Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)

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

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

Before commenting, note:

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

« Archives, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58

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.

The Advent of WikiCredentials ( Wikicreds. )

" WIKICREDS " A BOLD LIMITLESS VISION

Hello Friends, Teachers and Fellow Students, My name is Gaon, and I firmly believe Wikiversity should include " WikiCredentials " ( WikiCreds ) upon the completion of Testing courses. This would inspire Millions around the world to learn and challenge our societies present accredidation system... and change our culture's perception of credentialism. It is time for freedom of thought to Flourish, where anyone can learn and be accredited, regardless of age, mental capacity, location, economic status or the inability to pay tuition. Wikiversity could rival and surpass the Best education available, If we have the desire and diligence to fulfill this Grand Vision........

it would be The Most Good for the Most People, Literally, Billions of people. Do we have what it takes to fulfill this expansive, innovative and BOLD endeavor?

Kind regards, Intelligent Discussion Welcomed.

Sincerely --69.171.166.191 (talk) 21:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Questions and Answers

( Q )

What does "credential" mean to you? What does "WikiCredential" mean to you? What do you consider to be the differences and similarities between "credential" and "WikiCredential"? -- darklama  15:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

( A )

Wikicredentials would be the equivalent of Bachelors,Associates, Masters and Docters degrees, Along with Re-Certifications and continuing education amongst the many Skills that exist in the Global workforce.

The Similarities between Credentials and WikiCredentials = They are both Evidence or testimonials concerning one's right to credit, confidence, or authority.

The Differences Between Credentials and WikiCredentials = WikiCreds are Free to earn by effort, Traditional Credentials cost thousands of dollars. --69.171.166.191 (talk) 21:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC) ( Q )

Would something like Wikimaster on wikieducator fit the bill?Leutha 17:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

( A )

Yes, Wikimasters can earn WikiCreds. also, it is Continuing education. Anybody in the world can earn WikiCreds.... if they have determination, time, and internet access. --69.171.166.191 (talk) 21:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The Establishment of WickiCredentials

We need to raise awareness of this idea, and determine if we will get a great return on this investment. This is a team effort, and strategic plans can be Formulated to construct it's Genesis--69.171.166.191 (talk) 21:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

What Do do You Think About WikiCredentials? Intelligent Discussion Welcome. --69.171.166.191 (talk) 21:17, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

New Permission

Moved to: User:Ebe123/Protected editor.

Is Wikipedia done, and what does that imply?

Most of the important articles in Wikipedia were added years ago. The importance of most new articles is rather low.[1] A sizable percentage of new articles are spam, and those that are acceptable tend to be on very minor subjects, like obscure politicians and athletes of the past.

Encyclopedias do get finished. The staff that revises Encyclopedia Brittanica is modest; it's in "maintenance mode", as one would say in the software field. Wikipedia is at that point. Should this be recognized in policy?

So, should new article creation be made harder? Perhaps something like tagged revisions could be applied to new article generation, so that it takes two editors to create a new article. --John Nagle (talk) 15:57, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

There's millions of potential articles that can be created (check out WP:BIAS for one reason why) not to mention many topics that simply don't exist yet. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia is far from "done". LadyofShalott 16:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC) Take a look, for example, at Wikipedia:Requested articles; also, everything in Category:Stubs needs a lot of work. LadyofShalott 16:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I also agree we are a long way from being done. Just between WikiProject United States, National Register of Historic places and Military history there are over 10,000 articles for each project. --Kumioko (talk) 16:35, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Atlas-type information really should have an atlas-type map-based system of its own. Wikipedia started out before map-based systems were widespread. Today, if you were designing this, you'd immediately think of a map tagging system rather than a wiki as the right tool for the job. On maps, you can zoom, and there's a level of detail concept, so items of local interest have a proper place, and notability is about what level of detail something should appear at. Space keeps everything from being in the same place. But that's a separate discussion. --John Nagle (talk) 18:59, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

We are not done, but there is definitely a shift away from new article creation and towards improving existing content. A proposal related to what you suggest was recently approved for trial (Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles), which was motivated by the high deletion rates of articles created by new users. Yoenit (talk) 16:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think the rate of deletion has a lot to do with the slippery slope of notibility and it being so subjective. I have seen several articles on individuals I would consider notible deleted because the majority of editors voting were from England or vice versa. Several were even pretty well sourced. The problem is some folks don't like to wordsmith articles they like to create them. I also think this deletion frenzy is a big reason why we are noticing a sharp decline in the number of editors (new and seasoned both). --Kumioko (talk) 19:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like to respond to the question which initiated this section - that of whether new article creation should be harder. I think that it should be appreciated that one has to be logged in to be able to start a new article (as far as I know, that means no userpage, and one cannot create an article - please correct me if I misunderstood Wikipedia policy). If one were to create an article anew, and leave without citations, it would probably be on the day of its creation that it would get the tag "Citation needed". This is particularly true for articles that are biographies of living people. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:15, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

