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, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59

Help Noobs Cite Properly.

The idea is not to standardize citations on Wikipedia, but to help people cite better when using the "Edit beta" citation dialogue box. Currently citing in "edit beta" opens a dialogue box with space to enter a citation in a text box. However, many individuals create rather sloppy citations (or none at all) because they cannot be bothered to look up the proper way to cite their source. While it is lazy on their part to not put forth the second mile of effort, it is equally lazy to not supply our volunteer contributors with ready access to citation templates. It would be courteous to at least supply example references in the edit-beta-citation-dialogue-box. This would look like a column of buttons below the current text box. The buttons could be: Book, Article, Website, Other. Clicking one of those buttons would display a template citation that users could model their citations after. This would be exceptionally helpful to countless editors who lack the necessary training to effortlessly compile a reasonable citation.

This proposal is similar to the Perennial Question: Establish a House Citation Style," but dodges the issues that plagued that idea: No-one has to agree on a comprehensive house style because the available templates are merely suggestions for noobs. Also, no-one is forced to implement a template since participation is voluntary. Finally the benefit the community greatly through improved citation with minimal effort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freesodas (talk • contribs) 06:05, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a gadget that does this - ProveIt - which can be enabled in the gadgets section of your Preferences. That does pretty much what you suggest, though it is turned off by default. I guess you could see if there is consensus to have it switched on by default, though I don't know how popular that would be. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 17:57, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I believe that ProveIt only works in the "Edit source" editor, not in VisualEditor.

VisualEditor's support for sourcing is currently weak. The devs are working on it but it's going to be a while before the tools that are available in the old window (here at the English Wikipedia only, in most cases) are available in VisualEditor (to everyone at all of the Wikipedias). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

An easy fix would be to link to one of the may citation generators freely available online (which I use). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freesodas (talk • contribs) 10:23, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we should encourage users to use citation templates by adding a shortcut to include them (most of them already have TemplateData included, so it should be easy for users to use them on VE), instead of adding raw citations which are hard to maintain and introduce inconsistency to references. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 00:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Attractive "inventory" pages for all WikiProjects, showing the backlogs, similar to a wikiHow feature

At about minute 54 of this Wikimania talk from 2012, the founder of wikiHow talks about http://www.wikihow.com/Special:CommunityDashboard , which he credits with boosting their community participation. I think he is on to something, because I think it is a remarkable feature that would help Wikipedia editors engage with the already identified quality issues. I would love to see WikiProject-specific information like that for all WikiProjects on Wikipedia. That's why I wrote up m:Grants:IEG/Backlog pages for all WikiProjects several months ago.

Currently, if one wants to see what needs to be done for WikiProject Medicine, for example, the best place I know of to go is here. While that's fantastic information and I am glad it is there, it is hardly inspiring as a mechanism to motivate edits. The wikiHow version updates in real time instead of monthly, and it has symbols for progress, and it notes the last time someone fixed an issue.

Thankfully, the founder of wikiHow told me in an email (also several months ago) that he's crazy busy but that: "We can show you where the code is in the SVN so you can fork it to WIkipedia. Great idea! Hope it gets approved!" I do not have coding abilities but I would like to see this idea develop into tangible benefit for Wikipedia editors. First of all, does anyone know if someone at WP:the Foundation is already working on something along these lines? If not, then does anyone with programming skills want to help out? Thanks! Biosthmors (talk) 18:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

From an email I received from a Wikipedian interested in WP:Flow, I don't think this has become a focus for the WMF, so I struck that portion. Biosthmors (talk) 10:24, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the GettingStarted feature built recently by the Foundation's editor engagement experiment includes a very similar task recommender, feeding from three different backlogs including articles needing copy edit. It has so far been promoted to new users only (as the name indicates - although anyone can try it out at Special:GettingStarted) and does not differentiate tasks by topic area or WikiProject yet, but it is planned to expand it into these directions, to make it more interesting for more experienced editors. In fact, the team had a meeting just yesterday (notes to be published here early next week) where Steven demonstrated the very Wikihow dashboard that you mentioned, as an example motivating future work on this project.

