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New ideas and proposals are discussed here. Before submitting:

Get rid of PROD

I've been thinking about it for a while now. The process involved in PROD, while ideally designed to reduce the workload at afd, leaves too many articles open for deletion that simply don't have anyone watching them. Articles that have inherent notability (such as many facets of geographical locations. Towns and such in countries that do not have any involved English editors) can often be deleted without notice to anyone. These articles are not "less important" because they do not have any sources, or because they haven't changed in several years, or because they contain a bare minimum of information. These articles have broken the ground where other editors will one day expand upon and fill in information.

In short, PROD only determines that nobody is watching an article, not that its deletion is uncontested. All non-speedy deletions merit some discussion. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 19:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of an admin that would delete an article through PROD that they believe has poor reasoning to be deleted... I don't totally disagree with you, but there are people who watch WP:PRODSUM too.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 19:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds more like an argument of deletionism versus inclusionism. As noted above, WP:PROD doesn't automatically delete pages after seven days. It still comes down to a judgment call by the acting admin. --King Öomie 20:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Admins should not be deleting article on-sight merely because they are an expired PROD. Spurious nominations can (and should be) declined. Shereth 20:46, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well you can look in the deletion log, and ask an admin to have a second look at deletions that look as if there ws a prod on a notable topic. Do you have some examples you would like restored? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are assuming an admin opens the article and looks at it. There are several different tools designed to allow one to delete entire categories (like old PROD categories) without the bother of having to manually open each page. Dragons flight (talk) 20:55, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That would be bad, and I would be disappointed if that occurred (without review). People have been shot down at RfA's for missing a single CSD borderline case. If we have admins deleting entire categories of content without review, that would be a very bad example. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would expect that an administrator deleting all expired prods without bothering to look at them would be admonished, if not desysopped. That's a severe misuse of tools. -- Atama頭 22:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well perhaps you should talk to the frequent deleters of PRODs and ask them about their process. (The history of PRODSUM makes it easier to identify who is is really doing the deletions.) For example, NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is a frequent closer of PRODs and often deletes 20 such pages in a single minute. I would assume he uses a tool to accomplish deletions at that speed. Now, he could have reviewed every one of those beforehand, in which case there is no issue. Historically though there are certainly examples of people using tools to clear deletion backlogs with no review. For example, I remember someone deleting some 700 disputed fair use images without looking at their content or considering the validity of the dispute. Such people can get yelled at, but they are rarely desysoped. Dragons flight (talk) 22:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to point out that when I was an admin, I often handled several days of PROD at a time. I'd open up dozens or hundreds of tabs, go through them all (removing more than a few nominations, although in general PROD seemed pretty accurate & I consider myself an inclusionist) either editing them or opening up the deletion field, and then I'd make a second pass. So even though the log would show many deletions a minute (and even per second if I was typing particularly fast), I was still reviewing them all exactly as they should've been. Doing it this batch way saved me vast amounts of time because I didn't have to wait for several seconds of loading & rendering time for each page. From the outside, I don't think there's any easy way to see whether NuclearWarfare is employing a batch method or not. (Although I suppose you could look to see whether there are miscellaneous edits or PROD removals in the 20 or 30 minutes preceding a mass-deletion.) --Gwern (contribs) 00:52 10 November 2009 (GMT)
  • oppose if an article has no one watching it, I don't see it as much of a step towards creating a genuine article on the topic. Stubs are good up to a point, as sort of an outline for future development, provided it's actually a good outline. But I would think that the unwatched status of unwatched stubs might be correlated with them not being particularly good outline items. In cases where that's not so, the article can always be recreated. There's a legitimate concern that the editors who do care might have large watchlists and not notice the PROD, but that could be dealt with by formalizing the courtesy notices into a requirement. --Trovatore (talk) 20:54, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Prod is a valuable process. There is a group of regular prod patrollers who could always do with extra help. I regularly prod patrol, and in my experience the vast majority of articles deleted by prod have no chance of meeting our criteria. We delete maybe 60-80 articles per day via prod, and I rarely deprod more than two from a single day. Prod avoids the drama and sucking up of time of editors that AfD involves, and it is less severe than speedy deletion. Admins don't just blindly delete expired prods as they can contest the prod themselves if they see fit, and any prodded article can be restored at any time. Another option if you don't have the time to properly improve a prodded article is to move it to the Article Incubator. Fences&Windows 21:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I wonder what basis Floydian has for this argument, as it doesn't seem to match what WP:PROD states or how proposed deletions are actually processed. Articles that do not have any sources, haven't changed in several years, or contain a bare minimum of information would be as unlikely to be deleted via PROD as they would via AfD or CSD. As said above, every article deleted through PROD has been reviewed by an administrator who uses his or her own judgment regarding the deletion justification given when the deletion is proposed. Should we get rid of speedy deletions because someone might incorrectly put an A7 tag on a notable article subject that isn't being watched? -- Atama頭 22:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - PROD helps keep the workload at AFD manageable. Users' time is not an infinite resource, we should allocate it to discuss articles that actually might warrant a discussion. If anything we need to use PROD more. Any article deleted after a unanimous AFD could potentially have been PROD'ed. Mr.Z-man 23:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alternative: WT:PROD#Userfy PRODs instead of delete?. Rd232 talk 00:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The basis I have, which initially got me going on this idea (aside from my own opinion that as long as an article isn't utter BS of defamatory than it usually deserves a place here) was the over PRODing of articles by Less Heard van U (who is an admin I believe, and may have been deleting those articles after 7 days), who was doing so solely on the basis of A) a lack of sources and B) a certain size requirement. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 03:00, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you think the articles should have remained, tell the deleting admin, and they should restore it as a contested PROD.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 03:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's an issue to take up with the admin, or his/her behavior. There's no benefit to changing our policy based on one incident. BTW, you can see who deleted an article in the logs. Would be best to do that before making accusations. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PROD was intended to replace AFD and CSD. Somehow that process stopped halfway, and now we have 3 systems, instead of one good one. I wonder how much time it would take to take things a few steps forward again, sometime soon? --Kim Bruning (talk) 01:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kim, I think your memory is betraying you on this one. I don't believe anyone seriously proposed PROD as a replacement, but rather it was originally proposed as a way to take some of the load off a chronically overworked AFD. Dragons flight (talk) 01:56, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I know at least some folks (like me ;-) )wanted it to be side-by-side and then eventually replace, because AFD at the time was really bad, and admin deletion sucks in general. AFD has improved since then, CSD hasn't. It might be nice to actually work on updating the systems with what we've learned since last time, and simplifying besides :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 02:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why we need multiple systems and huge bureaucratic structures for deletion proposals. There should be one template that you stick on the talk page if you think a page warrants deletion. Have a bot date these templates, then an admin comes round after the appropriate time and decides what to do (based on the arguments given, if any, plus his/her own knowledge about wider consensus). No fuss (well fuss about whether to delete the page, obviously, but no additional complications spawned by the process itself). Ah, but that would be too simple, we have to let the wikibureaucrats have somewhere to play... --Kotniski (talk) 16:14, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have to let 'em play at all! I think you could sort of treat it like a hygiene issue analogous to -say- malaria at the panama canal: Eliminate the breeding grounds for them and/or the vector (simplify and tidy areas where too much bureaucracy has encroached), and inoculate people against them (by getting people to understand IAR and consensus as early as possible)
Do you think we can still stamp out the disease? ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC) To be clear, I'm not sure AFD is as much of a problem area as it was years ago. I think the bureaucrats have retreated to other areas.[reply]
Getting rid of PROD would at least concentrate the problem in one area (AFD), rather then spreading it out. The real issue with the current deletion process is simple: it's not structured enough. Surveys and widespread general opinion have shown for quite a long time now that at least the perception, if not the reality of, our current deletion process is simply too random. I know from my own personal investigations that the admins who regularly participate in AFD definitely have a brain on their shoulders, and there is at least a DRV process now in order to take care of the more egregious deletion problems. Those two items make me fairly confident that the majority of deletions that do occur are at least defensible. The fact remains that the process itself is still far too random, however. We all know that there are articles that almost every would agree should be deleted, yet when those articles manage to be identified they can still be difficult to delete. More serious is the fact that many "borderline" articles continue to be deleted on a daily basis. What some deletion advocates seem to (continuously!) fail to grasp is just how permanent and therefore demoralizing and damaging deletion is to author/editors... I don't want to turn this into more of an Inlcusionist rant then it already is, so I'll end here by simply saying that I support deprecating the confusing and unnecessary PROD procedure.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 05:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the majority of deletions are via CSD. In terms of deletions per day, there are about as many articles deleted via PROD as via AFD, and about 10 times as many articles deleted through CSD as AFD and PROD combined. Mr.Z-man 05:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. Honestly, I only use PROD if it's only borderline CSD. Most of my prods get deleted under speedy criteria.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 05:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is that you guys are right. Nobody is disputing the point that probably 99.9999999+% of all deletions are perfectly acceptable... but, none of that matters. The 0.0000001% of deletions that are not acceptable are the ones that are noticed, and the fact is that they should be. No matter how much potential good that the proper deletions gain the project, the fact is that the few instances of bad deletions do enough damage to far outweigh the good. At least, in my opinion.
There are those who take similar views and create an ideology that "all deletions are bad", which is just as much of a problem as doing nothing with the current deletion process is. I personally feel that a temporary moratorium on deletions (and a short one at that, possibly even just a few hours) is at least called for. However, that action is predicated on the belief that we can and should actually make a change that will better the project as a whole. Article deletion for it's own sake shold be stopped. Preventing article deletions for the sake of preventing deletions should be stopped as well. The process as a whole needs to be tweaked, at least, and intentionally slowing it all down certainly couldn't hurt (although, admittedly I do recognize that doing so will anger a certain percentage of the editorial population). At the very least, if all but the most egregious deletions take 7 days (or possibly even a couple of days longer)... who or what is harmed by that?
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 06:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that even if 5% of deletions by Prod were erroneous, the system is working fine. When people notice that their article is gone, they generally contract the deleting admin, and the article is restored. Abductive (reasoning) 07:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, no, no... anything as "in your face" as deleting articles simply cannot stand up to this line of thinking. If we were talking about normal open editing procedures then I would agree with the point that you're making here, but the simple fact is that we're not.
Article deletion needs to be treated with the same... "respect" (for lack of a better word) that blocking is treated with, and for the same reasons. I'm not arguing that the deletions are a mistake at all, just as the vast majority of blocks are perfectly acceptable. However, in the exact same manner that good blocks still create controversy and emotion, deletions will and should cause the very similar reactions.
Think about this: if there was some sort of a "speedy block" policy/procedure being proposed, what would your reaction be to that? Granted, the analogy is far from perfect here, but at least give it a chance.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 07:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I was just wondering why you seem to have a problem with the lack of a formal process for PROD and not for CSD, even though PROD can be overturned by anyone for any reason at any time. Why are you assuming that all of the bad deletions come through PROD? It isn't a "speedy" procedure at all, so your analogy doesn't make any sense. PROD takes as long as an AFD. Mr.Z-man 17:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, if I had my druthers, I would prefer to severely restrict the use of CSD, along with simply switching the PROD procedure to use AFD instead (which is effectively what we're talking about here). I don't really believe that any change in the deletion process is possible, but this at least started a discussion about it. It's just... complicated. For newer editors, and especially for part time editors (which, in my view, are probably the most important editorial members of Wikipedia), the fact that there are three different processes with a fourth follow up (CSD, PROD, AFD, with DRV to follow up) is simply confusing and overwhelming. The WP:DELETION document is in a perpetually confusing state. Whether someone comes along and decides to start one of the deletion processes on an article is way to random, and CSD and PROD almost always occur too quickly for non-regular editors (and even many regulars) to really follow the process (never mind the fact that there are simply too many deletion discussions to really follow). PROD does take as long as AFD, but it's a mostly silent procedure so the perception is still there of fast change.
Anyway, as I said earlier I don't really think that there are many bad deletions, if there are any at all. This isn't actually a discussion about reality though, it's a discussion about perceptions. All of you who oppose this proposal are on solid factual grounds, but the fact is that doesn't change the perceptions of those who are supportive. We're talking past one another still, at this point.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The proposer has brought up some hypotheticals, but I don't see any evidence that clearly notable articles or stubs are being routinely deleted via the PROD process simply because nobody is watching them. Sure, it could happen, but it's very unlikely. The system works, there is oversight to it, there's a strong fail-safe worked in to curb abuse (anyone can ask for it back at any time, an article can only be marked with a PROD once and only if it meets certain criteria.), and while having three separate processes can be confusing to outsiders, it's not that hard to explain things. I'm not entirely convinced PROD is necessary anymore, to be honest, since I'm not sure the problem it was intended to solve exists anymore. But I see no reason it should be dismantled because of what might happen in theory (if we're doing that, let's drop CSD first. In theory, one could get the main page deleted that way). --UsaSatsui (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Most PRODs in my experience are merited (and I deleted hundreds if not thousands of PRODs), usually have been looked over by a second user (excluding the deleting admin), and they do us a genuine service in considerably lightening the load on AfD, letting people focus on truly borderline articles. The userfication proposal has merit, but that's a separate issue (though I encourage Floydian to take it up next!). --Gwern (contribs) 00:57 10 November 2009 (GMT)
  • Oppose I regularly partrol PRODs, and regularly deprod about 5-10% of what's PROD'ed. I routinely restore prods per request... just check my talk page archives. The problem may be with individual admins not doing their jobs well, but not with PROD itself. Jclemens (talk) 04:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It's too easy to stop, if anyone really cares. Unschool 06:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. PROD is vital for its drama-reducing effect on the deletion process.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 21:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, but that's not to say that the process doesn't need serious improvement. Unwatched and uncared-for pages are a problem (I've seen many decent articles go), and the deletions shouldn't be done blindly. That said, the process has its place. As an idea it's much better than what AfD has become. Let's delete AfD instead. I'm not kidding. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 21:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose with alternative - require articles that have been around more than, say, 30 days to have 3 people agreeing to the deletion instead of just 2. This would allow today's "very easy" prods for new articles that weren't speedy-able but have a higher standard for lightly-watched articles. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment while I don't follow PRODs it does seem likely that, as I hae observed with CSDs, they do get deleted on the basis that thye are correctly and validly nominated. When I used to do CSD's it was delete, delete, delete.. wait lets examine this one: edit- not speedy, save - the page has been deleted by someone else - sigh, undelete. It may be better now of course. Rich Farmbrough, 21:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]
  • Comment I don't know what the answer is, but the system as it is doesn't always work as it should. I see a lot of AfDs which were contested PRODs, so although it's designed to lighten the AfD workload it has the potential to add to it instead. I think some editors try to use it as a short-cut process for articles which end up at AfD anyway. Sometimes I wonder how many people actually read the bit that says PROD is supposed to be for uncontroversial deletion candidates. It serves its purpose correctly when it's used for articles like How to be a spy, but on the other hand we have candidates like Wendy-O Matik, which probably has the potential for a decent article even though the current version needs a complete rewrite, and The Novocaines, which looks a perfectly acceptable article aside from the lack of citations and perhaps questionable notability of the subject: since the article was only created in October 2009 it's unlikely to have been completely abandoned by its author, and I think this one would have been better dealt with by tagging it appropriately and perhaps later AfD if concerns were not addressed. I would certainly support Trovatore's suggestion of making the courtesy notices on talk pages a requirement, which would lessen the chances of editors overlooking PRODs on a busy watchlist, but I also think that 7 days is a pretty short time period: editors could return from holiday, internet connection problems or real-life demands on their time to find their articles deleted. This isn't a major disaster with PRODs since articles can be reinstated on request, but it's still a bit demoralising especially for newbies who may be unfamiliar with procedures. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 05:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur w/CMD. In large part, the problem is editors who do not do a search on their own per wp:before, prior to prodding. The same problem afflicts AfDs.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per MrZ. ╟─TreasuryTag►stannator─╢ 21:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Featured content stars for featured pictures