But there is another important point in John Nagle's question, that the "important" articles have been written, an assertion various persons have objected to. Importance is very much a subjective issue, & while there are many articles I think are unimportant -- say, all of the articles on professional wrestling & beauty pageants -- other readers likely believe they are the most important articles in Wikipedia. And even if we pass over disagreements over those articles, many indisputably important articles are in poor shape. For example, Military history of Africa has many surprising omissions in it: a single sentence about Carthage, barely more about the Arab conquests, nothing about the Byzantine wars, & the briefest of mentions about the great Sahel empires of West Africa. that's hardly enough to discuss tactics, military technology, or even list the major battles & wars. And our philosophy articles suck because the no original research rule discourages anyone who is not familiar with the secondary sources from contributing to them. (Then there is the issue one should read most of Aristotle before beginning to explain what his philosophy was, but who would want to take on that task if any edits based on it were immediately reverted?) The only reason to make creating new articles more difficult is a belief which can be summarized as "3.7 million articles ought to be enough for any encyclopedia." -- llywrch (talk) 18:48, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

New merge procedure

I am constantly coming across articles with merge tags where no discussion has taken place in months or years. It mildly irritates me that these tags are left on despite either there being no consensus to merge, a consensus to merge, but no one is willing to actually merge the articles, or no discussion started in the first place. The purpose of the tag is to inform people that a discussion is taking place, but there is no need for the tag if a discussion is not currently taking place, indeed, it may detract from the article by giving the impression to readers that there is something wrong with the article, as with our other article tags. Many merge tags seem to remain in perpetuity, there are 167 articles in Category:Articles to be merged from July 2008.

How would it be to set a fixed tenure for the merge tags, say two weeks? A bot could remove the tag after the time is up and leave a note on the discussion to say that the discussion has expired. If, at the end of the two weeks, it is felt that continuing the discussion would be helpful, the tag could be replaced. If a merge tag is placed with no discussion started within a reasonable amount of time, the tag could be removed as a procedural matter.

After the discussion has been closed, someone can assess whether or not a consensus has been reached, if a consensus has been reached in favour of a merge, a template could be placed on the talk pages of both articles to the effect that: "There is a consensus in favour of X being merged with Y, any editor can make the merge etc.".

What do people think of these ideas, are they feasible? Thanks, Quasihuman | Talk 15:23, 3 July 2011 (UTC) I am now closing this, as noone has made any comments on it, positive or negative, in seven days. I am going on a wikibreak due to recent family circumstances, so I will return to this later. Quasihuman | Talk 19:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The first paragraph should always be aimed at a 6-7 year old

Einstein was famous for saying "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough". His estimation was that "if you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself". None of Wikipedias pages reflect this kind of wisdom, at this point (none).

The reality is you can describe something in infinitely more complicated ways, you cannot necessarily explain something in an infinitely simpler way.

I recommend revising every single Wikipedia page, with a short one-two-or-three sentence paragraph, aimed at 6-7 year olds.

It is a function of the desire to remember something, to have it explained simply. (58.161.50.116 (talk) 09:31, 4 July 2011 (UTC))

That seems to be apocryphal, it seems to be based on a similar remark by Rutherford about explaining things to a barmaid. However Einstein did say 'Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.' The general principle on technical articles is to aim the lead at one level below the target reader for the straightforward bits. I do not see that aiming lower than that would improve Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 17:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedias are not written for the average 6-7 year old. Simple Wikipedia, however, is. → ROUX ₪ 17:51, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Not exactly. Simple English is a variant of English that uses simplified, highly regularized grammar constructions and a limited vocabulary for people who are not native English speakers. A six-year-old native speaker would not accept "100 childs go to the school", but this is apparently correct in SE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Dear God, please tell me you are joking. The way to teach people whose English isn't good is not to teach them bad English. Fucking hell. → ROUX ₪ 18:37, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

It is certainly not correct. It is an error that needs fixing. If you post the link to the article containing that phrase, I'll go fix it now, myself. LadyofShalott 18:45, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Rule 1: "Make plurals with an -s on the end of the word." (Standard spelling changes associated with it, like -es or -ies is permitted, but irregular plurals, like geese and children, are apparently not. Simple English appears to have "childs" and "gooses".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone is trying to find definitive answer: I'm not an expert, and I could be wrong. (I sincerely hope that I'm wrong.) But I have actually looked for something to contradict this application of the rule to irregular plurals, and I haven't found it. In the meantime, you might try using the grammatically correct and Simple-approved "boys and girls" whenever you'd normally use "children".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I must agree with Dmcq and Roux: aiming for a comprehension level of six-year-olds is too low a bar. LadyofShalott 17:54, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Journalists often talk about trying to write for 5th graders. It doesn't always happen in practice, but I think it's a good goal. One article in particular that's not written for 5th graders and that concerns me is economy. I could not make it past the first sentence; technical articles like that definitely need to be knocked down a few reading levels. The goal of expository writing should be to inform, not to make yourself sound smart. There is a time and a place for "vocabulary words," but there really shouldn't be more than about three of these in a sentence if we're aiming to educate. People don't look up words when they're reading; they just don't.--Jp07 (talk) 17:58, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

"People don't look up words when they're reading; they just don't" - speak for yourself, please. → ROUX ₪ 18:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

That was meant to be a hyperbole. I do realize that some people do utilize a dictionary, but it certainly is more taxing when you have to look up every other word in an article, and not everyone is motivated when it comes to reading. The fact that you're a Wikipedia editor suggests that you're interested in reading and writing, but not everyone is. Let's try to be amicable.--Jp07 (talk) 19:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

