Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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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.

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Suggestion

Suggesting the change of the first entry to:

• 1556 - The deadliest earthquake in history killed 830,000 people in Shaanxi Province, China. --Tengku syariful 17:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

Sort languages automatically?

If there is an article that is in many other languages, those languages should be sorted in alphabetic order automatically, I think. --212.247.27.49 21:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

(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)

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)

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. —Dgies^t c 05:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

See #Transclusion of templates for why we can't. —Quiddity 09:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

{{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)

Don't forget the 5 tildes that produce the timestamp only. It could be {{User:Username}}~~~~~. NikoSilver 12:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

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. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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

Nice signature. -- ReyBrujo 01:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

Lucky for you then I've changed my signature now so its far shorter :) RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 12:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

Exact same discussion being held at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Signature length.

I proposed that templated sigs at {{User:Username/sig}} be allowed, but treated specially to avoid the server load problems, but at least one developer doesn't like this idea. — Omegatron 15:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But to get to an agreement we need to decide what will be used as criteria for the limit. Here are some diferent options:

1. bytes (ex: the limit would be xx bytes)
2. lines taken up in a screen of a chosen size (ex: x lines in a screen of xx by xx pixels)
3. content (ex: maximum x links and x different colours)
4. a combo of 2 or 3 of these options

Once we have chosen one (two, or three) criteria, we will be able to choose the actual limits. Chris5897 (T@£k) 13:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

See a Gallery of the most extreme signatures. Making it almost competitive to have the most eye-catching (and hence annoying) sigs possible. --Quiddity 18:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Please Issue Easy Guidlines for Footnotes with Links

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

Here's a real quick example, hope it helps. —Dgies^t c 18:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

 ==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))

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)

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)

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)

Glad someone else is having trouble with "references" or "footnotes" - whatever. I have discovered:- This should give a small superscript "[1"] which can refer to the list of refs listed near the end. BUT what do I do if the same ref is referred to more than once and therefore given more than one reference number? (Hope I can find this page again to read the answer to this question!!)Osborne 11:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

If you need to cite the same reference twice, use <ref name="...">...</ref> and when you need to refer to it again, use <ref name="..." /> where the name is the same. invincible 15:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. It works - but one wee error and the rest goes up the shoot! One further question however: is there a difference between: "..." and: ... thanks. Osborne 09:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC) Oh ... only shows up in "edit" not in edit - queerOsborne 09:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Only to be appreciated (spelling?) when in "Edit". Osborne 09:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

... was just an example. You can use whatever name you want (preferably one more descriptive than ...). Just make sure the name is the same every time you use the reference. See Meta:Cite.php#Multiple_uses_of_the_same_footnote. Superm401 - Talk 08:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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

I have to concur with tjstrf, this is a bad idea for several reasons:

1.' It's important to have one centralized location for AfD discussions. An article should only get deleted if the topic itself is unverifiable or non-notable so those articles that simply need improvement don't, or at least shouldn't, get deleted anyways.

2. Wikiprojects are going to tend to cling to articles falling within their scope and are less likely to push for deletion of something even if that something should, in fact, be deleted.

3. What about articles that don't fall within the scope of a single Wikiproject? They would get less protection than articles falling within a project if this were implemented.

4. Even worse than articles falling under no Wikiproject are those falling under a number of projects. For example, renewable energy fits within the Wikiproject on energy, the Wikiproject on the Environment and the Wikiproject on International Development. A process like the one above could easily result in problems arising between projects.

5. The notion that this allows the "discussions to be informed by the informed" is not a valid one. Currently, when an article goes up for AfD a notice is placed on the page in question and anyone who normally edits that article and similar articles is likely to see it and get involved anyway; as a regular contributor to AfD discussions I'll say that those rare few AfD's that may actually require some specialized knowledge of the topic do, in fact, draw those individuals into them. And besides, AfD's are procedural and don't actually require this knowledge; the central question in and AfD discussion is whether the article in question meets the Wikipedia's guidelines/policies. It doesn't take an expert to decide whether or not something is notable or has sources. --The Way 04:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: " An article should only get deleted if the topic itself is unverifiable or non-notable so those articles that simply need improvement don't, or at least shouldn't, get deleted anyways." --
if only that was the case. Quite a few users (including admins) believe that articles are deleted when they could have just been improved. In most cases an admin will find 2 faults in an article -- like finding a paragraph that reads like a how-to guide and bad referencing -- and instead of putting up a template or two, will put the entire article up for Deletion Review. Then after a week, if it's an infrequently visited article, the problems still exist (because no template was put up) and the article is deleted. That's exactly what happened on the article for Anal Stretching -- an article that should exist but no admins bothered to put up templates.

The deletion of articles instead of amendment of articles seems to be a major issue, and any suggestions to fix such would be welcomed :) Rfwoolf 13:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that this is a widespread problem. I regularly participate in AfD discussions and very rarely does it appear that an article gets deleted when it shouldn't be, in fact the opposite seems to be the case; more articles are kept than should be. Articles are almost always deleted due to a lack of sources that serve to verify and establish notability. Indeed, I think that allowing Wikiprojects to determine what stays and what gets deleted will result in many articles being kept despite being against policy; Wikiprojects are going to naturally want to keep anything falling within their jurisdiction no matter how trivial. Furthermore, implementing something of this nature would make issues of 'jurisdiction' a major problem, as I've already mentioned. A decentralized AfD and XfD process will make sure that the official policies/guidelines are not evenly applied; some Wikiprojects will be quicker to delete than others. Many Wikiprojects aren't very big and implementing this proposal would give small groups of editors with an 'agenda' more power than they should have. Keeping AfD's and XfD's separate maintains a level of objectivity and the AfD and XfD discussions are currently fully transparent and open to everyone. Decentralizing them would make them less transparent. --The Way 06:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

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) :-)

But the first-pass answer is obvious: automatically append a signature when there is a new unambiguous paragraph. I even forgot about my sig just now, and only noticed it during the preview. Xerxesnine 15:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

I did not mean to imply a distinction or a preference between "bot" and other software. I don't care how automatic signing is implemented. My point was that the current signing bot seems to make a big deal about it (large and distracting comment), rather than quietly performing its duty. Xerxesnine 15:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

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)

In the case of an unambiguous new paragraph without a signature, it will always be right. There is already a distinction between pages which require a signature and pages which don't, so it's a red herring to say that you don't always want a signature.Xerxesnine 15:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

This would not "always be right." There are plenty of instances in which a new paragraph that shouldn't be signed (such as a summary or an advisory) is added to an ordinary talk page.

Furthermore, the {{unsigned}} message is supposed to draw attention to the fact that the user didn't sign the message, thereby encouraging him/her (and others) to do so in the future. The wording, however, actually is rather mild. There is no shame involved. —David Levy 19:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The current signing bot will already sign all such paragraphs, including the ones you mention that should not be signed, so I don't see the relevance of your point --- except that I should have said "almost always" instead of "always". As for your "furthermore" part, my whole argument is that we should do away with the ridiculous manual signing in the first place. Grabbing attention is exactly what the bot should not do; it is needless noise. Did you read my initial post, above? Xerxesnine 16:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Indeed, HagermanBot has the same flaw. Personally, I'd prefer that it be retired. (It causes other problems as well.)

2. "Almost always" remains an overstatement. "Usually" is more accurate.

3. Yes, I read your initial post (which is what I alluded to). You claimed that the message "exclaim[ed] something to the effect of 'Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Xerxesnine did not give a signature! Abort, abort! Does not compute!'", which is a silly exaggeration of mild wording that serves a valid purpose under the current setup (irrespective of whether said setup should be changed). —David Levy 00:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, consider when:

• The user edited a page which requires a signature.
• The user made edits which are clear and unambiguous additional sections.
• The user did not add a signature to one or more of said sections.

When all three conditions hold, a bot should quietly add some standard signature to those sections lacking one.

By "quietly," I mean that the bot's diff comment should be very short and non-attention-grabbing, or better yet that there should be no diff at all (which probably means the code runs in the commit hook rather than a separate bot entity).

What do you think? Xerxesnine 15:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur about automatic signatures. It would be a nice feature to have the Wiki automatically sign my username whenever it is required. I detest seeing the Bot messages which I just to delete. My recommendation would be for the Bot to put the unsigned message on the talkpage written upon and not put a message on the user's talkpage. Ronbo76 16:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

And if it doesn't change, I think it might wait 20 seconds before editing. I realized in one talk I didn't sign, then I returned, and I had an edit conflict with HengermanBot, I think it's called.