You may also be interested in Erik Möller's talk from the same Wikimania, titled "The purpose-driven social network: Supporting WikiProjects with technology" (abstract, slides, video).

By the way, if you want to find out if someone in the community of MediaWiki developers (both Foundation staff and volunteers) is working on a particular kind of software feature for Wikipedia, or is interested in supporting its implementation, it may be more effecting contacting them directly, or asking in the communication spaces that they tend to frequent - for example, a posting on the Wikitech-l mailing list might have gotten you a reply sooner.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Tbayer (WMF), thank you for this helpful information. Biosthmors (talk) 10:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Any thoughts on where this might go or how the wikiHow offer for code might help accelerate the project Steven? Also ping User:Jtmorgan just to keep the ball rolling. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when u sign ur reply, thx 09:44, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Public relations noticeboard?

Should there be a place where English Wikipedians use a noticeboard about how to interact with the press? If a news publication published what editors thought was unfair criticism (or unfair praise), we could suggest the wording of emails or letters to authors/editors of those publications to request corrections. We could build consensus for the WMF to issue a press release, perhaps. The Jesus article recently reached WP:Featured article status and I think that is worthy of a press release. I'm also thinking back to an old discussion thread, Proposed response to BMJ letter, from the archives of WT:MED. It just didn't go anywhere. Maybe if we had a centralized place to organize the way we interact with press/other publications, we could create more effective communication methods (and in so doing, perhaps recruit more volunteers). Biosthmors (talk) 10:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

This noticeboard could also serve as an outlet for those who wanted to discuss certain press mentions about Wikipedia. Here's a recent one: [1]. Thanks for your contributions User:Dthomsen8! Biosthmors (talk) 10:14, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

And if an article is singled out in the press as poor-quality, it could be used as a central place to collaborate to help fix it. Biosthmors (talk) 10:18, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

There are other reasons to have a public relations board also. Sometimes the community has wanted to have public interactions with groups and to send open letters, and there could be a central forum for posting open letters and hosting responses. I have wanted to make open letter requests to institutions for media donations, for example, and template the talk page of the institution while also documenting the correspondence with them in a more appropriate place. When institutions want to edit Wikipedia I also would like to track the WP:COI discussions in a more productive way so that they get proper notice about best practices. Some other people have complained at different times about organizations using Commons or other media without proper attribution, and would like support in sending out letters about that. I would join an effort like this because I have already drafted some of this work. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:06, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. And here's another example of what could be collaboratively discussed: per my rationale at Talk:Jesus, User:Biosthmors/Jesus is a draft I've shared with some WMF staff about getting a blog post/press release on featured stuff. Anyone, please feel free to make edits or discuss the draft at the user talk page for it. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when u sign ur reply, thx 09:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The feedback I received on the draft (with big props to User:Ldavis (WMF) for volunteering to help me out) was that the story needed enrichment from active participants who helped the Jesus article, similar to a WikiProject interview in the Signpost. =) Goodness I'm going to ping you again User:SandyGeorgia. I like this new feature. I hope it's not too much. Props to WMF to developing it but I do have a major problem with it. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:13, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I am out of time for today, but will revisit the Jesus topic. We used to do such things routinely at FAC (back in the days when FAC was a vibrant and active place and milestones were noticed and publicized) ... I will add what I can after a weekend commitment (and want to edit that draft, too :) Please ping me if I forget to revisit this. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Automatic closure?

We have pages like here and the helpdesk that are automatically checked for Interlanguage links and automatically signed. Would it be possible to add something that did a similar check to see if an edit has all of the wikimarkup entries closed and if it doesn't, to close them? So that if (as I just did on a previous edit) I make an edit on this page and have a < nowiki> on it without a < /nowiki>, it will automatically add the wikimedia markup close entries? (a warning on save would also be a possibility as a tool)Naraht (talk) 15:50, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Naraht I'm sorry no one has responded to your ideas for the last 5 days! Don't be discouraged. Thanks for sharing! I'm busy working on my own ideas at the moment to help Wikipedia. Sorry I don't feel I have the time to engage with your ideas, but keep up the good work! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 20:33, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Adding Twitter Handles And facebook Pages Just Like Official Websites

• In Biographies, of politicians, celebrities and others, how about we add Twitter handles and facebook pages to their respective Infoboxs in their articles, just like we add an official website to official entities, institutions, magazines and everything else, just so long as these social media pages are "official" either by obvious verification, like the light-blue tick mark in Twitter and facebook, or it is being referenced in- an undisputed - official website.