Asian Golden Cat
Orange cat sitting with head up and eyes almost closed.
Wikipedia:Featured pictures
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Carnivora
Family:
Felidae
Genus:
Catopuma
Species:
C. temminckii
Binomial name
Catopuma temminckii
(Vigors & Horsfield, 1827)

You know how featured articles and featured lists are marked with a gold star in the corner? Let's mark featured pictures too so they're easier to find. Currently, readers either have to browse the featured content galleries or else click a lot of thumbnails to find featured picture needles in the content haystack. Here's an example of how hard it is to tell a featured picture from a non-featured picture at a glance. Several editors at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates have a proposed solution.

  • It can be hard to guess at thumbnail size which image is higher quality
  • not featured 536 × 380 pixels, 61 KB
    not featured 536 × 380 pixels, 61 KB
  • featured 8,359 × 5,800 pixels, 39.02 MB
    featured 8,359 × 5,800 pixels, 39.02 MB

Add a small featured star to the caption box near the featured picture. This communicates at a glance that the image meets the site's highest quality standards. Featured pictures hold up to viewing at close scrutiny, and can be suitable for monitor wallpaperand other purposes. At left is an example of a featured star in a taxobox. Below is an example of how the featured picture star would look in an image caption.
The featured picture stars would be implemented and maintained by bot. We think this would make it easier to see and enjoy the site's best content. Bringing the proposal to the wider community for discussion. Durova366 20:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am something of an anti-star curmudgeon (I don't like seeing FA stars floating around on user pages and all over the place) so you'll have to take my opinion with a grain of salt, but personally I find the solutions presented above to be distracting. FA stars on articles are, at least, somewhat inconspicuous and take up relatively little in the way of real estate; the above stars are intruding on templates and captions and to be honest seem inelegantly pasted in. I also would have some concern as to whether or not the addition of graphics into areas of templates where graphics might not be expected has unintended (and unwanted) consequences in terms of template formatting. So, the short answer is, I'm no fan of the idea but it may be just me. Shereth 21:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a featured pictures regular, so you'd expect me to support this, and I do. I think that the little stars are unobtrusive, and do the reader a service by signalling that the image really is worth their time. It improves the reader experience at very little cost. Mostlyharmless (talk) 22:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have an honest question here. I am curious how knowing which pictures happen to be featured improves the typical reader's experience? I'm not trying to question your statement but rather just trying to understand the point of view presented here, since I am having a difficult time seeing the material benefit of indicating, at least within articles, when an image has been selected as "featured". Shereth 22:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(To Shereth)- I can only speak for myself, but as a "photo-illiterate" who has to rely on others for photos/pictures for articles I create/work on, I often go to other articles and "steal" their photos for my new articles (to represent that existing article name on a new list article, or if I need a photo to represent a particular town and there is a geologic formation in that town with an existing article and photo). If I need a photo and I can tell at a glance which photo is a FP that would help me use the best one for my new article. That is just one example of what this star can help with.Camelbinky (talk) 23:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@ Shereth: It will increase curiosity and hopefully bring people into the project, get them to donate their photos, and maybe even nominated some FPs. I became a member of the project because of some of the beautiful images that were promoted to FP status, and only because I stumbled across some in articles (at first I didn't get the connection between FPs and POTD). Unlike articles though, images can be used in many places, so some rather non-descript articles may have some hidden treasures (which needn't be so hidden if the star were added). My amatuer interest in photography led me to take part in the process and since joining FPC, I've uploaded more than 600 photos, four of which are FPs. Durova is also working hard at getting donations from educational institutions; the opportunity to get on the Main Page sometimes opens up difficult-to-get-at collections. upstateNYer 00:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your replies. I am sympathetic toward those who put a lot of time and effort into creating/uploading images and graphics for use in Wikipedia - I've uploaded over 13,000 on Commons, mostly via bot and mostly graphics as opposed to images but I feel I have a certain amount of sympathy nonetheless. I'll chew over some of this information for a while and see if I come up with some additional insight but I appreciate your responses. Shereth 03:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • A featured star would alert viewers which of these views well at full size
  • not featured
    not featured
  • featured
    featured
  • Strong support with inclusion of infobox stars as well Couldn't have said it any better than Durova, and now that we have a way of getting the star in infoboxes, no FPs will be left behind. upstateNYer 22:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the idea but agree about screen real estate. It would be nice if one could use CSS trickery to place the star overlapping or on the image (with possibly some ability to set which corner it should be by), but then I worry that for some images, the star could become too distracting. --MASEM (t) 22:30, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support per UpstateNYer and Durova.Camelbinky (talk) 22:33, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "too so they're easier to find." is a poor argument, given that there are other methods to do so. I'm not going to go hunting for featured images by hunting through articles... It also draws the eye away from the image, unnecessarily so, and Masem's idea would simply obscure the image in question in some part. These are enough to draw me to oppose the proposal. --Izno (talk) 22:42, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support except for the infobox implementation. I find it to be obtrusive as used in the example infobox. The thumbnail view is great since that would be unused space next to the caption anyway. Great feature in an article with multiple angles or views of the same subject. Let's the reader know which one may be the best one to view at full-size. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 22:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a more palatable solution to my curmudgeonly resistance to these stars. I'm still not in support per se but if it has to be implemented I would prefer to see this solution :) Shereth 22:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't mind one way or the other about this little star, but if it is "hard ... to tell a featured picture from a non-featured picture at a glance", why is the featured picture project of use for Wikipedia, in which images are generally only viewed at a glance? Fences&Windows 22:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as a good way to encourage more good quality photographs in articles and reward editors that produce them. I think some more tough could be put into how the start is displayed - an overlay on the image might make it clearer that it is the image that is being "starred" and might work better in the info box example too. Is there any equivilent for "good articles" status for images? rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 23:40, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am pro highlighting featured images, but I'm not sure about the best approach. I'd consider adding a star as an overlay on one of the corners (though this may work poorly for some images). Or one could do something totally different like adding a gold border to the image frame rather than adding a star. Dragons flight (talk) 23:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • oppose - The majority of people who will see those stars (anons, and regulars) will have no idea what the stars are and can lead to confusion, especially when they click on it thinking the star would do something (as might a regular website)b. The current article stars are okay because they're hidden way up in the top corner, but this is right within the article. Perhaps this can be implemented as a gadget for those who see it as beneficial. -- penubag  (talk) 00:37, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This argument has already been brought a couple times at WT:FPC and the response has always been, "then what do those anons and regulars do about a star in the top-right corner of an article?" It's the same thing. upstateNYer 00:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the star at the top of an article is okay since it's out of the way and necessary to exemplify featured articles. But I personally think it's distracting to have stars in the middle of an article to point out "featured here and there" parts, and unnessary. One of the criteria for a featured article is that is is properly illustrated with images, and adding featured pictures help the final product get renowned. It seems unprofessional to single out good works within an article and advertise them. Shirley, Encyclopedia Britannica, or any encyclopedia doesn't engage in such practice. The image summary featured templates are good enough.-- penubag  (talk) 01:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I dont know what Shirley does in her encyclopedia (Airplane reference, get it?), but for your Enc. Brit. comparison- we arent paper, we can, and often do, do more than an encyclopedia can, we arent limited to doing only what "real" encyclopedias do. That really isnt an argument that can be used against this proposal. Paper encyclopedias dont have templates, infoboxes, wikiprojects, categories, talk pages, and alot of other "shiny things" that we can have being internet-based. This is another thing that helps us make a better encyclopedia, that's my two cents.Camelbinky (talk) 03:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Camelbinky pretty much said what I would have. As for your first sentence, what makes FPs any less noteworthy than FAs? An FA being illustrated is completely unrelated to FPs; it's nice to have FPs in an FA, but not required or even expected. Noting that an image is an FP with a star gives the project some needed press and may cause some new users to start donating their images and nominating good content (not all editors build text content, wikignome, etc - some limit their contributions to image-related tasks; why lose a potential contributor because of an argument over a star in a caption?). It's like when you first discover FA as a new user: "Wikipedia has standards? Gasp!" upstateNYer 04:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • What makes an FP less noteworthy than an FA? Nothing, but the images are being presented in an article, so if the article displays a star for being featured, it's okay. We are not reading images, and if we are, the featured star exists on the file description page, which is where it belongs. If "it's nice to have FPs in an FA, but not required or even expected" then why showcase it just when they are??? Camelbinky only talked about one of my points which I admit was poorly crafted, so I retract that statement. Your second point about "lose a potential contributor" is like the argument for having image placeholders which has been rejected by the community. Also, another comment, if this proposal passes, why not have featured stars on featured quotes from Wikiquote? I would love to see that happen. -- penubag  (talk) 06:08, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • Identification of quality images serves the same function as identification of other content, such as articles: to get the attention of potential contributors who could donate material at a similar level. The New York Times ran a piece last summer about Wikipedia's need for better media content, which profiled a successful professional photographer who has contributed a featured picture.