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The proposals section of the village pump is used to discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related (see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) for that).

Recurring policy proposals are discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). If you have a proposal for something that sounds overwhelmingly obvious and are amazed that Wikipedia doesn't have it, please check there first before posting it, as someone else might have found it obvious, too.

Before posting your proposal:

  • Read this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.
  • If the proposal is a change to the software, file a bug at Bugzilla instead. Your proposal is unlikely to be noticed by a developer unless it is placed there.
  • If the proposal is a change in policy, be sure to also post the proposal to, say, Wikipedia:Manual of style, and ask people to discuss it there.
  • If the proposal is for a new wiki-style project outside of Wikipedia, please go to m:Proposals for new projects and follow the guidelines there. Please do not post it here. These are different from WikiProjects.


This talk page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 7 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Auto Log-in Box for Edit Tab or Long Edits

ELApro: It would be nice if the Log-in window would pop up automatically when the edit tab is clicked. A cancel or anonymous user button could be provided for anonymous users. I have often gotten the majority of an edit completed before noticing that I forgot to log in. If I try to log in after the edit is begun, all the edit work will be lost after logging in and returning to the page. I have also noticed that if a period of time passes after logging in, the log-in is somehow lost while the user is still in the process of editing. It would also be nice if the log-in option would be offered before dropping a logged in user that is in the process of a long edit.

You could just copy the text out to your clipboard, and then paste it back in after logging in. Most modern browsers retain text in pages in the history, so it's safe to log in and go back to the edit page before clicking save, too. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect on Contribution pages, "redirect=no"?

uhh....i think people just don't really have an opinion on it. I, for one, have almost never encountered the situation you've outlined. On the offchance i do click on a contribution that's a redirect, i just click the history or diff links instead to see what changes the person made. I suppose a better place to ask would be the technical section... --`/aksha 02:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this is definitely a good idea. `/aksha is right - move this to a technical section and it'll get noticed and maybe even implemented. Good luck. Nihiltres 18:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea (found it annoying myself before), but yeah this may have been better on the technical pump. -- nae'blis 19:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reduce the size limit for sigs?

I keep running into huge sigs that take up four lines in the edit box and drown out the user's actual comment in a mess of formatting. Would it be reasonable to cut the size limit for sigs in half? Unless someone has a (blockably) huge username, that should still be enough for a userpage link, a talk page link, contribs, and a reasonable amount of formatting. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to see that. I agree with you that sometimes you can't read the other person's comments in the edit box because of the markup from their sig. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to get rid of custom user names entirely. They aren't necessary and just waste space. --Tango 21:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would only go for that if the current sig replacement technology allowed to a link to the User's Talk page as well as their User page. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, yes and yes, to all above. Reduce and restrict, for clarity and simplicity in talkpages and talkpage wikicode. Please! —Quiddity 21:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I support the prohibition of signature elements that serve purely decorative purposes. Extra links (talk page, contribution history, et cetera) are fine, but it is annoying to deal with several lines of HTML that merely add fancy colors and fonts. —David Levy 21:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I remember finding someone with a 1k (yes, I don't lie) signature. He used to transclude it, so you would not notice how long it was. Or force users to write at least 2x the amount of characters in their signature everytime they write in a talk page. That would make some people realize how awful a long signature is for us "common" people ;-) -- ReyBrujo 04:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is getting perilously close to a perennial proposal: See Wikipedia_talk:Sign_your_posts_on_talk_pages#Propose_banning_non-standard_.2F_raw_signatures. from just a couple of weeks ago. -- nae'blis 05:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not asking for a total ban, just a cap on the length, like two lines in an edit box long. This will cut down on overformatting simply by not allowing space for it, and cut down on the mess they make in edit view. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll support anything that cuts down on the bloat. I recently had to struggle to find the actual post of someone with nine lines of sig markup. Fortunately he had included edit comment text to mark out its beginning and end... - BanyanTree 20:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Is my sig okay? --> Yuser31415 04:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC) <-- :)) Anyway, I believe per WP:SIG there is a limit on 200 characters in a signature, and, since the edit box is by default 80 characters wide, I make that 2.5 lines allowed in a sig. Is that what you would like? (If not, stating the specific number of characters you would like to be the maximum for a sig could help.) Cheers! Yuser31415 04:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely fine! Optimal even. Short and useful.
It's 16 line long monstrosities like this fellow's sig that are the worst offenders; anything more than 2 lines of raw text (which is 200 characters at my resolution/settings) is probably unnecessary, and more than 3 lines begins to get annoying fast. I don't know if there is a hard limit, but I'd like to see a 200 character limit implemented, or even less (150? 100?), or the suggestion from Zoe above. —Quiddity 02:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Giving leeway to userspace type things like sigs is a good idea, but if it gets to the point that it inconveniences other editors, we have a problem. Suggest that it should be under two lines. —Dgiest c 05:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I second the two line limit. Sounds like a good compromise, leaving enough personal freedom while keeping annoyance to a bearable level. This is not MySpace after all, and the hugest sigs tend to be just font/color HTML anyways. --Dschwen 08:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How about making the sig a template in userspace? Then we could just put our sig in preference, and ~~~~ would translate to {{User:Username}} where our sig will be. It would cut the clutter down as we won't see them when editing anymore and we can update all instances of our sig just by changing the template. --antilived T | C | G 09:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See #Transclusion of templates for why we can't. —Quiddity 09:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I've seen it but I don't think it's entirely valid. How many times are you going to change your sig in a year? IMHO not many people will chnage their sig very often and thus they shouldn't consume too much resource to re-cache. And simply protect the sig so only the user him/herself and maybe admin/sysops can edit should clear the vandalism problem is well. --antilived T | C | G 09:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
{{User:Username}} would transclude the userpage, and like that there would be no way to permanently store the date, which is an important part of the sig. Also having a template defies the purpose of a sig as a permanent unchangable mark. Right now any sig manipulation shows up on the history page, with a template much more sneaky things could go on.--Dschwen 13:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Don't forget the 5 tildes that produce the timestamp only. It could be {{User:Username}}~~~~~. NikoSilver 12:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's just some random user space link I used to illustrate the point, not that I intend to embed the whole user page onto talk pages.:) And also I meant 3 tildes not four so the date would still be in the page itself, only the sig is changeable. --antilivedT | C | G 20:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, I guess I'll be the first here with a "long" signature.... you should get Why1991 to defend himself here. I really don't feel strongly either way, but I do understand that going though lines of code due to a long signature is pretty annoying. I propose a 5 line (in the edit window) cap for signatures.S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since most of my opinion has already been said, I'll just say that I agree with the above statements. I like Yuser31415's idea of 200 characters. I don't like the idea of userspace transclusions. I don't think there should be a total removal of custom signatures, as they are one of the few ways to make yourself unique. And now I sign. --Tewy 23:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just a thought, but what about implementing this in steps (500 character limit, 300, 250, etc.). I'm just not sure how else the users with long signatures would be warned (is there a bot that could locate them all?) I'm a little worried that there will be this angry mass of users who all just found out their signatures no longer work. With a gradual system, it wouldn't affect all of them at once. --Tewy 23:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's now a bug for this; go vote your support. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice signature. -- ReyBrujo 01:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good grief. That's to the point where I'd edit his sig down myself if he posted it on my page. --tjstrf talk 12:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Lucky for you then I've changed my signature now so its far shorter :) RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 12:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think a 250 chars limit would filter out most monstrosities, leaving the 'grey' area sigs for case-by-case evaluation. I also liked proposal above for transcluded userspace sigs that can be edited by the user themselves and admins only. NikoSilver 12:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer just name and talk link per Zoe. A max one line sig would be good, but no more than two. Tyrenius 16:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My sig's about 180 characters in the preference box (update: I actually counted, it's 193), but shorter on the edit screen (because I type {{subst:CURRENTMINUTE}}, etc, to mess around with the date/time string). Mine's pretty short, and so I'd support the limit being something like 250 characters (or possibly 200, but I prefer 250 (three lines)). --ais523 16:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Your sig is the most perceptive sig I've ever seen, which is one more reason why our brain activity should not be limited by irrational WP:CREEP-like authoritative extreme measures. I stand by my 250 chars proposal, as the optimum solution that filters out most monstrosities, while it allows people to not feel like members of the Outer Party (and therefore inspires them to produce more)! NikoSilver 23:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-Protection restrictions for new Users