This would greatly serve as more info to Wikipedia readers, as almost all things relating to the article are in one place. I don't think this counters any of Wikipedia's policies or philosophies.--In Allah We Trust (talk) 06:04, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Consensus against it does exist: WP:ELPEREN and WP:ELNO#EL10. Although the former is an essay, and the latter a guideline. Keφr 15:22, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, you want to see WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. These are official links, so ELNO #10 is less relevant (official links are mostly exempt from ELNO). But the effect is the same: it is very strongly advised against. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• Official links are generally on a one-per basis, so assuming the content is similar between all of them, pick whichever website they seem to use primarily. Could be twitter, could be facebook, could be their own domain, just pick one. --erachima talk 23:40, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

If there are multiple options, I'd go with the official site since (a) it probably links to the others, and (b) it probably contains more useful information about the person, and less day-to-day trivia MChesterMC (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Donations: Better Solution?

Asking for donations takes a lot of courage. It's impressive, seeing a large organization do this. However, YOU ARE ON THE INTERNET, WIKIPEDIA. That's right. The internet, where 99% of webpages have advertisements that support them. Donations won't get you very far, unfortunately, unless your goal is to annoy your readers and contributors.

It will not ruin Wikipedia if you host advertisements. Rather, if you keep to side-bar ads (and not interrupting video ads), you will do just fine at making money AND AT THE SAME TIME NOT BEING IRRITATING. I understand that this is supposed to be a non-profit deal, but it won't carry you much further.

Here's a nice little expression for you guys:

A = Child-friendly Ads, B = Wikipedia, C = Happy People

A + B = C

We did it! Wikipedia finally gets supported and the community is still safe!

So please, let some MONITORED advertisements slowly debut. One child-friendly TEXT AD, ON THE SIDE OF THE SCREEN. Make everyone's lives easier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bolizen (talk • contribs) 22:04, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

@Bolizen: thanks for you suggestion, but I think you'l find that the people that volunteer here at Wikipedia would be against advertising. Also, Wikipedia has been very sucessful in it's fundraising without having to resort to advertisements. Please see m:Fundraising#History for the various reports showing this. Best. 64.40.54.128 (talk) 01:49, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Advertising is against Wikipedia's non-profit nature. Displaying ads has a serious toll on Wikipedia's neutrality, and contextual advertising violates the privacy policy. Please read the FAQ page of the foundation to see why WMF is against the idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zhaofeng Li (talk • contribs) 01:37, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikilearn

If we, like a student, come here to study we come across information that becomes a bit difficult to relate it to one another; Wikipedia may give us information but it makes it harder for learning things, and so I wanted to propose that a new site be made where it can become much easier especially for students to come here and learn and not to just gather information. This is just an idea, criticism is welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shimazu (talk • contribs) 07:32, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Shimazu, your wish has been fulfilled! I've never contributed, but Wikipedia:Wikiversity does exist. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) when u sign ur reply, thx 11:00, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Hover notes

Hi!

I got this idea ever since footnotes on en:Wiki were made to hover above the mouse pointer when the pointer hovers above the footnote number, .

I was thinking if it's possible to make a type of "invisible" footnote which would not be listed at the bottom of an article, but that would only exist as a hovering note. (Therefore it wouldn't even technically be a "footnote" any more!)

Reasons:

This would be especially useful in linguistics articles. Often, when a language is written in another alphabet, any examples have to be given in three parts – i.e. 1) the original word/sentence 2) its English transliteration, and 3) the English translation. e.g.

Russian has four third-person pronouns – он, она, оно, они (on, ona, ono, oni – he, she, it, they).