—Nethac DIU, would never stop to talk here—
18:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
This time I noticed.

Add yourself at User:HagermanBot/OptOut. I like the bot, but I wish it could move new talks to the bottom (new users usually post at the top instead of the bottom). -- ReyBrujo 23:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

People whining about Hagermanbot is getting really lame really fast. If you don't like the bot, learn to sign manually. It's that simple. If Hagerman bot didn't exist, then the only thing different is that one of us would have to sign your posts for you using {{unsigned}} if it was causing confusion in a topic. --tjstrf talk 22:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course this is simply the authoritarian stance on the status quo. "Love it or leave it." It does not address the underlying problem which I stated in my original post; indeed, I anticipated this argument and explained why it is flawed. Xerxesnine 12:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

So, because you think there's a problem, anyone who disagrees with you is "authoritarian"? Could it not just be that most of us do not think there's a problem? -- Necrothesp 14:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The response is authoritarian, yes. To say "It is right, deal with it" without even addressing the point is called an authoritarian response. To simply respond with "'Tisn't!" is equally weak. You have to make a rational argument to the point. Xerxesnine 16:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Going back to the original comment, Xerxesnine said, "In the computer world, the term "signature" by definition means something which is automatically appended by software,..." and says that the Wiki code ~~~~ signature sistem does not fit that definition. However, I must disagree, because, through not having to type out the entire [[User:Nineteenninetyfour|<font color=green>Ninety</font... thingy, and being able to simply type ~~~~, you have an automatic signing mechanism. Ninety^wazup? 00:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

You are at liberty to disagree by presenting rational counter-arguments, but you are not at liberty to change definitions and pretend that's a counter-argument. "Automatic" as I have used it clearly means "without user intervention", and this includes typing tildes as is clearly stated in my original post. It also appears as though you missed the clause in my original post which states "But this is beside the point". Xerxesnine 12:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

This would be a nice feature if it were simple, or even possible, for software to determine when an addition needs to be signed, but I don't know that it is. The rules you propose above would inappropriately place signatures when people add templates, etc. that do not need to be signed. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

To clarify even further, software should NEVER require needless work on the user's part, and should minimize manual labor wherever it can. It has been argued that sometimes you don't want a signature. Alright. If 99.9% of the time the user DOES want a signature, and 0.1% the user DOES NOT want a signature, then what should the software do? Clearly, there should be a "no signature" tag (say, "!~") instead of a signature tag (tildes). Furthermore, there can be special exceptions where no signature will be added, for example paragraphs which consist solely of certain templates, thereby pushing manual use of "!~" down to 0.0001%. --Xerxesnine 17:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Your figures are greatly exaggerated.

2. I wouldn't oppose such a setup, but only as an optional, non-default setting. Otherwise, mass confusion would ensue. —David Levy 00:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

1. The use of obvious hypotheticals ("If 99.9% of the time...") in conjunction with obvious hyperbole ("Danger Will Robinson!") are techniques which are meant to illustrate a point. They serve the same purpose as homework problems involving trains moving at 3/5 the speed of light which are given to first-year students in Special Relativity. A train moving at 3/5 the speed of light? Your figures are greatly exaggerated!

2. Right, of course it wouldn't be appropriate to completely change the behavior of the current signing bot. Users would explicitly opt-in to such behavior. Xerxesnine 15:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

As this thread comes to a close, I will just express my general lament that poor user interfaces can persist (here and everywhere) due to users perpetuating them out of habit and/or arbitrary attachment to the status quo. I believe my arguments concerning the four tildes, and the reactions to those arguments here, demonstrate this problem well. Xerxesnine 15:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I do not necessarily agree with Xerxesnine that automatic signatures are a good idea but I certainly agree that no real counter-argument has been presented in this discussion. I do not have the experience of wikipedia to come to an educated conclusion on the signature issue - there may be some good reason for not implementing them automatically that I have not thought of - if so I would like to know what it is because it has not been mentioned here yet. Tripper 17:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible synopsis sections for films

There have been long discussions in WP Films on the length of synopsis sections in film articles. I would risk to state that some consensus has been reached on a 500-600 word length. Yet there are members in WP Films and other users who think the synopsis should be as concize as possible. But not every contributor has the talent to put in a few lines the whole plot of a film. There have been reverts in long synopsis to short versions and the other way round, but no big edits wars (that I know of) yet. My preference is a full plot that doesn't indulge on trivial matters, but I do respect those who don't want to have to go through a long section, even with spoilers, in the length of the article. We have discussed even creating separate pages for long synopsis of films, but we found out they don't stand a chance in Wikipedia. So I have encouraged a knowlegeable member to create collapsed-collapsible sections and here is a display of the result: User:Hoverfish/Notebook#Testing collapsible long synopsis. I am aware that under accessibility and older browsers, the section shows anyway. So I wanted to ask Village pump, if we could use this CSS technique as an attempt to satisfy both sides. Hoverfish Talk 17:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, collapsing does not work in every skin. -- ReyBrujo 17:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a minor objection to me. I like the proposal.

El Ingles 17:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

No, the code for collapsing is in MediaWiki:Common.js so it will work in any skin. However, it won't work for browsers that don't support javascript. Tra (Talk) 18:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

This is indeed so. It works in every skin but not for some browsers. However in the rare cases it won't work, no information remains hidden, so it doesn't violate Wikipedia:Accessibility Don't use techniques that require physical action to provide information. The only inconvenience is that some few users will see the long synopsis anyway. Hoverfish Talk 20:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally, if the summary becomes so long that it needs its own articles or a collapsible section, it is excessive. However, if there is consensus to hide the unnecessary stuff leaving the article as bare as possible, I am not against it. -- ReyBrujo 20:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The 500-600 word limit will apply to the Long synopsis as per current consensus. We have some articles where a well written short synopsis exists and users wanting to add to it spoil the quality of it. In other cases we have a well written longer synopsis and users trying to trim it down, also spoil its quality. This is the main reason for this proposal and not to encourage overly long summaries. Hoverfish Talk 21:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Will it be complicated to use, for relative newcomers like myself? Shawn in Montreal 21:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

It's very easy to use. If you want to read the short synopsis than you can. If you want the entire plot or more elaboration you click on the "show" button to reveal the full synopsis. That way it is your choice which you want to read. --Nehrams2020 21:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant that, as someone who does create and edit articles on film, how much more code would I have to learn? Is there a tutorial already on how to create a collapsible section? Shawn in Montreal 21:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

From what I know it is the same as editing a section of an article. Once you "show" the section, then there is an edit button to allow you to modify the text. Once you're done, you can save it as a normal edit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nehrams2020 (talk • contribs) 22:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC).

No, that's not quite correct. There is a template called {{LongSynopsis}}. You use it like {{LongSynopsis|This is a quite long synopsis that few people will want to read in it entirety, etc....foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, foobar, }} in the wikitext. Then it shows like:

Template:LongSynopsis

To modify the synopsis, you would just modify the text between the '|' and '}}'. A full example is at User:Hoverfish/Notebook#Testing_collapsible_long_synopsis. To me this seems like a bad idea for articles, but I'm not sure. --Superm401 - Talk 22:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer having a begin synopsis and end synopsis templates, like the spoiler one. It seems cleaner than having a lot of text inside a template. -- ReyBrujo 22:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

This section is actually to be a subsection of the main "Synopsis" section. The spoiler templates are to be given in both cases. Hoverfish Talk 22:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm very much opposed to this idea. The current guidelines state, "Plot summaries should be between 400 and 700 words (about 600 words), but should not exceed 900 words unless there is a specific reasons such as a complicated plot." These are only guidelines, so we can be flexible. The plot summary for Pulp Fiction is 1,303 words, which is above the guidelines but is justified because of the film's chronology. This summary stands in stark contrast to the unwieldy 2,592 words it used to be. Another example is Psycho. The plot changed from 1,469 words to 687 words. I invite you to compare the two versions; here is the earlier one, and here is the current. Is there anything essential missing in the much shorter version?