I hope I have read the rules properly, and that this is the right place to propose this: An account must be four days old before it can edit a semi-protected page. I am tired of Users creating an account, waiting for four or five days, and then vandalize a protected page. This User: Oliviagundry created an account on the 29th of December, waited, and then vandalized the Paris Hilton page, which is semi-protected. I propose that we change the days from 4 to 10. This change won't stop all Users from vandalizing, but I'm thinking that a lot of Users might lose their will to vandalize if they have to wait 10 days to edit a semi-protected page. Acalamari 04:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To prevent sleeper socks from vandalising semi-protected articles, I have previously suggested we change the autoconfirmed suffrage from 4 days to X edits. (A value of X should be decided later, but should not be lower than 20 or higher than 100.)
Consider the possibility that someone may create an account with the sole purpose of contributing to (not vandalising) a semi-protected article. Increasing the length of time they would have to wait would discourage them.
Requiring X edits would discourage vandals while being friendlier to contributors. A vandal has to make X non-vandalistic edits to vandalise a semi-protected article (if their first X edits are vandalistic, they can be blocked). A contributor could use their first X edits to learn about Wikipedia (by, for example, asking questions and experimenting with markup) and discuss on the article's talk page (assuming it's not semi=protected as well).
--J.L.W.S. The Special One 05:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The obvious problems with the X edits as the criterion is that a user can make the required X edits to his own user or talk page (just hit the save button X times on your own user page). I believed the correct decision would be to have "Y days after the Xth edit)" or even "Y days after the Xth edit outside the user space)". The Wiki way IMHO would be to flag "established users" (non-novice) manually by any established user and deflagging by admins. I believe it was proposed but rejected as generating to much drama Alex Bakharev 08:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure increasing the number of days would be especially effective - they don't have to do anything with the account in this time, just leave it as a "sleeper", so they'll just wait a bit longer and then do it. I feel it's more likely to annoy the anons who sign up in order to contribute to a sprotected article, and have to wait even longer. The edit count limit makes more sense to me (especially if it excludes edits in user space and perhaps sandbox), although I suppose that could also annoy anons. Trebor 09:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An article is semi-protected for a reason. If we can cut down on vandalism to those pages by making more restrictions, I think it should be done. I've seen articles like Paris Hilton and the Michael Richards get vandalized by accounts four days old. Whether we make it a number of edits (User Page and User Talk Page edits not counted) or increase the number of days to wait, something should be done. Acalamari 16:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think that extending the number of days (say, to 10) would be more effective than adding an edit requirement. Someone intent enough on vandalizing to set up an account days in advance will presumably be able to figure out how to do a number of trivial edits really quickly, negating the usefulness of any edit count requirement.
The absolutely best approach to eliminating vandalism would be to do what is done at Metafilter.com - you pay a one-time fee of $5 to get a login/account, which isn't refundable even if your account gets permanently blocked after its first day of use. But Wikipedia is built around minimal (aka "virtually no") barriers to editing, for better or worse, so that kind of entry fee isn't likely to be implemented in anything resembling the near future. John Broughton | Talk 20:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Although I like the idea, I am quite certain that the Wiki community will not sanction the idea of a fee, either refundable or non-refundable, to open an account. How about combining the various ideas outlined above, and make the requirement for editing semi-protected pages that the editor must have an account, must have had it for at least ten days, and must have made (say) twenty edits in that time, none to his own userpage or talkpage?--Anthony.bradbury 20:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am opposed to an entry fee. If one was instated, I, and many other Users, would probably have our accounts blocked, as we wouldn't have paid/will not pay. Also, there will still be anonymous editors, unless they are all blocked. However, I agree with Anthony.bradbury in combining ideas. The requirements to edit a semi-protected page should be something like this: having an account, ten days old, with fifty edits that have been done to articles, and not to any User or Talk/User Talk pages. Acalamari 21:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that a much longer waiting period would probably suffice and serious new editors know that proposed additions to the articles' talk pages, or requests for temporary unlocking, would get their edits added quicker. I would also like to propose something of a chaperoned registration, wherein an established user or admin could vouch for a new user so as to bypass the waiting period. The "drama" might be avoided by having the authorization happen at the time of the registration, either by a code given to the new user by the sponsor or the sponsor registers the username for the user. Grika Ⓣ 04:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain this more. Forgive me for sounding stupid, but I don't quite understand what you mean. Acalamari 16:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The idea needs some fleshing out, but it would mean either adding a "Code" field to the "Create account" page wherein the user would enter a code that established users and admins can generate or perhaps easier would be to add a "Sponsor user" link to the toolbox that brings established users and admins to a "Create account" page and displays an error/info page for everyone else. Grika Ⓣ 03:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the proposal as modified here. Any obvious vandalism by a user reverts them back to a new user status. Ronbo76 04:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea; if they vandalize, they get lowered back to new user status and are given a minor block. How about this extension of that suggestion: if they return to being able to edit semi-protected pages, and they vandalize again, they are permanently lowered to the new user status, and are given a longer block. Acalamari 16:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Pure edit count is obviously not sufficient protection because people can just dick around on their user page. Even pure edit count plus waiting period has the problem that they can just dick around on their user page then go sleeper. On the other hand if we only look at the edit count in mainspace, then someone just making junk edits might at least pick up some talk page warnings before they go sleeper. —Dgiest c 17:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We already countered for this: edits to User or Talk Pages don't count towards being able to edit semi-protected pages. Acalamari 17:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Or, they could make a bunch of small edits, such as changing the wording about the way a sentence was worded, adding links, or adding unnecessary words that might kind of sort of in a way fluff up a somewhat long article that was pretty big and large ;-) . That really wouldn't be to difficult for someone who wanted to vandalize a page. --Tewy 00:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it technically possible to so arrange that an editor guilty of, say, three vandalisms can never, ever edit a semi-protected page? And if it is technically possible, is it a reasonable idea? We could allow an appeal to a beaurocrat in the case of demonstrable and sustained repentance.--Anthony.bradbury 14:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know; it'll have to be looked up or asked about. Acalamari 18:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK. But is it a reasonable idea?--Anthony.bradbury 22:22, 7 JanuaAry 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so. People change, you know. Since we block to prevent further damage, it is sound that if an editor is vandalizing a semi-protected page, he should not be allowed to further edit it. But I don't believe in "infinite" punishments. This would be a "semi-block", something that should be available for admins, but by no means an infinite measure (if such is the case, block him for vandalizing directly). -- ReyBrujo 22:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just a thought - in addition to being blocked from editing that particular page, how about going immediately to a final warning after vandalizing a semi-blocked page? Part of the block notice could mention something like"This page will be strictly monitored for detrimental changes, vandalism could result in your account being blocked from editing" I would apply this only to clear vandalism, nonsense edits could be handled the normal way. Citicat 03:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If vandalising a semi-protected page is their first edit, the block time should be a lot longer than if they have some legitimate edits. Someone doing genuine edits first may do vandalism, but does not deserve as strict a punishment. Seldon1 00:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Slightly off-topic, but is this discussion going to get moved? There has been at lot of talk here, and I'm wondering if this is going to be moved to an appropriate Talk Page, as it will be deleted within the next day or two. Acalamari 00:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping search engines out of user space?

Note: this is related, I think, to the section immediately above, but originated from some other edits and work I've been doing here.

Has there been any previous discussion about the wiki software adding "No robots" to the HTML code of all userspace pages? I know that the wiki software adds "No follow" tags to all external links on talk pages and userspace pages, which helps fight spam, but user pages are still getting indexed on google and other search engines, and the results can actually show up fairly high. So before I float a proposal about removing user pages from search engines (I know there are disadvantages as well as advantages), I thought I'd check here first. Any pointers? John Broughton | Talk 16:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fairly high indeed... my userpage has been #1 for "Dar-Ape" for a while now. I don't really have a complete answer for you, but if you'd like to search for "metasyntactic variable" in Wikipedia through Google without searching user pages, type this into Google: metasyntactic variable site:en.wikipedia.org -intitle:"user" and user pages will be excluded. Hope this is at least partially helpful, Dar-Ape 17:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure there are major disadvantages to this proposal (I think that's what you're getting at). But my question is whether the Wikipedia community has ever discussed this. (I'm familiar with inurl and intitle parameters for google searches; this isn't about excluding results, its about spam and attack pages and other things that might cease to be a real problem if userpages weren't indexed by search engines.) John Broughton | Talk 02:39, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it has been discussed. General feeling has been that given the current weaknesses of our in-house search engine, that being able to google search user pages is too useful to forgo at this time. Though your points about unintended highly ranked pages are certainly accurate. Dragons flight 02:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It also opens up the possibility of vanispamcruftisement in User space, something that I've thought of before. If I had a topic (say my band) that I knew wouldn't make it into the 'pedia proper, I could create it on a subpage (with an html link to my band's site), add a link to the subpage in my signature and sneakily use Wikipedia to increase the pagerank of my site. In addition, the mere fact that Wikipedia would appear high up in a Google search would lend importance to my band (Wow! you have an entry on Wikipedia!). There are many many "articles" in user space, who knows what they are being used for? Zunaid©Review me! 10:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
External links in userspace are tagged with nofollow, so they don't increase the PageRank of websites. Tra (Talk) 17:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) True, but user pages still can show up relatively far up. For example, a search on "Pablo Ganguli" yields this at number 11: User:Zeouspom/Pablo Ganguli. That's a userfied article that was just proposed to be inserted into mainspace, so in that sense it's okay, but it didn't use spam tricks like repeated text (hidden in comments, perhaps, or white on white text).

I guess the question sort of comes down to whether google searches of userspace are valuable for other than finding spam. If the user pages were not indexed by search engines, there wouldn't be any reason to search them for spam because spam would be pointless (even if spammers didn't know that). John Broughton | Talk 02:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The converse could that a searchable unique word or error (please see the discussion above) can render a talkpage cached. From my searches with the engines available when Wikipedia does not find an article, Yahoo seems to pick up articles a little sooner than the others. With articles being cached, it presents two problems: one, what happens when someone self-publishes an article that becomes cached; and two, conversations on talkpages become searchable once cached - what is the impact? Compound this with answer.com and other websites automatically use our articles for their articles. The bottomline is Wikipedia is becoming very desirable for a citeable source. You make it here, you make it everywhere eventually. Ronbo76 15:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiQuestions

Dear guys,

What would you think of if, at the end of each article, there was a spot for questions or requests for additional knowledge that could then be subsequently added to the article. For example, let's say an article is about a naval battle, and states several important figures. However, there's some information omitted. So a curious party submits a question to the tail end of the article, say, "How long did Captain Such and Such serve in Her Majesty's Royal Navy?". At this point, anyone who knows the answer to it can submit an answer in that section.

Tell me what you think. This would be great for pretty much every article, in my opinion, as long as it's used with respect.

--B —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.168.56.160 (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Without saying yes or no, I wonder if this purpose might also be accomplished through better advertising and accessibility of talk pages, the reference desk, and Wikipedia:Requests for expansion. Melchoir 04:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Every casual Wikipedia user I meet seems unaware of talk pages. I've learned more from some talk pages than I have from their articles. Perhaps every page should have a link on the bottom of the article that says:
To read the discussions by the editors of this article, see the talk page or click on the discussion tab on the top.
-- Samuel Wantman 07:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you have a question or suggestion regarding the content of this article, please post it at [[Talk:{{{PageName}}}]].
It would also be nice if talk pages had, at the top, a "click here" sort-of-banner (I have one on my user talk page, as do many other editors) that is a mini-wizard for creating a new section. If nothing else, since there are way too many editors who think that new sections go at the top to talk pages, or insert their posting into an old section, such a "banner" would improve how talk pages get laid out. John Broughton | Talk 16:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a good idea, adding a direct mention of the talk page into the footer, perhaps? Something like "For further questions or to suggest improvements, see [talk page]" Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"...or to suggest improvements, see [talk page]". This makes it sound like the user should seek approval on the talk page before editing. Any wording would need to be very exact. LukeSurl 00:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the fact that I even brought this up speaks for itself... I'm a casual user of wikipedia, and consequently don't know about this kind of stuff. The "talk page" would be good, but I feel as though if it were on the same page it'd be even more accessible.

