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::The point is basically that the "codemonkeys or managers" already end up engaging the community with disastrous consequences. They may stay out of community proposals for fear of precisely that, but they end up doing so anyway, and at entirely the wrong time (after the community has come to its decision and feels it should be enacted). I'm proposing that the foundation consider the reality -- that they will be engaging the community, and that it's really only a question of when -- and that doing so during the community discussion is the more constructive option. Anyone at the the foundation who has an opinion on a proposal, and who would need to end up presenting it should a proposal gain community consensus, should instead participate in the discussion while it's ongoing. Limiting that participation to liaisons is not viable because it only provides a PR layer to tell the community what the WMF position is (as I understand it), when a discussion is a give-and-take that must include the possibility of all sides compromising and reconsidering their positions. <font style="padding:1px 5px;background:#6CB6FF;color:#fff">[[User:Equazcion|<font color=#fff>equazcion</font>]][[User talk:Equazcion|<font color=#fff>''�''</font>]] | <span style="font-size:88%">01:58, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)</span></font>
::The point is basically that the "codemonkeys or managers" already end up engaging the community with disastrous consequences. They may stay out of community proposals for fear of precisely that, but they end up doing so anyway, and at entirely the wrong time (after the community has come to its decision and feels it should be enacted). I'm proposing that the foundation consider the reality -- that they will be engaging the community, and that it's really only a question of when -- and that doing so during the community discussion is the more constructive option. Anyone at the the foundation who has an opinion on a proposal, and who would need to end up presenting it should a proposal gain community consensus, should instead participate in the discussion while it's ongoing. Limiting that participation to liaisons is not viable because it only provides a PR layer to tell the community what the WMF position is (as I understand it), when a discussion is a give-and-take that must include the possibility of all sides compromising and reconsidering their positions. <font style="padding:1px 5px;background:#6CB6FF;color:#fff">[[User:Equazcion|<font color=#fff>equazcion</font>]][[User talk:Equazcion|<font color=#fff>''�''</font>]] | <span style="font-size:88%">01:58, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)</span></font>
*If they are, then they need to be banned from the project for disruption: [[WP:Competence]]. [[User:Vanisaac|Van]][[User talk:Vanisaac|Isaac]]<sub><small>[[WP:WikiProject Writing systems|WS]] [[WP:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology|Vex]]</small></sub><sup style="margin-left:-7.0ex">[[Special:Contributions/Vanisaac|contribs]]</sup> 02:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
*If they are, then they need to be banned from the project for disruption: [[WP:Competence]]. [[User:Vanisaac|Van]][[User talk:Vanisaac|Isaac]]<sub><small>[[WP:WikiProject Writing systems|WS]] [[WP:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology|Vex]]</small></sub><sup style="margin-left:-7.0ex">[[Special:Contributions/Vanisaac|contribs]]</sup> 02:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
*:And this is a great example of why we are loathe to comment on anything.--[[User:Jorm (WMF)|Jorm (WMF)]] ([[User talk:Jorm (WMF)|talk]]) 02:08, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

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Close the Notability Noticeboard

Proposal: Close the Notability Noticeboard, and direct posters to one or more other, related, higher-traffic pages.

Background: The Notability Noticeboard exists to answer questions and draw attention to topics related to Notability, particularly with respect to determining whether a topic is notable (and often before an article for the topic has been created). Posts such as these arise often enough that there should be a place for them. However, almost from it's inception, the Notability Noticeboard has been plagued by inactivity and indifference on the parts of most experienced editors, and the problem has only gotten worse with time. The result is that a number of posts posed by (mostly new, inexperienced) editors, in what should be the proper place to gain notice, are going unanswered. That's a problem, and it shouldn't be allowed to persist.

More recent posts (following this AN/I post) have been answered, thanks to the efforts of a very few editors. This may give the superficial appearance of a functioning noticeboard, but it really just masks the problem. The noticeboard will continue to fail in its mission to draw notice to posts there as long as there are only a few experienced editors maintaining it.

As this problem has persisted for ages, any solution based upon attracting experienced editors to the board is likely to be temporary and insufficient. Given that, as well as the fact that posts concerning notability are addressed daily at several other locations, the most effective solution would seem to be to close the noticeboard, and direct potential posters to place their posts on another, higher-traffic board, where they might actually gain notice.

Notes:

  • The board itself will be retained for historical reference, but will accept no new posts, and will have a header and/or editnotice such as these, directing traffic elsewhere. (If you think the header or editnotice should be altered, please include your suggestions below.)
  • Wikiproject Notability and The Drawing Board exist, but both have become inactive. Jump-starting these, while a worthwhile goal in itself, should not be considered a solution to the noticeboard problem, for reasons similar to the above ("any solution based upon attracting experienced editors... is likely to be temporary and insufficient")
  • For further background, see this recent AN/I post, the original discussion which started the noticeboard, and these previous village pump discussions: 1, 2. Also see the discussion preceding the closing of the Drawing Board here.

ʍw 01:11, 7 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion:

