils their needs. That their actions also usually serve Wikipedia's is, in my namesake's words, "a happy bonus". I don't believe people join in because we've just presented them with an article that needs references or needs a copyedit. If they are going to join in, they'll likely start in an area that is of interest to them and then, they'll probably begin by correcting a typo or rephrasing a sentence in an otherwise passable article. To put it in perspective, maintenance is difficult work. For example, I occasionally go on de-orphaning patrols but, despite it seeming like a simple task, different orphaned articles can present different problems requiring different solutions. Just like wikification, refimproving and the others, it is not an easy task likely to motivate the casual reader. Let's entice them with the easy stuff. Once they're seduced, then they'll feel inclined to do the hard yards.
One last thought: I think an editable encyclopedia appeals to that part in many of us that feels compelled to correct spelling mistakes in the newspaper (e.g. see Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
One last question: How many editor's (IP or otherwise) began by dealing with an issue mentioned in a maintenance tag?
LordVetinari (talk) 13:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was asked by CobraWiki to give my views on this. I believe strongly that turning tags meant for editors into small icons would be an improvement. Tags that warn readers about factual controversy or bias are ok, I think. But all those "fix-me" tags nagging about whatever someone felt like nagging about is not worth the distraction and article ugliness the big boxes bring. The style manual states that articles should begin with defining or explaining the topic. These tags goes against that. In general I'd like article space to be for the readers, and complaints or suggestions to editors on how to improve an article should be made on the talk page, not with big flashy boxes on top of the article. --Shanes (talk) 20:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your feedback but thank you especially for "loaning" your idea (see my second edit, above). LordVetinari (talk) 13:36, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Shanes. That's an interesting point you bring up about two types of tags being used in different ways. I certainly agree about the use of the talk page over the article space being more logical for the boxes (particularly since the talk page is where you have to discuss the issues if needed anyway. If the point of view remains that the templates are there to grab attention and too many members keep believing that those tags have more worth in encourage enough people enough to edit and then join and edit than obstruction by being there (which I believe is flawed reasoning as mentioned above), then not even that sort of change would be placed in effect. I'd at least like to at least see a trail period, but that would only happen if some details could be hashed out here otherwise I have no idea if many others agree with the idea (prior to starting a poll). — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 02:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the idea would be more successful if the end result could be rolled out in stages. The concept, as described earlier, actually consists of several ideas. Consider,
  • Icon/tag design and layout → Don't know what mechanics are involved but changing from one to the other should be a simple case of altering some template pages.
  • Icon/tag simplification (eg. subsuming {{references}} & {{refimprove}} into a new {{Insufficent references}} icon) → Technically, this is a separate issue, and could be rolled out anytime.
  • Icons/tags automatically linking to talk page → As above, some tinkering with the template code should enable this. It would also require a major rewrite of relevant tutorials, WP namespace pages etc. Perhaps it could be made easier with the appearance of a messagebox whenever someone tries to add an old-style tag. I expect this aspect of the concept will provoke most discussion.
All in all, justifying the replacement of tags with icons should be the easy part. LordVetinari (talk) 03:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, umm, I'm not very familiar with this whole Village Pump process. What usually happens next? I'm thinking of moving this discussion to its own page in my userspace so that we can find it more easily. It looks a little lost on this page. LordVetinari (talk) 07:06, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another step is to create a poll, but that doesn't do much good without hashing out details here. Otherwise the poll isn't helpful. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 18:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Shanes: "Tags that warn readers about factual controversy or bias are ok, I think. But all those "fix-me" tags nagging about whatever someone felt like nagging about is not worth the distraction and article ugliness the big boxes bring."
Tags indicating unreliability and bias are useful to the reader and should stay in some form. The rest are aimed at the editors so shouldn't take up so much space - either make them smaller or put them at the bottom of the article rather than the top. What reader ever read a tag saying "This article needs to be wikified to meet wikipedia's quality standards" and thought, ooh, I'll join wikipedia so I can learn how to wikify this article?--Physics is all gnomes (talk) 18:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! In article space we should think about and only include information that is useful to those who looked up the article to learn about the topic. If the article is disputed in any way, this is important for the reader to know. But if the article needs wikifying or spell checking or better grammar or what ever, this is not something that give the reader any better understanding of the topic. It is just something that give them information about the article about the topic on the encyclopedia called Wikipedia, but this is just meta-information the reader wasn't asking for.
I find it interesting that the very first, and really the ultimate "fix-me-tag", the stub tag, was introduced and always meant to be included very discretely at the bottom of the article. Since then the tagging has become a screaming contest where every minor flaw that an article might have now has its own tag that is put up on top before any information about the real topic. It's rather rude, I think. If my 85-year old mother wanted to learn more about some subject and looked up the article on wikipedia about it and had to read about wikifying first, she would be confused. I don't think she knows what it means, and, really, why should she? We are here for the readers. --Shanes (talk) 01:20, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree with Shanes. If it's about neutrality or such, then at the top is important, but otherwise, stick it at the bottom. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fix-me tags that tell the reader that this page is unsourced or needs more sources is beneficial. It screams that you shouldn't believe a word of this --Guerillero | My Talk 17:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, if Shanes' view is the way to go, another stage would be locating all of these templates in order to separate them into two groups. . . I believe I will safe that task for a latter point if it seems this idea might go through. Fix-it templates on the talk page critical ones on the project page, but I'm still holding on to my original reasoning that each template itself should be made smaller. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 21:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Already started at User:LordVetinari/Template messages LordVetinari (talk) 02:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks LordVetinari. I have been busy the past few days (and I can't devote a tone of time to WP anyway). I'll add to it as a I can. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 19:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for no updates on this issue. I never relized just how many cleanup tags that there are (or sub-tags to cover tiny variations). I've been trying to work on this offline but have caused myself a few headaches just by looking through all of them. — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 06:30, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Answer to those who complain about tags