Thanks.

The interface can be difficult for newcomers to understand. I support the idea of a sentence "To inform us of errors, give feedback or suggest improvements, please leave a comment." with a link to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:X&action=edit&section=new.

The sentence should be prominently displayed at the bottom (or top) of the article. We don't want it to be ignored, like the "talk" tab. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Original research

I am missing a possibility to add original research on Wikipedia. I am mainly working on non-western cultures, especially african cultures. Some interesting topics are severely under-researched (e.g. african dance), so there is little scientific literature about them. The bias seen on wikipedia also exists in science and research (funding) itself. There is a lot of knowledge about Africa and other topics that just disappears unrecorded. My idea about this is the following: besides the article, the history and the discussion (and maybe a peer reviewd stabilized version) each article should have a section for original research. I observe that many people acutally do put original research on the pages that is not covered by the references (if there are any). I think this is necessary and there should be a place for it. Wikipedia would then become a two- or three stage "knowledge distillery" in which material can enter as original research or unreferenced material and be moved up when references are found or be moved down if doubtful, while now, such material, although it might contain important information, is sometimes deleted or it ends up in discussion pages which are actually not intended for this purpose. For a severely under-researched and under-documented topic like Africa this could be of great advantage. The good stuff could be kept even if references are missing and only the trash would be deleted. Users could better distinguish between peer reviewd and original material because editors could better separate it, researches could identify underresearched topics because editors would have a place to put things they happen to know. What do you think? Nannus 18:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In a lot of cases that would just encourage a junkyard of poor-quality soapboxing; in the few cases where peer-review OR might be scholarly and verifiable, why can't you just use the talk page? —Dgiest c 18:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If this is so (and I am not convinced it is), that poor-quality soapboxing is now happening in the main articles (or on the talk pages). Talk pages are for discussions about the articles, not for unreferenced parts of them. Nannus 20:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you're producing research, why not write up a paper or a book and publish that, then cite it here? We have no problem with citing your own work, it just has to have been previously published in a reliable fashion. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As an amateur, I don't have access to the journals. An example of what I mean: I have learned from somebody from the Kom people of Cameroon that they have a dance called Samba, not the same as the Brazilian Samba (a different rythm with a different music) but interestingly sharing some features with it (e.g. the use of a friction drum (also called Samba in the Kom language)). A search of the internet about this has yielded absolutely nothing. A search in the libraries available to me has yielded nothing. It looks as if no musicologist has ever researched this. There are many kinds of music, (dance, language etc.) that are totaly unresearched and this is one of them. There are not enough funds to do all that research. Languages and cultures disappear before anybody has worked on them. But I am a computer programmer working in Germany. Which scientific journal is goining to publish an article I provide. If I could publish this bit of information in an original reserach section in wikipedia, a musicologist could become interested and research it or he could provide a reference from some specialist publication I could not find. Nannus 20:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, although what you want to do is outside the scope of wikipedia (we're here to collect existing knowledge, not produce new knowledge), Wikiversity is currently developing procedures for original research right now. You might want to get involved there and set up a system to allow you to publish your information. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm facing similar issues when editing articles on Singaporean movies. Due to systemic bias, it is difficult to find referenced information on Singaporean topics. I intend to raise this issue on the policy's talk page. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Buffy location proposal

I copied this proposal over from WP:BUFFY because nobody seems to be around to go one way or the other on this. I put it there because I don't know anything about Buffy stuff, and I wanted to give people who know the material the right to voice their opinions on the subject. As the proposal says, after debate across the four below articles this is what I propose:

The following below 4 articles have been nominated for deletion. As these articles stand now they are un-referenced (making verifiability difficult) and full of what is arguably original research. After a discussion on the varied AFD pages, we are now talking about making a single page where they may better be looked after under one roof. This would enable important locations in the Buffy world to be added and cited properly.

The proposal includes the above text, and the following:

We hereby propose redirecting the old below articles to a new single central Buffy location article, and starting anew. The new article, with a title suggested by NeilEvans of Locations in the Buffyverse, would be a new article detailing the central locations in the Buffyverse. It is our hope that by consolidating the important locations of the Buffy world we can start anew with references and proper citations. We would then redirect the articles old individual names to the new article dealing with Buffy locations.

This is a compromise proposal and a work in progress at that. It was brought here for the people who know the subject matter. Hopefully we can shape a proposal and then move forward with a consensus. I would ask for Support, Oppose, or Comment. KnightLago 21:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added notes to each article's discussion page about this proposal. KnightLago 21:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the articles such as Hellmouth, or Sunnydale are an integral part of the plot, and not something that could be covered in a central article I would be ok with keeping them as stand alone articles. If, and only if, they can be re-written with sourced and cited material. If we want to go with this proposal I will withdraw my AFD for Hellmouth and add the appropriate unreferenced and cleanup tags and see how the article develops from there. KnightLago 22:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The locations with their own articles are very important in these series (with the exception of the newly-made "The White Room"-article which featured in a dozen or so episodes and probably had a combined screen-time of around 30 minutes). The rest of the location articles feature in dozens and dozens of episodes, accumulating literally hours and hours of screen-time that was/is seen by millions of viewers. However I would agree with KnightLago that these locations need work. I think that we will see improved referencing. I agree with withdrawing all AfDs and instead tagging them and letting editors improve these articles in the coming weeks. WikiProject:Buffy is gradually helping to improve citing across the appropiate articles, and in the coming months I expect to see Buffy articles be raised to a standard much higher than the average article. It's easy to sneer at popular culture, but the fictional narratives that millions share say a lot about us. A group page maybe useful for keeping standards and formats consistent, but that does not mean that all the locations need to be merged there if they already have plenty of content. - Buffyverse 05:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I agree the locations page maybe useful for improving these articles but do not believe that they should all be merged, many deserve their own articles IMO. Also my thought is that original research is creation of primary sources or subjective analysis of primary/secondary sources. E.g. Creation of statistics through a survey, or making a subjective comment without a secondary source like "Buffy broke barriers in television". I think that if you are neutrally and uncontroversially outlining a plot from a film/book/series that isn't really original, you are simply outlining the story which has already been stated, but I'd agree we should try and use more secondary sources like magazines, and related documentaries. - Paxomen 14:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Having looked at these articles, I think most of them are just summaries of primary source material, consistently failing to pass the guideline suggested at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). Where they do mention external references, they're either tenuous, original research, or promotional material directly affiliated with the show. If you do merge them into one article, I'd suggest a title that does not use the fandom invented word "Buffyverse", such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer series locations. Deco 03:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This merging is an excellent idea. >Radiant< 13:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Better inform new users of notability requirements

I've recently started reading AfD debates. A significant number of articles that end up there were authored by users completely unaware that Wikipedia has notability requirements.

When new users create new pages, is there some way to provide a prominent link to the notability guidelines? Hopefully this would 1)discourage articles on non-notable subjects, and 2)help prepare editors who are writing on notable subjects, but don't realize they have to provide evidence of notability in the article. I've seen a couple of AfDs that seemed like throwing good-faith editors of potentially good articles "to the wolves".

Since I didn't try to create new articles as a new user, maybe this is already in place and I'm just not aware of it? Not sure how I would be able to determine that, but hopefully others here will know. Lyrl Talk C 20:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I use {{nn-test}}, {{empty-warn}} {{nn-warn}} and {{nn-warn-deletion}} after deletion. -- ReyBrujo 20:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think she meant for a warning on the actual page, before they even clicked Save and started the page? --Tewy 20:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should add something about notability to MediaWiki:Newarticletext? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually hoping for something specifically targeted to new users, but the template Night Gyr pointed out will do. (Thanks!) I've started a discussion on its talk page. Lyrl Talk C 01:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I support the idea of including a sentence about notability to the template Night Gyr noted. If newcomers knew about Wikipedia's notability requirements, they are less likely to create articles on non-notable topics, new page patrollers would have less work to do. We should discuss what the exact phrasing of the sentence would be. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

United Nations

What is the possibility of Wikipedia, and I’m talking here about Wikipedia only because I’m not familiar with the other wiki projects, to become a part of the United Nations programs? Which means to be fully financially supported by UN?
For me it makes perfect sense: Money-wise - every citizen, supposedly, in a country pays their taxes, every country pays to UN - so each one of us is going to contribute financially; Humankind-wise - world without borders, knowledge for all, etc. And which county is going to say "NO" to an opportunity that would let the others know more about its history, culture, tradition, geography, etc?
P.S. If there has been a discussion on this topic please provide me with a link, i couldn't find any in the archive. -- Boris 21:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given the reputation of the United Nations for bureaucracy, lack of decisiveness, incompetence, and corruption, I'd say the chances of the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns this place, agreeing to hand over its keys to the UN are pretty close to nil. John Broughton | Talk 02:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As, for that matter, is the chance of the incompetent, indecisive, unimaginative, directionless, impotent United Nations wanting to take wikipedia on board. --Anthony.bradbury 22:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on the point of view one could easily say these things for Wikipedia as well. -- Boris 22:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remove the Glossariea

In going through List of glossaries, I noticed that it is really just a list of definitions with a little additional material to put it in context & link to some Wikipedia articles. (which is what a glossary is) But it doesn't seem to fit into an encyclopedia. A glossary is typically found in a textbook. Therefore, I propose to basically move the Wikipedia Glossary to one of the sister projects, either Wiktionary, Wikibooks, or Wikiversity. This would remove unnecessary pages from Wikipedia, while expanding one of its sister projects. Thank you.--Wikiphilia 03:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia:Glossary, which is intended as a glossary of common terms used in community pages and discussions (such as talk pages and deletion discussions), not as an actual encyclopedia article or general glossary. It's in the Wikipedia namespace to separate it from the encyclopedia. BryanG(talk) 04:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think what's being suggested is removal of glossaries like Backgammon glossary, Neon Genesis Evangelion glossary, and Glossary of poetry terms. My guess is that editors feel they're needed because it avoids (in theory) having to define terms in articles, and that having them in Wikipedia provides more control. But I've not used or contributed to them, so that's just a guess.John Broughton | Talk 03:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, this proposal was recently discussed at Talk:List of glossaries --- John Broughton | Talk 03:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Which sister project should move the glossaries to? Or are we going to create Wikisary? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User option to make "Show preview" default button on edit form?