  • Support - I've tried to help prop up the noticeboard for some time now, but its been to little avail. I support any proposal that gives the discussion of notability its proper attention, including this one. Buddy23Lee (talk) 23:05, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Notability, after an article is created seems to be primarily discussed at AFD as a result of a deletion nomination. It's been my experience that attempting to get any sort of reasonable discussion on notability on an article's talk page fails because most editors don't know about the discussion, and traffic to articles of borderline notability is likely to be very low and not receive much attention from the general editor population. I'd say that for topics for which articles have not been created, it might be viable to put it through AFC. But AFC itself has problems with quality control as it appears that anybody can review at AFC and there doesn't appear to be a mechanism there for discussion and consensus for notability. Please feel free to correct me if I got that all wrong as I am not too familiar with AFC processes. As for the notability noticeboard, it clearly isn't working.-- Whpq (talk) 21:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • If "AFD" was "Articles for Discussion" where merge / redirects could be used as a reason to nominate, I'd agree. But AFD has been hard fought to keep it only to nominations that require admin actions for deletion of content (attempts to make AFD for "Discussion" is a perennial proposal). --MASEM (t) 16:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The noticeboard doesn't seem to see much use in the first place -- it's been around since 2009 and has only 15 archives, vs. the reliable sources noticeboard started in 2007 with over 150 archives -- and RSN's archives are actually significantly larger individually as well. Also, based on a quick skim of the current and archived discussions, at least half of the postings are either erroneously placed there or are merely advertisements for discussions ongoing at other pages. Add to that, that we now have AFC, where as-yet non-existent articles should be proposed, that further cuts down on the appropriate uses of this noticeboard. I would say it definitely can and should be closed, even though the intention was good. equazcion (talk) 22:19, 11 Sep 2013 (UTC)
  • Question and support. I just wonder where will we direct people. How about to WP:VPM? That one has enough traffic. And it's marked as miscellaneous so it can serve as a catch-all. Biosthmors (talk) 11:16, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've included a list of possible places to direct people in the header and editnotice linked in the first bullet point under "Notes:" above (here it is again). If I had to pick one, it would probably be the the Help desk, although I'd prefer to list several, because (as described in the AN/I post linked above) notability is regularly discussed at a number of venues (including: the AfC Help desk, the Teahouse, WP:3O, and WP:RFC), and posters have frequently confused the Notability Noticeboard for Requested articles or Articles for Creation.
ʍw 11:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks. I don't want us to put up a "historically inactive" template because I think that's a Debbie Downer that doesn't encourage people to contribute. I'd rather there just be a soft redirect to one spot, but all incoming links changed anyways. Notability is a central concept. So VPM seems fine still to me. Biosthmors (talk) 17:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • It is my understanding that a "soft redirect" page is typically blank, save for the link to the page it redirects to. I would much prefer something that includes links to the archives, and to the various other noticeboards (either through the "historical" template, or maybe through Template:Noticeboard links). However, if others believe WP:VPM would be a good place to direct posters, I wouldn't be opposed to also including a big notice at the top of the page to the effect of "Posts here will now be addressed at the Village Pump."
ʍw 17:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Something like this. ʍw 18:30, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There is no good central place to draw discussion notability issues of an article before or after creation and where deletion may not be the option. AFD is not the solution when deletion is not the ultimate goal. Getting more editors involved to help answer is one step, and by getting them involved, we can weed out the misplaced requests better. (In my case, I thought I had the noticeboard on my watchlist but found only recently it had slipped off). Basically, this sounds more like just increasing participation rather than anything otherwise wrong with the board. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • But with the consistent record of low participation (as seen in the archives), and the inactivity on WikiProject Notability, how do you propose to increase participation? I can't think of any ways to guarantee the significantly higher participation, now and in the future, that would be required to make the board worthwhile. And I'm not going to sit by and watch this "notice" board continue to deceive posters into thinking that their posts will actually be noticed if they place them there. I think everyone here would rather have a fully-functioning noticeboard, but nobody's come up with any good way to fix it. And a misleadingly dysfunctional noticeboard is much worse than no noticeboard at all (especially when the traffic there could easily be absorbed by other, better boards). I'll also point out that the two most frequent responders there (at least recently), who would be the most likely to have a good grasp of the sorry state of the noticeboard, were the first to support this proposal. It's not ideal, but it's the best solution presented so far. ʍw 17:06, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree; if from '09 to '13 participation (and btw, overall use) has been exceptionally low, efforts to increase participation are likely to provide only temporarily upticks. If there isn't fundamental interest in a board then things are not likely to change in the long run. equazcion (talk) 17:16, 13 Sep 2013 (UTC)
        • I'd still like to see any ideas Masem has for generating significantly more, lasting participation. Note that, statistically, despite an AN/I post to attract experienced editors to the board, and despite the valiant efforts of a few editors to address more of the posts there, the Notability Noticeboard still has less than a tenth of the traffic of the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (also illustrated by the archives), and less than a twentieth of the traffic of the BLP Noticeboard. ʍw 14:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Arguably, it's a chicken and egg problem - the board has low participation due to low visibility (compared to RS/N, BLP/N), and because it has low participation, it is not mentioned much outside of it or other notability-related areas (like WT:N). How you get more editors to it, I don't know short of spamming the link around. --MASEM (t) 15:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support both the closure of the noticeboard and the suggestion to RFC the issue. --erachima talk 00:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Meta discussion about whether an RFC should've been called, off topic to the discussion itself NE Ent 11:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Comment: Given that a week's discussion has yielded the support of several editors (including all (both) of the current frequent Notability Noticeboard responders) but only one oppose, and that the rationale for that one oppose has proven to be flawed, I intend to implement the proposal within the next day or two (unless User:Masem can come up with a much more convincing argument against it). ʍw 00:15, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that would fly. You're the proposer, so you're hardly uninvolved enough to say who's arguments are valid, and definitely not to close this discussion. And I think it would take more than 5 participants in a discussion to close down a noticeboard. I had posted a link to this just this morning at the notability policy talk page. If you want to accelerate things maybe an RFC tag would help. equazcion (talk) 00:20, 14 Sep 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I never claimed any arguments were "valid" (or invalid), just that there were flaws with the one oppose (although, every support could be said to have flaws too), and that both major participants in the board support the proposal. I could not find any guideline on how long a village pump proposal discussion should run; I figured a week was sufficient (the fact that there was only five responses further illustrates the lack of interest in the board). But if it's not, I'm fine with letting it run for a while longer, as long as it doesn't drag on and on aimlessly, like the noticeboard itself. How long do you think it should run? ʍw 00:30, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There's no hard and fast rule. You mainly just need more participation, not necessarily a minimum time period. They tend to go until there's an obvious outcome either for, against, or stalemate -- and you generally need to have an uninvolved administrator make the final assessment; you can't do that yourself. This probably hasn't gotten enough participation primarily because people don't know about it IMO. I'll list it in WP:CENT, that should get some eyes, and I'll let you decide if you want to add an RFC tag. equazcion (talk) 00:37, 14 Sep 2013 (UTC)
I'm well aware that I can't close the discussion of my own proposal; I never suggested I would do as much. What I want to do is stop posters being misled into posting at this dysfunctional board while we finish hammering out the details. If, by some miracle, someone comes up with a good way to fix the board, anything I do can be quickly and easily reverted, by anyone (that's why I insist on retaining the board, with prominent links to the archives: so that it can be easily reopened in the future if the problems are solved). ʍw 00:48, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Why is an RfC necessary, or even recommended? Preceding this discussion was a discussion at AN/I (linked above), where it was suggested that any real proposal to change or close the noticeboard take place here. Now that a discussion has taken place here, you're saying that there needs to be yet another discussion in yet another venue? Where does it end? And what about the posters who will be misled into posing there while we have discussion upon discussion and bask in the bureaucracy of it all. Perhaps I misunderstand the purpose of this page; I thought consensuses formed here were just as valid as those formed at an RfC or similar. ʍw 00:48, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • RFC is just a tag you add to a discussion, that allows a link to be listed where more people can see. The discussion can continue here, and does not need to start somewhere else. Just add the RFC tag at the top of this section. equazcion (talk) 00:51, 14 Sep 2013 (UTC)
      • I feel like I've seen RfC's started as offshoots of previous discussions treated as completely new and separate discussions. If you only want the tag in order to draw more attention to this continuing discussion, I'm fine with that (and have added it accordingly). Although I'm not overly happy with the prospect of letting the board languish for another month. ʍw 01:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • You could try and close it down now if you want. I'm sure not stopping you. In fact if you can get away with cutting through the red tape I'll applaud you. But knowing Wikipedia, I doubt the noticeboard would be allowed to stay closed for more than the time it takes for someone to find out you did so as the original proposer and with only 6 people supporting -- not to mention that it might be seen as "disruptive" enough for a warning. And yes I was only suggesting adding the RFC tag to the current discussion, not starting it over elsewhere. RFCs 'are sometimes started as separate discussions or even their own pages, but they don't necessarily need to be. equazcion (talk) 01:15, 14 Sep 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Discussions about whether an article should exist or not are addressed by WP:AFD and WP:DRV; discussions about whether particular content of an article is notable can go on the article talk page. NE Ent 11:55, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will point out that AFD should not be considered a place for "discussions" about an article, only when one is assured action is absolutely needed. Yes, article talk pages are good for content, but when the notability of the article is in question (but where editors are not sure), there needs to be a way to reach a wider venue that is not AFD. --MASEM (t) 13:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Would any of the other forums listed in my draft header, or WP:VPM (as suggessted above), work as a "wider venue"? ʍw 14:05, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • VPM would be the closest/most appropriate, but I believe that notability questions would be lost amid the wide array of topics that board discusses. The other suggestions don't seem appropriate (Drawing Board is pre-creation, and N/N was designed for discussing notability at any point in an article's history). Realistically, if N/N is closed down, the best place to discuss specific notability questions is at WT:N. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Masem: The Drawing Board was not suggested as a place to direct the N/N traffic to; it's marked as historical anyway. By "my draft header", I was reffering to this. (Also, in case you haven't noticed, I've requested further clarification and background on your !vote above). ʍw 15:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • The links in that header are fine, save that we're missing the case where you want to discuss the notability of an existing article but aren't sure if deletion is the answer (Hmm, maybe add something about merging there). This is a reflection on the problem with merges, redirects, and move requests - unlike deletion where a separate venue that is well advertised, the only place to discuss an article is on the talk page, and more often than not, you only get opinions of editors vested in the article in question which is immediately biased. You can tag an RFC to get more interest, but that's typically more trouble than its worth. This all comes around the perennial proposal of making AFD "Articles for Discussion" which never has achieved consensus. I feel we need a place for discussing issues that are otherwise stymed at the article talk page when it comes to notability and other facets, and maybe that's something N/N can be morphed into. --MASEM (t) 15:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • No matter what you try to do, the most likely outcome is that people will post their questions at the same place that they posted them before the creation of NN, i.e., at WT:N. (Article talk pages is an impossible discussion location when the question is about whether to create the page in the first place.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know nothing of the debate on the scope of AfD, and so can't comment on it. However, in situations where a merge/redirect discussion on the talkpage of a low traffic article isn't attracting enough comments to generate a real consensus, and WP:3O is inappropriate and an WP:RfC would be "more trouble than its worth", another good way to attract outside input is to notify the relevant WikiProjects (it really is too bad that WikiProject Notability is inactive). Or, in the case of BLPs (where I've most often seen such situations), we also have the BLP Noticeboard. ʍw 15:43, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with Wikiprojects is that when it comes to notability and retaining articles, there is an implicit bias without strong reasoning for keeping such articles regardless of the arguments (this is not universal across all WP's, but a default assumption). --MASEM (t) 15:48, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where all else fails, you still have the option of WP:RfC, which, "trouble" that it may be, is all but purpose-made for such situations (nice to know it's good for something other than dragging out village pump discussions). ʍw 15:55, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Truth is, thinking about it, I'm not even entirely sure why a discussion would be required on the notability of a topic. It doesn't generally help with the development of an article -- RSN is where you go for assessment of sources, while this is just to determine that one yes-or-no question; and I'm not sure what for -- which is probably why it's only got 15 archives in the 4 years it's been around (I'm not sure if people are grasping just how seriously low that is). I'm seeing two possibilities, aside from curiosity: You're considering the creation or deletion of an article. If you're considering nominating an article for deletion and you lack requisite knowledge of N, either learn more about it and do the research, or risk nominating for deletion so others can determine this, or tag it with {{notability}} and see if it gets nominated by someone else. Adding another option here is pure WP:LIGHTBULB; but I'll tell you what, if you want to cave to that tendency, we could create a new banner template for tagging and categorizing notability discussions taking place on article talk pages, for use by those who feel they just must do something between nothing and nominate (I'd be happy to create that). equazcion (talk) 19:19, 14 Sep 2013 (UTC)
  • Support I don't know if everyone is aware of this, but I believe we can count the teahouse as one of the most successful things we have ever had for helping new users confused by WP's maze of policies and noticeboards. Users unfamiliar with the concept of notability as defined here should be directed there where they will get a fairly prompt and accurate reply. Mark this as historical and add a note directing users to the teahouse. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:11, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's great for new editors, but what about established editors that need to discuss notability problems of a more advanced nature that aren't suited for an AFD discussion? --MASEM (t) 21:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Per my comment above, I'm still not sure what circumstances would make that necessary, especially for advanced users. There aren't many potential notability concerns beyond the question of is this or is this not a notable topic. There could be rare exceptions, but I wouldn't say a noticeboard is required to handle exceptions. equazcion (talk) 21:32, 14 Sep 2013 (UTC)
      • Masem: A relevant WikiProject is probably the best place, as its editors are most likely to be familiar with the fates and relative importances of articles on similar subjects. --erachima talk 22:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Little used cul de sac of WP which even if it worked perfectly would only duplicate our standing notability-and-deletion mechanisms (Tagging, PROD, and AfD). Carrite (talk) 22:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - So little used it took me 5+ years to realize that it existed. Beeblebrox beat me to saying it, but I think that we should point notability questions to the Teahouse; when I wanted to know if "I am Going to the Lordy" was notable, that's where I went (even though I was a Teahouse host at that point). öBrambleberry of RiverClan 13:33, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support And yes, the Teahouse is the best place to ask these questions. We also have #wikipedia-en-help connect — ΛΧΣ21 00:20, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The noticeboard rarely produces adequate outcomes and is, in my opinion, redundant to other venues. Most editors these days directly nominate for deletion or tag articles with {{notability}} and discuss on the talk page if they want to discuss notability. New editors can ask at the Teahouse or other help pages. I don't really see a potential use or benefit in having this around. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 01:51, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I've been here for 2 (nearly 3) years & in that time (til today) I never knew this board even existed!, -
As above seems inactive & in general seems hardly ever used. -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 00:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New barnstar