I agree with this idea by User: CobraWiki: Starting off with small tags--maybe at the bottom, even, might be okay. But there should be a defined period after which they become more conspicuous, not less. First they should jump to the top, then at the next stage, grow (perhaps to the current size) and then after a longer period, perhaps double in size. Ideally, if an article's tag problems are not addressed for a period of, say 12 or 18 months, the tag would grow large enough that it would fill the average user's monitor. This would address the only truly annoying aspect of tags--the fact that sometimes they sit literally for years without being addressed. I mean, really, how many more articles do we need to write, people? It's time to fix the problems--especially bias--in the articles we already have. And in this way, those who for some reason say that they don't like tags can help get rid of them. (And first in line to start fixing things maybe should be User:Shanes, who appears to be trying to have it both ways--he writes this essay complaining about tags and then he says right here that the ones he likes are okay. Well, which is it? All tags are evil, I guess, except when they're not.) HuskyHuskie (talk) 00:26, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmmmm "It's not about size; it's about effectiveness. The two aren't always the same." .... ;oP LOL! Sorry, had to do that! I have to say, I personally would be far more likely to respond to the dinky-size boxes. Maybe I'm just perverse, or something. A page with huge big banners all over it really just makes me want to go somewhere else (like maybe looking for random typo's beginning with 'm' .....). SuggestBot? I'm sure more use could be made of it. I think. How about use of SuggestBot for people who actually identify themselves as Elves, Gnomes, Fairies, and so on? If they already like doing that stuff, seems an obvious way to target people who are more likely to respond. Pesky (talk) 12:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a bad idea. Let's let the encyclopedia evolve at its natural pace. Don't hinder access to information by growing annoying signs even larger. More obscure topics simply take longer for their articles to grow. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll plug this here again, as I have in the past whenever the old cleanup tag discussion happens, designed to "lessen" the footprint of tags but still keep some degree of relevancy: User:MuZemike/Cleanup proposal. –MuZemike 20:24, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that's an improvement, but I wouldn't mind seeing an even tighter layout. How about a template that is a tab-bar with a single named tab for each concern. Click on a tab and the appropriate template appears below. When you don't want to see it, the template is rolled away exposing only a single line bar. Alternatively, a roll-up button could be used.—RJH (talk) 22:25, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nice to see you adding to the discussion MuZemike since, as I said previously, it was running across your proposal that sparked this topic. It also reminds me how the icons need to be better-standardized. Another alternative I considered (after reading a post by LordVetinari much further up) could be placed in the upper left corner:
Article issues:

Needs general cleanup Needs copy-editing Reads like a review Neutrality is disputed

Each of the images links to a descriptive article with a mouseover description of the needed cleanup. Critical ones could have an extra red box around them. Again, I use the reasoning that if a change is made, people will learn or adjust if they actually care about the existence of tags. (It would be interesting in the next independent review questionnaire about WP to ask about tag issues: a scale of how often people add them, clean up to remove them, scan and remove them without any work themselves, use categories to adjust these issue in mass instead of the tags themselves per article, etc.) Tags have very rarely influenced me to do anything, but with or without them I still had to learn things. Change the method around learning (a small box in the corner or smaller templates as in the start of this discussion instead of a huge one in the center) and people would still learn. The only difference being less clutter. Where is the tag for "tag cleanup needed?" — CobraWiki ( jabber | stuff ) 20:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I generally support this idea, but what we do about tags perhaps depends on what the tags are for. If they're meant as a stark warning to readers we probably want to leave them prominently in place. Unreferenced BLPs or neutrality disputes might be an example. On the other hand Orphan tags don't effect the article itself so could simply appear as an icon, category or on the talk page - that tag is only really for people interested in "building the web" of Wikipedia, not the average reader. I'd also support ditching "Cleanup" as a tag, which is far too vague to be of any use. Fences&Windows 19:15, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't bite for common oversights

I uploaded a logo using the upload link then the logo template, meticulously (though less meticulously than was necessary some years ago) filled out the fair use rationale, and forgot to add the {{Non-free logo}} template because it's easy to forget and the logo upload page doesn't enforce some copyright tag or even go so far as to include it for you. All well and good until three minutes later, I get a smack on my talk page. If that upload had been my first action, I would probably be pretty put out by now and just go back to not contributing. I suggested we ought to have a friendler way of resolving this particular licensing issue on the editor's talk page, and he's agreed there should be a better way and suggested bringing the issue to the Village Pump.

Can we change the upload form to make it require a license or make the logo upload include {{Non-free logo}} by default since it already includes the fair use rationale, or otherwise address the problem without a brash template for a little oversight? -- ke4roh (talk) 01:53, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. What I'd say, is that that particular template is actually not too negative. Getting enough humans together to do anything is nigh-on impossible. As you say, you'd done everything else right; a human wouldn't delete at aa later stage. Doing something like filling out almost all of it correctly is likely to be the mistake of an experienced user. (You can just delete the notices when you're done with them.) If we can get a more exact template, though, that would be very useful. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I came across a wiki page for a NZ swimmer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyall_Barry), but the 'reference' link was pointing to a dead domain. I figured out that the 'http://www.commonwealthgames.org.nz' domain has since been relocated to 'http://www.olympic.org.nz/'. Their website has also been upgraded, so the original URL format no longer works.

I fixed the reference link for "Lyall Barry", but there are still 361 other wiki pages that have a reference link pointing to 'http://www.commonwealthgames.org.nz/Athletes/AthleteProfile/********'.

Here are the search results: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&ns0=1&redirs=0&search=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.commonwealthgames.org.nz%2FAthletes%2FAthleteProfile&limit=500&offset=0


So my question is: Is there a conventional way to update dead links in bulk?