I find myself often clicking "Save" by accident when I have not really finished editing. This leads to multiple edits. I propose that there should at least be a user preference to choose the default button, if it is not made the universal default. This would be extremely beneficial, I think, to new users, and to users like myself who click first, think second.

I don't know the technicalities of the mediaWiki software, but I presume that this is possible. -- Jonabofftalk 10:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)‎ would probably be a better place to discuss this - among other things, that page is monitored by the Wikimedia Foundation programmers.
Also, changing your default so that there must be an edit summary would help, if you haven't done that and if your style is to wait to add an edit summary until you're done with previewing. Then inadvertently hitting "Save" would just generate a request for the edit summary, rather than doing the save. John Broughton | Talk 15:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I will post this in the tech page. And to answer you, I have set that option, but I tend to make changes, then make changes, click save again accidentally; of course it only returns the no history prompt once, and so this does mean there are half the number of edits, I suppose.
I suppose that I am trying to use MediaWiki to repair my own faults, but there must be others out there with a similar problem...
If this was implemented, it would bring the guideline to show preview into line with the guidline to provide edit history, as both would provide warnings.

Thanks, Jonabofftalk

21:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Researchers Audit Trail function

I suggest adding an "Audit trail" function for researchers.

The function, when turned on, would record all the areas visited by the researcher and allow him/her to then, when the trail is turned off, download (or save) the audit trail in order that they can come back to the same articles in a convenient manner.

Why? Wiki's power is a negative in that if one is doing research it is often inconvenient/time consuming to find the same articles/chapters again. One can cover a lot of ground due to the hyperlinks and references.

I'm not a web programmer, but the way I would see it implemented is a "button" to turn on the audit trail, thence every article visited (title and link) would be recorded in an html file with the titles and embedded links. Possibly a very brief resumé of each article would be written into the audit trail.

When complete, the researcher would "turn off" the audit trail. (A "pause" button could also be considered as well as "resume later").

Alternately a button that says "Add to audit trail" can be presented on the left and the current article would be added to the current audit trail.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Alanbrowne 16:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could do this with the browser history function, by filtering it to show the pages visited in en.wikipedia.org Tra (Talk) 16:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Performers by performance

Notice: Please see Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization#Performers by Performance et al., for a "CfD-like" discussion about categorisation of performers by performance. - jc37 21:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category Lacking: Jewelry Design

I am working on several projects about great jewelry designers ranging from Celinni, Castelani, Lalique, Tiffany, Boucheron, Belperon Jensen and Andreasen. I am begging to see that Wiki is lacking in the area of Functional Art.

You have no category for Jewelry Designers under the main category of Design. To whom can I address this problem?

thanks, Archie Martin 01:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

This is when we paste a {{sofixit}} template :-) You can read some about them at Wikipedia:Categorization. If no similar category exists, and you think it is going to be important, then just go to Category:Jewelry designers, add some text like This category is intended to hold jewelry designers or akind, then save it. And done, the category is created. Remember to categorize the category (maybe Category:Jewelry and Category:Designers, in example) so that the category is not orphaned. And finally, add Category:Jewelry designers to the articles you think qualify to be there. -- ReyBrujo 02:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ehem... while checking the categories I wikilinked, I found Category:Jewellery designers... is that the one you want? -- ReyBrujo 02:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Introduce points system and reduce powers of Admins

Now Wikipedia (esp Engligh one) seems to have acquired critical mass in terms of number of users and there are over 4000 'very active' users so I think there is no need to have separate Admin or may be very active users should be able to vote them (bad admins) out or only on basis of points system (acquired over a long period of time from positive edits to very broad range of topics) can one become an Admin. This will hopefully resolve the issue of US Federal employees/contractors controlling Wikipedia. With this points system in place, very active users can be given extra privileges like giving access to number of watches to a page data which they can use to improve their own productivity over Wikipedia. Vjdchauhan 06:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Who decides what is a "good edit"
Couldn't you accumulate a bunch of points through trivial work and then spend them to push POV in your pet issue?
"US Federal employees/contractors controlling Wikipedia" is hardly a pressing issue to reorganize our admin system over. It's just one guy having a feud with an imaginary Wiki cabal. —Dgiest c 07:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
POV pushing will anyway be reverted and thus reducing your points. All edit is good as long as it survives and is not reverted (including minor edits like spell checks, spacing, changing indirect wikilink to direct wikilinks etc).
From policy point of view "US Federal employees/contractors controlling Wikipedia" is a serious issue even if incorrect/non-pressing and the system should have inbuilt machanisms to prevent/revert such things. Not all (very active) users want to become admin but they too feel themselves very committed (if not as much as Admins) to Wikipedia cause and they too should have better say in deciding how the the system is taken forward.
Lastly 'very active' users still need access to number of watches to a page data. Vjdchauhan 07:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC).
How can it a be a serious issue "even if incorrect"? Surely then it's not an issue at all. Edit count is never a way to measure judgement, at any rate. Trebor 07:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure whether its correct/incorrect but it is one thing that is bound to happen over time whereby Govt will try to control the content of Wikipedia as its gaining popularity and ranks very high in Google Search. The Algo of granting points may not be that simple, it should have proper weightage attached to kind of changes (e.g. more weightage to new page creation, category maintainance etc). Why are you so sceptical, have faith in decentralization/democracy. Vjdchauhan 08:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC).
If government were to assume control of WP, then the current system for admin selection would be much safer, since it is all in the open. If the selection were based on some complex algorithm, the numbers and the algorithm could be manipulated by government agents who would have control of the WP databases and servers. Crum375 19:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Why are you so sceptical, have faith in decentralization/democracy". A little ironic, considering you seem to be a little paranoid and obviously don't have any faith in our current democratic system! Is there any evidence that the US government (or any other government) is controlling or seeking to control Wikipedia? I certainly haven't seen any. -- Necrothesp 04:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Content in tooltip of links

I wanted to suggest that the tooltip that appears when I pause my mouse on a link to a different article in Wikipedia, will show the first sentence of the article (the short description of the subject), instead of showing the article name.

the reasons for this change are -

  1. I can see the name of the article in the URL in the status bar (at least in IE, I don't know about other browsers).
  2. It will save the need for opening a new page to read the definition of every term you don't understand.

I hope I was clear... I don't know if it is implementable, and if so - in a user friendly way, but I hope it is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.143.88.130 (talk) 07:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Registered users can install popups (if their browser doesn't have a pop-up blocker, that is). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would rather like that to be there in Category pages. Vjdchauhan 09:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC).
Popups works for category pages as well. Tra (Talk) 17:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
popup blockers have no effect on wikipedia popups, because they don't open a new window. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recruiting New Article Writers

I hope I wrote this in the right spot, I'm a little confused.

I propose a campaign to encourage University professors to either require or encourage their students to submit or edit articles.

In the same way that professors often have research exercises to help students learn how to properly research and use citations, they can require their students to submit an article to the Wikipedia project as an assignment. The professor could teach students the proper method, style, and policies for submitting to Wikipedia, and review the material before or soon after its post in order to quickly correct or resolve mistakes. The topics for articles could be decided by the teacher, perhaps something related to the course. This assignment could be a good exercise for students to study published material regarding a topic to establish a firm understanding before they attempt to create their own original essays based on that information. It might also be a way to encourage academics to contribute to Wikipedia, perhaps helping to make it a habit.

The campaign itself would most likely involve emailing or contacting college campuses throughout the world asking for their participation. Perhaps if a clearly defined description of the campaign, a description of how to contribute to Wikipedia, and sample guidlines on how to administer such an assignment were given it would make it easier and more likely for professors to participate. While Wikipedia is growing more credible as an academic source, perhaps this would be a good way to help the academic world embrace it more fully. What do you think? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Morphix18 (talk • contribs) 15:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

  • Well, this can sometimes be problematic, it has happened before. It's best if those involved truly understand that stuff added to articles should be referenced to published sources. There should also be some oversight, e.g. the prof and his TAs take responsibility if any messes are created because of their assignment. Beyond that, a good place to start is Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics which lists good topics about which we don't have articles yet. But with 1.5m articles, what doesn't have an article yet is usually very obscure... a better focus might be improving articles that need references, rewrites, etc. E.g. find a below average article and add 5-10 referenced paragraphs. --W.marsh 17:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Displaying age on bio articles

Has anyone ever suggested some function be built to use the birth and death dates on biographical articles to calculate the age of the subject? It would be nice to look at, say, Jimmy Carter and see (born October 1, 1924; current age 82) or Gerald Ford and see (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006; deceased at age 93). Parentheticals after subject names would need to be standardized, but I personally think that they need to be cleaned up anyway (they're often quite cluttered with nicknames). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tysto (talk • contribs) 16:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I think I've seen a template that does that, but I can't remember where I saw it. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
{{birth date and age}}? -- ReyBrujo 17:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's it, thanks, ReyBrujo. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, cool. It looks like others are working on perhaps making this a standard. Thanks! --Tysto 18:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like this, because it adds information that dates easily. If someone prints a copy of an article with this, it's guaranteed to become wrong. There's way too many people who disagree with me though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there a category or tag to specifically exclude items like this from being printed? Something similar to Category:Unprintworthy redirects? —Quiddity 20:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
{{noprint}}, I've put in to have it included. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Email notification of new messages

Following from my posting a few months ago about this subject on the perennial proposals board, As it seems there have been no replies I've come to the conclusion that it may not have been quite as perennial as I had thought. The few responses it's received on the other board have been very positive, and it's apparently already available on Wikipedia Commons. I've posted it here and now to see if it might get a wider response...

...I've been wondering about this for a while now - when a user recieves a new message on his/her talk page, they get that lovely and prominent "you have new messages" banner at the top of each page. Sometimes though, users want some down time away from wikipedia - to be honest I'd be suprised if that statement didn't account for the majority of users.

Given the purpose of talk pages (ie, for the community to get in touch with a user), would it not be to the benefit of both the community and the user if (just like almost every forum out there on the web), each registered user had an option in their preferences to recieve a simple email notification of a new message. Just like every forum out there of course, it would only send a notification for the first message, and not send one again until the user has visited the talk page.