I propose we create a new barnstar to award to people who spot factual errors/misrepresentation of sources/maybe whatever critera used in this study in our existing Featured Aritcles. Biosthmors (talk) 11:08, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Create it, then. For better or for worse, we have no Barnstar Approval Committee. But I think this is a good thing to reward for. (Although personally, I would use the "thank" feature.) Keφr 11:34, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, we don't have restrictions for creating one or using as WP:PUA, but we do have a long-standing practice of getting consensus before addition to WP:BARNSTAR. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keφr, I was hoping I wouldn't have to learn how to make one, but maybe interest someone who could throw it together. Any suggestions? Thanks Hellknowz. Biosthmors (talk) 16:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Biosthmors:: When I wanted to create a barnstar (Template:The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar), I found somebody with design skills. One technique that might work for you is to find a barnstar you like and approach its designer with a request. Many designers are listed at Wikipedia:Barnstars, but you can always check a barnstar's history. :) You might also try cold-calling some of the people at Wikipedia:User page design center/Help and collaboration/Participants to see if their design skills extend to creating barnstars, although you might want to check their userpages first to see if you like their work. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notifications through edit summaries

I would like to have been able to {{ping|}} the user in that edit. Can the notification functionality be added to edit summaries? Is that being worked on? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Biosthmors: It is, via bugzilla:49446. –Quiddity (talk) 17:14, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when u sign ur reply, thx 17:15, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protect all templates?

Although most templates vary in importance from "critical" to Roche.svg; I personally think that, after seeing some vandalism by IP's to some navboxes lately (particularly ones for media conglomerates for some bizarre reason), maybe we should consider only allowing registered users to edit templates (they would still be allowed in Template talk, of course, and maybe we can exempt sandbox pages from it as well).