The 6-7 age range is silly and arbitrary. Some are more advanced than others and some less so. The general principle should be 6th grade, which most or all articles currently meet (except perhaps some technical or scientific topics) not 6 years old. --Kumioko (talk) 20:48, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

So we should be emulating Britannica Junior, which targets ages 5–11? That seems an unreasonable goal. The Encyclopedia Britannica is aimed at ages 18+, which is more feasible. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:46, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Let us also remember that WP is uncensored and there are things in here not appropriate for little kids and that a 6 year old should not be (and probably most are not) using the internet without an adults permission who could explain the "big words" if needed. --Kumioko (talk) 17:06, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

This proposal doesn't go far enough. Take our article on neurosurgery, for example. The lead currently says: "Neurosurgery (or neurological surgery) is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of disorders that affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal column, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system." Sure we could rephrase that so that the average healthy 6-year-old child will understand it: "Neurosurgery is when a doctor helps you because your brain hurts." But clearly that's not enough. Neurosurgery is also important for younger children, and it's clearly not just important for healthy children. In fact, it is indispensible that this article can be understood in its entirety by very young children with severe learning disabilities such as those typically caused by hydrocephalus or other congenital diseases with a similar impact.

Example: "Neuroradiology methods are used in modern neurosurgical diagnosis and treatment, including computer assisted imaging computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and the stereotactic surgery. Some neurosurgical procedures involve the use of MRI and functional MRI intraoperatively." We could rewrite this as follows: "Doctors use big, expensive machines to help your brain." But clearly that's only half of the way towards real simplification. Hans Adler 17:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

This seems to assume that 6-7 year-old children are dumb; I remember quite well when people talked to me like "oh, little boy, where mommy? oh, mommy gone to buy-place, mommy buy food-things" and I thought, yeah, my mother went to the store to buy groceries, wtf... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:55, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that entire articles written for 6 or 7 year olds is what we want. So if we restrict ourselves to the first paragraph, well, I can see the possibility. But in my estimation a paragraph aimed at a 6 or 7 year old employs a basic level of English, which merely obfuscates the true meaning. It's not precise enough. Instead, I try to think of the Sun reader. Politicians are said to communicate like that. (Perhaps Americans have a similar analogy.) What I think this means in practice is a level of fairly complicated English that allows for correctness, but simplier ideas. No difficult lines of logic, that sort of thing. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Please avoid using sarcasm when you would like to disagree. It is probably easier to succinctly state your position.--Jp07 (talk) 19:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't aiming to write for six year olds something that is more appropriate for the Simple English Wikipedia? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

The rule I learned in my distant youth was that the average newspaper article ought to be written to be comprehended by someone with an 8th-grade education. However, there are some articles I would be happy with if they were written to be understood by the average college freshman! General rules include avoiding technical language or jargon, and keeping sentences as grammatically simple as possible. (As a recent translator of Avitus of Vienne wrote while commenting about Avitus' late antique Latin, the human mind can only keep track of a small number of relative pronouns and gerunds.) So the sentence which Hans Adler quotes above:

Neurosurgery (or neurological surgery) is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of disorders that affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal column, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system.

Might be understood by more people with no significant loss of content were it rewritten as follows:

Neurosurgery (or neurological surgery) is the medical specialty concerned with disorders of the nervous system, which includes the brain, spinal column, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves.

Non-experts can be assumed to know that neurosurgery involves "prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation" -- those are what doctors do. And the bit at the end about "extra-cranial cerebrovascular system" comes across to me as verbal undergrowth which obscures more than it enlightens. (I have a college education, & I had to carefully re-read those words to realize they referred to the veins & arteries in the head between the skull & skin, not the nerves located there; suffering a bit of information overload, I found myself skimming that part of the sentence.) Far too often, our technical articles are written by experts for fellow experts, not the non-experts. Non-experts should be expected to be the majority of readers for all technical articles. -- llywrch (talk) 19:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

We should not lose track that the original poster makes a very, very important point. The first section of a page (an "overview" section) is a fine place for all sorts of details and links. But I would say that the lead should always be (well) written for someone of about 11 years old. Far too often I have run into lead paragraphs that could probably kill the curiosity of a searching reader, or at least lead them to (maybe rightly) believe that the article will be inaccessible.

Actually, this is a complaint I have with the general quality of writing sometimes... Often too little attention is paid to the art of writing, or the importance of engaging readers. Someone provided a perfect example in the economy page.-Tesseract²(talk) 22:27, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Medina standard on wikipedia

Command responsibility is based on failure to act, like Medina standard mentioned in the current version of the article about the command responsibility. It says: "It holds that a commanding officer, being aware of a human rights violation or a war crime, will be held criminally liable when he does not take action."

Maybe in case of wikipedia it could be interpreted like this:

Wikipedia administrator, being aware of serious violations of wikipedia policies in articles that are on his/her watch-list, will be held responsible when he/she does not take action.

According to this idea every article could have some automatically generated template with list of administrators watching that article and he/she should take an action based on serious violations of wikipedia policies in articles on his/her watch-list within reasonable period of time after it is reported to him/her.

Further development of this idea could be defining the reasonable period of time, what are serious violations of wikipedia policies and what actions could such involved administrator perform and anything that other users maybe can propose.