We should also always think of the end user as well. The user who does not want to know the plot can skip it by clicking in the table of contents. One click and he skips the long plot, without the need of javascript that creates worrisome compatibility issues. If he wants a brief summary of the plot, we can create a new guideline saying that there should be a brief spoiler free summary before the main plot. Such sections can be found scattered about, such as the one here. My final objection is that it clutters the page.--Supernumerary 22:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree. But the point is that some users are trying to bring plots down to a few sentences, or a couple of paragraphs at the most. Hoverfish Talk 22:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

These users are wrong, and we should discourage their practice by reverting their edits. If they protest, then we can work our way through discussions, third opinions, request for comment, and so forth.--Supernumerary 00:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Here, by the way, is the last big discussion we had in WP Films: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films/archive8#Long synopses -- again + a few sections after it: #Extended plot sub articles. I like your point of view and your excellent work on plots, but does it look like the matter was settled? Hoverfish Talk 22:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Obviously it's not settled, or we wouldn't be still talking about it.--Supernumerary 00:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

An example of what I had in mind happened lately in Night at the Museum, where a whole plot has dissapeared and now a few lines are "enough said". Hoverfish Talk 22:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. Talk about an ugly plot. Not only is it stub, but now it's not even in prose. I'm going to go revert it back to a decent plot, which is what we can do in any case where someone does something bad like this.--Supernumerary 00:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Something has to be done to reduce the size of plot synopses. Editors produce huge, unparagraphed synopses that are completely unreadable and defend their sodden prose with ferocity. This is a common reaction for bad writers (I've seen it in several online fiction critique groups) and it's why they're bad writers: they won't ask themselves "Would anyone want to read this?" and any feedback from readers produces only defensive blustering. All the published writers I know (a fair number of science fiction and fantasy writers) send their work to test readers before they send it to the publisher -- and they listen when someone says, "This doesn't work." The long synopsis cutout isn't particularly elegant, IMHO, but it does provide a way to divert the long-synopsis writers into a cul-de-sac where they can ramble endlessly and no one needs to scroll past the boredom. Ideally we'd just have a rule, enforced, saying that nothing can be longer than 600 words without a papal indulgence from Jimbo, purchasable for a mere $1000, but ... I'm not sure I could get this one passed :) Zora 23:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Do we really want to encourage bad writers to ramble on? I say we beat the habit out of them by reverting their poor edits. Another thing is that this condones adding material that is not truly encyclopedic. Who wants WP:Films to become known for having terrifically long plot "summaries" even if they don't have to be read? This just occurred to me, but are bad writers good for wikipedia? I guess they are when they add to an article, but they must learn at some time that they should leave the proper grammar and syntax to those better than them at it.--Supernumerary 00:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The more that you hound and revert bad writers, the more that they will be convinced that you are wiki-snobs trying to mold Wikipedia into what you want it to be. Regardless of how bad you think they are, if you attack them they will just stick to their guns even harder. Mentor bad writers into being good writer, don't slam them simply for being inexperienced and over keen.

perfectblue 11:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I realized about a half-day after I posted this that I had overlooked the fact that bad writers can become good ones.--Supernumerary 00:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Now that I've read though the arguments, I must say I agree with those opposed, particularly the last two. I'm lucky or cursed to write film synopses for a living and distilling a story down to a reasonable length is not rocket science. It takes some talent and editing, either self editing or the kind that Wikipedia uniquely provides, sooner or later. Shawn in Montreal 03:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

But there are relatively few of us working on film articles who seem to CARE about readable synopses. We're far outnumbered by the self-indulgent bores. Attempts to prune a synopsis often result in a long and excruciating edit war -- which the summarizer may well lose. The problem is that there is no enforcement mechanism for the 400-600 word guideline developed by the film project and no way to inform new editors that this is a rule. People seem to pick up on 3RR and suchlike, if they've been warned or blocked, but there's no such enforcement for synopsis length.

I know how we can inform them of this rule. We can add it to the welcome template, or in the film template we could add it to the editing guidelines. Then a reminder would be on every film article.--Supernumerary 15:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it would help if all synopses (even non-film synopses, such as for novels) had a short no-wiki warning right after the Plot or Synopsis header, saying something like "Summaries should be at most 600 words long. Longer summaries will be edited ruthlessly." Probably not the best wording. Suggestions invited. I've noticed that stern no-wiki warnings deter some (but not all) editors intent on linkspam. Zora 04:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to have a short synopsis that can be expanded into a longer synopsis if the user clicks on "show"? This would seem to be the ideal, a button that would toggle between short and long synopses.Fistful of Questions 23:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Simplification of barnstars and nomination process

I feel that often barstars are given out too easily and don't fully reflect what the recipient has done. A nomination process (possibly similar to Rfa) would result in far more credibility to the award. It could also be simplified so there are only a few different ones awarded (off the top of my head; vandalism barnstar, editing barnstar, signifcant contribution barnstar and Minor edits barnstar (for the tireless tasks). I just gave my 1st one which I feel is deserved, but this is not shown because anyone can give them RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I think all that would do is drag people away from editing the encyclopaedia, and into more bureaucratic !voting. Can't a barnstar remain as a symbol of one user's appreciation of another user's contributions? Trebor 23:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I definitely oppose this, and can't think of a more misleading title for your post. You don't want to simply them, but rather to create instruction creep; you're missing the point. Superm401 - Talk 23:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

But surely it would spur people on to edit, and their contributions could be rewarded with a meaningful 'wikipedia award' RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Too bureaucratic, plus barnstars are not that important. Right now every barnstar is deserved because one editor thinks that another editor deserves one. Good enough for me. Garion96 (talk) 03:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The point of the barnstar is that it has meaning only as a symbol of one editor's appreciation of another. It's a very personal and informal thing, not a consensus-based meritocratic reward. See Meatball:BarnStar. Ideally, people don't edit seeking barnstars. They are meant to be a honor, not an incentive. Superm401 - Talk 04:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Aren't barnstars supposed to be simply small tokens of appreciation? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, small and personal. If I made it seem like A Big Deal, I shouldn't have. Superm401 - Talk 06:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Color preferences

I propose having options in the user preferences for changing the color of the background/text/links/etc. on all pages. Sounds kinda frivolous, I know, but it would really be nice to be able to browse the site in a dark room without having my retinas burned by the light contrast — especially since I spend more time here than on all other websites combined. Personally, I'd set my color scheme to something friendly like:

The release of Pink Floyd's massively successful 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon, was a watershed moment in the band's popularity. Pink Floyd had stopped issuing singles after 1968's "Point Me at the Sky" and was never a hit-single-driven group, but The Dark Side of the Moon featured a U.S. Top 20 single ("Money"). The album became the band's first #1 on U.S. charts and, as of December 2006, is one of the biggest-selling albums in U.S. history, with more than 15 million units sold.

What say my fellow Wikipedia denizens to this idea? --G Rose (talk) 11:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

You could probably do this by making the appropriate edits to your Monobook (don't ask me how to do that but I'm sure someone will know). However, a limited set of preset colour options in user prefs could well be beneficial, best solution would be a new skin for this accessibility purpose.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I say "yuck" to those colors, but that's just me. You can edit your own personal stylesheet for Wikipedia, at Special:Mypage/monobook.css, and just add something like:

body { background:black; color:green; }

...or whatever else you'd like. Tutorials here. —Down10 ^TACO 11:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess that'll keep me pacified. It would still be a lot more convenient to have it in the prefs, though. --G Rose (talk) 11:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Why limit yourself to a few set preferences when you can use any colour you like through coding? The monobook method is far more versatile. --tjstrf talk 13:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

As is often the case, it's a trade-off between flexibility and ease-of-use. Why should we force people to learn (even a little) CSS in order to change their color scheme? –RHolton≡– 12:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

You can use a premade skin from meta:Gallery_of_user_styles. Superm401 - Talk 06:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yay for pre-made skins! By the way, it takes more than just a little CSS work to adequately customize one's monobook. I still support having color settings available in the preferences. --G Rose (talk) 00:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, it depends how much customization you want. I think the pre-made skins are a fine compromise for now. Superm401 - Talk 20:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Medical Disclaimer Discussion

Copied from WP:RT Proposed Medical Disclaimer Template

I think that articles on medical conditions and treatments should bear a disclaimer. Particularly if it is deemed that people might use the information provided in lieu of seeking proper medical care. I made a template in my user space that I think addresses this concern: Jerry lavoie 01:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

{{User:JerryLavoie/Templates/med}}

Which looks like:

File:Bitag medical icon.gif

Medical Disclaimer

Wikipedia (including its related projects and mirrors) is Not Intended to Give Medical Advice. The contents of articles on medical conditions, treatments and devices, (including text, graphics, and other material) are for informational purposes only, and may not have been reviewed by competent Health Care Professionals. This article is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding any medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of Content found on Wikipedia. If you have a medical emergency, call your physician or Emergency Response System (eg. 911) immediately. Wikipedia does not recommend or endorse any specific third-party tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information found in its articles. Reliance on any information provided by Wikipedia, is solely at your own risk.