[1] To highlight only the featured articles doesn't help to improve the media side, since most featured pictures appear within articles that aren't featured. Few individuals are skilled at both media and text contribution; featured articles often display images that are merely adequate. There's even been a problem with non-media editors replacing featured pictures with lower quality images. It's usually done in good faith; they just don't realize the difference. Durova366 18:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • Just as much effort is put into getting an FP as an FA, trust me. The time commitment and the number of gigabytes of photos that I don't nominate or upload is large. As for your wikiquote reference, I'd have no problem with that, but note that you're talking about a completely separate project whereas FP is a WP project. And I didn't know the image placeholders had been poo-pooed by the community; I use them all the time and think they're a great idea! upstateNYer 22:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Maybe at some point WP can become more of an encyclopedia for readers and less of a repository for signs and symbols of behind the scenes social activity? --Kleinzach 02:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I get the feeling that some of the opposes are on the basis that this is merely project-cruft. However, high quality pictures that illustrate articles in highly encyclopedic ways are important to the project. Wikipedia:Feature Pictures places high premium on the "encyclopedic value" of an image in illustrating particular articles - being merely pretty or high quality is not enough. Wikipedia's Featured Pictures are ones that add considerable value to articles, and thus are likely to be images which readers are likely to get value from in looking at more closely. For this reason having a small and unobtrusive marker is going to improve the encyclopedic experience of readers. Mostlyharmless (talk) 02:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I find this rather uncontroversial. Having a star on the page isn't going to detract from the quality of the image, nor can I see it confusing new users. We already have this for other featured content, so I'm fine with this. PeterSymonds (talk) 03:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Do you find the images to be linked inline with the text in every instance? Say, everything linked to Barack Obama? That is the equivalent of what will be done here, in my eyes. How would you not find that obtrusive? --Izno (talk) 04:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Would you mind elaborating? I'm having trouble understanding your meaning here. Just to cover the base, the plan is to have the stars link to WP:FP in all instances (though you may very well not be referring to that link; again, I was unclear on your statement). upstateNYer 04:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support — raeky (talk | edits) 06:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fairly obvious support. Wikipedia is known for its crap photos and this may go some way to correcting that problem (by encouraging new photos and keeping crap ones out of articles that already have FPs). MER-C 07:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It gets my support too, following on from Mostlyharmless' comment. A wee star saysclick me, and just like the FA star, it tells you you'll be rewarded by spending some time with the content you find when you do. Per MER-C, images on WP are increasingly underrated, under-employed and overlooked, and this may well prove a key element in reversing that trend. mikaultalk 07:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support When you compare the amount of space advertising "featured articles", the little start is quite minimal. It is also part of a necessary emancipation of the illustration.. remember, a picture paints a thousand words and, many of our articles are overly verbose.. GerardM (talk) 10:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would there be a way to replace "" in thumbnails of FPs with a slightly flashier version - maybe gold background on the larger rectangle, rays, or superimposed star on larger rectangle? No extra screen clutter, easily differentiable for people who are looking for it, and would signify that it's the magnified version that's special. Pseudomonas(talk) 12:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • We thought of changing that but it would require actual code changes to the wiki, there isn't a template anywhere that would work for that. Then again it's possible to create a custom image box template for FP's that would do as you say, unfortunately that would also be beyond the abilities of us that created the template and proposed the idea. — raeky (talk | edits) 16:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The reason to add this feature is sound and I support it. However, as was stated on the first discussion about this in WP:FPC, this proposal can only works if the star is added through an entirely automatic process (such as "picture has FP tag -> auto include of star whenever picture is included in a page" which would be very tricky to do). Many pictures are featured and some are delisted every week, and all pictures may be included in several places, so ensuring that the star is displayed for the right pictures everywhere is a huge work. Failing to do this properly will merely make this star meaningless, with many thumbnails of FP lacking it, and some thumbnails of delisted pictures having it. Soon, misinformed people will start to add it to any picture they find pretty. Therefore, until someone propose a way to deal with this problem, I oppose the creation of this template which will otherwise probably be misused and then misunderstood. Ksempac (talk) 14:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Part of the closing process (specifically for delisting) could be adding/removing this from pages, generally FP's are not on _lots_ of pages but only a one or two or three rarely more. It wouldn't be that much more of a burden. The bot would just ensure that it's not being used anywhere it shouldn't along with catching pages that a FP is used on later. — raeky (talk | edits) 16:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • An understandable worry, but easy to resolve the same way featured articles and featured lists get managed. A bot would update the displays per the featured picture templates. So other than coding the bot, this doesn't create any more work for anybody. Durova366 18:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Some kind of tag to indicate a featured picture would be fine, so long as it is not too intrusive. Surely a bot could take care of the maintenance? How are the featured article stars done? Fences&Windows 15:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely. As far as I can tell, the worst-case scenario brought up here is that readers will be confused, click on the link, figure it out, and the either a. go "Okay" and get on with their lives or b. get interested and start editing. Where's the downside? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I didn't even know WP had such a thing as featured images until I started reading WP:Signpost. Our featured content (and to a lesser degree our "good" content) is supposed to represent our best material, and we should try to make readers aware of that. --RL0919 (talk) 17:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Definitely. We give lots of praise and kudos to the people who work on FAs, but not so much for featured images.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 17:30, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support outside of infoboxes. I'm not convinced from the example above that they look good inside them. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support for this outside of infoboxes as well. I've given it some thought and while I still find them mildly obtrusive I doubt they would do any harm. I wish there was a more elegant way to perhaps replace the symbol with something indicative of the featured status but that is merely nitpicking on my part. However I will still oppose the inclusion of any graphic symbol within infoboxes, as they do funky things to the formatting and are more than a little intrusive in appearance in these instances. Shereth 18:27, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, reasonable proposal. Rather uncontroversial addition to the website. –blurpeace (talk) 20:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support but not in infoboxes Great idea, it helps readers to find the best of Wikipeda images. It looks confusing in the taxobox-what's it linked to? Let's leave them out of infoboxes, though. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note If a bot is going to be used to maintain these, it should be easy for the bot to only add the star for images where the file name is located within [[ ]] brackets, and ignore those without. That would skip any image located in an infobox. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 21:02, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Maybe it's just me, but I don't have a problem with how the star looks in the infobox example. --RL0919 (talk) 21:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at the image above, I don't know what the star is related to. It does not appear, in the infobox with the cougar, that the star is related to the image, but rather that the star is related to the species in some way. Even in this discussion about stars on featured pictures, and knowing exactly what FA and FP stars look like, my first thought was that the star means it's an endangered species or maybe one taken off the endangered list. I want stars on featured pictures in articles, I think it's a great idea, past time to have them. But I don't want to confuse readers, ever. Impossible to reach that goal of never confusing a reader, so I'll settle for eliminating the worst confusion. When I see something that is so confusing, that I'm not sure what it is even when I know what it is, this is, imo, something that may confuse more users than it provides any utility for. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 22:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thiodina puerpera
Wikipedia:Featured pictures
Image of a female Thiodina puerpera
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Arachnida
  • Support - both infoboxes and thumbs. A star below an infobox image would not look obstructive if there's a caption provided, such as the one on the right. Maybe the FPC process can imply the requirement of captions in infobox FPs, which would also merit the EV an image needs to be featured. ZooFari 01:18, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now it even more appears to be saying the species is rated star for some reason, removed from endangered list would be my guest. My second guess would be the taxon's article is a featured article. The problem is, imo, it appears to belong to the taxon, not to the image. And, I like the idea of attaching the stars to featured images in article space to let users know they're special. But I don't like the idea of attaching stars that don't appear to be for the image. In addition, adding the star to the taxobox will require input from the biology projects. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 01:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Readers only care about the content of articles (and images), not about those internal mechansms of wikipedia. They care about if the article is complete, clear, well-written, etc; and if images are of good quality and related to the topic, or not. Being featured, however, is only of community concern. The star can be considered a self reference (by being an addition that isn't related with the article at all), but having no text and being at a corner the problem is so small it can be ignored. Those others, however, would be in the middle of it all. Second, have in mind that internal links to featured articles from other articles make no distinction when they link featured articles, there's no underline, bold text or gold link instead of blue. Why should images be any different? And third, an image is featured or not by itself. For an article to be well ilustrated, the image must be related and ilustrative of the topic, not necesarily a featured one. For example, let's say there's an article that talks about an old war: a portrait about such war, even if available at a low resolution, would be far better than a photo of a sunset in the beach where the armies once landed, even if that sunset is a featured image. MBelgrano (talk) 02:26, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually you're overgeneralizing there. Just like an article can't be featured without images, an image can't be featured without being in articles. Encyclopedic value is what makes WP:FPC different from Commons:FPC. upstateNYer 03:29, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wikipedia Featured Pictures places a very high premium on the encyclopedic value of the image in illustrating a particular concept with specific reference to the articles. Unless it relates to the text that surrounds it, it won't be featured. WP:FP isn't pretty pictures - they do that at Commons:FP. WP:FP is about illustrating the encyclopedia with the best images. Mostlyharmless (talk) 02:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Generally support but reasons for opposes need to be taken into account before implementing. See User_talk:Durova/Archive_73#Implimenting featured picture stars easily for a couple of ways implement this automagically. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose in Infoboxes As others have commented, it would not sufficiently clear to the uninformed what the star applies to, possible misinterpretations including the infobox itself or its subject. Also wastes a slight amount of space if no caption is present for the infobox image. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding taxoboxes one of the most encyclopedic uses of high quality images is species identification. Wikipedia's photographers have been doing amazing work in that regard, for example with birds and flowers. It would be a real service to readers to have a cue available when the lead image is that useful. Durova366 19:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The concern is that the star does not appear to indicate the picture is featured, when it's in the taxobox. Even coming here to discuss this, knowing that's what the stars are, my first thought was the pictured cat had been moved off the endangered list or something.
    So, if the star is not a cue to the image being featured, but leads to confusion about the status of the species, then it's not a cue about the lead image. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:47, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added an endangered species with an image star. It looks like the star is attached to the IUCN red list category in some way, and about the same with a caption or without. Adding this to taxoboxes will require input from biology editors, also. They should be notified of this discussion. Also fossil organisms have age ranges, add the star to the trilobite taxobox with its fossil range to see that it doesn't appear to indicate it's a featured picture. Yes, clicking on it takes you to the FP page, but, it still starts out with confusion. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barbary Lion
Wikipedia:Featured pictures
Barbary Lion
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Order:
Carnivora
Family:
Felidae
Genus:
Panthera
Species:
P. leo
Subspecies:
P. l. leo
Trinomial name
Panthera leo leo