Alternatively, A weekly email could be sent out with a summary of new talk page sections from over the last week, which would be perhaps useful in cases where a user is on an extended leave from wiki. I'm sorry if this has been brought up before, but I haven't seen anything about it. Any thoughts?

{{VPP-bug}}: Please see the notice at the top of the page - when a proposal involves a change to the software, go to the bug tracker (which also does feature requests) and file a new bug there. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I missed that (twice it seems!). One of the reasons I posted about it here though, is that I also wanted to know what the community in general thought about it. Is this OK, or should this be removed? Crimsone 21:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect there are a lot of intermittent editors who'd appreciate this feature (though one could question how many of them would actually learn of it). And I suppose that if it were implemented, there might be more demand for other push-type e-mails, such as notification of AfDs of articles where one had recently contributed. So, in general, I (for one) think it's a good idea, and if it didn't take a lot of programming effort, why not? John Broughton | Talk 03:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Spam gateway! Spam gateway! Spam gateway! Anon and newly-registered users can post to User_talk: pages. What mechanism will be put in place to prevent spammers from abusing this as a spam relay? Even if this is solely an "opt-in" feature, couldn't this also get legit Wikipedia emails flagged as collateral damage spam? —Dgiest c 05:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If all it does is say "You got a message, come check it" then you're only going to get one email regardless of how much spam you get, and won't do the spammer any good vs. spamming talk pages now. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It would be trivial for a developer to enable this, but it would probably place far too much load on the servers (if this is popular, the number of emails sent might be pretty large); the number of emails being sent from Wikipedia might also lead to it being (incorrectly) detected as a spammer and blocked by email services. --ais523 15:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Both Commons and Meta have these notifications
   Dear ReyBrujo,
   
   the Wikimedia Commons page User talk:ReyBrujo has been changed on
   21:47, 14 November 2006 by JeremyA, see
   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:ReyBrujo for the current
   version.
   
   See
   http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:ReyBrujo&diff=0&oldid=2978670
   for all changes since your last visit.
   
   Editor's summary: Re: Album Covers
   
   Contact the editor:
   mail: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Emailuser/JeremyA
   wiki: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:JeremyA
   
   There will be no other notifications in case of further changes unless
   you visit this page. You could also reset the notification flags for
   all your watched pages on your watchlist.
   
           Your friendly Wikimedia Commons notification system
Personally, I don't like it. -- ReyBrujo 15:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I personally can't confirm the calculations, as I don't know the number of changes per day first hand, but in one of the number of bug reports on the issue, a couple of users are saying that the server load is actually far lower than would be at first thought. (here) Crimsone 23:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lists

I know that this idea is most unlikely to take off, but I will float it anyway.

We all know that all sorts of "list of" articles get submitted. Some are eminently sensible - list of battleships of the Royal Navy, list of victories of Napoleon, and so forth; and some are incredibly pathetic - list of left-handed people, list of people with only one arm, etc.

Is it feasible to submit ALL article called "list of..." to immediate peer review, to determine if they should go or stay? As it is, the few good ones are left alone, which is fine, and the vast majority go to, and fail {{AfD}}, wasting everyone's time.

It probably isn't practical, but I thought I would seek ideas. Please don't bite me!--Anthony.bradbury 22:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Who's going to review them? It makes a pile of work. You can go to Special:Allpages/List of and check through them, but there are thousands of pages to look through, and what would your review be, if not AfD? Even with new ones, it seems to contradict WP:BOLD to require review and approval for edits, and it wouldn't lighten the workload any vs. AfDing them as they come up. The biggest problem today is not new lists, it's the old ones from when standards were more forgiving and WP:NOT#INDEX was less enforced. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a look through Special:Prefixindex/List of and there's about 50 000 of these pages, so no, it probably wouldn't be practical to go through them all. Tra (Talk) 23:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, a lot of those (the italicized ones) are redirects, so (if you included those in your count) there really are only maybe 20-30,000. John Broughton | Talk 03:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's still way to many to sift through, though, isn't it. Ah well, it was just a thought!--Anthony.bradbury 09:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's a lot, but that shouldn't stop you from making a start. You can ask help at WP:COTM and some Wikiprojects. Heck, I've been known to sift through every single page in the Wikipedia: namespace for cleanup purposes (and you'd be amazed at some of the weirdness I found). >Radiant< 14:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot of new articles are nonsensical, so I don't see why lists should be singled out. Just keep an eye on Special:Newpages and nominate the bad lists you see created for deletion (if you're sure it's not improvable. - Mgm|(talk) 13:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A Composer's works

Is there a policy or guide line concerning how a composer's works should be listed in an article? For instance on the John Coolidge Adams page the works are listed by form and then by date of composition with the date first. However on the Steve Reich page they are listed only by date but with the date at the end of the entry. If there is no guide line about this could one be made to help standardize things? S.dedalus 00:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably best to discuss this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Main Page to Portal:Main

In the Main Page FAQ, it mentions that the Main Page is only in the article namespace due to 'historical inertia', and mentions Wikipedia:Main Page (presumably an old proposal to move it). However, the Main Page isn't an article or a project page, but a portal. As there doesn't seem to be any very good reason to keep it in article space (I imagine the cross-namespace-redirect from articlespace to portalspace that would be left behind would be kept forever to keep links from outside to Wikipedia active), I'm proposing that the Main Page be renamed to Portal:Main (with double redirects and MediaWiki-space updated accordingly). Any ideas? --ais523 15:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This is one of those - "I've thought about that myself" - ideas : ) - jc37 17:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is ongoing discussion of this topic at Talk:Main Page. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If so, I can't seem to find it. Have a direct link? - jc37 17:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, sorry, it got closed and archived. See Talk:Main_Page/Archive_87#Requested_move. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strangely, though, it seems to have been deliberately closed/archived per WP:VIE; so if voting is a problem, there's still a need for a discussion, or nothing will ever get done even if everyone wants it to be (although judging from the poll that was held, there are many people on both sides). I was unaware of that poll before I posted it, but now taking it to WP:VPR seems like a decent idea. --ais523 17:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
The only point I can see in moving the Main page out of article space is to free up Main page as a potential article title. If we never replace the redirect from Main page to Whatevernamespace:Main page anyway then we win nothing by moving it. Kusma (討論) 17:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, redirects are caps-sensitive, so it might make sense to redirect Main Page to Portal:Main and Main page to home page; the hordes of incoming external links that might be expected will point to the version with the capital P. --ais523 17:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The main argument against moving, was being in the mainspace allows us to use fair-use images there. All the alternative titles already exist and changing to one of them wouldn't appear to be a technical problem at all. It's 100% just the fairuse image thing (see that archived discussion Zoe linked). eg main page, Wikipedia:Main page, Wikipedia:Main Page, Portal:Main page, Portal:Main Page, etc all work fine. —Quiddity 19:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh come on, if namespace decides fair use then you're just getting into quibbly wikilawyering. Namespace is a shorthand for legitimate article use. Main page only allows fair use for featured articles without free images anyway. Those are never up on the main page for more than a day at time. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't take part in that discussion, I was just summarizing the only point that seemed particularly pertinent, see more at Talk:Main Page/Archive 87#Fair use. —Quiddity 21:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Night Gyr - the technical namespace has zero relevance for the fair use question. Necessary images would be okay as fair use on the main page even if we move it to User talk namespace. Kusma (討論) 22:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but the main page has a lot of incoming links... could it be problematic from a technical standpoint to move it? Should probably be mentioned in the FAQ if anyone has a definitive answer. --W.marsh 22:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. Redirects are too cheap to care about, and most people don't type Main page anyway. We can just change the sidebar and template links to the new location, and redirect the old for anything we missed.

There is Precedent for such a move -- Current Events was moved to Portal:Current Events a while back. The old name is still a redirect, but the portal title indicates what it is, a portal, rather than an article. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moving out of the mainspace would also result in the Main page losing the "cite this article" option from the toolbox; that seems to be a good thing, because of the non-stable (templatized) nature of any "permanently linked" diff here. —Quiddity 07:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I rather like the idea myself, and think it should be done. --Cyde Weys 21:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • It doesn't open up any space as we still need a redirect for old incoming links and the new location wouldn't be easier to type (it would rather mess up what established editors think they knew). I simply don't see what could be gained by moving the highest traffic page we've got. - Mgm|(talk) 13:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just to mention here (and prevent forking of the debate), the requested move on Talk:Main Page has reopenedbeen restarted and people are discussing it there again. --ais523 13:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Power Entry Module Page

I have been thinking about adding a reference to integrated power entry module devices to the IEC Connector page and adding a page defining and describing power entry modules. I know enough to understand that advertising is against policy and wouldn't go there, but factual information is always useful, right?

brian 18:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As long as you can cite some good sources, and aren't singing the praises of your product, you should be fine. Be Bold, you don't need to ask for approval to write something.Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An end to vandlabots?