This may seem like an odd idea, the real question is, can anyone else provide justification for such an idea? ViperSnake151  Talk  18:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Permanently preemptively protecting pages (even templates) flies in the face of the goals of Wikipedia. I don't think it's a good idea at all. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:55, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In practicality I don't think semi-protecting all templates would be such a bad thing. Almost nobody who has less experience here than the autoconfirmed requirements should be expected to know what they're doing with templates. Nevertheless, I think the fact that anyone can edit them sends an important message about Wikipedia's principles. It reminds us of those principles as well. Any preemptive restriction is a step towards another preemptive restriction. equazcion (talk) 19:13, 13 Sep 2013 (UTC)
We have experienced IP editors who choose not to register. Enacting such pre-emtpive restriction would affect them. -- Whpq (talk) 19:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Screw IP editors! But no seriously you do have a point, I didn't think of that. :) equazcion (talk) 19:29, 13 Sep 2013 (UTC)
  • Out of curiosity more than anything, Whpq, can you show me a template that has had many IP edits that couldn't be considered trivial or vandalism? I don't disagree with you, I would just like to see some evidence that there are actually use cases of templates being edited by IPs that goes past casual. I also wouldn't be opposed to them being semi-protected with the option to unprotect upon valid request. Technical 13 (talk) 20:06, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • My comment was a general point that we deliberately have made the choice that editting as an IP is allowed, and absent very good reasons, we shouldn't be restricting their abilities to edit. Navboxes are nice to haves, so I don't see that vandalism happens on them as a sufficiently good reason to protect them in any manner. -- Whpq (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • They are actually a template comprised of other templates, and are used to ensure synchronization between the three relevant articles. And yes, I noted the irony myself of the vandalism to the Flames template, but I think it curious that you focused on that rather than the dozens of useful updates. Resolute 00:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Flys in the face of Pillar 3 Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute.. I don't see (and don't see an example for) a good "Ignore all Rules" reason for overriding the pillar. We're only supposed to restrict editing in the face of persistent disruption. While there may be a case for some templates that have been the target of disruption to be semi-protected, the vast majority is harmless mistakes or easily corrected through other methods (like blocking individual offenders). Hasteur (talk) 20:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Templates certainly aren't content or plain text, and I think it can be safely said that most (but certainly not all) templates affect several articles and provide links or serve to automate data entry and update stats subject to frequent changes. I don't believe that restricting access to auto-confirmed editors would be a hinderance nor fly in the face of the encyclopedia being free content that anyone can edit. Conversely, I don't believe most templates are in any need of protection. Perhaps the threshold for semi-protecting templates could be set very low; otherwise this seems to be a solution in search of a problem. - Floydian τ ¢ 23:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some time ago I came with a proposal for asking online newspapers to come with a unified way for storing key data in their article's pages: title, author name, date and permalink (using maybe meta-info fields). It would be so nice if there would be some "Good practice" W3C standard for this, and if the newspapers would be encouraged to apply that standard in their articles. That would make it much easier for Wikipedia editors to create references and external links. But because that's not going to happen anytime soon, there is another solution for this: With a bookmarklet you can generate automatically a reference or an external link. That means the bookmarklet needs extra code added for every website in order to "learn" that particular website, and the code must be updated every time a website changes the way it's storing those key elements (title, author, date) in their HTML pages. I created such a bookmarklet, and I am using it very much (on Romanian Wikipedia), and it's saving me lots and lots of time. If more people find it useful, then we can make together such a script to handle the most well known websites. Those who would like to try it can find the script here: User:Ark25/RefScript. I know there is Wikipedia:Cite4Wiki but it seems that it doesn't work very well: didn't find author name and date in the articles I tried it, and in my Firefox it doesn't even allow me to copy the text at this moment. On the other hand, the bookmarklet can generate references in many different ways, and it also can create external links.

This is how the script works:

Say you have a link like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23814524

The script can generate a reference like this with a single click:

<ref name="bbc.co.uk_2013-09-16">{{Citation | last=Suzi Gage| title=Sea otter return boosts ailing seagrass in California| newspaper=BBC| date= 26 August 2013| url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23814524| accessdate=16.09.2013}}</ref>

or like this:

<ref name="bbc.co.uk_2013-09-16r">[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23814524 Sea otter return boosts ailing seagrass in California], 26 August 2013, Suzi Gage, ''BBC'', retrieved at 16.09.2013</ref>

Or it can generate an external link, looking like this:

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23814524 Sea otter return boosts ailing seagrass in California], 26 August 2013, Suzi Gage, ''BBC''

The output will be like this: [1] [2]

  1. ^ Suzi Gage (26 August 2013), "Sea otter return boosts ailing seagrass in California", BBC, retrieved 16.09.2013 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. ^ Sea otter return boosts ailing seagrass in California, 26 August 2013, Suzi Gage, BBC, retrieved at 16.09.2013

In order to change the output of the script, you just have to change the last variable, from "sc" to "sr" or to "s".

For the moment, the script handles only a few sites (BBC, Ars Technica, TG Daily), but the good part is that everyone can teach the script how to handle a new website. —  Ark25  (talk) 01:57, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up, Ark25. This looks like it could be a useful tool. You might want to list it at WP:CITETOOL so we can keep a record of it. 64.40.54.128 (talk) 04:05, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto what 64.40.54.128 said.
See also User:Bazzargh/citemark, another bookmarklet - it's somewhat erratic in output (it tries to get as much info as possible, and then let the human decide which parts are wanted), but is often useful to me. (It doesn't seem to work on the BBC site currently, which is odd. It did previously!) –Quiddity (talk) 17:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I listed it on WP:CITETOOL#User scripts and also I announced it at Help talk:Citation tools#Bookmarklet for quick creation of references and external links. Hopefully it will get more visibility, because it's really useful. —  Ark25  (talk) 02:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Eliminate or Rename "Fictional Hillbillies" Category

Proposal: Eliminate or rename the "Fictional Hillbillies" category, and any other article or category that employs the ethnic slur "hillbilly", using "Southern Mountaineer", "Southern Highlander", or some other, neutral term.

Argument: Wikipedia wouldn't tolerate a category of "Fictional Coons"—meaning stereotyped misrepresentations of black Americans as ignorant, boisterous, superstitious, libidinous, cowardly, and brainless—even though there are plenty of such characters, so designated when they were popular. A category of "Fictional Yids", "Fictional Dagoes", or "Fictional Micks" would, quite properly, be taken down within minutes of being posted, even though stereotyped characters appropriate for inclusion in such categories are abundant in the popular music and literature of the 19th & early 20th Centuries.

Why then does Wikipedia tolerate a category for analogous stereotypes of Southern highlanders? Like "coon", "yid", "dago", "beaner", etc., "hillbilly" is a jocularly derisive, manifestly ethnic classification, applied to Southern highlanders (or occasionally to all white Southerners)* by others, to point out the former's membership in a despised, alien, and fundamentally inferior group; their non-membership in the speaker's own, presumably superior, group; and, at times most importantly, the speaker's non-membership in, and "appropriate" disdain for, the inferior group.

The unfortunate history of race in the United States has tended to obscure genuine ethnic distinctions (other than those deriving from relatively recent immigration) within broad racial classifications. (Wikipedia's article on Ethnic groups in the United States suffers greatly from this confusion.) Such divisions nevertheless exist (though seldom without some element of race, or class, or both); and each is accompanied, to a greater or lesser degree, by its distinctive complement of conflicts, abuses, prejudices, stereotypes, and derogatory names.

There's no reason why a slur like "hillbilly" should be any more welcome on Wikipedia than any other epithet that demeans or disparages people on the basis of race, class, ethnicity, age, or similar category.

Notes:

  • I recognize that my proposed alternatives to "hillbilly" suggest a United States POV in using "Southern"; but less parochial alternatives like "Southern (U.S.A.) Mountaineer" seem awkward and contrived. I venture to predict that the average reader will readily understand "Southern" in this context to refer to the Southern United States.
  • Wikipedia does have an article on the musical genre of "coon songs", while the equally offensive term, "Hillbilly music" appropriately redirects to Old-time music. Since "coon songs" are songs about stereotypical black American characters (usually presented in the persona of such a character), rather than the authentic musical expression of a group referred to as "coons" (although some "coon songs" were written by black Americans), it's appropriate for Wikipedia to cover the genre under its regrettable name. (I do, nevertheless, prefer to see the term "coon song" set off with quotation marks, as an indication that it was coined and used by others, in another time, and that its use today is in the nature of quoting those who named the genre, and not a matter of preference or choice.
  • Stereotyped fictional black American characters, such as Amos 'n' Andy, who might have been referred to as "coons" in former times, are listed on Wikipedia under the rubric Fictional African-American people.