If not, I would like to write a script to do this. The script would edit each of the 361 pages, and replace the old link with the fixed one. The URL replacement would be done with a regular expression, as follows:

wiki_title_as_url = wiki_title.downcase.gsub(" ", "-").(/[^a-zA-Z0-9 ]/, '-').gsub(/\([^)]*\)/, "").strip wiki_content.gsub(/((http:\/\/)?www.commonwealthgames.org.nz\/Athletes\/AthleteProfile\/[^ ]*)/, "http://www.olympic.org.nz/nzolympic/athlete/" << wiki_title_as_url)


Does this sound reasonable, and will I have to get this approved by a moderator first? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathan.f77 (talkcontribs) 04:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can request a user who has WP:AWB to perform it (see WP:AWB/Tasks), or you can request a bot (or create your own). But yes, it sounds reasonable. --Izno (talk) 04:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A new "Dark / Night" skin for Wikipedia!

As a fellow Wikipedian, I'm always on here browsing and editing but after a while, all that endless White on Wikipedia can really make your eyes burn. So, I purpose we create a new Dark/Night skin for Wikipedia, (similar to the one on Wowpedia.org) which can be turned On/Off via a link next to the (Read / Edit / View history) section at the top.

However, we would have to make sure that we are well fortified against any nightime monsters, editing away our precious featured articles... =D AnimatedZebra (talk) 13:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A number of skins are available in your user preferences already, which if this was developed would be the place to add this. There are some problematic parts to this - e.g. in the logo, the words "Wikipedia the free encyclopedia" won't show up very well against a really dark skin. I think you'd have to use Javascript to substitute a logo to make it as pretty as possible. Dcoetzee 01:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have seen the skins in the User Preferences and I guess it would be best to put it in there. As for the logo, perhaps Wikipedia could design a dark version of their logo for it, where the whole thing would be darkened, with the words "Wikipedia the free Encyclopedia" and the symbols on the sphere all slightly glowing. AnimatedZebra (talk) 11:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Campaign Finance Data for Legislators and Legislation, a Bot Idea

There's a lot of public data about campaign finance for both legislators and legislation. There are a few organizations who are also developing better tools to access this information. One group is maplight.org that provides an API.

This idea concerns the feasibility and appropriateness of running a bot to regularly insert this campaign finance data into legislator and legislation articles already on Wikipedia. I think it could fit quite nicely as a new set of entries or a single entry in article infoboxes.

As a newer Wikipedian, I'd love any thoughts or questions! If you know of any similar projects, I was not able to locate them so please tell me. Mattsenate (talk) 01:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In some ways, it seems that Campaign Finance Information might not be encyclopedic content. On the other, if it is decided that is information is valid content, then I can't think of a better place to disperse the information. Maximilianklein (talk) 01:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It might be a good idea, but maplight isn't usable for this purpose, their terms of service are far too restrictive. Mr.Z-man 01:52, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mr.Z-man, do you mind pointing out some more details you think are particularly restrictive? There is a possibility groups like maplight could change their policies if it can make their data more accessible. Mattsenate (talk) 22:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For starters "Each web page, data set, or publication that in any way uses data from the MAPLight.org API must give clear attribution to MAPLight.org by doing ALL of the following: Displaying the MAPLight.org logo ... Displaying one of these text phrases ..." would basically mean we have to give them free advertising in any page we use it. That pretty much kills it there. The most attribution we'd be able to provide is a footnote at the bottom of the article. There's also "User will, upon MAPLight.org's request, provide MAPLight.org with monthly traffic statistics (visitors and pageviews)" which might be a violation of the privacy policy depending on how much data they need and at the very least would require foundation approval. Given that these are the restrictions for "free public websites owned by nonprofit organizations", I don't really see them loosening their restrictions very much. Mr.Z-man 22:11, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cluttered

Dear people at Wikipedia,

I use Wikipedia frequently. I have the following comments:

  1. The Wikipedia page looks very cluttered. Can you do something about it? Can you make it more readable?
  2. Are 'options' available to hide the list of languages, etc? so that we are able to read the article more easily.