This is an oversimplified example, but I hope you get the point.

The major problem arises due to the fact that, in language articles, such triple-script examples are avoided for clarity, and so stage 2, the transliteration, is necessarily sacrificed entirely. Which is all well and good for people that can read Cyrillic, but not for anyone else that may be interested in Russian. Therefore the article a priori excludes a whole cross-section of readers.

Because of this, language articles are currently extremely exclusive of whole swathes of readers who are not already partly fluent in a given language, for precisely this reason. But many linguistically-minded people are interested in different languages precisely because they appreciate the intricacies and beauty of different languages.

And Cyrillic is comparatively easy for speakers of Roman-script languages. What do we do when the article uses Arabic, Devanagari, Chinese, or whatever (especially for people who don't have East Asian fonts installed, that can't even see the letters, let alone attempt to understand them...)

This I feel would be improved if the stage 2 was therefore written by using this "invisible note" that I'm proposing, which will allow inclusion of all Wikipedia users. It would therefore look something like this -

Russian has four third-person pronouns – он, она, оно, они (he, she, it, they).

Such examples would be in the dozens for larger articles, so having them as proper footnotes would be impractical. Hence the use of zero/hovering notes that I'm proposing.

And this would not just work for linguistics, but maths, the sciences, and so many other subjects could find use for them.

What do you all think?

Thanks for your attention!

BigSteve (talk) 10:55, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

BigSteve, thanks for sharing your idea. I have to admit, I scanned it and I saw the word Russian so I didn't read it all. Maybe you could look for language-specific editors and ask them? =) Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:43, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Entertainment ratings

I propose that a detailed rating description to be added on all articles that pertain to video games or movies. That way, consumers will only have to visit one site to see why a product was given its rating, instead of searching Google for the information. For example, EA's Battlefield 3:

ESRB rating: (link to ESRB page of Battlefield 3) Content Descriptors:(collapsible) Blood, Violence, Strong Language

Information would also be given for the PEGI rating system and the MPAA film rating system. All information could be submitted by the creators or customers. Mikeyar (talk) 03:02, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea Mikeyar. This concept must have a history behind it because it appears {{Video game ratings}} was removed from {{Infobox video game}} in September 2012. There are a couple potential leads for you. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:40, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Films and video games used to contain ratings, but it was decided to get rid of them because there are so many different rating agencies all over the world and including all of them--to be comprehensive--was deemed too burdensome. I like the idea of ratings myself. Maybe the idea can be raised again if the ratings exist in something like a collapsible table. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 01:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

citing info

hi,

i wanted to know how to cite information from a government source. i mean that an information from a government source, how can it be cited in wikipedia's article. Is it legal to cite such information ? thank you Ntu129 (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Ntu129, we can cite anything as long as it is reliable and verifiable. See the WP:Teahouse if that doesn't answer your question. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:56, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Editors Begging for Money

Do you think editors should be allowed to beg for donations like the wikimedia foundation it's self so frequently does using their user pages? A lot of the pages on wikipedia pages are better sourced than professional news stories written by paid professionals; those professionals are also always credited; and not with usernames. Do our contributions honestly have no value to society, not even a single penny? CensoredScribe (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Who's prohibiting begging!? I'd be offended if anyone tried to prohibit it CensoredScribe. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:41, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Let me edit that for you

Proposal: We could use a new feature in wikipedia which will allow anonymous users who are behind vpn,proxies and tor network who do not want their ip to be known nor they want to register request a edit in a certain wikipedia article,and then after discussing the edit if it is not a vandalism attempt to the article a bot will edit it for him. and the edit will belong to the bot.

Background: It is that certain countries has very strict access to internet and after the NSA prism incident it is very likely that people will fear about their privacy even if wikipedia is reliable.So edits in a controversial article [to input a edit that is viable but may be about opposite thinking or might be in negative interest of a particular party] can be dangerous as they might think they will fall in a watch-list of some sort for that behavior. So if he could publish that by suggesting that edit anonymously allowing him anonymous access to a special page and wikipedia users might discuss and vote about that and then if it gets approved a bot will edit it, so it will be published and his privacy will be saved too. Two things that is need to be done to implement the proposal

1.Create a bot that will do the edit. [ i propose a bot because if a user had to make an edit then there is a chance of his safety, in case of bot that is not an option] 2.Creation of a wikimedia project or something that will involve some brave wiki-medians to get the suggestions and then evaluate them.