Note Due to the proposal to add the stars to taxoboxes I posted a request for input at the taxobox template discussion page, and at wikiprojects Tree of Life, Animals, Plants, and Fungi. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 08:34, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate implementation

I don't think that the core of this idea is bad, but I think that it's clear that the proposed implementation is lacking somehow. I was just thinking that a good solution would be to use the "Designated Metadata Area" (if that's actually a term) that the current featured article start uses, and to use a different graphic (a graphic of something like a photo would seem to make sense). If the Featured Photo appeared anywhere on a Featured Article then both icon would appear.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 13:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This makes the most sense. I'm going through this page thinking "caption areas? infoboxes? Thats ridiculous!" Why would these appear anywhere except on the File: namespace for the photo. We don't put stars in the infoboxes or next to the links of featured articles, why should we with featured pictures? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 17:04, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Solution to Ambiguity

There is really nothing to prevent the community from decreeing that the star for FPs be the same star as for FAs. If we had a featured image star that looked unique, it would solve all three different ambiguity concerns that I have seen above. Nezzadar [SPEAK] 16:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Only for established users who know what the conventions are. For the regular user who just uses Wikipedia as a website, it'd just make things that wee bit more confusing, unintuitive, and excluding. Pseudomonas(talk) 16:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. That might work. Can you offer a suggestion, a logo about an image that makes it seem the image is unique? I do like the idea of cluing the user in to the quality of the image, particularly since if it's a featured picture it's usually a large file, and, when it's not, it's usually a very important image. This makes finding an image, particularly when it's not your specialty, easier. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 19:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Subdividing for clarity

It appears that most people support the use of featured picture stars in captions and a smaller number support it for infoboxes. In order to clarify matters please state your opinion in one of the following sections:

  1. Support implementation of featured picture stars in caption boxes and in infoboxes.
  2. Support featured picture stars in caption boxes only.
  3. Oppose any use of featured picture stars.
  • Strong, strong oppose - This would be troubling. All FPs should be treated fairly. One of the reasons for stars is the motivation of nominations, and potential FP contributers would be motivated to contribute their images in thumbs only. Taxo bars are what we consider high EV images and we don't want to lower that bar. ZooFari 23:29, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I find the white space created in the taxobox to look awkward, and the star is not clearly linked to the picture in that location. I also don't agree with the proposal to add a caption in the infobox to fill the white space. Any picture in an infobox should already match the title bar, and a caption would be redundant. They work well in the thumbnail frame, and should be used there. Nothing says that the best picture is going to be most appropriate for the infobox anyway. That one should contain one that will be most recognizable to the reader, whether featured or not. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 00:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • For what it is worth, this is not my preferred solution; I actually have a preference for the below option (oppose all stars), however, for the sake of cooperation and compromise I am willing to support this version. I am still quite opposed to any addition of such stars to infoboxes. Shereth 05:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --Cybercobra (talk) 06:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although, leaning toward the below option, as it is hard to communicate to supporters just how inappropriate they look and how confusing their addition to taxoboxes would be to readers. They're too confusing in the taxobox. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose any use of featured picture stars in article space. Stars linked to internal Wikipedia processes are 'self-referential'. They shouldn't be used in the encyclopedia per se. Nor do I agree that "most people support the use of featured picture stars" (above). The opposition is considerable. How about setting up a thorough-going centralized discussion to see what support this really enjoys? Reg. --Kleinzach 23:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I note that stars for featured articles and featured lists appear in the mainspace. Anywhow, I agree that the discussion should be fully publicized considering how much input it has already drawn and the diversity of opinion. An RfC with placement on WP:CENT should do the trick. --RL0919 (talk) 23:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Article stars are a different matter since they appear outside the body of the article; they are as much part of the article as donation banners. If this feature is implemented, we'll have articles literally peppered with stars. mgiganteus1 (talk) 11:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course, at the moment, thanks to said banners, the FA stars appear in the article body. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose featured picture stars. The stars are disproportionately flashy, potentially confusing in meaning (especially in the taxobox), and most importantly, do not improve the encyclopedic merit of the article in any way. The image is already there; it's doing its job regardless of whether a star's next to it. What problem is adding these stars meant to solve? Is there a flood of complaints that unmarked featured pictures are detracting from users' experiences? The point of every Wikipedia article is to present information. Let's keep out unnecessary distractions to that goal, and high-quality images can attract attention to themselves on their own merits. -- Yzx (talk) 09:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Distracting and unnecessary. Woefully inadequate as a way of highlighting quality images in an article, because the number of FP-like images on Wikipedia is very many times greater than the number of official FPs, and this will always be the case. mgiganteus1 (talk) 11:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose in article space. What next, stars next to article links? Hesperian 11:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - weakly for thumbnail boxes, strongly for infoboxes. It's all distraction and clutter that bit-by-bit makes Wikipedia less intuitive. Pseudomonas(talk) 11:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Urgh, this is hideous. FA stars are tucked away in the Designated Metadata Area(TM) in the top-right corner, not actually within the main content pane. This is self-referential and a gaudy advertisement, and implementation would be an emormous undertaking. Would that people stopped obsessing over their stars - it's bad enough that people feel the need to tart their home pages up with so many silly boy scout badges without this creeping any further onto articlespace. That said, I would not be opposed on principle to Pseudomonas's suggestion in the general comments section that the "click to view me full size" icon in thumbnails could be overloaded in some way for FIs (certainly not with a flipping star though), but not in infobox templates.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Thumperward (talk • contribs) 12:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd kind of thought of something like but less ugly (that was hacked up in 5 min). Personally I'd be happy to shelve this until MediaWiki allows a parameter for overloading the images - then we could also maybe overload for disputed images &c. Pseudomonas(talk) 13:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I don't personally have strong feeling about this, but I think that the oppose commentary here makes for a fairly convincing argument. It's probably a good idea to bring some attention to featured pictures (and other featured content), but this doesn't seem to be the way to go about it. I find the "self-referential" and "not in the content pane" arguments offered above to be particularly compelling.
    — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 13:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose All the featured content within Wikipedia should be treated the same. We don't add stars to everyplace that a featured article or list links in other articles. The thumbnails in the articles are links to the picture page and from what I have seen, the picture page has the star in the upper right hand corner (like articles and lists) but it also has a banner on the page stating it is a featured picture. We do not need to add additional star everyplace that it links. ~~ GB fan ~~ talk 13:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, self-congratulatory and kindergarten-ish. Readers can't be expected to dig through our back-office processes to understand what it means. Changing the color of the little magnify symbol would be a more aesthetically pleasing option if this is felt necessary, but I don't think it would be a positive step in any form. Christopher Parham (talk) 13:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose in article space . An image can be valuable to one article, while being unsuited or even misleading in another. Having the star in article space may give the sometimes false impression that the image is the one best suited for that particular article. Melburnian (talk) 13:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Good point, Melburnian. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 20:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Swayed by good arguments of opposers. Self-referential; obscure; distracting; clutter. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Classic example of original research: no independent evidence of notability.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    ...huh? not that I disagree with the !vote, since I opposed myself, but... Original research? notability? What does that have to do with anything here?
    — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 13:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If someone were to add a Wikipedian with many barnstars, many newly created articles, and hundreds of thousands of edits, but who was not notable outside Wikipedia, to a "List of people in Wherever" article, it would rightfully be reverted, since there is no independent evidence of notability. If a bunch of Wikipedians formed a project to issue a list of the ten best English-language movies of the year, based not on external reviews, but on their own opinions, it's hard to imagine they'd get much support to put it in mainspace. How are featured pictures any different?--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Humm... I don't have any real issue with the Featured Article or Featured Picture process myself. Labeling them as OR isn't really accurate or helpful here though, since the processes themselves are not really what's at issue here. Let's not overstate our case here, and start an argument about something that is really tangential to the proposal. We're hardly going to develop consensus to deprecate those processes out of this discussion, after all.
    — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 16:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    You asked him to explain his reasoning, and he did. He's not starting an argument, nor does he give any appearance of trying to start one or get rid of the FP or FA processes. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 17:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I have no quibble with having FA or FP, nor do I disagree with the concept of barnstars: All are ways to encourage quality, cooperation, and all the other good things that make Wikipedia work. On the other hand, elevating the identity of the awardees to encyclopedic content seems counterproductive.--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree that it elevates them by using them in article space. I find it helpful to know an article is a FA or an image is a FP because I know it has received some level of scrutiny higher generally than regular articles. (The FP I admit is more about size and technical issues and poorly about EV, but I still find FP more useful, often, than non-fP.) Still, I see you have valid concerns, because of my ()al remark about FPs. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 18:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm just trying not to be confused here, because I am, and we're essentially on the same "side" so that's not a good situation. There seems to be a rather fundamental viewpoint difference here because I don't see FA or FP evaluations as an "award" at all. Classifying them together with barnstars at least sheds some light on the original question that I had about this, but it only creates a new question. There are people that take personal pride in "getting an article to FA" status, and Durova clearly takes pride in doing the same with images. That's great for everyone because ultimately the encyclopedia wins all the way around. The editors are motivated to (continue to) contribute, and the content is vastly improved. However, the FA or FP "award" ultimately belongs to the article or file in question, not the article. So... again, I hardly begrudge the !vote since I'm !voting the same way, but this position concerns me because it seems to be a repudiation of the whole "featured content" system itself, and I don't want to support that.
    — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 19:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    But you're not supporting any particular other vote by voting the same. Whatever reason you vote, is simply your reason. If someone else votes the same way as you, but for a different reason, there's no assumption that you adopted their reasoning. I've not even heard of that, so I may be wrong about what you seem to be saying. Others' reasons for their votes don't accrue to you when you vote the same. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe to you, which is great, but human nature being what it is... Anyway, it's not as big of a deal as we appear to be making it. I was more curious then concerned, really.
    — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 11:21, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, of no help to Wiki readers, and featured pictures is a process which gets very limited community input. These proposals are self-referential "creep". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, I think the idea is inherently flawed, as there is no good way to indicate that images are featured without either being confusing or obscuring part of the image. No one's going to understand why stars are appearing in their captions. They will just end up being removed. Kaldari (talk) 17:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose It's not a terrible idea, but I just don't think it really adds anything that would be useful for most readers. And the infobox stars in particular would just be confusing. Reach Out to the Truth 17:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I had been willing to support a compromise solution but the more I think about it the less I am convinced. The only real argument as to a material benefit to the reader is, paraphrased, "Lets users know which images view well at full size/are worth clicking on to see at full size". This reasoning implies that non-featured images are somehow not worth clicking on to look at in full size, or somehow do not look good at full resolution, and that is patently false. The distinction between an otherwise "good" image and a "featured" image can be marginal at best, and to the untrained eye (or those not familiar with the process) may be negligible. Take the Tower Bridge photos above. The featured photo is clearly superior but the non-featured version is not bad. There really is not a convincing reason to encourage editors to view one image at full size but not the other. I can't see any defensible argument that these stars provide the reader any material benefit and thus no longer see any reason to support any version of the proposal, sorry. Shereth 17:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I stated before, stars on featured content are added in the content itself, at an unobstrusive place. Featured articles or lists are not linked from other articles any different than non-featured ones and there is no system intended to make their links more "visible". There's no compeling reason not to do the same with images: if they are of featured quality, and are included in the article, then they are already doing their work. MBelgrano (talk) 14:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Time to welcome orphans with open arms