Thanks. A user from India. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.154.239 (talk) 03:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, Welcome to Wikipedia! About your question: We can't make it more readable - because we are simple Wikipedia Users like you. What you can do to "unclutter" Wikipedia for yourself, is restricted the following: Create an account and then edit your Preferences. There, you can choose a skin that suits you best and hide some options. But apart from that, we can't do anything, because all those things that may be cluttering to you are very useful for other users. I suggest you learn what you can do with them, this will help your understanding of Wikipedia. Take a look at the Introduction. Also, this page (the Village Pump) is for improvements to be made that reflect a popular perspective on an issue - if you have questions how to use Wikipedia, look for help in the various help pages or write on my talk page. I hope that solves your problems. -- Richardofoakshire [talk] 13:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think a good thing to ask here is "what" do you think makes the page cluttered? --Izno (talk) 16:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Polling Templates

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I've noticed that templates to Support, Oppose, Agree, say Yes, No, Maybe do not exist on English Wikipedia. On Wikiversity, this serves to clarify Proposals/Dsicussions a great load, where there are things like: Support . Or are we just not using them? - Richardofoakshire [talk] 10:48, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We had them, but they were deleted in as annoying and increasing page load. This appears to be the last time they were discussed Deletion review June 2008. Yoenit (talk) 11:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That poses a problem, but Wikiversity seems to be doing fine; though admittedly, they have fewer users and with that less "cluttering". Plus, it was three years ago, should it be reconsidered? - Richardofoakshire [talk] 11:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You could start another DRV, but I don't think it will go anywhere. Yoenit (talk) 11:29, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any great advantage of " Support" over just "Support", and it's one more template to learn and remember, and if its only used by some and not others it actually adds to visual clutter in my opinion. Herostratus (talk) 15:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, there is some opposition to the practice of prefacing with plain "Support" and "Oppose" text at all. WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY and WP:VOTE, and all.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:36, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IPA

I find IPA too complicated. When seeing an article with a pronunciation guide the symbols make no sense to me whatsoever. Take the article on Jules Verne for example. The pronunciation guide is French pronunciation: [ʒyl vɛʁn]. To get the pronunciation, I had to go to the IPA-French link and bounce back and forth to find the symbols. A simple (J(Je)ool Vehrn) would have done for me and I'd guess quite a good deal more people who really don't want to bounce from page to page to find out a simple pronunciation. In fact, I only did the tedious process because I needed to put down a simplified pronunciation. Could we not start putting simplified pronunciations like these on pages? —Calisthenis(Talk) 22:26, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although a simplified pronunciation would help users, there are problems with it. For instance, British and American speakers pronounce things differently, so there can't be an absolutely distinguishing alternative pronunciation guide. Further, the English alphabet is limited to a - z, but there are far more sounds used in IPA, so transcription into a simplified pronunciation would mean great loss of information, which (for people who need the exact pronunciation) would be very unfortunate. What could be done, however, is using both at the same time in the articles, so everyone gets his/her preference, or, we could embed a "speaker" that, upon entering IPA code, speaks the correct pronunciation. -- Richardofoakshire [talk] 08:11, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
{{IPA}} has an option to add a sound file, but that requires that someone has uploaded said file, and that they are pronouncing the word per the IPA. --Izno (talk) 05:33, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See also Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key. Note the limitations of this system discussed there. Ntsimp (talk) 17:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Romanization of Arabic