Reference:

* See, e.g., this charming remark (second-to-last comment in section) by a now-departed Wikipedian in a Village Pump discussion: "I am surprised we are even debating if the Birmingham in Alabama is as notable as the one in England, there is no debate, the UK one is more famous and important to world history unless you count lynchings or number of hillbillies."

Jdcrutch (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you mean category rather than namespace. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:57, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that rapid correction to my ignorant use of "namespace", which I have applied above. Jdcrutch (talk) 01:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see from your userpage that you're from Staunton; I'm from that area as well, so it's interesting to me that you and I would have such differing views on the appropriateness of the word. To me, it's no more offensive than city slicker, bumpkin or yuppie, and quiiiiite a far cry from "coon", which, I agree, is the kind of word you'd not ever want to use outside of quotation marks. It will be interesting to see what other people have to say about this. 28bytes (talk) 02:17, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Strictly speaking, Fishersville—the hospital just happened to be in Staunton. We lived there till I was about five, then moved to Newport News. Our old house (formerly the Tinkling Spring Manse) now houses the offices of the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce, and sits behind the Sheetz filling station.
I think "hillbilly" now is about where "coon" was in the 1920s: it's not always meant as derogatory, but it is always demeaning, if only in a joking way. And often it is meant in a very derisive and contemptuous way, as in the example I quoted above. (Search the Village Pump for "hillbilly", and you'll find two or three more gems along the same lines from the same person—who, by the way, has contacted me to inform me that she or he has not departed Wikipedia, implications on the person's user page to the contrary notwithstanding, and to warn me against using the term "coon" so freely.)
In any event, white Southerners who aren't mountaineers, such as myself and, I surmise, 28bytes, bear a special obligation in this regard, because historically our people have tended to look down on the mountaineers, too, and have been all too ready to accept and employ all the relevant derisive stereotypes and epithets. Similarly, white Southerners of middling social status and higher have traditionally had no problems with stereotypes and epithets based on other ethnic or class distinctions within Southern society, such as "redneck", "grit", "peckerwood", "coonass", "white trash", "trailer trash", "swamp trash", and so on. It behoves us to reflect, first of all, that all people are entitled to common, decent respect, unless by actual bad conduct they forfeit it; that prejudice is an ugly thing at best; and that putting other people down just for being who they are diminishes us, not them. If that's not enough, we ought to remember that many non-Southerners are happy to disregard these nice distinctions of class and ethnic group, and to deride all white Southerners en bloc with the same stereotypes and epithets. Some call us "hillbillies"; some call us "rednecks"; some smile and call us "Bubba"—just the way our great-grandfathers might have called a Pullman porter "George", or a black waiter "Sambo".
Prejudice isn't always hateful: sometimes it's just condescending. Stereotyping a group as figures of fun may not be as bad as making them out to be terrorists or thieves or rapists, but it still belittles them and tells them that we don't consider them worthy to be taken seriously. So the Li'l Abner-Jethro Bodine-Gomer Pyle stereotype is bad enough; but when people start talking about "hillbillies", it's usually not long before somebody mentions inbreeding and "Deliverance".
Jdcrutch (talk) 01:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is this even a serious proposal? You have got to be kidding me. Let's start with hillbillies not being exclusive to the American South. There are hillbillies in I assume all 50 US states to begin with. Second- it's not an ethnicity, even if you claim it is an exclusive term for whites (which would make it racist, not an ethnic slur, there's a difference). Third- there are Black hillbillies. And finally (humorously)- Who cares about hillbillies being offended? They wouldn't realize it anyways.Camelbinky (talk) 14:12, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I'm hardly a "now-departed Wikipedian", as you can see I'm still here, alive, and commenting with humor about hillbillies. For the record I live in Mid-Missouri (also called "Little Dixie" based on the Southern heritage of the original settlers and their slave-owning habits) where people are quite proud of being hillbillies, whether they be white or black.Camelbinky (talk) 14:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This should be taking place under the appropriate procedures, i.e. Categories for Deletion, as the last discussion did (see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 June 7) back in 2007. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC) (a cracker, but not really a hillbilly)[reply]