I think we will be needing this feature here sooner or later. Nowadays IP address tells a lot of things, specially in developing Asian countries.

--Nibir2011 (talk) 09:02, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I sympathize with your concerns. People who edit Wikipedia, in my mind, are more likely to be tech-savvy and using a VPN to begin with. I tried using a VPN recently to edit Wikipedia only to discover that IP was blocked for being an "open proxy" or whatever it was! User:Jimbo Wales has spoken out about the NSA. I wonder if he support some pathway to open contributions editing from open proxies (I can't say I have a great definition in my mind for what an open proxy is, though.) Thanks for sharing your idea. I hope it turns into something good. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:26, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like a great idea to me, Nibir2011! I wonder if it would make more sense to use an approval system like WP:WHITELOCK. Ross Hill 01:02, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses.Biosthmors Ross Hill. Should i put it in the proposals tab? @ross hill i like your idea. I think the submissions[for requesting edit] should be as much pain free as possible.The white-listing is a great method to identify possible edits to be approved. I think if open proxies could be used then it would have been the best, but there is too much attempt to vandalize rather than contribution. I also tried to access wiki just like you and voila i cant edit. thats why the idea came in my head. --Nibir2011 (talk) 18:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I have a draft proposal in my sandbox Ross Hill 20:59, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Embryological Information Absent from Most Animal Articles

Shouldn't the time periods for the various developmental stages of embryos be listed for on the pages of every animal species for which it is known; or is that information not "relevant"? This combined with the fact 90% of Wikipedia editors are men promotes a sexist image for Wikipedia where pregnancy is unimportant to education. Hopefully there is a Clarence Darrow type out there arguing for the inclusion of detailed embryonic stem cell information in schools; that person would deserve an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CensoredScribe (talk • contribs) 13:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:00, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you have examples of articles missing embryological information that you have found in reliable sources? I would be glad to help you add such information, even to research and add it, but examples of where it is missing would help. And, as the other editors said, when you find missing information, add it! --(AfadsBad (talk) 18:00, 20 September 2013 (UTC))

http://php.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php?title=Cat_Development This is from the University of New South Wales Australia; their website has a number of decent sources for the embryological timelines of a dozen popular animals. Most of this information is missing from Wikipedia; although the medical references are older than 5 years and I doubt these are from review articles. There is however no mention of when the primitive streak forms which would be important to mention. CensoredScribe (talk) 21:13, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there some reason you are not adding the information? What articles? This probably belongs at higher level taxa. --(AfadsBad (talk) 21:41, 20 September 2013 (UTC))

Converting imdb urls to the appropriate template

I have worked out a script which runs in AWB to do what the title says, and I want to run it on my bot. I have started a BRfA on the subject but it was recommended that the wider community discusses this idea and gives suggestions for things to do with what it does. Rcsprinter (state) @ 21:43, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Just went through a few of them. This edits change the link from Rick Baptist to Village pump at IMDb ← wrong title here, and wrong title in the article, but before your edit it was correct. Probably a lot of theese. Christian75 (talk) 21:07, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• Rcs, have you worked out the title stripping issue? Also, I'm not sure that I like the idea of a bot that is suppose to be doing conversion work for raw links to templates to also be doing cosmetic bot work as well. I'd say disable that and just to the one task. Technical 13 (talk) 21:20, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Charge people for vandalism/sockpuppetry