The policy of trying to "build the web" was appropriate when WP was 10-100,000 articles. Now coverage is wider it is unreasonable to expect Bulbophyllum abbreviatum, for example, to have more than one link, and I am perfectly certain that almost all people looking for the article will find it by search rather than link. Moreover for species, asteroids, stars, planets, genes, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, at least, we are in danger of creating, or indeed have created, main-space lists either as stand-alone article, or as dominant parts of articles, whose function is performed as well or better by categories - just to get that all important what links here. Time to stop deprecating orphans. Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I don't really think that means we have to stop identifying and integrating orphans, and I'm not sure why having lists would be a problem. The reason we have lists is because some people do navigate that way, and expecting people to be forced to the search box for the obscure ones seems silly to me. --Izno (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I, for one, like the webyness of wikipedia, and think that making connections between articles with the use of [[links]] is important. IMO of course. Tim1357 (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many articles are massively overlinked. Wikilinks should be used when there is a reasonable probability that a typical reader would want to follow them, not simply because the target of the link exists. As a general rule, add a wikilink when the target is either closely related to the current article, or else obscure.
It is especially important not to wikilink extremely broad topics from articles that are either only tangentially related, or are much more specific than the broad topic. As an example of the first, in an article on Albert Einstein, when mentioning a visit to the California Institute of Technology, there is no need to wikilink California. (OTOH California probably should be wikilinked in the article on the California Institute of Technology.)
As an example of the second case, in the article on the Stone–Čech compactification, there is no need to wikilink mathematics. --Trovatore (talk) 23:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Identifying them is fine -- though I would have to agree with what Rich is saying, in that having them isn't inherent BAD or at all an indication or no notability. Sometimes there's just very little that COULD link to something, because of its specificness. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, encouraging sensible linking is fine, but it's "time to stop deprecating orphans". I can endorse that. --Kleinzach 23:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. A category is fine, but a big ugly tag isn't helpful. Why does the reader need to know that other articles don't link to the one they're reading? Fences&Windows 02:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a simple change to {{orphan}}, making it just a category, would work?--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 02:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. Sometimes the editor needs a reminder that an article that might be linked isn't — but it should be unobtrusive to the reader. --Kleinzach 09:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like this plan, with the proviso that the category be given some name meaningful to non-insiders - "Articles linked to by very few other articles" or something similar but less clumsy. Pseudomonas(talk) 10:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wanted to offer support for this plan as well. Note that I've also linked to this discussion from Template talk:Orphan.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 15:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't aware that tagging orphans for cleanup was mandatory. We try to de-orphan articles because it is helpful to readers. We stop if that's not possible. So it has been, so it will be. There are no changes required here. I'm especially opposed to any changes to the display or placement of {{orphan}} itself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:46, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"De-orphaning" articles may be very helpful to readers, but that's a large generalization. No one can really agree on what puts an article into the "orphan" category anyway.
Anyway, the intent with all of the cleanup tags is that none of them are required to be used. Unfortunately, the reality for all of them in actual practice seems to be that there are many people who seem to think that they are required. I don't have any real statistics or anything, but the impression is that there are many people running around looking for articles to tag (an activity often referred to as "drive by tagging". The existence of such a phrase ought to give a somewhat empirical sense of the size of the problem). This sort of activity is at least marginally helpful, but... Personally, I'm very ready to support any proposal to move cleanup tags onto talk pages, but no one really seems willing (or able) to step up and make it happen.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As I'm wont to point out, I'm in the top 250 contributors by edit count and I direct my work almost exclusively by "drive-by tagging" articles that have problems and coming back to them later to fix them. That the tagging system is so advanced at this point suggests that I'm hardly alone in this regard. I'm happy to have a discussion on the intricacies of what makes for an orphan, but not on the general principle of tag-first-fix-later which results in huge improvements in Wikipedia every day at the cost of offending the aesthetic sensibilities of those who dislike tags as flags. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:33, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let me ask you this then, what would be the objection to placing the tags on the talk pages? I don't care how you work, honestly (and I really don't care what your edit count is, to be blunt), but it does bother me that your editing activities get in the way of my reading and sometimes even editing. Again, I'd like to reiterate that this has very little to do with aesthetics, and I frankly find it somewhat insulting to have my concerns in this dismissed as a minor aesthetic problem.
As for the orphan tag itself, I don't think that anyone really needs to pontificate on it's deeper meanings, but if you'd like to do so feel free. Rich seems to be making a good point though in that this particular classification has probably outlived it's usefulness.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 13:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They can't be targeted to sections, we already have a separate tagging system for talk pages, it's more effort both to add and remove them. "I'm all for dismissing the weighting of an argument on the basis of edit count in general, but in this case it is intricately tied to the outcome of the discussion (because I'm heavily in favour of tags because I place a large number of them, and this demonstrably makes me more productive). If you want to hide all cleanup tags it's trivial to do so with a bit of code in your monobook.css; it is somewhat less trivial to suggest a workaround in the opposite direction. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rich, I'm not clear on what you are proposing here. If you want to reduce the number of lists through some deletion campaign, then that needs to be handled with some sensitivity. Some lists are useful, & could be valuable contributions to Wikipedia. A list of species in a genera -- to refer back to your example -- could be seriously considered for FL status if it included a discussion of the various schools of thought on the taxonomy of a given genus -- authorities differ, sometimes quite radically, over what belongs to a given genus, & old classifications persist in non-biological works. Some lists are, well to be kind, relics of the old days of Wikipedia when we were all concerned about sufficient coverage & preserving orphans. (List of Egypt-related topics would be an example of that, although it is useful for its "Related changes" link.) If you want editors to stop reviewing lists of orphan articles to find ways to link to them from other articles, that shouldn't be done, because it serves as a useful tool for finding problems with existing articles; to provide one example (exaggerated for effect), if I discovered Bill Gates was an orphan, I'd immediately start looking at a number of articles I know that exist & ought to mention him to see what was changed. Or are you proposing something different from these? -- llywrch (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No I certainly don't propose a list-purge - although the dynamic nature of categories is better for some lists. And explicit reciprocal link lists are often useful Dariusz Szlachetko maybe should link to the Bulbophyllum example above. "a useful tool for finding problems with existing articles" well so does "random article" or any of the cleanup categories. Rich Farmbrough, 11:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]
Ohms law: "I'm very ready to support any proposal to move cleanup tags onto talk pages . . . ." Good, I'm not for putting all cleanup tags on talk pages, but this particular (orphan) tag would be better there. --Kleinzach 01:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone does decide to move forward with a proposal in this area, we should talk about the different cleanup templates individually as well as the group as a whole. It's generally a bad idea to paint whole groups of items with the same brush, after all.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 19:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I agree, that is why I focus on the Orphan tag. Being an orphan is sign, not a symptom or a problem per se. I suppose a simple solution would be an <ok> paramter - that would simply hide the tag, remove it from the clean-up category, stop anyone re-tagging and leave an implicit message "we have spotted that this is an orphan but it's cool". Might also be applicable to some other tags. Rich Farmbrough, 11:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Advanced search / regexp

Would it be possible to add an advanced search feature that allows regular expression based searches to Wikpedia, or would that just bog the servers down infinitely?

76.66.197.2 (talk) 14:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that it would be impractical on the technical level (especially if you wanted full-text search and not only title-search), but that does sound like a feature that could be quite useful. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 16:06, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A toolserver-er could rig up such a search for titles only. Or you can download a dump and use AWB to full-text search it. Neither of which answer your point, but hey :) - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 19:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mirroring Wikipedia would be ... bandwidth, time, and space consuming... especially if anyone wanting an advanced search would need to do this over and over again, assuming however large Wikipedia is right now would not exceed the maximum size of whatever tools one has ready access to 76.66.197.2 (talk) 09:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Even a title-only search would be quite useful. 76.66.197.2 (talk) 09:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can always make a request at bugzilla:. Cenarium (talk) 22:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Allow trusted users admin tools in their own user-space

Allow established users the ability to change protection and delete pages in their own user space and/or user talk space upon request, similar to rollbacker or autoconfirmed autoreviewer rights. This would reduce administrator workload and eliminate the delay waiting for administrators. Note: For legal reasons seeing deleted pages or edits is not part of this proposal, but it could be added as a new proposal later if WP:OFFICE okays it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:30, 25 November 2009 (UTC) updated 04:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But its not just about the admin workload. Its giving editors the freedom and abilities they should already have in their own userspace. We should already be allowed to have these "powers" standard within our own userspace. Administrator=Janitor. Who hires a janitor to clean their own house? Let us clean our own little space of Wikipedia. Admin "powers" arent special that they need to be so guarded. We arent children who need them to "protect ourselves from ourselves because we cant be trusted". Give us good faith we wont "abuse" some minor tools.Camelbinky (talk) 06:15, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Its not about the admin workload at all, because there really isn't any. Any decrease in workload from not having to delete and protect a few userspace pages will be offset by the extra workload of giving out the userright. There's nothing in the software that supports this, its not something that could be accomplished by just flipping a switch. Unless there's some real practical reason for this, I don't see the benefits. Mr.Z-man 06:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)I was initially in favor of this during the last discussion, but as was said there, the potential benefits don't justify the programming effort that would be required to allow this. Allowing users to "clean their own little space" would only be a benefit if it relieved the general "cleaning" effort in some way. Userspace author-requested deletions are the least controversial, thereby the quickest, and consequently the least likely to get backlogged. The above rationale sounds more like "why not let users rule over their own little domain so they can feel a little powerful," and the answer is because there's barely any practical benefit. Equazcion (talk) 06:29, 25 Nov 2009 (UTC)
Total agreement with Mr.Z-man and Equazcion. As it's not a simple switch, one must look at how much effort it would take versus what benefit it brings. Is allowing a user to protect/unprotect or delete/undelete pages within their own userspace something that drains the administrator pool? Is allowing that something that benefits the encyclopedia? Is allowing that something that provides a (useful) stepping-stone to full adminship (as rollbacking does)? The answer to all three questions is "no" (being able to delete or protect your own pages doesn't show policy discernment, whereas correctly or incorrectly rolling back edits does, which is how it fails the third question) EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your analogy is flawed in that userspace isn't supposed to be your own house. Let me turn it around: Who cleans their own workplace when the company has a janitor whose job it is to do that? Or do they just put the trash in the trash can and let the janitor take it out? Anomie⚔ 12:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pages moves would likely cause escalation of privilege issues. There's also a concern about perpetuating the view that users "own" their user space or creating even more bureaucracy (adding another user right, another granting process, a more confusing interface, etc.). I'm hesitant. --MZMcBride (talk) 12:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • MZMcBride is correct that this proposal combined with current page move privileges has the potential to make this equivalent to full admin privileges. It is not unheard of for someone who disagrees with the existence of an article to move it to their userspace, blank the resulting redirect, and then attempt to {{db-user}} the "offending" page. This proposal removes the issue of an admin checking the page history and reverting the page move. While I agree with the general sentiment behind this proposal, there potential for abuse is too high for my support. Besides, if a user is really "trusted" enough that we do not need worry about abuse then the user is also trusted enough to pass a Wikipedia:Requests for adminship nomination. --Allen3 talk 12:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • (ec) If I understand this correctly, the idea is that if someone really doesn't like an article they will get a new alternative to just blanking it: Move it into their userspace and delete it there. Or even better: move a BLP article into their userspace, add some libel, protect it, and move it back over the redirect. Add to this a draconian policy that makes such actions punishable with immediate permaban and no exceptions, and we might be able to get rid of some of our more disruptive users a bit easier. Any other significant advantages? Hans Adler 13:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is it technically possible to begin with, give user rights for certain pages and not others? (which is not the same than granting some, instead of all, the user rights administrators have; as those rights still apply for all pages for the given user) If not, any discussion would be useless MBelgrano (talk) 13:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt the software would have to be changed for that, and given the issues around it that's unlikely to happen. What should be rather easy to do, though, is adding an intermediate admin level for people who are unlikely to "abuse the tools" but not really sufficiently trusted to win an RfA. We could generally think of splitting the function of admins into sysops (having most of the tools but e.g. no ability to read or restore deleted pages) and constables (able to block users, undelete pages etc.). This would probably lead to a dramatic rise in the number of sysops in the short term, but could also lead to a longterm decline in the total number of admins, and other problems, due to hierarchy becoming more complicated and more important. Hans Adler 13:33, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Hierarchical structures. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdrawing proposal - Interesting comments above, especially the bit about move-then-delete abuse. While I could spend time rebutting some of the specific objections, there are enough good objections that it's not worth the effort to change the code.
I will comment on one thing: Allen3 (talk · contribs) wrote: "Besides, if a user is really "trusted" enough that we do not need worry about abuse then the user is also trusted enough to pass a Wikipedia:Requests for adminship nomination." It takes more than trust to pass RFA. It takes a strong stomach/willingness to be under the microscope for a week to accept a nomination, demonstrated knowledge of broad policies beyond those needed for the tools in this proposal, evidence of good decision-making skills beyond those needed for this proposal, and other factors not necessary to be considered trusted not to abuse the tools requested in this proposal. Also, as with any referendum on an editor, there is always the chance that a few !voters will vote based on WP:ILIKEYOU or WP:IDONTLIKEYOU rather than WP:MERITS. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most-viewed contribs

Unlike similar proposal, could we create a pageview tool, which ranks the selected articles, created by particular user and possibly add that gadget to the preferences (so that users can sort out, what are their most-viewed articles or downloaded pics to date)? Brand[t] 18:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fundraising Suggestion: Targeted Donations (with a caveat)

I find the current use of banners to ask for donations both ironic (an ad which celebrates the lack of ads?) and rather ineffective (the same technique has been used for the past several years by Wikimedia -- marketing needs to be novel to be effective). I checked the "Perennial proposals" section and didn't see this listed, but apologies if I missed it.