The replies I got at templates proposals were:

This is a bad idea. See WP:NDT, but in essence, the problem is that we already have a Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer, and tagging specific articles will cause problems with articles that are not tagged. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 01:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the rationale in WP:NDT for medical disclaimers is a bit weaker, but still applies. If out of "common sense" or whatever you think we should start adding medical disclaimers, gather some support at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and see if you can convince people. —Dgies^t c 07:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to generate a huge list of articles here, because I do not think that people would appreciate it. Suffice it to say that if you wikisearch for "treatment" "home remedy" "cure" "diet" "prevention" "drug" "non-prescription" etc, you will find numerous wikipedia articles that do tell people to do something at home without their doctor's consent to help with a medical condition. Some even suggest that people can diagnose themselves using other wikipedia article content.

IMHO This is dangerous, irresponsible, and threatens the project from a legal standpoint. Our General Disclaimers found through clicking on the single word disclaimers at the bottom of each article is in no way adequate enough to reasonably preclude people using our content in a manner that could cause them great harm.

Here is a snippet from Herbalism which I arrived at by entering Herbal remedy:

Mixing Herbs. To counteract the various complications and side-effects of an ailment, or to produce a more rounded taste, a number of herbs may be mixed, and formulas are the preferred method of giving herbs by professional herbalists. A well-known mixture used against a cold includes eucalyptus leaf, mint leaf (which contains Menthol) and juniper berry. Another is the age-old favourite "dandelion and burdock", from which the popular fizzy drink was derived.

Fresh or Dried? Many flower and leaf herbs lose volatile compounds within a few hours, as the juices and oils evaporate, the scent leaks away, and the chemicals change their form. Drying concentrates other compounds as water is removed. Most herbal traditions use dried material and the reported effects for each herb tend to be based upon dried herbs unless otherwise specified.

If you are using fresh herbs, you will need more of them, and the tea will have a somewhat different effect. Finely chop the leaf immediately before using it.

Does this article not tell people to treat themselves a certain way after self-diagnosis?

I think that my Medical Disclaimer template proposal should be considered seriously, and the fact that WP:NDT exists should not be used as the sole basis for the discussion. Jerry lavoie 14:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with you, per WP:NDT. The example you bring is no different than any article that may be improperly sourced or not neutral. If an article is properly sourced and neutral, i.e. follows WP:V and WP:NPOV, plus perhaps a modicum of notability (per WP:NN), we would cover all bases. The omnibus clause at Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer is already there, and should cover us, the same as no legal advice, no financial advice, no personal relations advice, etc. If we present things properly, no problem exists by definition, IMO. Crum375 14:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The fact that somebody considers this necessary is a sad statement on the litigious nature of our society. I propose that we include a template instead

General Disclaimer

If you are not competent to act within the bounds of common sense, and are likely to perform any action which a disclaimer template might be required to prevent, then you should leave this site.

perfectblue 14:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to me that much of an issue to have a small template at the top of some pages, one that wouldn't mar the reader's experience, but would be more direct than the tiny "disclaimer" at the bottom of the page that leads to the medical disclaimer only after passing through the general disclaimer. Something like this, perhaps:

This page contains information of a medical nature: see our medical disclaimer.

That said, while I hate to suggest that this discussion be moved again, if you want to change the policy at WP:NDT, the place to discuss that is really Wikipedia talk:No disclaimer templates. -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 15:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I will consider moving this discussion, but for now I feel it is getting good feedback here, so I'd like to leave it here for the moment. I will not comment on the sardonic reply from Perfectblue97. I agree that the template I proposed is perhaps too obtrusive, and I like the idea of a shortened version as sugested by John Broughton. Jerry lavoie 16:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and for the other comment that I did not mention: As far as citing the existence of existing policies in a discussion about the merits of said policies and proposed changes thereto; I find that a little too illogical to really participate. (I know that's a split infinitive.) To me, it's like saying "There should be a law against speeding, because under the law there is a speed limit". I do not understand this approach. Jerry lavoie 16:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be giving advice of any kind, let alone medical advce. We're WP:NOT a howto (treat yourself). Don't tag it with a disclaimer, remove it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Although that sounds nice, what do you do in this situation: medical condition X has symptoms Y, and a recommended treatment Z. All sources (let's say) unanimously agree on X, Y and Z. Many people could construe this unanimity as 'advice' of using treatment Z if you have symptoms Y for condition X. Do you suggest removing the article? under what grounds? Crum375 22:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say use attribution to make it clear where the treatment recommendation comes from. Medical articles need to be especially well-cited. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, we can attribute it from here till next year[1][2][3]...[1000], but you still end up with what could be seen as advice by some, especially if there is apparent consensus among the sources. Hence the main point raised is valid; the solution IMO is as I noted above to rely on the overall WP disclaimers, which as you noted would also apply to anything else that could be construed as advice in any topic. Crum375 22:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

My definition of advice, which I believe is his, is something which says "Do X", or any conjugation thereof. Wikipedia should not be saying "do X", although we can still say "People Y and Z say to do X". -Amark moo! 02:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the WP wording would be: "Medical condition A occurs when the body's ability to produce B is diminished[1]. Common symptoms are C and D[2]. The prefered treatment is E[3][4]." or some such. We would not normally use the words: "people do A for B". We try to make it sound encyclopedic when there is consensus we just say what it is and cite the sources. Crum375 03:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this discussion is going great. Lots of valid points out there. Let's see if we can get some other people involved (not to stack the vote either way, but to seek consensus from a broader group). I'd be surprised if this was the first time this has come up. Anyone know of any archived discussions we can review? Here are some questions for use to think about:

• What do we do to existing articles that seem to give advice or seem to 'promote' a particular product, device, therapy, or provider?
• How do we keep such content from getting back in?
• Should there be a category for articles with this potential so someone could easily browse them periodically?
• Of course the obvious: To have or not to have a disclaimer template.
• Is anyone interested in forming a wikipedia project to standardize and patrol articles for no medical advise
• Shoule we have a specific policy that addresses this? eg. WP:NMA
• Where do we go from here? Do we take the discussion somewhere else with a goal in mind?

Thanks, Jerry lavoie 03:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say that NMA would follow from the basic WP tenets. I personally have not seen any example that shows that any change or addition is needed - but I am open minded. Crum375 04:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

While I have no firm opinion either way about this topic, if it is decided that it is necessary the disclaimer should be much smaller then the one presented at the beginning of this discussion. Maybe two sentences. --The Way 07:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as a medically-qualified person, I feel that any article which gives medical advice should ideally, in theory, carry a disclaimer template of some kind. The debate on the exact form of the template pales into insignificance, it seems to me, in the face of the question as to who will apply templates and who will police articles to ensure their presence. But leaving that aside for the moment, and speaking in medico-legal terms, my understanding is that in the event of legal action being taken on the basis of an article contained in Wikipedia, the liability rests with the author and not with the encyclopedia. Am I wrong?--Anthony.bradbury 16:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Does EB carry a separate disclaimer template on each entry that relates to medicine? How about entries for legal issues? investment related? Flying? Diving? Skiing? Crum375 17:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Why don't add the warning in the WikiProject box? Oh, I remember when articles about hurricanes had a big disclaimer there. -- ReyBrujo 17:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the difference between taking medical advice and taking investment advice is that if the medical advice is wrong you might die. But skiing too, I guess. And diving. My point remains - if an article proffers advice the legal liability rests with the author, not with the encyclopedia. Possibly more people might turn to Wiki for medical advice than would for legal or investment advice, but I have no data.--Anthony.bradbury 17:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. "medico-legal terms"? What does that mean? Are you initiating an attorney-client/physician-patient relationship based on your post? If so with whom, everyone who reads it? Where's your disclaimer? Are you admitting malpractice by asking whether you are correct (didn't you research the matter yourself)? Are you authorized to practice both medicine and law in my jurisdiction? Are you going to compensate me if I detrimentally rely on your advice? (etc. etc. etc.) ...