There are many reasons why I think this idea might be good:

1. I noticed that there are serious violations of wikipedia policies on many articles that are on the watchlist of more than one administrator, but still in certain areas which are not within scope of interest of larger community. Taking in consideration their edits, I am tempted not to AGF in this case and to interpret their failure to take an action against such violations as extremely disruptive support of one POV. The final result is that complete areas of topics are groups of worthless POV articles silently supported by groups of involved administrators who are not taking actions against serious violations of wikipedia policies.
2. Most of the users who participate in editing of such articles are not experienced enough to go trough process recommended by wikipedia in such cases
3. Those who are willing and do it are sometimes faced with obstruction of above mentioned involved administrator(s)
4. This way administrators could use statistics about articles and administrators who are watching them and focus on articles which are not watched enough or which are watched by administrators who are not skillful, competent or maybe even trustworthy enough (according to their opinion).
5. Users who are faced (or think they are faced) with serious violations within some articles would be able to approach to such involved administrators more easy than to follow full procedures of going through regular procedure.
6. Sometimes noninvolved administrators are not acquainted with history of editing of some articles and/or users and it would take them some time to be. Involved administrators would usually be able to easier, faster and often better evaluate some actions.
7. This way we would reduce a risk of wrong actions performed by uninvolved administrators who are usually less acquainted with history of the article edits and user edits.

Comments are welcome.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

While I know that, since this is the Idea Lab, we're supposed to give positive responses, everything about this idea sounds bad to me. First, watchlists are not public information--it may be that people watch pages, but don't actually want others to know that they watch them. Second, just because an admin doesn't take action to fix a problem, doesn't mean they're approving of the action. I'm not an admin, and I have several thousand pages on my watchlist, which means sometimes I miss things (especially if a bot or another editor edits the page after the problem user). Third, if someone could determine that a page was not on the watchlist of any admins, or only retired admins, or only a small number, then that might indicate that that page is an easier target for vandalism or other inappropriate edits. Finally, you seem to be confused a bit about one point, in that you indicate that you suggest that users should go to an admin watching the page if they have a problem. But what if that admin is an active editor of that page? In that case, the admin is involved, and can't even take any admin actions with regard to that page.

Ultimately, admins aren't really, and shouldn't be responsible for pages. All admins can and should be able to do is to respond to problem users; they can do this if they see it directly and aren't involved, or they can do it indirectly if another editor (admin or not) notifies a relevant noticeboard. This proposal seems to set up admins as if they are responsible for the full content of an article, which is not really within their remand. Qwyrxian (talk) 10:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply.

I agree with your statement that "just because an admin doesn't take action to fix a problem, doesn't mean they're approving of the action". That is why I restricted this responsibility to "serious violations of wikipedia policies" which should/could be defined later. My idea does not imply that administrators are responsible for full content of an article, just for acting when faced with serious violations of wikipedia policies, i.e. in articles they watch.

I will interpret your comment like this. I will try to focus on things you did not disagree with (for now). You did not explicitly disagree with me about existence of the problems I wanted to solve with this idea. Also, you did not explicitly disagree with basic concept that administrator could be held responsible for not acting as well as acting in case of ignoring serious violations of the wikipedia policies (like other users could be held responsible if they are ignoring opinion of other users, consensus, questions...). You only disagreed about details of ways how to solve this problems. Please clarify if my interpretation of your comment is right or wrong.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 12:18, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

This ain't the army. Vandalism, POV or generally being a jerk are not yet as far as I'm aware war crimes. More responsibility is the last thing admins need. A major part of the editors here are autistic loners, they are good at developing and looking after Wikipedia. More stress and conflict is the last thing they want. Straightforward ways of removing troublemakers and keeping articles clean would be more useful. That would cause less stress and do the job without talking about responsibility. A much more useful idea of responsibility would be to implement pending changes protection more generally. Dmcq (talk) 12:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I really appreciate your opinion, but still I feel obligation to give it one more try to explain it a little better because I maybe made mistake when I mentioned command responsibility and Medina standard. Please forget that example and don't focus on the details of implementation of this idea, but on the basic concept, that administrators could be, like other users and people in the world, held responsible for not acting, based not only on Medina standard but on Diffusion of responsibility, Good Samaritan Law or Duty to rescue - there are plenty of basic concepts which deal with this problem. In some legal systems it is illegal not to help somebody in dire need. I think that I may say that many articles are bleeding on the sidewalk because they are victims of serious violations of the wikipedia policies, and nobody is helping. Neither simple passengers, nor physicians passing by. That is exactly why in many states it is againts the law for first responders, EMTs, nurses, and doctors to not treat someone in need. It doesnt matter if they are off duty. These health professionals recieve their license from the state and as a condition the state requires that they help those in need regardless of duty status. Failure can result in criminal charges, lawsuits, or loss of license. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 12:53, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Talking about laws and legality is a bit against the spirit of Wikipedia too. There are policies about not a bureaucracy and a major one saying ignore all rules plus another policy about no legal threats. If you don't have nything linke that then the only responsibility is because people want to make a good encyclopaedia. They are responsible to themselves and they need nobody else for that. Dmcq (talk) 13:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