Reply Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place—it's my first proposal, and I did try to do it right. I'm also not insisting on deletion. I'd be content with renaming the category, as I suggested in my initial posting. Jdcrutch (talk) 02:53, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wherever this winds up, I see no reason to delete, as this is not a racial, but rather a regional/cultural designation, akin to redneck. While on one hand the word "hillbilly" does originate in the south (if there are hillbillies in all 50 states, it's because they migrated from the south, elsewhere the word "redneck" is more descriptive), there are also words like Okie or Yooper that carry similar regional connotations, which could be viewed as offensive to the people so labeled, but if the people themselves (nodding to southerners) have no real issues with it, then I'd say let it drop; no sense imposing PC on people who don't want it. Montanabw(talk) 15:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply What Montanabw calls "regional/cultural" I call ethnic. Broadly speaking, what we call "race" is just one kind of ethnicity; but for historical reasons it's entirely appropriate to treat race and ethnicity as distinct—though related—phenomena in American society. Ethnic and racial stereotyping are not directly equivalent, of course; but both are demeaning, and neither has a place in a serious academic setting like Wikipedia (except as a subject for study, like any other social pathology).
As with racial epithets, ethnic slurs may be benign or deeply hurtful, depending on who uses them, and in what context. Luke Jordan, a black man from Virginia, recorded a song called "The Travelling Coon", and another in which he sings, "I'm a hustling coon, that's just what I am." In yet another song, a couple of circus monkeys clearly stand for black people. Even so, I would hesitate to conclude on that basis that Jordan had no real issues with white folks' calling him a "coon" or a "monkey". The name of the band, "N.W.A." stood for "Niggaz Wit Attitudes"; but if somebody started a Wikipedia category called "Niggers With Attitudes", and I objected to it, I wonder if anybody would think I was trying to impose PC on people who didn't want it?
It would be nice if we could all be good sports, and take a joke at our own or our group's expense, when nobody means any real harm by it. Some of Shakespeare's most delightful characters are ethnic or class stereotypes. Ethnic/racial humor was a mainstay of Vaudeville and the early cinema, and some of it was genuinely funny. But in modern-day America we've become extremely touchy about such things, and most ethnic and racial stereotyping is strongly disfavored. In that context, it's just not right to have one or two groups whom it's still OK to ridicule.
Jdcrutch (talk) 02:53, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would say the people "themselves" do not find it universally offensive as the ethnic and racial slurs used by the original poster of this thread. And the "people themselves" are not just Southerners, as the article hillbilly points out, it includes people of the Ozarks, which are in Missouri as well as Arkansas, and Missouri is a Midwestern state, not a southern. Also, West Virginia is not a southern state, nor is Pennsylvania both of which have lots of hillbillies in their Appalachian sections. Please also note that President Truman, General Bradley, and JC Penney (all good Missourians) had no problem receiving a Hillbilly medal of distinction from the Springfield, MO chamber of commerce; the article also mentions a Kentucky town that has "Hillbilly days" festival, and I'm sure it isn't the only one. I fail to see that the African-American or Jewish communities would have a medal or festival named for "coon" or "kyke".Camelbinky (talk) 17:02, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Missouri IS a southern state. If it was a slave state pre-Civil War, it's a southern state. Upper south, maybe, but the south. West Virginia was a "southern" state until it broke with Virginia at the time of the Civil War. I must say that hillbillies in Pennsylvania is news to me, got a source for that? Otherwise, I agree with Camelbinky. Montanabw(talk) 01:57, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
TROUT Which LP are we protecting with this? Fictional Hillbillies? Looks like a racism paintbrush in search of a scene to paint over. How else would you categorize The Beverly Hillbillies? Hasteur (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply "TROUT" and "LP" are lost on me, I'm afraid. A neutral, encyclopedic rubric for the characters portrayed in "The Beverly Hillbillies" might be "Fictional Southern Mountaineers", as I suggested above. I personally might characterize them somewhat differently, but I'm not asking Wikipedia to express my personal views. Jdcrutch (talk) 02:53, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For claiming to be a expert on wiki policy you seem to have some curious holes in your knowledge. TROUT refers to the glorously enshrined WP:TROUT. LP is a shorthand for Living Person as derived from WP:BLP. I don't understand how the whitewashing of the name does anything but make less clear the categorization. Also your recategorizaiton fails on the Beverly Hillbillies for the reason that they were never Mountaneers (Jed shot some game in his swamp and up came a bubblin' crude...). Even Mountaineers is an inappropriate categorization (See also Kilimanjaro Expedition) Hasteur (talk) 03:19, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Reply Thanks for the explanations. I don't recall claiming to be an expert on anything. I do, however, know that the fictional Jed Clampett was said to be "a poor mountaineer". As for the appropriateness of "mountaineers", Hasteur will have to explain that to Appalachian State University's football team. Jdcrutch (talk) 04:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I recognize that my proposed alternatives to "hillbilly" suggest a United States POV in using "Southern"; but less parochial alternatives like "Southern (U.S.A.) Mountaineer" seem awkward and contrived. I venture to predict that the average reader will readily understand "Southern" in this context to refer to the Southern United States.
  • We have hillbillies in the north too, thank you very much.
  • Wikipedia does have an article on the musical genre of "coon songs", while the equally offensive term, "Hillbilly music" appropriately redirects to Old-time music. Since "coon songs" are songs about stereotypical black American characters (usually presented in the persona of such a character), rather than the authentic musical expression of a group referred to as "coons" (although some "coon songs" were written by black Americans), it's appropriate for Wikipedia to cover the genre under its regrettable name. (I do, nevertheless, prefer to see the term "coon song" set off with quotation marks, as an indication that it was coined and used by others, in another time, and that its use today is in the nature of quoting those who named the genre, and not a matter of preference or choice.
  • Most hillbillies are proud to be such. I don't know where you get off calling it offensive.
  • Stereotyped fictional black American characters, such as Amos 'n' Andy, who might have been referred to as "coons" in former times, are listed on Wikipedia under the rubric Fictional African-American people.
This seems like a poorly thought out proposal to me. There is no reason to deprecate this category in either of the ways proposed... Technical 13 (talk) 12:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OPPOSE. I must concur with the thought of keeping the category. It is just as important to keep it as it is to debunk it. How any of us feels about a word, or a slur is censorship simple and clear. Lest there be any confusion, I have been called a hill billy, a hick, coal camp trash, white trash, red neck, ignorant country fuck, ridge runner etc etc etc I actually had to learn to drop my accent, which took a few years. That and us country folk spoke a form of cajun french in the hollers, which only added to the fact that people in general believed us as a group and as individuals to be impaired or the term, dumb hick. As much as these terms caused me pain, it brings me greater pain to get rid of them. Ignoring a factual thing, even a slur, allows the slippery slop of forgetting and when we forget we repeat the ignorance over and over and over. Oddly, people need this stereotype. Thats how they used to sell all those cute little signs and salt shakers at gift shops. It makes money and brings in tourists. It still exists here on Wikipedia....GASP....Want an example? How about when myself or another person creates an article about a small town or community in Appalachia? I am told, it is not notable...Really? I have even been told, nobody would really care to notice. Were these things said to me personally? No. It is however, rather ignotrant to assume that a remote place is not notable. It might have had a post office, a coal mine, even had a building on the National Register of Historic places. Did it dawn on any of you, that if I buried people there, if I helped birth children there, if I watched people marry, I would question the NOT notable assertion? Most people who state its not notable, lets ask this, have you even been to these places? AND when I say been to these places, I do not mean you got lost. OR how about when the bulldozers come and take away the graves, the church, the schools, am I to understand, this is dome because, its not notable. Human beings by the sheer accident of birth may or may not be in notable place, AND we affirm this, because, no data could be found....I state, no data could be found YET. AND all of the cute terms, all of the clouded ambiguous language is not meant to make hicks feel better. THAT language is meant to make YOU feel better. From this self proclaimed hicks point of view, if the terms you seek are made to make you feel better, then SHAME ON YOU. Coal town guy (talk) 13:19, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Automated sweep of ancent talk pages

Relatively few talk pages are archived, and many have comments going back 10 years or more, typically relating to greatly different versions of the article. Is it possible to do a one-off exercise (or an annual one) archiving everything earlier than some specified date - I would propose perhaps January 1 2009? This would have to be automated, or very largely so. Johnbod (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What would be the advantage of archiving the article talk pages? Are they too big to navigate? I find it handy to be able to reference the talk page. Stuffing it into an archive seems to be counterproductive except in cases were the talk page has become to large to be easily navigated. -- Whpq (talk) 17:30, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Many are very long, and confusing to newcomers. They are also just full of crap; whatever else "ain't what it used to be" the standard of talk page contributions has gone up considerably over the years. Johnbod (talk) 02:05, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Flow will probably make them obsolete next year, so I'm not sure that it's pointful to do anything now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Now there's two birds in a bush. Johnbod (talk) 02:05, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely not. I frequently encounter articles with issues that have gone unresolved for years, yet also have old but relevant talk page discussion. Talk page archiving is a task that requires consideration of not just the age of comments, but their relevance to the current state of the article. Blindly sweeping them away is a terrible idea. — Scott • talk 12:46, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fundraising Suggestion

Non-admin WP:SNOW close. I believe the consensus is clear on this suggestion. This isn't likely to pass now or anytime soon TheOriginalSoni (talk) 09:12, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion 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.

Proposal: Allow confirmed or autoconfirmed users to pay a subscription (say $20/year) in order to gain a "sub-administrator" status, for which they will be given a subset of the privileges and tools available to administrators (perhaps the ability to edit protected pages) but denied others (such as ability to block users or IPs.)

Argument: The general idea behind this is that the yearly subscription is like a donation, only the donor can get something in return. An administrator would be able to revoke their powers without refund which, in addition to requiring confirmed or autoconfirmed users only, should prevent abuse of the privileges. This would

  • serve as a source of revenue;
  • motivate low-mileage users by offering a little more freedom without having to run the gauntlet for adminship;
  • highlight uses who are enthusiastic contributors and;
  • reinforce the 'not a big deal' idea.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.149.117.113 (talk • contribs) 15:52, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Better access to Requests for Articles

1. To the best of my ability, I can find no way (other than using a C&P of the URL etc.) of getting to the site where areticles are requested when I am logged in. When I search for a topic that does not have a Wikipedia article, I don't get directed to that page. On the other hand, if I search while not logged in, I am invited to go to that page and make a suggestion (after checking that one doesn't already exist etc.). Why is there this discrepancy?