Here's the idea: Wikipedia has endured numerous acts of vandalism, and perhaps it is time for a preventative measure to be taken. Therefore I am proposing that we require anyone creating a new account to enter a credit card number. Then, if they commit an act of vandalism, we could charge them for it. Likewise sockpuppet accounts. This would help raise money, meaning we do not have to deal with donation banners as much. I await people pointing out the flaws in this idea that I am not yet aware of. Jinkinson (talk) 22:00, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia never asks for any personal information about anyone; the most we can tell is IP address and that's only unregistered people. Editors creating accounts will be put off by being asked to provide payment details and may be put under the impression that they will get charged for some things more than once. No doubt it would be picked up by the press somewhere and we'd have to explain that we are asking for card numbers in case they abuse multiple accounts. And this wouldn't work because you'd have to convince the foundation donations people to take money from sockpuppets - much better just blocked and forgotten about than made to pay. Those are the flaws, sorry if its downputting. Rcsprinter (orate) @ 22:13, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Nah, it's not really that big of a deal. I'm just glad I took it here first rather than at the actual proposals page. Jinkinson (talk) 22:32, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Bradley Manning/October 2013 move request

Discussion won't open until September 30. But the goal is making a very good consensus, and I would fear accusations or prejudicial comments from editors. Is there a factor that would interfere with the upcoming discussion? --George Ho (talk) 03:25, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

The smart thing to do would be to wait until the Arbitration case closes, but as the odds of that happening are pretty low, I guess it makes sense to look for ways to reduce the chaos that RM is likely to stir up. Monty₈₄₅ 03:33, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

But delay was already proposed, and many opposed delay. Shall I propose it again? --George Ho (talk) 03:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Doubt it would get sufficient consensus. I suspect the case wont end up settling things for at least another month, if not longer. There are too many impatient for round 2 for that to happen. Monty₈₄₅ 04:04, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

As I see, they are preparing the evidence. And guidelines are set up in subpage. And I don't know whether disputes on MOS:IDENTITY and other rules, like WP:COMMONNAMES, are standing in the way. --George Ho (talk) 04:25, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

hi george, I'd encourage you to add more evidence to the evidence page - we can always use help. Honestly I think the move will happen on Sep 30 no matter what we say or do, it's like a tug of war - one side wants no earlier, the other side wants no later, so best not argue the date further. Many sources have switched so we may see a strong push for Chelsea by a broad group.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:26, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

While I understand the sentiment that there should be no requested move discussion before the date of the 30th, I do believe that leads us to the odd situation where discussion on the move itself is verboten. If it is not, then how does a discussion about moving the article differ from a requested move discussion? By a requested move template? That's bureaucratic nonsense obviously (nobody is going to argue that you are not allowed to have some discussion when it has a requested move template over it, but it's fine to have the same discussion without the template on top). Or is it that we're not to have a vote about the proper location for the article, which a requested move discussion is emphatically not? I have had these doubts about this since I learned of the moratorium on a new discussion, but it seems to work out for now and reduce drama, so I'm going with it for now, even if it doesn't really mean anything. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:34, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

There is PLENTY of discussion about the move, the policies behind the move, the behaviors of editors behind the move, the general issue of trans* names, all over the wiki. I think the one thing we don't need, however, is an free-ranging discussion on Talk:Bradley Manning about the location of the page at this point. WP:NOTAFORUM, and many of the threads which have cropped up are basically people complaining about the result, which is not useful. Much more useful is contributing to the evidence gathering and discussion of relevant policies. Overall, the main point is to reduce drama, and contain the actual final !votes and arguments about the ideal page location to be put forth within the context of the formal move request.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:21, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

What I mean to say is that any discussion about a move is by definition a move discussion. Regarding it as anything other is bureaucratic nonsense. A requested move template people prefixing their opinions with support or oppose might make a discussion more formal, but not more valid or a more "real" move discussion. We're basically tricking people into believing it is to reduce drama. Which i think is in this case a good thing - we've had plenty of drama already. But you shouldn't think that a discussion that is listed somewhere or has a header over it, or has people who type support is any more of a real or more valid move discussion than one without any or all those things. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we agree - which is why new move discussions that have cropped up on the Manning page specifically have usually been shut down, and people have not re-opened them - because there is rough consensus to wait. Meanwhile, meta-conversations continue, of course. But I can have a long discussion on my talk page about the move, but no action will be taken as a result - we do have a formal process for moves, which is RM, and which requires the template, an uninvolved closer, and registration on the list of move discussions, and running for at least 7 days - so while "in general", yes people are "discussing" the move in various places, the actual decision making process of the move will only start on Sep 30.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:26, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Any other suggestions besides discussion or proposing delay? --George Ho (talk) 18:47, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Nothing in particular. Is there a problem you're worried about? I actually think it will go pretty smoothly, but maybe that's wishful thinking.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:03, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