Hopefully you see the point here. This is a slippery slope, you can't put infinite disclaimers on every molecule of thought that someone may unreasonably misinterpret. Besides, the matter is already addressed by the link that appears at the bottom of every WP article. dr.ef.tymac 17:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you are starting to see the picture: any encyclopedia is going to include a lot of information, some of which some people will construe as 'advice', no matter what you say. And risks exist in many areas: even bad investments can lead to suicides, and of course there are lots of risks out there in life in almost every area. I think it's clear that if we were to add a warning template for one topic (e.g. medicine), we would be remiss if we avoid it on other risk-related topics. And 'risk-related' would cover a large proportion of our articles. Again, use EB as a reference (no pun intended), they've been around for a while. Crum375 17:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

"the legal liability rests with the author, not with the encyclopedia" ... If you are offering this as legal advice, I hope you have your malpractice insurance paid up. If you are not, then you might want to check the validity of your statement; especially since the very definition of author is not a trivial question that laypersons can be expected to resolve while munching on a bagel at the internet cafe. dr.ef.tymac 17:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Since medical articles are prohibited from containing WP:OR, wouldn't it be the person who gave the advice in the first place (eg the WP:V sources from which any medical page is constructed) who are liable?

perfectblue 17:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As I do not give medical advice in Wikipedia, my malpractice insurance is not an issue. Though it is paid up, and I thank you for your concern! My statement is based on legal advice received, but I am not legally qualified and do not really wish to get into an argument on this point. User:Perfectblue97 may be right, but I suspect that in his scenario it might depend on whether attribution was quoted.--Anthony.bradbury 18:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for making my point. You and I both recognize that your post was not intended as professional advice. Sure, perhaps *someone* might have, in which case all those questions would have been relevant, and a disclaimer would have been necessary. Fortunately, for the astoundingly credulous people out there, the disclaimer is already there. dr.ef.tymac 18:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• WP:NDT. >Radiant< 15:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What about putting the disclaimer on the article talk pages where medical advice seems to be given? It would be nice if this was a simple template shortcut format ie: WP:NMA. The template could have the "this template is misplaced" feature of other talkpage-only templates if it was inadvertantly placed on an article. Jerry lavoie 02:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

New Search Engin

Seeing the inacuracies in the wikipedia search engin (WSE) [1] and the better results you could get with Google [2], I think the WSE should be replaced by Google (done here at www.tip.it/runescape) This would help searchers find what they want, faster, more efficiently (and google puts redirects WAY down on the line). I don't know what the technicalitys are, but I'm sure they could be easly sorted out with Google. Chris5897 (T@£k) 14:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

That search within Wikipedia is poor is well known - that's why there is are alternatives such as this: Wikipedia:WikEh?.

More to the point: either the Wikimedia Foundation pays for an internal Google search appliance, to avoid ads, or they subject readers and editors to ads on Google when doing a search (and can be accused of favoring Google over its competitors). I'd like to see the Foundation do the first, but I've been told that it tries to use free software for everything, and certainly a Google search applicance would cost money, which the Foundation doesn't have much of. -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 15:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I have never found any problems with the Wikipedia search engine when it's working. The main problem is the number of times it chooses not to work. -- Necrothesp 15:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

So don't use it. Use Google. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Well could we at least make a link to popular search engins (done here on the french wikipedia). This would give people who are not used to the code needed to search one site, the chance to get two or three searches. The foundation could also make money by charging search engins to have their link there. If they can do it on the french wikipedia, they can do it on the english wikipedia. Chris5897 (T@£k) 12:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Feedback button

Why not had a feed back button to say that I appreciate this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.219.255.154 (talk) 14:08, 21 January 2007 (UTC).

Short answer: why? While I'm sure people are happy to hear you appreciated an article, a button to say so wouldn't help improve the encyclopaedia. We don't rank pages according to popularity or usefulness. Trebor 19:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Use the "discussion" button 82.36.120.68 07:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Antal

please address the proposal of having multiple pages for Antal, i.e., "as noted near the bottom of the page for Anthony, Antal is the Hungarian version of the Latin name Antonius. Being a "brother" of Anthony, Antonio, etc., it is a rather common name in Europe and various parts of the world. As such, this meaning of the word requires treatment, perhaps via a disambiguous page."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Antal)

Thanks.

Truthfulness

Occasionally articles are submitted which are demonstrably, obviously and verifiably untrue. Perhaps intentionally, maybe sometimes accidentally. Assuming that such articles do not earn a {{speedy}} tag, they will, I assume, find their way to {{AfD}}. At this point I would like to afix, as a reason for AfD failure, the label WP:UNTRUE. But this tag does not appear to exist. (The tag WP:TRUTH does, but only as a humorous essay, which I feel should not be in Wikipedia. Different topic). I know it's possible; would it be reasonable to create this tag? Clearly, articles which can be shown beyond doubt to be factually untrue should not be retained. I appreciate that other tags will usually apply, but this one would be very convenient. And wholly apposite. --Anthony.bradbury 17:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

How would you deal with a page about something where the subject matter is known to be untrue, and is the reason for the entry in the first place. For example, a hoax?

perfectblue 17:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I am quite unclear as to what this proposed template would contain and how it would be a departure from what already exists. If an article is untrue in the sense it is a hoax, {{hoax}} already exists and the article, if it doesn't meet a criteria for speedy deletion, can be prodded and/or taken to afd. How would this new tag add anything to this? If you are proposing that we have a new speedy deletion basis, that can be proposed on WT:CSD. But note prior discussions here, here and others going back a ways. The short answer to that where an article's truthfulness is questioned, the appeal to that (un)truth must perforce rely on research to substantiate which is correct: the claimed truth in the article and the claimed untruth of the objectant—not matters that are well-suited to deletion without discussion.

If you are talking about articles in which the subject is not questioned, just the treatment of that subject in the article, I, and I think most editors, believe deletion is not the correct route. Our policies already require reliable sources, verifiability, and prohibit original research, and any unsourced statements in dispute may be removed from articles. So if an editor is not willing or situated to edit the article to make it truthful, article tags such as {{fact}}, {{unreferenced}}, {{disputed}}, {{totallydisputed}} etc., as well as the ability to delete such claimed untruthful matters, already covers this territory.

So if you are at afd saying an article is untrue as in a hoax, the deletion basis is that it is a hoax, that it is original research or unverifiable or even not notable by virtue of being not written about in the wider world, regardless of truth. And if you're there saying "as presently written, the text it's untrue on this real subject," you're going to be told that deletion is not the proper response. So what would this tag actually say?--Fuhghettaboutit 18:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The statement which prompted my question was contained in an article, since deleted, about a tennis player in which it was claimed that in the year 2002 he was ranked in the top 100 in the world rankings, which was demonstrably false by searching existing data bases, without any suggestion of WP:OR. As I see it, there is a difference between a hoax, which is however misguidedly intended as a joke, and a deliberate untruth told with intent to deceive or mislead.

To answer the question asked by User:Fuhghettaboutit, the tag would say "This article contains statements which are demonstrably factually untrue". the editor would still have the usual recourses available with any other delete tag or prod. I was only asking - please don't bite me!--Anthony.bradbury 19:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

A hoax is "an act intended to deceive or trick" so is pretty much synonymous with "a deliberate untruth told with intent to deceive or mislead". I'm not seeing the difference. Trebor 19:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I see it as a difference in motivation. A hoax is designed to annoy or confuse people, or to make them behave in a way that they would not otherwise have done. A lie is designed to advantage in some way the person making the statement. But it really is not a big deal and I think I wish now that I had never suggested it. Thank you for your time and your patience.--Anthony.bradbury 19:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

When I said Hoax, I really meant a page about a hoax, not a page that was a hoax. For example, a page covering a notable April Fools day joke pulled by a newspaper. The page could cite the newspaper even in the knowledge that the contents were false. perfectblue 07:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

San Serriffe is pretty much a textbook example of how to handle something like this... 23:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Or Piltdown Man. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Would WP:BALLS help? >Radiant< 15:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Images on the Main_Page

