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 Village pump (technical).
• Discussions of policy belong at Village pump (policy).
• If you're ready to make a concrete proposal and determine whether it has consensus, go to the 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.

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

# as used for numbered lists

# at the starts of lines makes a numbered list, as is well known. But how can I make the sequence of numbers start with 0 rather than 1? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:14, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

• @Anthony Appleyard: #<li value="0>text. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:01, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
  • 0. This is number 0.
    1. And this is number 1.
    2. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:49, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
• Thanks. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:25, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
  • @Anthony Appleyard and Od Mishehu: The list still starts with number 1 even with Koavf's suggestion. The only way to actually start with 0 is to manually type the numbers with a period after, like the following:
    • 0. Zero
    • 1. One
    • 2. Two
  • Without the asterisks, "<br>" would have to be placed after every item except the last. GeoffreyT2000 ^{(talk, contribs)} 04:20, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
    • @GeoffreyT2000: It starts with "0" in the example above by Od. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:21, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
• @GeoffreyT2000, Od Mishehu, and Koavf: It worked OK with me in Vitamin C#Biosynthesis. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Draft of proposal regarding WP:OR and terrorism

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.

---

Problem:

• Terrorism-related pages, especially lists of terrorist events, are plagued by original research and synthesis by editors. On list pages, often list entries are made where the source does not support the label of "terrorism" (e.g., [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). Other times, the mere mention that ISIL, Al Shabab, or the PKK are suspected appears to prompt editors to add events to the lists, even if terrorism isn't mentioned (e.g., [6], [7]). The issue here is the assumption that all acts by these groups are, by default, terrorism and not some other form of violence such as insurgency, guerrilla tactics, etc. This assumption, while perhaps often correct, still constitutes original research as it is the editor making the connection, not the sources. Currently, the lists of terrorism incidents address this latter issue by including "attacks by violent non-state actors for political, religious, or ideological motive".
• Related, articles about events often are labeled "terrorism" without proper sourcing or prematurely. This prompted EvergreenFir to make WP:HOLDYOURHORSES because breaking news and first responders too often mislabel events in the initial aftermath. The mere rumor of someone hearing Allahu Akbar sends news reporters and editors into terrorism-labeling mode long before such information is verified by investigators. Examples are the initial reporting on 2011 Norway attacks and 2016 Munich shooting.

Proposed solution: Address this issue by amending WP:OR (or similar policy?) to require:

1. Reliable sources explicitly label an event or related individuals as "terrorism" or "terrorist" in their own voice or that Reliable sources report that some official related to the investigation of the event (e.g., mayor, police chief, government spokesperson) has used the label "terrorism" or "terrorist". I am hoping that VPIL can help determine exact wording.
2. Cases where terrorism is "suspected" should be labeled as "suspected" by Wikipedia as well until this suspicion is officially confirmed or denied.

Comments: We understand that carving out a specific topic for special attention in policy pages is undesirable to some editors. However, we believe this deserves special attention because of (1) the seriousness of the label "terrorist", (2) the persistence of the problem across multiple articles, and (3) the contentiousness of the topic vis-a-vis politics and religion. We already have discretionary and general sanctions related to this area (WP:ARB911, WP:ARBAP2, WP:TROUBLES, WP:ARBPIA, WP:GS/ISIL), demonstrating it is a perennial topic for disputes. As such we believe that this broad topic warrants specific attention by Wikipedia policy. The goal of this proposal is to provide clarity to editors and to establish a community norm regarding the application of the label "terrorism".

Signed, EvergreenFir and Doug Weller; Posted by EvergreenFir (talk) 18:40, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Anyone have any suggestions? EvergreenFir (talk) 20:10, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

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

Let editors ask for review?