You are right about mentioning laws and legality. The only reason why I mentioned it was to illustrate that this concept is not limited to military or government, but also to other people, like doctors. Anyway, thanks for your reply and opinion. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:31, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Beyond all that was said, everyone here, admin or not, are volunteers. Noone HAS to do anything. And it's often easy to miss something one one's watchlist, and what sort of standard are you going to give it? Maybe they haven't CHECKED their watchlist since it happened, or they did but got far enough behind they didn't get down to where the problem was....etc etc. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with Melodia Chaconne. Everyone is a volunteer and requiring them to do anything at all makes them workers. This is contrary to the views of the project. This also fails on its technical possibilities because, unless we forced all admins to reveal their watchlist tokens, you cannot view their watchlist. I advise you not to bring this to Village pump (proposals). Ryan Vesey (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that most of comments are aimed on two arguments:

1. nobody has to be obliged to do anything. - My comment: Users of wikipedia are already held responsible for actions they did not take in case they participate in editing of certain articles, i.e. if they ignore questions of other users and not answering it, ignore consensus, opinion of other users... etc.
2. technical possibilities. - My comment: I believe that in this moment we should not think about technical possibilities or any other detail of implementation if the main idea is useful for the project.

--Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:57, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, people are held responsible for ignoring questions, etc. but this is after they already 'showed their hand' so to speak. If someone makes a controversial edit to an article, and they ignore talk page chatter, that's one thing. What you're talking about is someone allowing someone ELSE'S actions to stand, not their own. And further more without real proof that they know about it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:56, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this would be a good idea in a workplace where people are being paid, but I'm hesitant to stick it to (volunteer) administrators when they didn't react perhaps because they didn't look at every edit on their watchlist or because they didn't get around to it because of whatever is going on in their offline lives. I really don't think it is fair to try to regulate productivity levels of volunteers. I really think that inactivity or slow reactions of administrators shouldn't be identified as a problem; I think it really only becomes a problem when their power is abused.--Jp07 (talk) 17:05, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I will repeat one sentence I wrote explaining my idea: According to this idea every article could have some automatically generated template with list of administrators watching that article and he/she should take an action based on serious violations of wikipedia policies in articles on his/her watch-list within reasonable period of time after it is reported to him/her. and "Further development of this idea could be defining the reasonable period of time..."

That means: Nobody would be held responsible because "they didn't look at every edit on their watchlist or because they didn't get around to it because of whatever is going on in their offline lives." --Antidiskriminator (talk) 17:54, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to say that, as an administrator, I think my response to such a rule would be to remove every article from my watchlist.:/ I try to be conscientious of problems, personally, and I truly do support fostering an environment where civic responsibility is expected, but there are articles on my current watchlist on which I am by policy forbidden to take admin action except in the most obvious cases because I am involved with them as an editor and I would really prefer not to be the "go-to" point for any article. I tend to specialize in what I do on Wikipedia (copyright work, mostly) and wouldn't be especially comfortable being called on to answer, say, sock puppetry questions or issues of WP:UNDUE in some of the articles I monitor for copyvios. We have various boards where editors can report issues to a broad group of admins, and I worry that a system of associating admins with particular articles might generate a sense of WP:OWN--if not among the admins, then among the editors who use the lists. Maybe if you want to encourage admins to use their tools under their own initiative more often we could instead consider encouraging a philosophical change among admins by "catching them being good", as they say in parenting sectors? If admins who go above and beyond are noticed for doing so, maybe it would help create a philosophical shift? Or maybe you could clarify what problem you're trying to solve here? Do you think that editors are having difficulty determining where to go currently to report serious violations or that they aren't getting heard at the existing boards? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:01, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm also confused by the reporting part. I thought the point of this is that there are vandalized pages people haven't noticed so we'll make admins keep track, thought they're still acting as editors (which I do not think is a great idea). But you seem to be suggesting that users would report and then admins would react to fix it, and this is my problem: If it's just basic vandalism, the reporting user could fix it himself. If it's something an admin needs to deal with, the last people who should deal with the issue are the admins who have the page on their watch list, since they're the ones most likely to be involved in the issue. I also don't see how this would be quicker than the many boards we have for reporting the various issues a page might have. ‡ MAHEWA ‡ • talk 18:07, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for your responses. I will try to deal with your concerns one by one.

1. some administrators might remove all articles from their watchlist. Yes, that can be a problem. Still, this can be regarded as a technical issue that we could deal with later, if we agree that basic concept of idea is useful.
2. using of some administrators privileges are restricted in some articles because of the fact that they are involved in editing some article or because there was a decision about it. In this cases administrators, of course, would not held responsible for not taking an action.
3. There are various boards where editors can report issues to a broad group of admins. Do you think that editors are having difficulty determining where to go currently to report serious violations or that they aren't getting heard at the existing boards? Yes there are various boards, but explaining the issue to a broad group of admins who are not acquainted with the whole picture could be to complicated and connected with certain procedures and discussion process which usually discourage users from doing it (besides few reasons you mentioned yourself). Admins who watch the article (or in some other technical way are informed about its details) should without much explanation understand the situation and take action accordingly. If admin to whom the serious violation is reported do not react within reasonable period of time the issue could be resolved following the existing procedures and administrator who did not act would be held responsible for it. We are not talking about some sort of legal responsibility, of course. But in case that some admins show systematic tendency not to use their rights and act when faced with serious violations of wikipedia policies in certain topical area, i.e. they would not be allowed to use administrative tools in those topical areas.
4. maybe you could clarify what problem you're trying to solve here. I tried to clarify some problems I believe could be solved or reduced by implementing this idea, when I wrote above about "many reasons why I think this idea might be good". If you read it and still did not understand them, please let me know and I will try to elaborate my idea better.
5. I also don't see how this would be quicker than the many boards we have for reporting the various issues a page might have. This "report-taking an action process" would be the first initial step in dealing with serious violations of policies of wikipedia, on the way explained two points above. I think that this step would be more efficient and, what is more important, it introduces a new concept to wikipedia. Concept of admins being held responsible if they don't take an action. I think that it would have positive effect because many serious violations of wikipedia policies would be dealt a lot more efficient and admins would take care not to misuse their privileges by not taking an action or taking an action selectivly. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 19:31, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