What about upcoming comments before ArbCom decisions? Are you sure that some editors will be topic-banned before September 30? --George Ho (talk) 19:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I recommend waiting for the Arbitration case to conclude. It's too soon to have this discussion again anyway. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Does the Arb case affect the process of the consensus? --George Ho (talk) 17:35, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would expect the most disruptive editors to be topic banned. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:38, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Arbcom has in the past launched community RFCs that it tailored to try to come to a resolution on complex issues. There was some indication that the committee *may* be interested in doing that here. Having a structured RFC to try to sort out the underlying conflict between policies, outside the context of a fact specific move discussion, may allow the community to come to consensus on how to handle this type of issue, and then apply it in a RM discussion with much less controversy. Now Arbcom may decide not to do that. Or the RFC could fail to reach a consensus. And in anycase, the RFC wouldn't rap up for a month after the Arbcom case does, so your talking the beginning of November, at the earliest, for a move discussion. As mentioned before, waiting would be a good idea, but I would be shocked if we really did end up waiting. Monty₈₄₅ 19:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

We have already held a poll here to see if there would be room to push the opening of the RM to await the arbcom. The clear decision was "no". Those who want the article moved will not wait, so the best thing to do is just accept that, we will not be able to convince them otherwise. When and if topic bans are handed out, it won't matter for this move, as I'm quite sure it will start on schedule barring something really dramatic, like a quick decision from arbcom or a ruling to hold off on the discussion.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:59, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I would like for Wikimania presentations and slides to be freely licensed (or at least visible on YouTube)

Could we make a statement on WP:VPPR to that effect? See my concerns here: https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:14, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

And I see related discussion at https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming#Decentralize_Video_Sharing Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this something I should talk to Wikimedia UK about? Which funding body funds Wikimanias? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Cross-posted at m:Forum. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:03, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

History logs of articles "pending changes"

Articles, like Red Hot Chili Peppers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), are pending changes by anonymous and new editors. We have blue highlights and "automatically accepted" / "accepted by <whom>". Also, registered users can see blue banners of pending changes by such editors. I intend to propose defuncting the blue highlight because they can slow down browsers and computers. Also, I can already know that there are prior attempted changes in history log. However, if that's not a good idea, how else can we minimize technical impact of pending changes on computers? --George Ho (talk) 23:09, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I suppose next you'll suggest that we remove all images from Wikipedia, as they also slow down computers? If you look at the HTML source for that history page, the blue color is simply indicated by a different span class, "flaggedrevs-color-1", which is actually shorter than the usual class "mw-history-histlinks". Any modern rendering engine shouldn't have trouble with something as simple as coloring a span. Your problem appears entirely anecdotal. Maybe you should look for other factors slowing down your computer, like setting the number of revisions to 500 instead of the default 50. - HectorAE (talk) 01:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

COI template

Template:COI editnotice was an idea that started in Idea Lab, that obtained consensus at Wikipedia:Proposals for a trial implementation. The idea was to create a two-sentence summary of WP:COI in a template and place that template directly onto article Talk pages about extant organizations, where editors with a COI are more likely to see it.

As the trial rolled out it became apparent that there are a few issues that require further discussion and brainstorming:

1. What is its current tone of the template (stern, polite, etc.), what tone should it have and what should the exact text be?
2. Should the template be placed on all articles about extant organizations automatically or manually added to those that show signs of COI editing?