I recently noticed on another editable website site that when you try to save your edit there is a prompt like "Ask another editor to review this edit?". I thought this was a marvelous idea. I was a new editor there and the editing was quite complex so I could really relate to the feeling of uncertainty that a new editor feels. When the site asked me to ask another user to review my edit, it felt nice and it was a great way for me to signal that I was uncertain if I'd done something right and I needed help until I get more familiar with the editing on the site. It also tells other users that even if I screwed up an edit that I was participating in good faith. I think such an idea might really work well at Wikipedia too. Perhaps a proposal might be to have by default all edits by IPs and new accounts asking if the editor would like such a review. We'd also have to think about how we'll handle these requests; so ultimately we'd have to upstream a proposal to Mediawiki as a feature request, but what are your general thoughts on the impact on users? Would it help them? Help reader retention? New editor uptake? Etc. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:15, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

The idea sounds good on paper but who will actually review those edits? We already have a review system at WP:AFC which is extremely backlogged, not to mention all other reviews that need to be done. I'd love to see this idea in action but unless the Foundation starts employing reviewers, there will likely not be enough people to handle such requests in a timely fashion Regards SoWhy 16:02, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

This idea is really, really good. I can see no drawbacks at all of this idea, and I completely agree with all of the upsides you mentioned. If someone can work on this, that would be awesome. Maybe we could start with a default-on gadget that sends an API call off to a toollabs tool, which logs the edit in a database and makes it visible to a dashboard that volunteers would look at? (I also disagree with what SoWhy said - AfC and all of the other "review" systems that he brings up are for the page creation process, which is necessarily heavyweight. But looking at individual edits would be lightweight, so the backend systems should be correspondingly simple and not complicated.) Enterprisey (talk!) 00:08, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Not a technical editor but it seems like implementation might be similar to the (likely abandoned) WP:Deferred changes project, where tagged edits will appear at Special:PendingChanges. Rolling out this feature should be done cautiously to prevent pending changes from being severely backlogged, though. Perhaps someone could even finish the deferred changes project while working on this, though that seems unlikely. Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 05:29, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

An anti-WP:SOAPBOX task force/notice board?

The below is transposed from Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not: it got a fair amount of support there (and do please read that conversation), but I'd like to take it a 'level up' and transform it into a concrete proposition, so any input and help would be appreciated.

Since Wikipedia is (one of) the world's most consulted website-references that 'anyone can edit', that makes it a prime target for anyone seeking to WP:SOAPBOX-'broadcast' it. I've seen this a lot in my ~13 years here, but have seen little done to counter it.

It takes a contributor/admin with a lot of patience and experience to see a widespread, organised 'slow attack' pattern any given conflict (because where there's soapboxing, there's most always conflict), but most are too busy/'here and now'-focused to see any larger pattern, and any admin intervening towards the end of such a conflict will find an unreadable talk-page mess almost impossible to unravel, which makes one tend to take claims at face value and only deal with the behavioural aspects of the situation, and this too works to the soapboxers' advantage.

Most of the tactics used to impose and 'enforce' non-WP:V is a 'slow attack' that often passes under the radar (and over the head) of beleaguered admins and Wiki in general. Namely:

1. Refusal to engage in discussions over challenged content Soapboxers usually will not participate in any discussion as long as their 'work' is in place (or they feel that it is threatened, where #4 ususally follows), but should someone actually 'dare' to act on article-fix talk-page propositions... revert-warring (usually in total disregard for policy or consensus) and other fun usually begins.
2. Off-wiki networking ... as a 'defense tactic'. As any contributor concerned with WP:POLICY is bound to make changes or voice opposition, this is the only means to out-revert and/or out-vote any such attempt, in evading the WP:CANVASS radar, even over long periods of time.
3. 'Us' and 'them' behaviour Usually organised, in addition to the goal of out-reverting any changes, around a 'vote' that (somehow) is supposed to trump WP:POLICY. If the discussion is too long to read, it sometimes does. Which explains...
4. Poisoning and 'drowning' debate Misleading (and often ignoring-the-point non sequitur) allegations and claims are a great way to make 'opposing' contributors respond, resulting in a talk-page so full that it would make any admin's eyes glaze over.
5. Targeting the opposition An organised, often drawn-out (often-false-)accusation-campaign. If there are so many similar accusations, it has to be true, right? And should the 'accused' try to defend themselves, even that is open to the 'poison and drown' treatment... and often, by then, the 'accused' is so frustrated with all the reverting/drowning/accusations/disingenuousity that they often do do something accusation-worthy, and the longer their block-log... it's win-win for the soapboxers.
6. Multiple accounts and frequent name-changing Exposing the former requires a sockpuppet investigation, and if a contributor gets caught out enough in any of the above... new account, nothing happened, right? And good luck proving that those two accounts are the same person, and even if this is demonstrated... new account.