2. Why isn't there a notice that a non-existing article has a request for an article? That would save time going through all the steps (searching, logging out, getting to the correct request page, searching the request page to check that the request has not already been made, and then backing out upon discovering that it HAS been made). Kdammers (talk) 07:08, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

IPs can't create articles, so we get directed to WP:AFC when we try to create one by clicking on a redlink or searching a non-existent topic. Autoconfirmed users can create the article themselves without assistance, so there's no need to direct them to AFC. If you want to see what has already been requested, just go to the relevant section of WP:RA. I don't see where you've got the idea that users can only read WP:AFC when logged out. (If only IPs could read it, it wouldn't be a great deal of use since no autoconfirmed user would be able to see the requests and create the articles.) As with every wiki page it's readable by everyone, logged-out/logged-in/autoconfirmed/admin status just affects whether you can edit a page. 2.96.222.56 (talk) 09:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on proposal to merge WikiProjects characterized as "Fringe"

This RfC would benefit from comments by uninvolved editors. David in DC (talk) 18:09, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unified Wikimania wiki

Right now, we already have a dozen separate wikis for each past and future Wikimanias, and there's no doubt there'll be much more to come.

The idea here is to have a single Wikimania wiki (wikimania.wikimedia.org) for all conferences, instead of the current separate-wiki style (wikimania2012.wikimedia.org). This has been discussed at Meta:Wikimania project domain in 2011, but seems to have quickly ran outta gas.

Key issues addressed:

  • Q1: Organizers (alone) of a current conference needs to have absolute control over the conference wiki (aka being an admin).
  • A1: Wikimania wikis does not run as normal projects. Hence, all organizers shall easily be given admin rights (and former organizers removed) as it becomes necessary. The cycle continues.
  • Q2: What about archiving past wikis? What if we need to look back?
  • A2: Except for key pages (such as the Main Page), all other pages of each project could be created under the respective year's subpage. For example, all 2012 conference's pages would be under: http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012/page/page/etc. Additionally if necessary, any vital page requiring archiving could also be edit protected (cascading style too, if possible).

Please reply at the existing Meta proposal: Meta:Wikimania project domain. Rehman 12:38, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Display of characters in their natural order

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T56310

I am proposing that the WikiEditor's "Special characters" list of characters be displayed in the natural order of their origin, regardless of the language setting. - To clarify; the selector's display direction is dependent on the language set by the user in Preferences. In our case this defaults to English which is written from left to right (LTR). Thus, non-Latin languages like Hebrew and Arabic, which are written from right to left (RTL), are also displayed LTR. This is the equivalent of a display direction for Latin characters as J I H G F E D C B A. Proofreading documents which contain these characters, in addition to unfamiliarity, makes the task nearly impossible. The Bugzilla bug report link is below for anyone interested to comment. Ineuw 12:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Horizontal lists: make ordinals appear by default when using ordered lists

Since its inception, horizontal lists have become very popular. But during its creation, some insisted that the ordinals (numbers) do not appear when using a horizontal ordered list. This has never sat right with me. I propose that horizontal ordered lists show their ordinals by default, by means of deprecating the hnum class. Here is why:

  • Just as with using regular HTML lists, people expect ordinals to be shown when using ordered lists. The same principle should apply to horizontal lists: If one does not want to show ordinals, one should not use an ordered list to begin with.
  • Hiding the ordinals by default creates an accessibility issue... not for those with screenreaders, but ironically for the seeing. Where screen readers still read out the ordinals, they are hidden from view on the display. Why this is not seen as a valid accessibility issue is beyond me.

— Edokter (talk) — 15:55, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems a little weird to have "Contents" in the Sidebar (added several years ago in a Sidebar redesign) immediately followed by "Featured content". Not only is the "s" vs. "no s" difference somewhat awkward, but the "Contents" link seems a bit too general in light of the other one. Could we possibly use a more specific label in place of "Contents" that would "go better" with the "Featured content" link right below it? Perhaps one of the following?

  1. Content guide
  2. Content guides
  3. Content overview
  4. Content portal
  5. Explore our content
  6. Explore Wikipedia
  7. Reader's guide
  8. Get started
  9. Start here

(These are numbered for ease of reference, not necessarily because they're in order of my personal preference — although I must say the last two are my least favorites.) Opinions? Suggestions? - dcljr (talk) 20:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I support this idea, and specifically favour options 1 and 4 and 6. –Quiddity (talk) 20:32, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re-name Articles for deletion "Articles for discussion"

As with Templates for discussion, not all discussions on this page result in deletion; they sometimes result in redirects and/or merges as well. I don't have much more to say, but changing it to Articles for discussion reflects a more neutral take on the deletion process. ViperSnake151  Talk  22:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose:Discussion should take place on the talk page. Afd is not discussion to improve an article, rather it is what it says it is: disussion regarding deletion. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 22:40, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is when talk is limited to the talk page of an article, it limits the audience to primarily those that are interested in the article, typically creating a bias against any proposed change (particularly mergers or redirects) and without the process aspects of AFD, any consensus reached there can be overturned by any editor. I will say that there is currently (as of today) an effort to construct an RFC that addresses the past issue of "Articles for Discussion" being a perennial proposal. --MASEM (t) 22:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • The editors who are interested in an article are the most natural people to be discussing it. It would be nonsensical to structure discussions to try to attract editors who are not interested. That's the current trouble with AFD - it's mostly random junk and so few people participate. Warden (talk) 23:09, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • That attitude creates the walled garden that allows articles to persist despite failing core policies and guidelines. As long as the Deletion Sorting project remains involved to sort this discussions to topic areas by interest, you will get a broad selection of editors - both with opinions for and against the nominations - involved as already happens at AFD. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We have over 4 million articles and so it would be absurd to try to discuss anything and everything about them all in the same place. AFD already gets little participation and so can't cope with even the current small number of deletion discussions. Warden (talk) 23:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • If an article gets very little participation at AFD, that likely means that there is no one interested in improving it and deletion is a reasonable option (as state, the onus is on editors wishing to retain material to do the legwork to assure that) --MASEM (t) 23:43, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose TfD and CfD can be used for renaming or merger, neither of which are the role of AfD. pbp 23:23, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as deletion is not the only option available to articles submitted to this venue. There have been discussions that have closed as Merge, Userfy, Move, Redirect, and DAB as well. This proposal does not suggest that all articles need to be dragged to the forum to be discussed, it simply neutralizes the tone that it is indeed a discussion. Changing the name of this forum also does not mean that the other process can't, or shouldn't any longer, be used; however, the current name of the forum does imply that the only acceptable option in the forum is keep or delete and I find that unacceptable and contrary to the goal of building an encyclopedia. Technical 13 (talk) 23:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this perennial proposal, for several reasons; though I believe it should be made clear that the name change doesn't insinuate that content discussions should be held at this forum. Rather, it lines up this debate forum with the other namespaces for consistency. Secondly, it makes the important distinction that a discussion is not a black and white case of "should this article be deleted, yes or no?", but instead a grey scale gradient of "What should we do with this article?" Precedence has shown us that many merge, redirect and renaming discussions find their way here, and so there is a clear conflict that requires resolution - do we want the black and white debate that ultimately becomes a vote, or the discussion forum that decides the future of articles? In its current format, the title of this forum is often used as a wikilawyering technique to dismiss nominations which depart from the procedural "this article should be deleted because x, y and z." If the community feels this forum should be limited to black and white debates - with all nominations presented by the party seeking deletion, all outcomes limited to "delete" or "keep", and all other issues discussed elsewhere - then these expectatiosn should be made clearly and inconspicuously on this forum so as to direct irrelevant nominations to Requests for Comment or Dispute Resolution. - Floydian τ ¢ 23:36, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the reasons given at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Rename AFD. I wish it were not possible to even post this perennial proposal without ticking a box that says, "Yes, I've read the reasons why this has been rejected six dozen times in the past, but I promise that my proposal will acknowledge and deal with those strongly held objections." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I've thought about this before. The problem I keep seeing is that proposed merges often hinge on the same determination of independent notability that deletions entail. Merges were originally thought of as article talk discussions because they were viewed as more about form and efficient display, and that is sometimes still the case in some circumstances. But more and more frequently, this has actually not been the case. A merge is often essentially a deletion for lack of evidence of independent notability. AFD is where article existence based on notability concerns should be discussed, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the article title can be viably redirected to an existing article (which is often the only reason we'll call a situation a "merge"). With respect to this being a perennial proposal I think it nevertheless warrants yet another look. equazcion� | 01:18, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation employees are members of the community