This proposal is focused on improving the effectiveness of Wikipedia's fund-raising:


Allow donations to be targeted to specific articles, categories, or themes.

e.g., a person who is enthusiastic about Ancient Greece could target their donation towards articles in that category. This would give people a very specific area of wikipedia, and when it comes to philanthropy, donors are much more likely to give if they know where their money is going, vs. into a vague "general fund." It gives folks a feeling of having a direct impact on a subject they're passionate about; that their dollar is uniquely important.

A "Targeted Donation" does not mean 100% of the donation goes where the donor chooses.

The more specific the donor makes their donation, the larger the percentage of that donation which is deducted and placed in a pool for the benefit of all items within that same category. So, for example, if someone targets a $10 donation towards the improvement of the article on amphora, 30% ($3.00) would go to the article itself, and 70% ($7.00) would go to the category on Greek Pottery (numbers are arbitrary). This is to help prevent very popular articles (Shakespeare, Presidents, Sex, etc) or categories from becoming valued to the exclusion of all else. Wikipedia is not a popularity contest, and targeted donations that were not limited in some way would inevitably lead to that type of unbalance. It also allows wikipedia to focus on building the collective knowledge of an area, so that there isn't, for example, an excellent, well researched article on Bill Clinton but only a stub on Benjamin Harrison.

How to convert donations into improvements.

Simply allocating money for the category on US Presidents wouldn't do anything, though. Instead, I think the money donated should be treated as a vote. i.e., $1 = 1 vote. The more money a topic receives in donations, the more Wikipedia should focus on developing that area. This could be in the form of internal advocacy for editors to contribute to that area, or even to hiring a well-recognized expert in the relevant field to enhance the quality the subject.

Benefits for Wikipedia

The core of dedicated Wikipedia editors will be able to see with great clarity exactly what areas of the encyclopedia should be improved. This would work much better than a system relying solely on the "popularity" of an article (traffic stats), as it would reflect the desires of people who are actively contributing to the support and growth of Wikipedia.

Of course, no part of this system would preclude people from giving traditional donations direct to Wikimedia or stop editors from contributing to whatever area of Wikipedia they desire. It would, however, allow Wikipedia to engender a greater amount of trust from donors (as their donation has a much more specific and targeted area of impact), and encourage smaller "impulse" donations. e.g., by having a small blurb at the bottom of each page which says something like "If you feel this article requires improvement, please click here to edit it, or click here to make a targeted donation towards the expansion and improvement of this article."

Monolith2 (talk) 22:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of the fundraiser isn't to improve articles directly, but to cover the operating costs of the foundation. This could potentially draw fundraiser money away from where its actually needed (paying for servers, developers, accountants, etc.) toward where it isn't (paying for something we've been doing for free for nearly 9 years) as well as having additional overhead costs for distribution of funds. Mr.Z-man 04:57, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing in this proposal would necessarily stop funds from being spent where it was deemed necessary, regardless of how the donation is targeted. I apologize for the somewhat jumbled description, I'm not the most eloquent guy in the world. The focus of this proposal mostly boils down to creating a better, more accessible, less obtrusive method for soliciting donations.

Currently, a small donation wouldn't even add a single pixel to the fundraising banners which sit atop the pages. A person with just $1 to give would tend to be discouraged from bothering to donate, as it's equivalent to a "pee hole in the snow." It's no secret that donors must be courted just as any other marketable audience, and many of the principles of retail marketing apply just as well to philanthropy. To attract donors, you must make them feel important, and that their contribution would make a real, tangible impact. Why do you think so many large donations to other charitable causes inevitably have the donor's name attached to the project, or a specific building, etc? Many smaller projects use the same system by, for example, giving donors the chance to inscribe a brick with their family name for incorporation into the project. You almost never see a donation given which is just added to the general fund.

If someone can see that they are one of only 5 people to have donated towards the support of the mousepad article, for example, it gives the donor much more satisfaction than seeing their name listed amongst thousands of others on a generic list of donors from the November 2009 fundraiser.

I tried to word the proposal such that a donation increases the reach of the donors "voice," but without constraining the funds from being spent where they are most needed. i.e., The donation is targeted to support the expansion and improvement of an article -- that obviously can't be accomplished if the servers aren't paid for. Again, the focus of this is on improving Wikipedia's methods of fundraising by making itself more attractive to potential donors.

Further, you did bring up another issue which I think needs to be addressed: that the fundraising goes to "cover the costs of the foundation." Regardless of how true this is in a literal sense, I think it would be best to keep the articles and content of Wikipedia as the goal of the fundraising. The bureaucracy which organizes and maintains that content isn't the goal -- it's a means to an end. I realize this can be reduced to semantics, but I still think it's an important distinction, even if just for the symbolic meaning.

Monolith2 (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A $1 donation is mostly worthless because the processing fees and other overhead costs are barely covered by the donation. A targeted donation would likely have even more overhead. If there are laws governing the use of targeted donations (I think there are, but IANAL) a disclaimer saying "not all of your donation may be used for what you specify" may not be legal. Symbolism, unfortunately, does not pay the bills. Regardless of what percent of the fundraiser money actually goes to the foundation, the foundation still needs enough to cover its budget. If we did this for the current fundraiser and put 25% of the money to articles, we would need to raise $10,000,000 instead of $7,500,000 or the foundation would need to cut services. Obviously we can't cut servers and bandwidth and we still need some staff to keep the books and run the fundraiser (as well as attract the huge donations for things like the Usability Initiative). So cuts would probably be programs like Wikimania and paid developers who aren't necessary to keeping the servers running. Mr.Z-man 22:31, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let us maintain interest in Wikipedia

On the BBC Radio 4 news at 18:00 (Greenwich Mean Time), on 25 November 2009, I heard how research had suggested that the number of Wikipedians had dropped dramatically, and how interest in editing the site is now waning. I later saw that day a piece on Newsnight on the same theme, stating that the number of editing Wikipedians had declined ten-fold. Has any one ideas as to how to maintain interest? One thing the radio report I heard said was that some people feel that so much editing had now been done to Wikipedia, there was nothing left for them to do. This is, of course, untrue, as new knowledge is coming in, and one will perenially be able to update Wikipedia entries (I get back to my old hobby-horse about how a great thing about Wikipedia is how up-to-date it is). Perhaps there could be signals somewhere in Wikipedia as to where there may be articles which need up-dating, so people will appreciate that there will always be work to do here? Perhaps such signals could go on the main page. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:08, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The contribution count has dipped since early 2007, but it is certainly not by anything like a factor of 10. I imagine both BBC sources drew on the Wall Street Journal article referenced in the current Signpost. What that article also says is that traffic has massively increased in that time. Anecdotally, I would point out that the average quality of our articles has gone up hugely since 2007, and would suspect that part of the reaon for the drop in edit count was a) because Wikia now bleeds off things like Star Trek plotcruft and b) because the project has matured to the point where it genuinely is quite complete, i.e. there's not a lot that we don't have an article on compared to contemporary encyclopedias. As for flagging, we've got cleanup categories like category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating for tracking that already. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - I am sure that many Wikipedians will find plenty of work to do, to prevent further decline. Since the number of different languages in which Wikipedias can be found now exceeds 230 (see List of Wikipedias, perhaps one way in which Wikipedians could find further work to do is to increase contributions to foreign language Wikipedias. The German Wikipedia was mentioned on the Newsnight programme. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:29, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PROposed Redirect similar to PROposed Deletion

When doing NPP I see articles that probably could be PRODded away but instead I redirect. However, what I really would like to do is a "proposed redirect" with a bot doing the work a week later if nobody removed the "dated redirect" template. It's a lot less work for me to slap a proposed redirect tag on something than to slap a merger tag then remember to come back a week later and redirect it.