Here is an idea that may eliminate vandalbots/automated spam. I know that when creating an account, it is nessecary to answer a math question to protect agianst vandalbots. What if a math question had to be answered before an edit can be saved, at least for IP's? Yes, this would decrease productivity and be annoying, but it would protect agianst vandalbots very well. Or is this too big a change in Wikipedia's policy, and would not even be used because of policy problems? (This post is also in the policy section.) Seldon1 00:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, a CAPTCHA would be a better idea. Bots are probably better at simple arithmetic than 99% of us anyway. I wouldn't be opposed to a CAPTCHA but I'm not sure if Mediawiki supports it easilly. Plus it adds to server load, generating all those images. --W.marsh 03:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True, but would either method be worth it? --Seldon1 13:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They could just run the vandalbot anonymously. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would support the idea of having anonymous IPs having to answer a math or knowledge question every time they attempt to save or show preview of a page. It just might deter their edits. If they become a regular user, it becomes easier to block a vandalizing user. Ronbo76 13:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A CAPTCHA for anonymous edits would be a good idea. Maths questions would deter those who failed Maths in school (i.e. some of my classmates). --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please not on show-preview (that would just discourage anons from previewing their edits). I'm inclined to disagree with this even on edits, because it would discourage casual editing of this site, and vandalbots normally get usernames anyway (because otherwise they're too easy to block). --ais523 14:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
It shouldn't. Anyone sincere enough to make a good edit probably won't be discouraged by a CAPTCHA. The only problem I see is the increase in sever load needed to load all the images. Seldon1 16:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They don't even need to enter a captcha to register... anyways, I don't think it is worth the problem. I noticed that some Wikipedias (in example the latin one I think) do ask you to solve a math equation if you try to add an external link to an article. I would not object that, as I am more worried about spam than vandalism. -- ReyBrujo 19:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On one of the smaller Wikimedia wikis (not sure which one), I was reverting blanking and got a simple sum to do when I saved a page containing an external link. If anything, this would slow down spammers if enabled for registered users (not sure if it was an anon only feature, as I wasn't signed in when I made the revert). Perhaps something to request at the buzilla. Martinp23 21:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would have to be a real CAPTCHA, not a silly math problem (umm, yeah, computers can do math). And it would be very inconvenient. Are vandalbots really such a large problem? I don't think the inconvenience we'd be placing on millions of edits would make it worth it. --Cyde Weys 21:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for Spelling on Jewelry, Jewelry Deisgner Category

As I slowly research on WP for jewelry related articles and edits, I am pretty concerned that the English spelling seems to have been chosen over the American one. In all research defense, I believe that an enforcement of the American one is neccesary. Here's why: The spelling in the British usage is only used by two major publishers in UK as well as Germany. My library houses over 100 titles on this subject as I am a PHD student finishing my doctorate on Jewelry Design. Out of all these titles, only about 20% of the books use the British Spelling. For the sake of these categories which need serious help, and which I am willing to put my time to help write and edit, I think we need to enforce this spelling. Example: When I seek out the word Jewelry design alone, I am told no page with that title exists. This is reallybad from an editorial standpoint, and I may also add that most encyclopedias I grew up reading,(even published in UK) used the spelling Jewelry.

So, I suggest we standardize this back to the American spelling. It looks like there was an earlier version with the previous spelling that was deleted, however I suggest that perhaps there was no editor with knowledge of this area at the time and perhaps with my help we can make this, as well as decorative arts areas a great improvement.

Thanks, Archiemartin Archiemartin 02:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC) Enforce American (or British) spelling Proposal: for consistency's sake, we should pick one style of spelling (British or American, generally) and stick with it. Not a good idea because: It is widely impractical and there is no agreement on which style should be chosen, which has in the past resulted in repeated, needless edit warring. See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English, Wikipedia:Standardize spellings/Archive [edit]Editing[reply]

  • Personally, I'm not bothered by whichever spelling is used. I do find debates over British/American spelling quite tiresome though, so I'll keep it very short, but concise - surely the situation you described with no pages being found could be easily fixed using redirects, and with a minimum of controversy/debate? Crimsone 03:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have never sent a category for renaming, but maybe you can follow the instructions here to nominate the category for renaming. -- ReyBrujo 03:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should Fly Enforce American Spelling. I agree redirect would be a temporary solution. However the long term need to fill in this category as mentioned on WP, '"It has been requested that this category be populated.

Please add the following category tag to any articles or categories that belong here:


Combined with the fact that WP:PEREN clearly states that:

Proposal: for consistency's sake, we should pick one style of spelling (British or American, generally) and stick with it. dictates that sticking with one thing should happen and it should happen with the guidance of a scholar who knows something about the subject. Since I am a scholar who does, and also agree with ReyBrujo that we should not debate over English American Spellings as they are boring ad nauseum, we need to stick to the facts which are as I mentioned. More published hard bound titles with primary resources are under the spelling jewelry. If needed, I can give a complete bibliography however a good starting place example is: Oppi Untracht: http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385041850. This 300 page volume is known throughout the world as THE Encylclopedia on jewelry. ArchiemartinArchiemartin 20:58, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request at Template:Afd

An {{editprotected}} request was left at Template talk:Afd#Edit Request, regarding {{afd}}. PocklingtonDan has suggested that we add a link to WP:AFD, in addition to the subpage link already present. Given the wide use of this particular template, I figured it couldn't hurt to seek a little input from the community. Thoughts? Luna Santin 20:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a good idea. Reading the concerns mentioned on the template's talk page, as long as 'this article's entry' is the only link that is bolded, it should be clear which is the most important link. However, I think only 'Articles for deletion' should have the link added, not 'Articles for deletion page'. Tra (Talk) 20:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New template/infobox idea

I think the that, if possible automatically, articles that are not updated often (like every 2 months or 30 days or ect.) a template is automatically added to the top of the page that says something to this effect: 

  "This page is not edited often. Some of the information on this page may need to be updated"

This is good for articles like Modern Language Association or any other which lists people and places that may not be updated (especially by a credible source) for months or a year or so... It would also deter people from sourcing exclusively Wikipedia but still offer the idea to anyone to look up and add the facts.

Thanks and tell me what you think. --Alegoo92 21:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alex

  • In the case of current situations or living people, or articles related to current situations or living people, this idea does have a use, though I personally don't feel that ther's much benefit. The vast majority of articles however can go for a very very long time before there is cause to update them, or indeed, new info to update them with. Crimsone 21:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • For specific information which will require updating in the future, you can use a tag like {{update after|YEAR|MONTH|DAY}} which will insert a tag like this: [needs update] into the article once it hits its "expiration date". —Dgiest c 22:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that "this is not edited often" sounds like an invitation to vandalize. >Radiant< 16:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"LOG SEARCH STRING" function added to wikipedia

Create a way to "add" articles to a timeline or list and email them to you or someone else —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.161.115.65 (talk) 03:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

  • That sounds like two different ideas, and what you mean by the first is unclear (at least to me). As for the second, it's not clear why one wouldn't just email a link; because Wikipedia is a wiki, it changes all the time - who would want to have an old, outdated copy of an article, rather than a link that always points to the most recent version? John Broughton | Talk 19:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sheet Music Section

There is much sheet music out there that is out of copy right and is currently public domain. There should be some sort of repository for storing this music on wikipedia. Music is an important aspect of human history and should be availible through this site. If possible a seperate wiki project dedicated to this would be the best thing. If that is not possible could it be included in wikisource or wikicommons? -Vcelloho 03:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check out Project Gutenberg. — Miles (Talk) 05:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And Mutopia. Dar-Ape 22:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And Chroal Wiki! RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 22:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my! Dar-Ape 00:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there are other places where this information can be found however I still believe that there should be a wikimedia wiki repository for this. I don't think that redundancy is such a bad thing in this case. Redundancy of this sort in literature exists and I don't think that its such a bad thing. I do however see your argument however my proposal was infact prompted by seeing the short comings of each of these sites. -Vcelloho 03:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

choral wiki is actually really good for it. We should probably link to these pages in articles RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 03:17, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank's for the suggestion. I'll make sure to take this proposal to the proper location. -Vcelloho 20:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you haven't used digg, check it out. Basically the collective users vote whether or not links are of interest. But the thing about digg is it's extremely focused on the present, forgetting the past. It's all about the latest links, the newest trend. This form of social bookmark promoting would also work well per subject. Perhaps for every wikipedia subject. How would this work for wikipedia? Now for most wikipedia pages you get a few links to outside pages, but no real sense if the links are worth going to. If people could submit links to each page/topic and then allow the collective users to vote whether or not those links were of interest, and then promote the more heavily voted on links to the top, as well as show how many votes the links got, people would be able to find the best outside links for each subject. Saving time and leading people deeper into the subjects. I would have the outside links categorized: news items, interviews, pictures, videos, audio, official websites, unofficial websites, forums, etc. For example if say the page was about Bob Dylan, for the digg-like voted on section, people could post links to their favorite videos of bob dylan, of links to their favorite audio samples of bob dylan. Then other uses could vote, and when you go to the Bob Dylan page, you could easily find the most popular pictures, sound files, video files, interview, etc about bob dylan. It's one thing to read about bob dylan, it's another to see a the web communites favorite video of him, and also read the most interesting interview with him. Any page would have these digg-like links that could be added. You could also choose to view these list of user submitted links based on most popular recently, or all time.

This might not be as beneficial for every subject, but for some it will really make wikipedia a more vibrant and useful resource.

Along side a seperate part of each wikipedia page for digg like links broken into categories, I would also have a place for rating and polling. These would be subjective, and not included in the factual section. Again an example for bob dylan, the web community could rate each of his albums (1-10), as well as his songs. Then you could see which is the most beloved album by bob dylan, as well as his highest rated song. Or if page was about an author - say H. G. Wells. You could quickly find out what people think is his best book.

I think adding both of these sections to a wikipedia page (perhaps not on the main page) would add incredibly useful features that will make wikipedia more useful than google.