You are basically proposing that some of our volunteers should be punished if they don't volunteer enough. I think this is a bad idea that is fundamentally incompatible with the notion of a volunteer.

Additionally, there are so many valid reasons for any given individual to not take the kind of action that Antidiskriminator has in mind—the admin will say "I disagree that the reported behavior counts as a serious violation"; "I am still thinking about the best way to respond"; "I have taken action (just not an action that you can see and/or agree with)"; or "I am too busy in real life to deal with this now"—that it would be completely unenforceable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

No, I did not mentioned punishment and no I did not say that not taking an action would be a serious violation of wikipedia's policies. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:32, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

In this context, "hold responsible" means exactly the same thing as "punish". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand punishment on wikipedia as block or ban. I did not proposed that but "in case that some admins show systematic tendency not to use their rights and act when faced with serious violations of wikipedia policies in certain topical area, i.e. they would not be allowed to use administrative tools in those topical areas."--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Yes, you are right that mind-the-admin could say all those thins you wrote. I brought this idea here because I needed other user's opinion and help to evaluate and develop it in case it is considered useful.

The main point are not technical issues, enforceability or any other detail, but the idea of the Concept of admins being held responsible if they don't take an action which I believe could be very useful if all details about technical, implementation and enforcement issues could be resolved. If not, maybe they could be resolved in future.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:53, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

SO your saying that if any administrator doesn't use their tools in a certain area in response to a serious violation, they will not be allowed to use their tools in that area? GB fan (talk) 22:47, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

No, not any. Only those administrators who are acquainted with situation in certain article (i.e. by watching it or some other way we might come up) and approached by other user reporting serious violation of wikipedia polices in that article, but not acting against such report within reasonable period of time.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:57, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm astonished that you believe that prohibiting an admin from using (some) admin tools is somehow not a punishment. What exactly do you think it is? A birthday gift? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Who would decide if the administrator made the right decision to not use their tools in a specific situation? Two separate administrators can and do come up with ways of handling situations. If one admin decides nothing is warranted and another one disagrees do we punish the one that did nothing because in their judgement use of the tools wasn't necessary. I do not see any way that this will ever work. GB fan (talk) 23:13, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The action of the admin is not always using the tools. He can act with message to the user who committed serious violation of wiki policies, if it is enough in exact case. Nevertheless, I am talking about serious violations of wikipedia policies which are usually indisputable. As I wrote above, "If admin to whom the serious violation is reported do not react within reasonable period of time the issue could be resolved following the existing procedures" which would determine if there was serious violation or not. And only if there is a "systematic tendency not to use their rights and act when faced with serious violations of wikipedia policies in certain topical area" they would not be allowed to use administrative tools in those topical areas. Not because of one case which maybe could be disputable.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:31, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

If the action does not require the use of tools, then there is no need for admin action. Monty₈₄₅ 23:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I would argue that it is better for a problem to remain slightly longer, and to have it handled by an admin that is fully comfortable dealing with the issue, then it is to force an admin who may not be as familiar with the particular type of administrative action to handle it just because it came up on a page they deal with. While we do have some jack of all trades admin that represent the full package, to require that to be an admin would create a massive shortage of admins. There are I suspect many admins that prefer not to close complex discussions with contradictory sub discussions with differing levels of support. Many admins do not know how to fully investigate a suspected proxy, how to tweak a heavily nested protected template, or how to fully investigate a subtle case of sock puppetry based on less then obvious behavioral evidence. Again, if they don't feel comfortable handling it, it is much better to wait until either an admin who is comfortable comes along and handles it, or it is referred to someplace where such an admin can be found, but sending something to a notice board doesn't take an admin... Let admins be as involved and responsible as they personally choose, as long as they are not abusing the tools. Monty₈₄₅ 23:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Or what if the admin considered him-/herself to be WP:INVOLVED. We could be setting people up to be punished under INVOLVED for taking action and punished under this notion if they don't. If you've got a long history at an article (and people who are watching a page often feel that way), it may be better to let someone who knows nothing about it take any necessary admin actions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Depending what you consider abusing the tools. I think that in some cases modern concepts, which are basis for this idea, consider not using the tools as their abuse, as explained above.

The point is not to introduce obligation for admins to close complex discussions when requested by someone, or to deal with anything so complex that it would require assistance of other admins, but to deal with obvious serious violations of wiki policies.