Pinging editors that have previously commented on this template:

CorporateM (Talk) 20:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I believe the tone should be tools, instructions and process, not warnings and threats, however, ultimately it can only copy WP:COI exactly. Adding the template to articles that already have COI problems defeats the purpose, because the template's intended goal should be to prevent them from happening in the first place. CorporateM (Talk) 20:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Although I recommended trial usage, I did not like the text. As CM implies above we need to assume good faith and create text that is instructive to people looking for a way to work with a resource that they are not familiar with. The current text is adversarial and only serves to alienate newcomers rather than welcoming them as part of the WP Team and saying in a helpful tone: 'here is the appropriate action to take'. My suggested text would be: Individuals acting on behalf of a person or organization should click [here] to request corrections or suggest content, rather than editing the article directly. If an issue is urgent please contact us [here]. Thank you! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:11, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• • • I support the word "should" which is strong, but polite, without being quite as wishy washy as "advised". CorporateM (Talk) 21:15, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• Please keep in mind that there are (at least) two kinds of COI, and the template entirely omits the all too common adversarial COI. I don't want to see Some-Green-Group (SGG) editing the Monsanto article any more than I want to see Monsanto's PR people's handiwork. Rklawton (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
• I support the tone and language as it exists now and do not believe it should be automatically added to every company page. Ironholds (talk) 17:33, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• Looks good in situations where there is corporate meatpuppetry in talk page debates. But, being a talkpage notice, many editors won't ever see it at all. Although there is nothing wrong with its appearance or wording, it definitely does not replace the articlespace COI notice. I don't think we should use the template to "go fishing" and combat COI preemptively. ThemFromSpace 17:42, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
• I'm interested in helping but I would like to see a few examples of where the issues or concerns came up. That would help me rephrase or modify the language. On face I would call it polite, too polite but that is a bias strictly on me. I would use much harsher wording as BLP and slandering are not to be taken lightly. How many vandals get suspended within an hour of us noticing them? They don't care so we are trying to reach those that DO care but are so tainted in one way or another that they will risk alot to effect a desired outcome on the article. Again I would ask for an example or two of where someone said that it needed to be changed in a real life setting (i.e. article it was used on).Geremy Hebert (talk | contribs) 09:26, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Notifications for mentions should always be on (there shouldn't be an opt-out)

To me, this option destroys the integrity of the system. When I ping someone who I suspect cares about a relevant discussion, why should I doubt whether or not they will see it? This creates unnecessary doubt, in my mind. If users incessantly use the mention function at Wikipedia:Notifications#Features to harass other users then that's a behavioral thing they should be warned about, and admins should deal with. But we shouldn't preemptively destroy the integrity of a communication system to deal with that issue before it arises. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:41, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't like people linking me to conversations, I see it as rather annoying, especially when I have multiple conversations at once. I have it enabled but I prefer to stalk my watch list to receive notifications of talking regarding me. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 15:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I understand it might be annoying at times, but I'm thinking it's such a crucial tool that makes organizing topics and generating conversation so much easier, people who use it shouldn't wonder if it's working (as I did there, so I did the old burdensome thing—I went to the user talk page). The annoyance cost is minor compared to the benefit of the project as a whole, in my opinion. It think it boosts efficiency for the project. Thank you WMF. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't really understand the initial statement. Are you proposing disabling the ability for users to not be notified? If so, you'll need wider participation (an RfC, say) and I'd advise rewording the proposal. Ironholds (talk) 01:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
• I too am confused by the wording of the proposal, particularly the thread title. I assume you're referring to the item about "What happens if someone turns off their Mention Notifications?" in the list at Wikipedia talk:Notifications#Other items. I'd agree that this [removing the option to "disable" web notifications for mentions, just as we do with "Talk page message" web notifications (greyed out checkbox in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo)] might be a good idea, but there is the technical problems described by WhatamIdoing (talk · contribs) as "What if Notifications works perfectly, but I'm using an old web browser that is unable to see what Notifications tries to display for me?" - I'm not sure which web browsers (or other factors) might be involved in this problem, but it needs to be investigated before any RfC could proceed. –Quiddity (talk) 21:03, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I apologize for the ambiguity. Ironholds yes that's what I meant. I changed the subject heading. I should have chosen my words more carefully. Thanks for the point about web-browsers Quiddity. I'd like for it to be a 100% kind of thing. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:49, 28 September 2013 (UTC)