It seems that many conflicts between the WMF and the community arise because the WMF tends to wait until community proposals are nearly or completely over before stating their opposition. They currently see themselves (generally speaking -- I don't want to speak for all of them) as a separate legislative body with veto power. In the best cases, they see the need for a second consensus determination to take place following a community discussion, where the WMF and the established community position are the two sides.

Wherever this notion came from, I think it requires changing. I'd like to create a policy that states, or reinforces (depending on your view), that WMF employees and representatives are community members who can participate in community proposal discussions -- and that they must do so, if they want their opinions to be considered in final outcomes, just as any community member should expect.

The ability to enforce this is, of course, questionable at best, should the Foundation disagree with it. Yet I feel enacting it would declare something important about the community's position regarding the way things are supposed to work, as well as document the source of the conflict, as we see it, that is bound to rear its ugly head in the future, for easy ongoing reference.

This is by no means a well-packaged static proposal. I welcome input on how it could be changed to make it more viable, useful, and perhaps even more likely to be accepted for future practice by the WMF. equazcion� | 00:49, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm not sure the only reason WMF employees don't participate is because of them as a "separate legislative body with veto powers." A fair number, I believe, don't because of accusations of trying to meddle in local wiki decisions, it is deemed very important to let the wiki be the wiki and (WMF) next to the name carries a lot of weight both for good and for ill. Many are admins on enwiki, but still put a firewall between their (WMF) personas and their established editor ones.
I think more fleshing out of this idea is in order. For instance, how would this statement scale across the hundreds or so wikis out there that are not enwiki? - tychay (tchay@wikimedia) (talk) 01:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I know that I personally don't engage in proposal discussions because of the following reasons:
  1. I don't want to be seen as trying to "muscle" a conversation,
  2. I often don't feel it is appropriate for me to get involved in a discussion (largely an offshoot of the first reason),
  3. I often feel paralyzed about saying anything, because words I say are often read as a "de facto law" because of the staff position, and
  4. Many staff - myself included - often feel that any comments we make will be met with extreme hostility and incivility that it's often just best to ignore the conversation entirely and actually just do your work.
We've also been trained that it doesn't matter what we say - someone will always disagree, and usually vehemently. It's very draining and frustrating when you have to keep a smile on your face while people call you an idiot. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Do you find that people aren't calling you an idiot now? :) (Just making a point about your argument; I'm not calling you an idiot). The point being, I think most of the reasons you specify occur 20-fold and with more dire consequences when you stay out and shoot things down afterwards ("you" being the foundation, not necessarily you personally), as evidenced by recent events. I think with a policy in place that the community establishes on its own based on broad input -- if we can indeed get it established -- we would end up with a generally altered and improved view of WMF employee participation in community proposals. equazcion� | 01:45, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (Warning: this is going to get a bit rambly and theoretical. Embark at your own risk.) If I'm understanding your point correctly (which I may not be doing), this is, at least theoretically, what the WMF hires Community Liaisons to do. It's the liaisons' job - again, theoretically - to speak for the Foundation to the community, and for the community to the Foundation. If the community holds an RFC on Project X, the Project X liaison's job is to participate in that RFC in an informatory capacity. In practice, this has turned out to be an exceptionally hit-or-miss idea, with CLs tending to publicly take the "side" of the WMF in on-wiki conversations while, I suspect, being shut out from active input into development in intra-WMF conversations. As a result, they're put in a position where they can't do anything the community wants done anyway, and find themselves being painted more and more as WMF shills by the community, which assumes they don't even try to pursue what the community wants. Recent comments by staffers that they feel it's not their place to join in community discussion are, I think, to some extent predicated on the idea that "hey, the codemonkeys code. the managers manage. the talky people talk to the community. when codemonkeys or managers talk to the community, things get screwed up." Which is sometimes true, but just as often, when the talky people talk to the community it's no better, because the talky people can't affect the code, which is what the community wants to talk about.

As far as a solution to that...I don't know. We're never going to get the devs to hold full-fledged RFCs on product features, and even if they could, I'm pretty sure they would refuse to, on the principle that they don't need our permission to work on Mediawiki. One possibility is charging the actual product engineers/managers with speaking for their teams rather than the WMF continuing to use CLs who lack the power to affect much of anything except community ill-will. And I don't mean Manager X telling underling Y "Go tell the community they can't have blah". I mean that the people with actual power to affect the product's development should be talking to us - and listening to us, in return - about the product. This might mean that more engineers/managers/singing porpoises needed to be hired, to pick up slack during the time in which the "liaison" engineers/managers/porpoises interact with the community, but that engagement time has value and should nevertheless be set aside.

Another possibility is increased liaison transparency. If the higher-ups cannot engage with the community themselves, they need to be responsible for engaging with their liaison and, in turn, the community's questions, thoughts, and wishes. Right now, that interaction is a black box to the community, and as a result we see "pushy" liaisons (and yes, occasionally product managers) hammering on WMF's preferences, but almost nothing about whether the actual decision makers are even being told about the community's preferences. We don't know if the talky people aren't passing the message, if they're passing a distorted message, if they pass the message but the managers ignore it, or whether so many people are involved in the game of telephone that what starts as "The community wants a sparkly purple umbrella" finishes as "The pony wants a fish." Quite how a transparent version of this could work, I don't know - CLs logging which messages they pass back and forth, somewhere onwiki? - but it's something worth considering.

At any rate, I think you do have something in your idea that the WMF needs to engage in community processes when it wants the community to accept its proposals. The real question is which part of the Foundation, at what level of power, and in how many voices? And how much does the WMF's !vote count in those discussions, compared to one community member, or to many? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:45, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The point is basically that the "codemonkeys or managers" already end up engaging the community with disastrous consequences. They may stay out of community proposals for fear of precisely that, but they end up doing so anyway, and at entirely the wrong time (after the community has come to its decision and feels it should be enacted). I'm proposing that the foundation consider the reality -- that they will be engaging the community, and that it's really only a question of when -- and that doing so during the community discussion is the more constructive option. Anyone at the the foundation who has an opinion on a proposal, and who would need to end up presenting it should a proposal gain community consensus, should instead participate in the discussion while it's ongoing. Limiting that participation to liaisons is not viable because it only provides a PR layer to tell the community what the WMF position is (as I understand it), when a discussion is a give-and-take that must include the possibility of all sides compromising and reconsidering their positions. equazcion� | 01:58, 24 Sep 2013 (UTC)
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