It is obvious that this idea did not met support of involved users. In case that some new user(s) do not support it soon it could be good idea giving it up?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:52, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

While it's pretty clear that this is not a well liked idea, I want to clarify something you imputed to me before: I absolutely do not support holding Wikipedia admins for failing to act, in particular because it is absolutely impossible to distinguish "failing to act" from "failing to notice" some particular action. No one is responsible for anything on Wikipedia, except for the edits they, themselves make. Yes, I personally (non-admin) do my best to keep the articles I watch up to at least a minimum standard, although that standard varies widely based on the article. On some articles, for instance, I watch for only one specific thing (like the addition of spam links, or vandalism on school pages); over time I may try to give the article a better polishing, but not necessarily--too many things to do, too little time. In other words, I'm trying to say that it's not the implementation that bothers me, it's the fundamental principle behind it. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Please understand that I did not fully understand your position when interpreting it and therefore I wrote: "Please clarify if my interpretation of your comment is right or wrong." Thanks for your clarification.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 09:01, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

There comes a point, if one contributes to Wikipedia long enough, when there are far more disincentives to contribute than incentives; the sticks outnumber the carrots. That is why a third of all Admins are inactive -- they no longer edit, not even at the tenuous level of five edits a month. There is no interpretation of this proposal that I can envision which is not some form of a stick. Wikipedia currently has enough of a problem holding on to experienced contributors. -- llywrch (talk) 20:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Taking in consideration that idea I presented here did not met support of any of involved users, not to mention its further development, I popose that somebody close this discussion. I will try to think about another idea that could solve the problems I wanted to solve with this idea. Thanks to all participants in this discussion.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I have 10,000 pages on my watchlist and I rarely check it these days. Where do I go to be prosecuted? Fences&Windows 17:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Enriching English articles from the local

Resolved

 – The "Expand from other language" templates already do what is being proposed. Fences&Windows 16:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Dear Wikipedians, this is my first mass discussion in English Wikipedia, though I am a regular contributor to Bangla Wikipedia, have 3800+ edits. So, Hello to everyone!

I've an idea, I don't know whether it is exist or not in English Wikipedia, but I think it can be a good solution to enriching Wikipedia in a greater extent. In some cases, the Local Wikipedia articles, on any LOCAL subjects, are more enriched than of English one. Suppose, the article of Sylheti Nagari is not enriched than of the Bangla one, সিলেটি নাগরী, yet it is a notable subject.

There are some wikipedians, who visit pages, try to enrich them, but in some cases, they don't have enough information or resources. But if we can invite them to the local ENRICHED wikipedia article of the same topic, then they can simply translate them to English and enrich English Wikipedia & that will lead a better enrichment to the other local Wikipedias (because some wikipedians simply translate from English article to the local).

To do so, I think, we can make a NEW TEMPLATE, saying:

This article or paragraph can be enriched better from the Bangla Wikipedia article of "সিলেটি নাগরী".

Here I take "Bangla Wikipedia" and "Sylheti Nagari" as an example. But we can make it in general. We can make the template available for all the Wikipedians: they can add the template to any article or paragraph of an article in English Wikipedia, inviting the next visitor to enrich the article or paragraph from any other enriched local Wikipedia article. Hope we can discuss about it from all the viewpoints, if it seems agreeable, then anybody is welcome to make such a template. Thank you.Mayeenul Islam (talk) 14:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Translation. --Izno (talk) 14:40, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I maybe misunderstood the idea. Did you mean that some bot should compare sizes of the article on en.wiki and other wikis and if there are articles which are much bigger on other wikipedias, a bot should add a template which should direct readers to look at the article on those wikipedias? --Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It can be a bot, but I proposed a manual system. Not comparing the size, but the content's enrichment. Suppose a French Wikipedia article is more enriched than the English Wikipedia article on French Revolution. A French Wikipedia contributor, who visits English Wikipedia, can add such Template to the English Wikipedia article to enrich it with the help of the French one. Thats it. @Antidiskriminator, you got me, except the bot and the size of an article. The measurement should be the "Quality". Thanks.Mayeenul Islam (talk) 19:03, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand who and how could compare the quality?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 19:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Anybody can judge the quality. The quality can be judged by the Good Article criteria. A reader, who can read both French and English can judge which article (whether the fr.wiki or en.wiki) has the better content. Comparing both articles of fr.wiki & en.wiki he/she can add the template into the lesser-content-article by indicating that it can be enriched from the other enriched one. But it is not mandetory that the article (reference article) is a GA marked article in that local wikipedia, but it can be well-written, that can be followed.Mayeenul Islam (talk) 20:18, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

[2]--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Thanks very much. That's a good thing, much similar to my idea. But I pose something different. I pose a link of the corresponding article inside the template. Because, general people, who don't use Wikipedia frequently and not familiar with its format and layout, don't know that the corresponding artile can be found on the left pane. That's why I pose the link of the corresponding article inside the template area. Any way, this is a good template. But if it's possible, then we may think of it. Thanks again. :) Mayeenul Islam (talk) 20:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

The templates already have that option: {{Expand Bengali|Bengaliarticletitle}}. This means that if you enter the title of the article on the other language Wikipedia after a pipe (|) in the template wikitext it will appear in the template message, e.g. see this edit I just made. Fences&Windows 16:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much. It is resolved. It is exactly what I proposed. Thanks for your assistance.Mayeenul Islam (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Pester users to registering an email address