-Isa Kretschmer —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.124.87.54 (talk) 03:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

  • Including ratings from Wikipedia editors (even in a separate place, such as the talk page) would be original research. If you want to know the ratings of various artistic works, infoboxes often include a list of the professional reviews, and/or sales statistics. —Dgiest c 16:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for your suggestion, but, ehem, Web 2.0 and me don't carry on well, so I am biased here. No, we do not need "ratings". We already have a 3-star scale: Article, Good Article and Featured Article. We also have some kind of votation to improve an article at the different collaborations of the week/month, peer review and requests for feedback. Finally, and I am blunt here, we don't need people to tell us which articles they like more, but instead, to help us improve those that are still stubs. -- ReyBrujo 17:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just to clarify I'm not suggesting rating wikipedia articles, or voting on them, I suggesting voting on outside links (non-wikipedia) that relate to the wikipedia article's subject. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.237.173.17 (talk • contribs).
        • Ooooof, I really don't like the Digg link ideas. For a variety of reasons. Mainly, because we're an encyclopedia, and it just doesn't make sense. --Cyde Weys 21:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • One huge difference between Digg and Wikipedia is the ratio of articles (of interest) to editors. I'm guessing that there are thousands of people voting on any given day regarding a hundred or two articles (and, even if more, most only look and vote at the top ones). By contrast, there are 1.5+ million articles on Wikipedia and in any given month there are less than 5000 people who do 100 edits or more in any given month. (Statisics from here. And if the voting is on external links, then we're talking about 2.6 million external links. Because each article is of interest to a very small subset of users (unlike Digg), it certainly would be easy to "game" the system - for example, Scientologists voting to remove all external links to cites that attack Scientology. Wikipedia already has edit wars - why would we want to have external link voting wars as well? John Broughton | Talk 19:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Huarizo

Huarizo article brand new. It needs more images. It needs more words. Please expand on this thank you my English is not so good. Interlaker 16:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is generally not the place to ask for help improving articles. You would probably do better asking for help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals. —Dgiest c 16:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes

Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes has been around for a while, and may make a good 'official' guideline. --Barberio 00:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Live function for wikipedia

Many websites these days provide a live function which allows you to press a button and it takes you straight to the page that you pressed, without having to wait for the page to load. Examples of this include Hotmail live and yahoo search. It would be a far more advanced version of pop ups. This will be essential as the internet progresses and should be an item that wikipedia addresses as soon as possible. It would be a major change to the wikipedia page, but it needs to be more accessible in an ever changing internet RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what you're proposing; some kind of link to a pre-cached version of the page instead of to the normal copy? It seems a bit strange, as surely the site needs to wait until you press the button to send you the data anyway... Shimgray | talk | 01:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I do not agree right now. While it is true this Web 2.0, AJAX and stuff is getting pretty "common" (facebook, digg, etc), it is also true that Wikipedia is "simple" in order to handle screen readers and old browsers. If such change were to be implemented, I would like them to be at another location, like ajax.wikipedia.org or stuffthatmakespeoplenowadaysgocrazy.wikipedia.org, not the main Wikipedia sites. -- ReyBrujo 01:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. I understand wikipedia editing is about getting up to date information. But Hotmail live gets automatiacally added to your inbox without you pressing anything. For instance, without pressing anything, a new email will appear in the inbox as soon as it is received (I'm not talking about messenger by the way!). I just think that it be a good idea to look at how the page is run now, rather than leaving it till its too late. I don't know, maybe the servers would have to be updated to accomodate this but it would be an ideal function. e.g. a message automatically appears on the screen when you get a new talk page message or you click on a talk page for an article and it appears without having to wait for the page to load. RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you need AJAX (as in, javascript that polls the site for changes and loads it if so). You could download a Firefox extension to reload the page every 30 seconds. However, since there is no way Wikipedia can tell every browser around the world "Dude, the page you have right now has changed, reload it!", the browsers must poll Wikipedia, which may (not sure here, just guessing) impact in performance (right now I have 8 tabs with Wikipedia articles, imagine each of them asking the server if the page has changed every 30 seconds). I am sure it is rather easy to create a script that does that (as you say, it would be similar to popups). But since the server right now handles edit conflicts better, I am not sure it is necessary. -- ReyBrujo 01:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It could be added in stages, for instance as I've previously said, a message automatically appears when you get a message at first and then we go from there. Surely it can't harm anything to try it. RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hrm. In practical terms, would it gain us anything? Any user active enough to want or need immediate notification is likely to be moving between pages at a fair clip whilst on the site, and thus unlikely to wait more than a couple of minutes before getting the notifier anyway. Shimgray | talk | 02:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some kind of automatic updating of articles when changed? Leaving aside the technical problems of implementing it, and just concentrating on the effects on the user... ugh. I can see that going horribly wrong - what if you're reading a lengthy article as it's edit-warred over, or rearranged, or occasionally blanked and reverted by vandals? Confusion ensues. Reading the FA-of-the-day, or any high-traffic internal page, would be almost impossible, with edits every few minutes causing a refresh. Shimgray | talk | 02:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I agree, thats why I would suggest maybe limiting it to a few key things such as new user page messages and watchlist. I do believe we need to implement something along these lines relatively soon, maybe not exactly what I've suggested but along the same lines. RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 02:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Using Ajax to hover over the (diff) to see what was typed without having to open the page would be nice. It is similiar to what you see when you hover your cursor over a link or hyper-text picture and see its description. Then, if you decide you need to visit the (diff) you could click the link. Ronbo76 02:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Taking on that proposal, how about something similar to popups being written into the webpage? RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 02:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You can implement this now, if you want... Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. The general policy has been to keep advanced functionality like this something a matter for individual users to choose to take up, rather than rolling it out to all readers. Shimgray | talk | 02:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That point is very much true, but maybe a simplified version of popups with limited function, i.e. talk and contibs on a user or view and edit on a mainspace page (as you can probably tell I've changd my view on what should be done - but I still feel we need a change) RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 02:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this essential? Why can't you just open your link in a new tab and go there when you're done reading and it's done loading? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well I guess its not but the internet is ever changing. Why not look at it now rather than leave it till its too late. I do believe that wikipedia will have to go more interactive in the near future and we should discuss future technology now rather than later RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 03:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CotW on Main Page

I think it would be a good idea to have a "Collaboration of the Week" on the Main Page. This is a quick way to introduce visitors to collaborative editing and shows them how Wikipedia works. In addition, if there is a topic that grabs the readers' attention, we might gain a few good contributors to the project. Nominations for the Main Page could come from the various Wikiprojects which already organise CotW's amongst themselves. (side note: should I cross-post this to Talk:Main Page and send them here or should I move this there and cross-post from here?) Zunaid©® 09:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend that you post to Talk:Main Page, and that anyone interested follow the link to that page. John Broughton | Talk 19:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So done. Please jump in and discuss at Talk:Main Page#CotW on Main Page Zunaid©® 07:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

humble proposal for improving editing

Dear All, As a newcomer to Wikipedia (but rapidly becoming "addicted"), please forgive me if my humble proposal has been suggested elsewhere. Much of my time reading Wikipedia articles includes correcting minor spelling errors, punctuation, etc. - (I'm not complaining, it's kinda fun!). However, on visiting articles on the French Wikipedia I have come across a simple improvement which I think should be included for all articles: the save page function is not activated until the editor has clicked the show preview, thereby ensuring, in principle, that any changes made are checked before appearing in public. As it is not a change in policy, only an extension of a feature already being used on Wikipedia, I hope to see it incorporated soon. Many thanx and keep up the good work! 83.191.28.226 13:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC) (Ps. My New Year's Resolution has been to find time to create an account and log in correctly.)[reply]

This is a good proposal for people that are just editing articles, but for things such a vandal reversion, speedy tagging and all the other mundane tasks on wikipedia it would just cause more hassle, especially where the idea of these tasks is to get things removed as quick as possible RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 14:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should (and probably already does) turn off and allow direct saving once a user becomes autoconfirmed. --ais523 14:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Books

Creating the ability for the users to organize the data in Wiki into a book format so schools, profs and students could use Wiki as a "Book", with indexed, Table of content, high-liter feature, bookmark etc etc.

Ex: lets say I'm a teacher of Biology, I already have a course outline and know the topics I want to cover in my class. So all I would need to do is gather this data into a central organized way so students can just read the mat'l I would want to cover... Maybe there could be an online testing ability too or an area to put practice test Q/As....

This might not be what you're looking for, but do you know about Wikibooks? --ais523 15:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
And Wikiversity (in beginning stages still). —Quiddity 20:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a newbie and can't find a simple footnote button or any kind of instructions on how to create a footnoted link to a web article in plain English for the technically-challenged. Can you post some simple (as in gratingly simple for the utterly stupid) instructions for how to create citation links? Since I can't figure out how to do it, I've been putting the references in the summary of edit line for whoever would like to incorporate the info. But just can't do it myself. The instructions are all Greek to me. Help? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FirthFan1 (talk • contribs) 18:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC). FirthFan1, 18:40, 12 January 2007[reply]

Here's a real quick example, hope it helps. —Dgiest c 18:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 ==Some paragraph==
 Contrary to popular belief, the sky is not blue.<ref>{{cite web|title=Crackpot Journal|url=http://your.url.com/}}</ref>

 ==References==
 <references/>
Did you discover WP:FOOT? (SEWilco 19:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]
Formatting references isn't that difficult. Just enclose the reference's URL in <ref>...</ref> tags. For example, if your reference is http://google.com, you would format the reference like this: <ref>http://google.com</ref>.
Above the "External links" section (if the article has one), add a "References" section consisting solely of the following tag: <references/>
I don't know how to format references that aren't URLs, though. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 09:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CITET offers links to several templates that can be used to cite references either inline or in a section at the end. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a few more places to look: Wikipedia:Citations quick reference, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), and WP:CITE. I'm not sure how "plain English" they are, however. John Broughton | Talk 15:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reference reliability statistics

As much as Wikipedia stresses the importance of having references in articles, the quality of references on the site is still very much a mixed bag. When I'm reading an article, and I want to know how reliable the information is, it can be quite tedious to stop at each citation and hunt down the source statement that matches the one in the article. I'd like to see some kind of feedback/rating system for references which goes something like the following:

When a Wikipedian checks a reference, he/she can mark it as "good", "bad", or "mediocre". The reference will then keep track of how many users have reviewed it, who those users are, and what its average rating is. To view these statistics, users can hold their mouse over the reference link in the article, and a tooltip will appear over the reference displaying something like:

16 reviews. 2.3 average rating. Click here to display list of reviewers. Click here to submit your own review.

Pros that I know of:

  • Provides a way to quickly ascertain the reliability of a reference. Useful to non-Wikipedians who are browsing the site to do research, and useful to Wikipedians looking for weak references which need help.
  • If the references keep track of their reviewers, abuse can be weeded out fairly easily. The ability to review a reference could even be restricted to users who have been registered for a certain period of time, or who have made a certain number of edits.

Cons that I know of:

  • No real way of knowing what standards reviewers are using when rating the references. I guess a WP policy would be written to address this.
  • Depending on the manner in which the reference statistics are displayed, it could add clutter to the pages or make them look gimmicky. The statistics would be more useful if there were a way to display them beyond just the tooltip - perhaps color coding for the reference numbers, or a small icon next to them showing a "star rating" - but that's where the clutter/gimmickiness comes in.
  • Might be a programming hassle.