For years, when I had visited Wikipedia pages about locations and people with Arabic names, I had seen the names written in Arabic script in the lead sentences, followed by a Romanization of the Arabic text. The Romanization was formatted in a specific style, which has been used elsewhere online and in print, and which has few diacritics and modified letters (I think only the ayin symbol, the apostrophe to represent hamza, a few consonants with dots under them, and the macron over long vowels were used apart from the basic Latin alphabet). Recently, however, I have seen a different Romanization style appearing on Wikipedia pages about Arab-related subjects here and there. For example, the pages on Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas al-Musawi. This style is markedly different and uses obscure, strange characters (sometimes even underlined, or with diacritics such as breves and accents) that are sometimes never used to represent the sound that they are used to Romanize and are not typically used in Arabic name transliteration. For example, Hassan Nasrallah's name is often spelled "Hasan Nasrallah" but never, outside of Wikipedia, as "Hɑsɑn Nɑƨrʋăllªe" (ditto for "Oɑbbás alMúsɑuí" being used to mean Abbas al-Musawi - why need an "O" to spell Abbas?). There is no need for a superscript, underlined "a" followed by an "e" to Romanize one vowel sound, and this isn't followed in common practice with names that include that sound, either (including Nasrallah's). Meanwhile, on pages such as Hamas and Mecca, the simpler Romanization is used, leading to confusion over what format is considered standard on Wikipedia. If it isn't obvious, I oppose the strange and unnecessary Romanization of Arabic with backwards letters and alpha symbols (I know, that isn't what it is encoded as in the Unicode set, but that's still what it's modeled after), because those aren't typically used and there is no reason to utilize a nearly unused Romanization standard that contains some characters that won't appear on all Latin charsets. But, for clarification, what is the standard on Wikipedia, and if there is none still existing, shouldn't there be? 96.26.213.146 (talk) 08:28, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. What you found appears to be the "New Way" transliteration, see the ALFB entry in this old version of our Romanization article. It may violate our guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Arabic) to use it, although I am unsure about the status of consensus on that. I will invite editors of the WikiProject Arab world to this discussion, and hope they know more. —Кузьма討論 17:49, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Blocks noticeboard?

I was wondering if there would be any interest in a "Block noticeboard"?

I know that, currently, some blocks are discussed on AN/I, but... that's an awfully "political" method of dealing with things, isn't it?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:19, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why an alternate noticeboard would be any less "political." The amount of drama in a discussion is more a factor of the topic than the location. Any time you're dealing with behavior issues of individual users and blocking, it tends to attract strong opinions. Mr.Z-man 15:32, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
it seems to me that AN/I itself tends to induce some drama, though. Also, a more purpose driven forum should create more constructive discussion, generally speaking.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you could be more explicit about what you mean? What kind of drama are you talking about or what type of discussion would involve less drama elsewhere? Dmcq (talk) 16:44, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
ANI appears to induce drama because its a high traffic location. Moving block discussions elsewhere might only reduce the drama because fewer people get involved, which isn't necessarily a good thing, and even if it was, would likely be only temporary. I would point out that discussions of community bans were once split out of ANI, but it was merged back in after the replacement was found to be even worse. Mr.Z-man 19:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you're correct... I don't agree with the "simple voting" point, nor even the "split up"/"less involvement" issue (at least, not completely) that were made for the CSN MFD that you linked to, but... I can see that there were problems perceived with that noticeboard, and this would essentially be the same thing. So... I mean, I still think that AN/I is too dramatic, and good archiving is still a problem there, but... "The devil you know..." applies here, I guess.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you want Wikipedia:Quickpolls back? (It died before my time, but I still remember hearing it mentioned as a bad idea). —Кузьма討論 18:04, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, definitely not. Didn't even enter my mind.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:06, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feature suggestion: Wiki comments on a book

The Wiki engine is used by lots of sites, and I'd like to suggest a variation that some sites might find useful.

Take a nonfiction book in electronic form. I'm thinking about something where marginalia and other comments would be important—think any of the “annotated” books like Martin Gardner's "The Annotated Alice," for example. It could be an important literary work by Mark Twain, Shakespeare, or James Joyce. Or maybe an ancient work like the Bible, the Iliad, or the epic of Gilgamesh.

This is clumsily doable today. You could chop the work into chapters and anyone could respond like they do to a blog. There could be different threads on different topics. But a long thread with several people bickering back and forth endlessly is not at all like a paragraph or two neatly summarizing the facts and any controversy like you’d have in a Wikipedia article.

Some ideas: - You’d want to be able to read just the book text without any commentary. - Comments could be in categories that might vary by the book (“Chess” might be one for "Through the Looking Glass," for example). Readers could select which kinds of annotations to be visible. - There might be short notes to the side (I’m thinking of how Microsoft Word shows additions with Track Changes) or long ones, perhaps added at the end of a section. - The “annotated” books themselves might give ideas for how this might look on the screen. Here's a list: http://amzn.to/kNvv2Y