A bot should notify active users who haven't registered an email address after 500 edits. — Dispenser 14:20, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Why? An e-mail address is optional. Do you have a reason for wanting to change that? Ntsimp (talk) 14:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Better security, password recovery, and allows contact from the WMF staff if need be. Users still can opt-out of being emailed by fellow Wikipedians. — Dispenser 15:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to a bot notifying all autoconfirmed users who haven't registered an email address. It should let them know that registering one is optional, but should also tell them the benefits of it. Ryan Vesey (talk) 15:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I like this idea. People can register, make few edits, and much later come back forgetting about this useful option. Maybe it is too late to wait for users to become auto-confirmed, because it may take a while, and if they get to autoconfirmed status they would most likely realize by themselves that there was a possibility to get e-mails. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

My reasoning for having it notify autoconfirmed editors was so that the bot doesn't waste time notifying a bunch of users who just created an account but didn't edit, or created one and were blocked right away. If an editor has not been autoconfirmed yet, they can usually just create a new account if they forget their password or something goes wrong. Ryan Vesey (talk) 15:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

As a frequent help desk reader, I cannot count the number of requests for help restoring an account, which fail because the editor failed to have an email address. I'd make it 100 edits, possibly fewer (but not 1) --SPhilbrickT 16:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I picked a number for when an account starts to become valuable. 5,000 - RfA, 500 - AWB access, 300 - Board Elections, and 200 - Commons Picture of the Year voting. — Dispenser 17:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Where can I go to read about the benefits of registering an e-mail address with Wikipedia? I've seen the option in preferences before, but thought it was just for communication with other users. Ntsimp (talk) 20:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

One important benefit is, if you forget your password, you can get a new password instead of starting a new account. I bet this happens every day.--SPhilbrickT 22:25, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I find this idea useful and I think that it should be proposed.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:21, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Somehow this didn't come up at the Account security RFC, although requiring verified email addresses did. Anyway, I think it worth doing in some form - but why not link it with autoconfirmed status? We could then have a bot that welcomes people to their new autoconfirmed tools (page creation, soon; and moving pages) and also point out the benefits of providing an email address. Rd232 ^talk 23:49, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

In my above comment I opposed to the proposal of linking this notification with autoconfirmed status because I mistakenly understood it as autopatrolled status. Now I think that this linking is a good idea.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 06:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Intern at a top comedy website, learning the ropes

Hello Wikipedia, I work as an intern at one of the top ranking comedy sites online. I was assigned to learn about wikipedia and how to maximize its potential but I understand there are a lot of rules. I don't even know if I should be touching my own companies page.

Do you have any advice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mops1234 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Mops1234! First, about your own company: it's generally discouraged.:) See WP:COI and WP:ORGFAQ for some recommendations there. Beyond that, probably the quickest way learn about Wikipedia is to begin with Wikipedia:Introduction and follow through the tutorial. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

No links in the Reference Desk Archives before around July 2006

The problem I'm trying to solve with my idea is that there are no links in the Reference Desk Archives before around July 2006. my idea is to make a bot to go through the archive and add links to the pages. 174.112.97.222 (talk) 00:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Live update of articles and watchlists

This is my first time on the Village Pump, and I'm here to propose a new idea (incidentally, is this the right place to post this?) My idea is that instead of the need to refresh the page, automatic updates of the page would happen. It would mean that any changes to an article would mean that anyone viewing the page would immediately recieve the new changes. When an area get updated, the selected area becomes highlighted into yellow (temporarily), and there will be options next to the edit which would allow links to the users talk page, and the link to the undo function. As well as that, I propose it also be extended to all users watchlist, so therefore whenever an edit happens to a watched page the watchlist would automatically update, with the update being highlighted. This would facilitate people who edit pages frequently, or people who watch many articles. I believe this would help Wikipedia. General Rommel (talk) 09:17, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Just get Firefox's "reload-every" add-on. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your idea, but the point is that a user wouldn't need to refresh a page, the page would update itself (something similar to Facebook) (and not everyone has Firefox). And I forgot to mention, the feature would have a toggle at the top for people who don't want the page to update automatically. General Rommel (talk) 09:46, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

This would need default to off as it would be too disruptive with existing vandalism and would incentivize more. The technical part is rather very difficult. We've had some code ported from daisydiff (see mw:Visual Diff), but it this was eventually removed. If you are in a computer science major, you'll find the challenge a great place to cut your teeth on.

The watchlist part it easy and I wouldn't be surprised to find that someone wrote the user-script already. — Dispenser 11:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

If someone has indeed written a user script for the automatic updating of user watchlists, perhaps it should be rolled out to all users by default. I do see the technical challenges of such an undertaking (I have no knowledge of programming though), but something similar to Pending Changes can be implemented in such a case here where a user believes vandalism is a major issue where possible. General Rommel (talk) 23:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I am eager for some input into the issue. General Rommel (talk) 07:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Sticky Notes: contributing - for beginners

So the question I mean to ask is: are there any suggestions that could make this sticky notes idea more ready for the proposals page?-Tesseract²(talk) 23:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I think broadly making it easier for readers and newcomers to leave comments without having to engage with wikitext (so some form of Javascript input I guess) is a very good idea. And being able to leave a note attached to a specific section (or even paragraph/sentence/word) should make editorial discussion easier. However, the concern I have with this idea is integration with talk pages, where discussion should take place. I think any comments left should somehow (Javascript? Bot?) be copied across to the talk page. Rd232 ^talk 09:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)