I'm interested to hear what people think of this idea. If I left out any considerations, please let me know. G Rose (talk) 08:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's been tried with templates that people could mark the references with. Allowing submitted reviews would be a major change in the software and require recognizing references as objects with reviews attached to them instead of just pieces of text that are parsed when the page is. What happens when someone changes around the referencing on an article? Ignoring the technical issues, it seems fundamentally flawed. Would you even trust these reviews? A source is either reliable or we shouldn't be using it, and if information is taken from an unreliable source that's an issue that rating a source poorly can't fix. If a source sucks, say it on the talk page, try to replace it with a better one, or just remove the material drawn from it as unreliable. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal would just create yet another backlog: "References to rate". --J.L.W.S. The Special One 09:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See m:Wikicite and m:WikiTextrose. (SEWilco 06:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Inclusion V Advocay (Paranormal and pseudoscience)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to suggest this, but....

Having run into a number of problems with users over controversial subjects, particularly those where myself and other users have been trying to document pseudoscience or the paranormal, I'd like to suggest that there be some form of guideline (a policy would be too strong) over the differences between inclusion and advocacy of a notable claim. For example, something with clauses explaining the validity of including information that is unproven, pseudoscience, or which has been since been proven false, as object illustrations of the beliefs of proponents, but NOT as a claim of it as being true, and defining the difference between inclusion of such things, and advocacy of them as being true.

My primary motive for requesting such a guideline is that I've run into several user who are constantly reverting pages or arguing over content when people have been trying to record what exactly it is that pseudoscientists are saying, and what the history of a given area of pseudo science is, on the grounds that what they said "can't be proven to be true" and the belief that "stating that they said it means advocating it as being true". perfectblue 12:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is Wikipedia:Fringe theories helpful? or Wikipedia:Don't be a fanatic? John Broughton | Talk 15:48, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers, "Fringe" is useful to know, but not entirely helpful in this case because most of the inclusion = advocacy users that I've come across would instantly hone in on "fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced by obscure texts that lack peer review should not be included in the article". This part of a general problem that I've found with Wikipedia policy and guidelines. They are science and journal based. This is great if you want to stop somebody putting up their own pet hypothesis and making out that it is widely supported by scientists, but it is not so great if you are trying to write a history of the contactee movement.
I'll give you an example of the kind of thing that I've seen. For example:
A page about X a notable and verifiable as existing group of spiritualist. User 1 writes a history of the group, they include the events that lead each member to come to the group, the famous cases that they were involved in, and a machine that they build which they say lets them communicate with the spirit of a Native-American Chief. They include source material from a range of books dealing with the paranormal and spiritualism.
User 2 comes along, deletes any and all claims that the group members made about spiritualism, and most of the details of their cases on the grounds that their claims can't be backed up by science, and that recording their claims = advocating the truth of claims. They then delete most of sources saying (in so many words) that because the person who wrote the source believed in the paranormal the source didn't meet WP:RS (I've often seen this kind of user use WP:RS to mean must be from a mainstream scientist). Then demands a peer reviewed source detailing the groups machine from a scientific perspective.
It's a grand pain. -- perfectblue 17:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be inclined to do two things. First, WP:NPOV includes a provision for not giving something undue weight, and WP:NOT says that Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information. So just as we don't include verified sightings of celebrities (as reported, say, by the New York Post in biographies of celebrities, so too is it inappropriate to go heavily in depth on minor things. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a collection of book-length articles. Use those as a basis to shorten articles to the most important claims and facts.
Second, where information comes from a book or article from a fringe publisher or magazine, and discusses controversial matters or makes outlandish claims, then the sentences in the Wikipedia article should say "X said that A occured" or "Y wrote in Z-book that B happened" or even "A claimed that C took place", rather than "A occurred", "B happened", or "C took place". Obviously this shouldn't be done for everything - if a book says that N joined the group in 1997, there isn't any basic reason to doubt that. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof: "X said that A happened" isn't an extraordinary claim, while "A happened" is. John Broughton | Talk 19:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've been doing this for some time, so I know the boundaries. The problem is that when we are writing about notable people/claims/incidents (Big foot, for example, is highly notable) and are hedging our words to keep perspective ("this is the way that they said it is" rather than "this is the way that it is"), the slant on policy towards science, history and Bio, still means that there are users abusing these policies to try and keep the information that we provide down to "names and faces".
"extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" That would be WP:OR in most cases, which is against wiki policy.
I guess my main argument is that wikipedia needs some policy clauses stating that demanding peer review for the paranormal is a waste of times, and that users shouldn't use it as a means of stifling pages about unscientific subjects. I mean, is it even logical to demand peer review on something that is a hoax, urban legend, or is a cult? perfectblue 07:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand your reference to "peer review" - the term is used for (see Wikipedia:Peer review) for proposed featured articles. If you're saying that demanding WP:RS or WP:N for paranormal and pseduoscience and hoaxes is "stifling", I'm not sure why. If you're saying that editors object to "He said" and "she said" type sentences, and remove these, I suggest you just keep insisting that they state the Wikipedia policy that disallows these, or the policy that says that there are to be minimized, because I'm not aware of any such policy. And if they can't come up with such policies, then deleting relevant information from reliable sources is POV, in my opinion. It's fine to argue about reality (e.g., does the strength of gravity vary significantly anywhere on the earth); it's wrong to argue that Wikipedia can't cite people who (by all reasonable measures) have an incorrect view of reality, if the subject of an article is those people. That they have such views is reality. John Broughton | ♫ 15:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History of deleted articles upon recreation

As a new page patroller it would be really useful to be able to access the history of a page upon recreation after if it has been previously deleted. This would allow new page patrollers to assertain, once the article has been recreated, whether or not it merits retaggting for deletion, or whether significant changes have been made so that the article is OK. It would also allow quicker removal of recreated articles RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 23:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article history is not available to non-admins due to past copyright and potential inflammatory edits which have been removed. If all users, or even all logged in users, had that capability, every one of those inflammatory and copyvio edits would have to be WP:OVERSIGHTed. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
However, most deleted page histories are non-problematic, and can be provided on request. Additionally, an extension that permits admins to quickly view the deleted contributions of a user (to help spotting things like chronic recreations of articles) is currently under development. --Slowking Man 08:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Holding deletion discussion (of articles) in WikiProject space

See Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Proposal for de-centralization of debates for more detailed arguments. Basically, the idea is creation of a process which puts the encyclopedia before deletion and is improve first and delete only if necessary. Additionally, discussions should be informed by the informed. --Keitei (talk) 01:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, no. Let's not make it harder to find discussions than it already is. --tjstrf talk 06:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mac Wikipedia Software

Not sure if this is the right place for asking this, but I think it would be useful if more Wikipedia related tools became available to Mac users. The majority I have found are for Windows. 152.78.254.245 15:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What would be your top three? John Broughton | ♫ 14:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

US State infobox/template things

I have a proposal to tweak the infoboxes that currently appear on US-State related articles, the big colorful ones with the state flag that link you to the state's largest cities, state flower, etc etc. Where is the best place to make my suggestion? How do these things even get changed? --Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 20:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try first the infobox talk page. Also, Wikipedia:WikiProject United States is a good place. -- ReyBrujo 20:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Where do I find this talk page? That's exactly what I was looking for in posting this question. Thanks--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 20:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You could try Template talk:Infobox U.S. state. Tra (Talk) 20:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you go to Longmont, Colorado and look at the bottom of the page, there is a big box. That is the thing I am wondering about. I think the template referred to above is a different one.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 21:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That would be {{colorado}} -- ReyBrujo 21:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TfD of {{user wikipedia}}

This went up for TfD in August 2006 with the result of keep. This result was more of a vote and not consensus. It seems that a lot of the people saying keep were of the WP:ILIKEIT variety. Since this template is a tautology and of no direct value to the project, I think it should be userfied per WP:GUS. However, before starting what I know will be a contentious discussion, I wanted to hear a little feedback here first. —Dgiest c 05:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Only it we're userfying it at User:Jimbo Wales/Userbox/User Wikipedia. Otherwise keep. --tjstrf talk 05:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Centralised discussion at MoS on flag icons

Proposed MoS guideline. Please contribute to the centralised discussion on flag icons at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Flag icons - manual of style entry?. Please add comments over there, not here. Thanks. Carcharoth 14:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Automatic signing

I am new to Wikipedia. One of the first things I noticed was that signatures were not automatically appended to talk pages. I knew nothing about "signing", and assumed my name would be inserted after a paragraph I wrote in a 'talk' page. I later noticed that a bot made some funny signature for me, exclaiming something to the effect of "Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Xerxesnine did not give a signature! Abort, abort! Does not compute!"

This is so completely ridiculous, I can hardly believe the practice of manual signing has gone on this long, even though it's just a few tildes. In the computer world, the term "signature" by definition means something which is automatically appended by software, so it's an abuse of the term. But this is beside the point, because there's just no justification for requiring users to do ANYTHING when software can easily do it for them.

Please don't respond with, "Oh, it's just a few tildes." Arbitrary and useless hoop-jumping is always a bad thing. These things add up. Old-timers get accustomed to such irrationality, but newcomers like me see the silliness for what it is.

The signing instructions above says it all --- obviously, such "instructions" should be entered into the software where they will be executed reliably, rather then attempting to upload them into the brains of users. --Xerxesnine 14:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The bot's text is ok IMO, but feel free to add a proposal.
As for automatic, there are many cases where the signature must be omitted (e.g. in WP:RfA summaries), or preceded (e.g. when placing a quote from a source), or altered (e.g. when only sig, [~~~] or only date [~~~~~] is required), or duplicated (e.g. when intermingling 2-3 responses in different parts with one edit) and the software would not know how to make a distinction. Please try to get used to it. Here goes: NikoSilver 14:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC) :-)[reply]
As for the issue of having the wiki software do what the bot does - there are only a few (two?) full-time (part-time?) paid programmers, and they have a long list of features and problems to work on. If something can be implemented by a bot (that is, without changing the core wiki software), that's one fewer thing for the programmers to do. And one fewer things for the programmers to maintain. Maybe, eventually, when they run out of other things to do, they can look at the various bots and start replacing them with core code, but I wouldn't (personally) hold my breath while waiting for that to happen. John Broughton | ♫ 14:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As Niko Silver said, you don't always want something signed in the same way, or at all. The automatic signing bot has already added my signature to one page completely incorrectly, and I can't see any other automatic system getting it right under every circumstance. Trebor 14:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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