From my experience, a lot of new users expect the images next to articles on the home page to link to the article themselves. This is understandable since so many sites (Google News for one) use images in this manner to link to news stories or articles. I think it throws people off when they click on the image and get the image page, especially since the home page is a place for so many Wikipedia beginners. It might be more user friendly to make these images direct links to the article. Or to find some compromise. Pdubya88 03:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The images need to link to their description pages for copyright reasons (unless they're public domain, which is rare). One possible compromise would be to use <ImageMap> to link the whole image apart from an icon in the corner linking to the description page, but that would probably uglify the Main Page and not give too much benefit. Perhaps we could put a notice on the Main Page image protection templates explaining what happened? --ais523 10:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe a small link to the article could appear in the corner, only when the user rolls over the image (though this may still be too ugly). I think putting something in the image protection template could work... i.e. "If you were trying to reach an article from the main page, please go back and click on the text link." but nicer. Pdubya88 21:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea, Pdubya88. I think you're right that most new users aren't looking for the image page when they click on the image, and this would make it more user friendly. delldot | talk 22:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Multilingual article cross-reference

A small team so that entries that are built in multilingual Wikipedias have the same entries in the English Wikipedia. Probably only the entry name would need to be translated for an 'entries to build' section; with only the more obscure entries needing to be translated in their entirety. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.102.4.199 (talk) 12:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

I second that, this feature would be incredibly useful. The best would be if there was a selection box (drop down list) of available languages for each page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.10.24.32 (talk • contribs).

smarter random articles

Why not provide users with intelligent suggestions based on personal usage as well as random articles. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement, a fairly simple neural network would suffice. Pandora.com is able to do it with music, a medium exponentially more difficult to analyze then a web of text data, imagine what Wikipedia can do with all the data it has combined with a person's viewing habits. Assuming ofcoarse the user is logged in while viewing and wiki records which pages are viewed. Vahe.kuzoyan 23:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it falls down on the latter - no data like this is viewed. The only user-linked things recorded are edits and similar "interaction" activities; pageviews and the like aren't tracked in any significant way. Shimgray | talk | 23:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• You're after User:SuggestBot's services, I believe. --tjstrf talk 01:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I hit "Random article" ten times, and got four sportsmen. That's wholly disproportionate, but at least made me think the current situation over.

One idea was to somehow rate all pages as either main, subtopic of different level or leafs; Hockey being a main topic, NHL a subtopic and Wayne Gretzky a "leaf". I believe, in some part, this is already done, though I'm not all THAT familiar with Wikipedia. Anyway, the next part would be either making Special:Random point only to main or subtopic pages, and/or put a toggle for it in each user's settings.

This is just one possible solution to the problem I perceive with the Random link - that I, after 20some clicks still hadn't found a topic I found interesting to read.

from 16:05, 23 January 2007 (GMT)

I usually get towns. Though 10 clicks just now got me 2 sportsmen, a composer, 3 towns, 2 movies one of which I'd seen (and hated), a river, and Charles Dickens. But there actually is a reason to let Random really be random: it's supposed to show the complete breadth of Wikipedia's article content. Not just the important stuff. --tjstrf talk 23:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

or perhaps an option for a simple 'Random Popular Article', which would use page views as criteria for the pool of random articles. Set an arbitrary pageview threshold - say, 5000 in the past 6 months. It would effectively eliminate many small towns, bad movies, forgotten actors, non-legendary sports figures, unimpressive landmarks, etc. But leave the old random article navigator for those who do enjoy finding out about a village in Irkutsk, pop 101. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.142.59.155 (talk) 04:44, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Video on wikipedia

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but I would like to propose video content being available as part of wikipedia articles. It would allow wikipedia to become more interactive instead of just simply relocating to videos. I would suggest that a new player is created for wikipedia, using GFDL codes so there are no copyright infringements. A similar guidline to wikipedia images could be used and implemented (with the use of bots) so that unsourced videos, or similar copyright infingement would be sppedily eradicated RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 01:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It's already possible. Just upload it to the commons as an Ogg and insert a link to it in the article. Annie Oakley has an old clip of her shooting, for example. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:55, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

What I actually meant was, instead of just a link to a video, how about incorporating video's within the actual page, so when play is pressed, the video can be seen on the page. As I've previously said, this would increase interactivity within wikipedia mainspace RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:02, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It was brought recently at the other village pump. -- ReyBrujo 23:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's focus on getting decent video content first, before we bother to build an inline player. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Suggesting the change of the first entry to:

• 1556 - The deadliest earthquake in history killed 830,000 people in Shaanxi Province, China. --Tengku syariful 17:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Translator idea

I read recently how computers translate languages. Some use other text as references so i was thinking that you could make a translator that people can edit. For example you translate a Spanish sentence to English and it comes out all garbled but then you fix the grammar and maybe some of the words then send it back the next time someone translates a similar sentence the grammar would be much improved. After many edits it would work really well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.179.114.122 (talk) 22:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

The problem I see with this is that correct language so reliant on context; a word or phrase can mean something very different depending on what's being written about. So the fixes which work great in one case may be totally incorrect for another. Trebor 22:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Multiple versions of a same article

Since the English Wikipedia is so huge now due to its huge contributor base, I have come up with an idea... Maybe we could do several versions of a same article, each one with a different style so that they may adapt better to different readers. For example, I may be interested in a particular article of a famous battle but find the article too long for my needs and reading just the lead isn't enough for a general overview. A shorter version might be useful here. Maybe different contributors have made more or less equal in quality but incompatible editions in an article and it would be useful to keep both. It is possible that this has already been discussed, but nevertheless I'll write this so you can discuss the viability of this idea. --Taraborn 12:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

There would probably be problems with synchronizing the articles and making sure they didn't contradict each other. WP:POVFORK contains a small amount of information about why this 'content forking' is a bad idea (although it's mostly about people splitting articles to promote a POV). I remember Wikinfo does something of the sort, but not being a contributor there I'm not sure exactly how it works (except that it has something to do with multiple viewpoints). --ais523 13:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

If the lead isn't enough, and the article is too long, then we should work on splitting it and summarizing it with summary style. Big topics break into numerous articles to cover various aspects, with short summaries in the main part. If there's a piece you don't need, leave it out. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a project called "simple" which is meant to be articles done in simple English. That may be what you are looking for. I for one do not advise creating multiple articles on a single topic. I kind of destroys the purpose of a wiki, which is the use the combined efforts of numerous people to create the best overall content possible on a topic or subtopic in a single article.

As for your example: A good article should be one where you can read the lead for an overview, read the first section for a more detailed picture, and then read the subsequent sections for a mroe complete picture. If the article does not do that, then it is not well written and that is the issue. I'm sure that most long article here do not do that, but this project does seem to improve in general over time. Either ask for a revision, or be bold and edit the article to suit your needs. --EMS | Talk 16:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Micropedia -Macropedia

I have noticed that many articles are quite long, also difficult to navigate. There is also the problem that some partsd of articles need to be under many keywords. Why not split big articles in a short summary article and then (with short descriptive headers) subarticles that can be included under many headers (like detailed description of history of diesel engines in both article of Rudolf Disel and Diesel engine) There are many laces where (IMHO) that would make the articlles much more readible. Seniorsag 16:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

We already do this. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how. --tjstrf talk 16:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: RfC/User Clerks

There have been recent concerns raised about the Requests for Comment - User Conduct process, surrounding the functionality of the process and its results. Because the RfC process is open-ended and essentially uncontrolled, there are questions about its effectiveness in providing a venue for editors to express concerns and ensure that discussions about the actions of their fellow editors are productive and not simply a sanctioned method of attack. As well, the process of certifying RfCs as well as the lack of a closing method may cause other issues.

Thus, I would like to propose the creation of a volunteer clerk corps to help smooth the RfC process. A draft of this proposal is available in my userspace (since I wasn't sure where to put it otherwise) and outlines the guidelines by which I suggest such a clerk system should work for RfC, as well as discussing some possible methods by which RfCs could be closed in a productive manner. It's had minimal outside input at this point; Guy has graciously provided some comments and ideas along the way, and I feel (especially after seeing two threads appear on WP:AN this morning regarding an uncertified RFC and a disputed closure) it's at a point where the community can take a look.

Please do note that this is in no way intended to be a bureaucracy of any kind; these clerks would be no more than aids to smoothing the process - they would ensure that assistance is available for opening RfCs properly, certified RfCs are placed properly and uncertified ones are removed (protecting users from claims of inappropriate deletions), ongoing cases are monitored by neutral parties to ensure they remain on topic and don't devolve into attacks, and close and archive those that have reached the limit of their usefulness (again ensuring that users are protected from claims of improper closures).