While soapboxers learn from their successes and failures, Wikipedia does, too, but soapboxing seems to be still both above and below Wikipedia's mostly 'here and now' radar. But if some patience-laden people conscious of this trend were to populate a task force or notice board dedicated to countering it, it might focus and streamline efforts in that direction, as well as raising vigilance against future occurrences. TP ✎ ✓ 20:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - While I don't object, we also already have WP:NPOVN for point of view issues (including soapboxing) and WP:COIN which can also be used in cases of self-advertizing. We also have WT:WPSPAM where people experienced with link spam can add links on a list to be automatically reverted, or add a pattern to a blacklist. —PaleoNeonate – 21:21, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I've seen these, but they seem to be efforts to treat 'here and now' dilemmas; soapboxing campaigns are often both discreet and long-term (one instance I was involved in (countering) lasted a decade). TP ✎ ✓ 21:28, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Second chance for requested articles

Wikipedia has Wikipedia: Articles for deletion, and it is not all uncommon for an article to go through a second nomination for deletion there. Wikipedia also has Wikipedia: Requested articles, and some requests - such as the request I made some time ago for an article called "Parametric data" - have been there a long time. Would it be possible to have a box in the requested articles box called "Second requests?" I do not know how long articles can remain at Wikipedia: Requested articles without been removed, but if articles cannot remain there indefinitely, this idea might help Wikipedia. Vorbee (talk) 15:47, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

There was an old project called Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than a year that has apparently become defunct. That's unfortunate. Personally I think the whole "requested article" process could be greatly improved. For example, it should track the original poster, the date posted, allow for a longer description, have a way to add suggested sources and/or signed comments, flag when a request is older than some interval, and have a process to remove completed or non-notable requests. Right now it's too informal and subject to vandalism.

As for parametric data, isn't that covered by parametric statistics? Or do you have something else in mind? Praemonitus (talk) 22:13, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Does the requested article process actually work at all? Does a significant number of articles get created after being listed there? These are not rhetorical questions, because I don't know the answer, but it would be useful to know whether there is actually any point to this process. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 17:52, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I did type in a couple of names in the category "People in Medicine" which subsequently got articles created on them, so my guess to the answers to your questions is yes, the space in Wikipedia for article requests does have some merits. Vorbee (talk) 15:38, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

OK. I guess the point of my question was whether the process just needs minor tweaks, such as you suggest, or a fundamental overhaul which would be necessary if it isn't working now. I have no experience with this process, but would suggest, if that doesn't happen already, that requests should only be removed from the list if they are about topics that blatantly shouldn't have an article, and that there should be a mechanism for people to add their support to requests. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Adding a new feature "concise" on every article page to display concise or shorter version of the article

I want to propose a new feature. We can add a new button "concise" on every article to display a shorter version of the article which contain only most important or necessary information.

This can be achieved on client side only without increasing any extra load on server.

We have to add an extra tag < n> something like this

Wikipedia article

information1

information2

<n> information3 <\n>

information 4

<n> information 5 <\n>

end of article

where n denotes necessary.

By default the user will be given the full article. But when user will press the "concise" button given at top of article the article will change to shorter version like this

Wikipedia article

<n> information 3 <\n>

<n> information 5 <\n>

end of article

Here the <n> tag will help in filtering of most necessary information.