I appreciate any discussion the community may have, either here or on the proposal talk page. Cheers. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I would strongly support this idea. At the moment WP:RFC/USER can often end in a mess and as such the process lacks community respect. Making it work better might also ultimately have a knock-on effect in reducing the number of cases that need go to ArbCom. Clerks seem a good way to manage the opening and closing of cases, and to ensure that the RfC process is stuck to. They can also offer help and advice to newer users wishing to start an RfC but unsure of how to go about it, or direct them to a more appropriate forum (e.g. informal mediation). WJBscribe 10:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is needed. This part of RFC functions well as it is, and in fact, with more input and regular maintenance happening than the rest of the RFC areas. pschemp | talk 15:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd note that of the bottom six open cases right now, most of which were opened in November, one was idle except for some signings from December 8 to January 25, when a previously uninvolved user added information; one has been edited once since December 9; one was idle from Dec. 31 to Jan. 23, when a user added a couple of signings; one has been idle since Jan. 2; one was entirely idle from Dec. 19 to Jan. 19; and the last was idle from Dec. 30 to Jan. 23. There is also one uncertified RfC - that has a bit of an issue in that it has no certifying editors but a number of editors in agreement with it - that should have probably been delisted almost a week ago. These are some maintenance jobs that could be handled by clerks who have a set of guidelines to work with. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:20, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I feel this is a solution looking for a problem. Right now the volume at RFC is not so great as to require such intervention, and we should not be adding needless levels of bureaucracy to Wikipedia. Inactive requests just prove all the more how little this is needed. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments. This proposal came about after a short discussion on WP:AN, as there has been an issue noted with the lack of results from RfC. As I state above and in the proposal, there is absolutely zero intention of this being a bureaucracy, and I'm uncertain as to how you might see it as one. Inactive requests, to me, indicate a lack of efficiency in the process that could be assisted through the suggested creation of closing summaries and eliminate situations such as that surrounding the closure and subsequent reopening of the InShaneee case. That case also indicated that having someone to monitor whether an RfC is turning into an attack session or not could be useful. Tony Fox (arf!) 23:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I may come off as crass saying this, but instead of creating some process to handle it, why not just handle it yourself? Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 00:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Peter; is there a need for a special group to do this? In other areas, the clerks are used to assist users with additional powers (Checkuser, ArbCom), and make most effective use of their time. Here, there's nothing stopping any editor performing these tasks (in fact, isn't that how the usually get done?), so there's no need to assign the tasks to a specific group. Am I missing anything with my appraisal? Trebor 00:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it would not be useful to have editors work together towards this common goal. Rather, I am saying that there is no need for some formal structure as a "clerk corps" would be. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 01:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I think my main thinking here is that there's no real structure for these kinds of tasks right now, so a random editor who wants to close an RFC hasn't got a specific route to take. I've absolutely no idea what to do with that one RFC that's been sitting there since the 19th, uncertified but signed by numerous editors, for example. And, I suspect that a random editor closing some RfCs, even after a period of inactivity, would get bitten. That's kind of where I'm coming from, as well as the fact that the system now has no firm closure to it - most RfCs just sort of stop. Some move to mediation or arbitration, but others just end; having a group who can put together a summary at closing and post it to the participants, to me, would provide an end point. Maybe referring to this as a "corps" is making it look too formal or official; perhaps I should have used "group" instead. I'm not suggesting a secret society or anything, and I apologize if that's the impression that was conveyed. Tony Fox (arf!) 02:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Dating Of articles

I think that people should be discouraged from using phrases such as "to this date", "recently" and any other of the many phrases that relate to the present. If such phrases must be used users should state the present date, e.g. "Over the last few months (Dec 2006 - Jan 2007) ...".

I have not edited many articles myself but as I read many articles I think about how others will read it in the future and how some of the authors comments will have lost much of their meaning because they have not been dated. Even now when I look something up I read sentences that are meaningless because you cannot tell when they have been written. Sure, the date that the article was last edited is at the bottom of the page but that doesn't mean much in such cases.

A couple of examples:

From Darjeeling tea: "In recent years a high percentage of top quality Darjeeling tea has been bought by Japanese consumers at relatively high prices."

From Total Annihilation: "Although Total Annihilation is over 9 years old it is still played actively today." - OK, this one's not quite so bad but you get the idea.

Is there any way of flagging such occurrences so that the author can go back and fill the date in (or in some cases other people may be able to)?

Mark Speake 22:07, 24 January 2007 (GMT)

You're right, statements that become dated are discouraged under WP:DATED. I'm not aware of a way to mark these though. If you want to change them, you can change them to use [[As of (year)|As of]] instead. delldot | talk 00:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

there's also {{update after}} for statements that you know will become dated, like "George bush is the current president of the united states." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 13:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Auschwitz concentration camp

I do fully understand the policies enshrined inWP:BLOCK and in WP:PROTECT. But there are some articles, such as this one, which carry a significant emotive significance to many peoiple, and yet appear to be a prime target for vandalism. Yes, I know it can be reverted, and I spend a fair bit of time doing this. Is it not possible for selected articles, chosen by consensus or by whatever means the community accepts, to be permanently semi-protected?--Anthony.bradbury 23:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales on the matter Some pages are sprotected continuously, but I think a very high level of vandalism would be needed to justify it (I haven't looked at this page in particular). Trebor 19:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

How high would you classify as very high? This article averages a vandal hit on a daily basis. An addtional point, which I tried to suggest earlier, is that vandal edits here can have a highly damaging emotional impact on people who are/were closely involved; Jimbo's example of George W Bush may well be hit more often, but I would suggest with less damage to people concerned. Except for George and prospective Republican candidates. --Anthony.bradbury 20:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Four vandalism edits today. How high is very high, I ask again?--Anthony.bradbury 22:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Merging Greek and Roman gods

There are a number of articles where there are two articles for the same god, one for the Greek name, and one for the Roman name. While I admit there are slight differences in the personification of these deities across cultures, it would make sense to me to merge the articles. I saw no mention of this issue at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology or in the WP:MOS so I wanted to ask people's thoughts here. —Dgies^t c 01:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there are enough differences that two articles are appropriate. Blueboar 01:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Disable What links here from transcluded templates

The What links here function, I find, is a very useful tool in building up connections between articles. Its effectiveness, however, has been limited recently by the development of very elaborate navigational templates. Very few of the articles on these templates are actually directly relevant to each other, and navigational templates with dozens of items can seriously cloud up What links here research. So I ask, #1 Is it technically possible to disable the backlinks, and #2 Are they any downsides I haven't anticipated? Thanks.--Pharos 20:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it would require a special additional parsing, because the tables of links are generated from parsed pages; and you'd need to generate a separate table for non-template links, or tag them as template or not. This is a software thing, so you'd need to file a bug on it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia sister projects

I'm not sure if I've come to the right place, I guess this could be placed under technical discussions too, though it is a fairly general sort of request.

I frequently want to visit a related sister project page - for example I'll be editing the slug article and I'll notice it has no commons link, so I'll go to commons and look it up. But from the wikipedia page there are no direct links to the commons page, or even commons itself. I suppose I should have bookmarked a few of the sister sites I visit more often, but wouldn't it be easier if each page had links somewhere to the other projects? The first place I considered was linking simply to the sister projects as on the main page right down the bottom left, with tiny thumbnails on the right of the Wikimedia project logo. The other possibility is linking to existing pages on other sister projects down the left hand side above or below the language links. This may actually be a better idea, as links could be placed in a similar fashion to languages.

Perhaps this a proposal that should be taken to meta, or perhaps it has already been suggested before by others, I don't know. Just thought I'd put it forward and see what response I get. Richard001 20:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

There are templates for linking to sister projects. {{commons}} and the rest of Category:Interwiki link templates. Integrating it into the software would be a bit less flexible, since there isn't much room in that column for a description of what you're linking to. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, adding the links manually would basically be a less effective form of what we have at the moment now that I actually give it some thought. How about a collection of links to the other project's main pages from the bottom left corner, perhaps under (or to the right of, in some screens such as the editing layout) the Wikimedia project logo? Do you think it could be worked into the layout, or is there not really room for such?

They are only a click away, and I've moved the ones I use most often onto my bookmarks toolbar anyway, though it could still be a useful addition to the layout if there's room, and by using small icons of each project's logo they may fit in. Richard001 08:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

(See also these templates: Wikipedia:Sister projects#Several/All Wikimedia Sister projects in box)

Something like the following mockup. I'd support something like this; but I also would've thought it had already been suggested? (and hence either rejected or bug-requested?) Feedback?--Quiddity 21:32, 26 January 2007 07:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

this topic at

• Wiktionary
• Wikiquote
• Wikisource
• Commons

"You have new messages"

I changed MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages and MediaWiki:Newmessageslink so the new messages bar read "Your user talk page has been edited (last change).". I made these changes because not all edits to user talk pages are caused by the posting of new messages. I have since reverted my edits because two people didn't agree with them and I'm starting this discussion so more people can comment. J Di 19:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Most (the vast vast majority) of the time it does correspond to new messages, and saying "user talk page has been edited" is less obvious to people who aren't familiar. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I tried to change the message earlier (look at the history) but people wouldn't go along with it. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 20:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If memory serves me, there are are two links in a row in that yellow box. It could possibly be made clearer if we added the word(s) "see" or "see the" before the 2nd link.

It is very often the second "meta" interaction users have with the site, after creating an account or making a first edit; leading them to welcomes or warnings. "(last change)" by itself might sound confusing. --Quiddity 20:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

You have new messages (see last change)

I think the message should definitely be understandable for new users, and 'you have new messages...' does just that. Most new users won't understand what a user-talk page is. There is a risk that the infamous orange box will just be ignored by users if they don't understand it. --ais523 16:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

I am virtually certain that this idea will be jumped on from a great height, bu It make it because of my extreme irritation generated by new page patrolling. Is there any way in which any new article containing the word "awesome" can automatically be listed for deletion review? Any editor who does NP patrolling will recognise this phenomenon immediately.--Anthony.bradbury 23:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I do WP patrolling, what happens if the article mentions awesome from an independant review? there are many words like awaesome which come in new articles, however there are also legitimate uses for these words and tagging for deletion would be unfare to these RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 01:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I did say deletion review, not deletion, but ok, fair point.--Anthony.bradbury 20:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that a bot to list articles at AfD is a good idea; if nothing else, a human is better at reviewing an article to determine if speedy delete is better than an AfD, and better at explaining why whatever kind of delete is being recommended is in fact appropriate. -- John Broughton ^(♫♫) 00:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Idea

An idea came to me today, though I'm not sure if it has been discussed before. How about creating audio files of good/featured Wikipedia articles so that people can hear the content of the article read aloud. The audio files would only be a snapshot in time, and would be periodically updated by the community. Eventually, the community could work towards making Wikipedia navigable for the blind: one could use a microphone with voice commands to move throughout the website. -- Lasker 00:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Spoken articles ;-) --Quiddity 03:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Enhancing references

What are the technical implications of creating some sort of "enhanced" reference tag? What I'm thinking of is having a way to "tag" sections of text, thus linking them to a particular reference. (It would probably have to be a named one.) The purpose of this would be to allow a display what text a given reference supports.

An example might be as follows: first, define your reference:

<ref name="test">Really Strong Reference Source (Notable Publisher Ltd.)</ref>

Second, mark the text it supports:

<ref marktext name="test">This text is highly dubious, but my reference material is iron-clad and will dispell any doubts you might have.</ref> This claim isn't supported by anything in particular. <ref marktext name="test">This, however, is validated.</ref>

Other editors could then click on a "show ref" button (or something similar) to go to a page that has all of the article's references, and the text they support:

1) Really Strong Reference Source (Notable Publisher Ltd.)

- This text is highly dubious, but my reference material is iron-clad and will dispell any doubts you might have.

- This, however, is validated.

The idea is to make it easier to validate text, perhaps cut down on the number of citation numbers in an article (esthetics, for avoiding¹² excessive³⁴⁵ markup⁵), and reduce the need to search through entire reference texts trying to find if that text supports the article, while not being sure WHAT text you should be looking for. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• see meta:wikicite Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Salted pages

[moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard]

It's been proposed that we replace all of our "salted" articles (currently tagged with Template:Deletedpage) with redirects to a page in the project namespace containing similar text (thereby removing salted article pages from the random article pool and total article count). I believe that this would be an improvement, but the main disadvantage would be that users would no longer be able to view useful links unique to the individual pages.

Now that cascading protection has been enabled, it's finally possible to protect a nonexistent page (simply by transcluding it onto a page with cascading protection directly applied, thereby causing it to appear as a red link). I propose that we switch to a system in which a series of project pages (perhaps one for each month) is created and used for this purpose.

I've created a demonstration template and added a couple of transclusions to a demonstration page. The syntax is as follows: {{template name|reason|page title|page_title}} The last parameter is required only if the title contains spaces. For non-articles, the namespace should be omitted from the page title and appended as the optional "ns" parameter (ns=[namespace]).

I've tweaked some MediaWiki code to display a {{deletedpage}}-style notice (along with advice to check for additional information on the page to which cascading protection has been directly applied) when a non-sysop attempts to edit (or follows a red link to) a nonexistent page with cascading protection applied. If a non-sysop merely attempts to view such a page, he/she sees the standard "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name..." message (which could be modified to reference instances in which "view source" is displayed instead of "edit this page"). Clicking on "view source" displays the aforementioned {{deletedpage}}-style notice and accompanying link/advice.

A bot could be used to convert all of the salted pages to this format (automatically sorting the titles chronologically—likely based on the pre-existing list—and inserting the most recent edit summary as the reason).

Opinions? —David Levy 06:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a very intelligent solution--and certainly we've all agreed for some time that the holy grail would be some way to protect articles in a genuinely deleted state. The only problem I can see is that it will have the same effect if a non-existent page is (for whatever reason) transcluded on to some other page with cascading protection, but perhaps that doesn't matter (it seems like it would be rare). It would also require admins to change their behavior in a more drastic way, which is also always a challenge. :) Chick Bowen 06:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I've given this some thought, and I've been unable to come up with another situation in which we'd want to transclude a nonexistent page on a page with cascading protection enabled. —David Levy 17:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Typo on mainpage links? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah--it would be from a screwup of some sort. If a template were deleted and the admin forgot to check whatlinkshere, it might appear to another editor that it had been protected against creation. As I say, though, not a big deal. Chick Bowen 18:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I misunderstood your comment to mean that we might actually want to do this for some reason. —David Levy 18:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to make the "This page has been deleted and protected to prevent re-creation" message not show if the cascading protection is only semi-protection? That would make eliminate the likeliest circumstances. Chick Bowen 18:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised to learn that cascading semi-protection is possible, as this enables anyone with a non-new account to semi-protect pages. That's a far worse problem than the display of that message (which would require developer intervention to change) and I don't believe that cascading semi-protection should ever be applied for any reason. In my opinion, it should be formally prohibited via the protection policy. —David Levy 18:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for noting this. In fact, when semi-protection cascades it becomes full, so the problem is even worse. I've filed bugzilla:8796 about it. Superm401 - Talk 20:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yikes, I didn't realize that! I'm going to go ahead and add an explicit prohibition to the protection policy. —David Levy 22:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a really good idea. —Centrx→talk • 17:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not really against it. So, instead of adding the {{deletedpage}} or {{spambot}} templates to the pages, we would include the page in a list. Gives us better control than just a category for sure. -- ReyBrujo 17:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a great idea, but when someone attempts to edit a non-existing, cascading-protected page, I think as well as the message you added, there should also be an empty, disabled text box on there, to make it clear that they are on the edit tab, there is no text on the page and to keep with convention, e.g. with non-existent MediaWiki: pages. Also, the 'edit this page' tab should be replaced with 'view source'. Other than that, yes, this is a great idea. Tra (Talk) 19:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a "view source" tab instead of an "edit this page" tab. I don't believe that a disabled text box would be of any benefit, and I also see no means of adding one. (We're working within the confines of MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected.) —David Levy 19:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If you go to this page (from one of your examples), the title of the page says 'View source' but the tab at the top says 'edit this page'. However, yes, I can see now, you didn't edit any code, you just customised MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected so unless it allows raw HTML, I agree a text box wouldn't be possible. Tra (Talk) 22:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I'd only viewed the page while logged out (which results in a "view source" tab). —David Levy 22:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, wow. This is brilliant. -- Steel 19:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I really like this idea. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If this is what I think it is, Wikinews has been doing it for ages with noxiously recreated pages, see n:Wikinews:Protected deletions. 68.39.174.238 22:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

They're using protected redirects to a project page. (The pages aren't actually in a deleted state.) As noted above, this is something that we've considered doing. —David Levy 01:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)