Before going to the bot approvals group or working out the details, I wanted to see if anyone else would find this useful. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a pretty sensible idea, I think - a variant on PROD, which retains the automatic "object or let it be" approach but doesn't automatically lead to deletion. Perhaps we could modify the existing PROD templates in order to have an optional "redirectto=pagename" parameter, or something, and blend it in that way? Shimgray | talk | 19:20, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is how redirects work already - be bold, redirect, and if anyone objects you're back where you started. --NE2 19:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:BRD for more detail on that, in case anyone doesn't know about it already. Anomie⚔ 20:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
NE2, Anomie: What I propose is a bit less bitey and more in the spirit of cooperation than WP:BRD, but much more lightweight and, when there is no objection, automatic than WP:MERGE templates. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Make the redirect and tell the creator "you can undo it if you want by going to [undo link here]". That's how prods work anyway. --NE2 20:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bold, Revert, Discuss can work in an article, but is far more of a hassle for renamings, merges and redirects, because what's happened is often far from clear to those who might want to discuss (or object to) the action. They just find themselves somewhere strange (or may not even notice that the name has changed). —— Shakescene (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually not opposed to this. I could certainly do with a "proposed editprotected" and "proposed page move" along the same lines. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proposed editprotected would result in every single article being edit protected, since some editors prefer it that way. - we already have a proposed pagemove see the uncontroversial section of WP:RM 76.66.197.2 (talk) 06:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I love this idea. PRORs would be much less intimidating to the newcomers who create similar articles but are unware of better ones. They would also give people a chance to chip in before the thing happens, rather than wake up one day and have their articles redirect for reasons they don't understand. BRD is good, but telling people "BTW, I'll redirect this if no one objets" is also good, and much less offputing.
Propose editprotect makes no sense. How could you place the template on the page if it's protected? Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 06:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like a good idea, but what about "be bold" and "bold, revert, discuss"? It seems that they work the same way. If an article is prodded for redirection and another editor opposes it, he would remove the tag and then I assume discussion would occur. Likewise, under "be bold" and BRD, an editor will go ahead with the redirection and after another editor notices it and objects to it than he would revert the first and discussion would begin. In both cases if noone notices or noone objects the redirection would go ahead. I myself prefer the status quo, as that appears to work fine and most incidents with redirection occur when BRD turns into edit warring, which is a behavioural issue and not a content one. The current way of doing things seems less to do the same thing with less beaurocracy. ThemFromSpace 06:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It'd be a hell of a lot easier to just make use of the article's Talk page. Propose the redirect, wait a week, and go ahead if there's no objection. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Popups over links to subsections of a talk page

I believe that i may have found a bug. Popups over links to subsections of a talk page like this one-Talk:Chronology_of_the_Bible#"Descendents"? only show to the first reply. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 20:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Popups always show a limited amount of material, don't they? Anyhow, this probably belongs at WT:POPUPS. –xenotalk 20:26, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mine is set to show 10 sentences or 3000 characters. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 20:33, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it stops at a double line break. --NE2 21:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting a suppression for request for edit summary...

Hello. I know that you can (and I have) enable[d] on one's preferences for WP to tell me that I haven't provided an edit summary. However, (like this message I'm posting right now, where I'm placing the headline for my message with the ==Title here== method) I don't need to type a "headline" and it will remind me again. I am providing the headline with the = signs. How about either 1) a method to suppress the message for the current edit with something like [CTRL] + clicking "Save page" or 2) the software detects the presence of == x == in the text? Thanks, and sorry if this is the wrong place. This is my first request on the PUMP. —Mr. E. Sánchez (that's me!)What I Do / What I Say 07:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rethinking the term "administrator"

"Adminship is no big deal," right? But the very term "administrator" implies that someone is "in charge." We all know there are plenty of "administrators" who see themselves as masters of the community; we all know there are plenty of people who come here seeking adminship because they're convinced it's some sort of elite status. After all, who doesn't want to be in charge?

But if the purpose of this role is to be the community's servant than its master, its title should reflect that. People who think of themselves as servants rather than masters are more likely to accept that their job is to enforce the will of the community rather than their own preferences; they're more likely to deal with others deferentially and politely; and they're more likely to take a less heavy-handed approach. How could anyone not support this?

Words have connotations, and those connotations matter a great deal in influencing peoples' perceptions. Let's take a step towards making Wikipedia the cordial, collegial, egalitarian utopia we all know it can be. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 18:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which other names do you suggest? MBelgrano (talk) 18:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've long advocated the term "Community servant" Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I seriously doubt that the reason some administrators exceed their authority is because of the name. Chillum 19:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So you don't think that someone who finds the title of "Administrator" bestowed upon him is likely to think, "Wow, cool, I'm an Administrator! That means I get to be in charge and tell other people what to do!" whereas someone receiving the title "Community servant" is more likely to think "OK, I'm a Community Servant, so I'd better listen to people and see just what it is they'd like me to do for them"? Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, not really. People are who they are. Administrators who exceed their authority do not do so out of some sort of misunderstanding regarding their job title, they do it because it is in their nature and they think they can get away with it. Chillum 19:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And people who are predisposed to go on power-tripping benders are more likely to seek out positions that they believe put them in charge (thus giving them more power to abuse) than those that they believe make them submissive. And the masses are more likely to resist abuses if they come from those they see as servants rather than those they see as masters. The term "administrator," because of its connotations, makes the view of administrators biased (especially from new people, who don't know the proper role of an "administrator" on Wikipedia yet) towards being seen as masters. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno, we have an office administrator here and they aren't in charge of anything. They do stuff like lock the door at night (protect), make sure the paper shredders pick up our recycled documents (delete), and hand out key-cards to new employees (userrights).Nothing glamorous... –xenotalk 20:20, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As has been said elsewhere, the time is far past, unfortunately. If this were 2003, it'd probably be workable, but I think the statute of limitations is way past gone. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, the name is entrenched. Changing it now would be more trouble than it's worth. –xenotalk 19:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's easy to sow the seed, and then it grows on its own. But we have to actually sow the seed first. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is the same seed, just under a different name. To extend the metaphor you can call a seed whatever you want, the same plant is going to grow. Chillum 19:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think your particular extension of the metaphor is quite valid, though. Plants don't have psychologies that are affected by connotations and language; people do. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we clearly disagree on this matter. You can seek consensus for this idea, but it does not have my support for the reasons I have already given. Chillum 20:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, even if you called it a stenchblossom. It would be more effective to rethink the role of the administrators in whatever areas you see as problematic. The name itself means absolutely nothing to those who are aware of their role as an administrator. Only someone who hasn't a slightest clue about what's expected of an administrator is likely to infer a meaning of awesome power from the title of "administrator" and those people will get tarred and feathered at their self-nominated RfA. Not that all self-noms are from the power hungry type, just that most members of the community generally have enough sense to not nominate someone like that in the first place. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 20:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there has recently been a similar discussion, to a similar outcome, at WT:WikiProject Administrator. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC) In the year 2006, on BBC Radio 4, Clive Anderson presented a programme about Wikipedia (I think it was called "The Wikipedia Story"). On the programme, he interviewed some one who was a Wikipedia administrator. He asked the administrator whether he saw himself as some type of lord of Wikipedia, and the administrator replied "No - I see myself as being more like a janitor!" So, please do not think that all Wikipedia administrators see themselves as being Wikipedians of high or privileged status. I am not an administrator myself, and I can only say that in my own profession (lecturing in higher education) the term "administration" is often seen as a term used for all the dirty work jobs which lecturers see as the poor relatives of lecturing and research. I suspect this is the same in the health professions. In my own country, the United Kingdom, administration sometimes gets a bad press, as being the term for the boring but essential jobs in one's profession, and I suspect this is how the term is viewed by many Wikipedians. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No sane person would say anything else in a public interview--it would be suicide. That doesn't necessarily reflect how they really feel about the job or see themselves, though. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 19:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would add that what are termed administrators on Wikipedia would really be called moderators on any other web forum. Serendipodous 23:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably worth noting that on most of the forums I'm on, moderators are a level below administrators. –Juliancolton | Talk 02:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience, on other forums, admins are the people with access to the source code, whereas moderators are the people with the power to block users and delete posts etc. Serendipodous 02:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Moderator probably does fit more than administrator for Wikipedia, but might not solve the problem. Moderator connotes "objective observer" rather than "participant with added duties", and from a power degree standpoint may actually worsen the problem. I'd actually rather see the term changed to something more descriptive of the position as subservient, like "janitor" (as an extreme example). Merely making the position sound less glamorous may decrease the incidence of power-seeking individuals seeking it out, while increasing the number of people who are genuine about wanting to actually pitch in with the workload. Equazcion (talk) 03:13, 1 Dec 2009 (UTC)
How about "caretakers"? Serendipodous 21:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've always liked referring the admin package as the "Wikipedia maintenance tools". Forget discussing the person (X is a sysop, Y is an admin) just say User X has access to the maintenance toolbox. -- Avi (talk) 07:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well the user rights group needs to be named something, from a technical standpoint. Equazcion (talk) 07:23, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)

User-rights - "Maintenance". -- Avi (talk) 07:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I second this proposed renaming. --William S. Saturn (talk) 07:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think I like "Maintenance" as well. Equazcion (talk) 07:35, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I'm slightly opposed to it, not because I think its a bad name, but because it's trying to fix something which isn't broken, which is always (imo) a bad Idea. Others have stated above some of the reasons why a rename is unnecessary. Kind regards, SpitfireTally-ho! 09:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SVG scaling

In IE, some SVG images are not fully usable because they contain illegible detail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-servers-2009-04-05.svg is an example. Unless I'm mistaken (in which case, please let me know), there's no way to enlarge this picture so as to be able to read the legends. Wikimedia Commons, on the other hand, provides links to render SVG files at a variety of resolutions; see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-servers-2009-04-05.svg

I propose that these links to multiple resolutions are implemented in Wikipedia also. I assume this is fairly simple to do. I suggest that, in addition to a range of preset sizes, an option is available to render it at the "nominal" resolution, which presumably ought to have been chosen appropriately by the file's creator so as to make the contents fully legible. 86.133.240.156 (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I thought we implemented this... last week? - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 21:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh... Could you explain how to access it then? Am I being dim here? 86.133.240.156 (talk) 21:52, 27 November 2009 (UTC).[reply]
No :) Apparently they had to revert the change temporarily while they tweaked the code, but it should be all working soon, fingers crossed. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 22:03, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Thanks. 86.133.240.156 (talk) 23:21, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they're back now. Hurrah. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 11:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments sought on community de-adminship

Comments from all interested editors are invited and welcome at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC, where a proposal for community de-adminship is being discussed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for counterhoax unit

There is a countervandalism unit, but most vandalism seems so crude and obvious, it will get corrected quickly. A more pressing concern than vandalism is the hoaxes that get into Wikipedia - as happened to the article on Ronnie Hazelhurst in 2007, or the article on Maurice Jarre earlier this year (2009). Do we now need a "CounterHoax Unit"?ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC) Just in case any one needs reminding about these hoaxes, I can give more information.[reply]

The hoax concerning Ronnie Hazelhurst happened after his death in 2007, when some one stated that he had written a song for S Club 7. He did not, but this - for a time - was hoax that led to quite wide media coverage. The hoax has how been corrected (see the talk page at the article on Ronnie Hazelhurst).

The hoax concerning Maurice Jarre concerns something he was supposed to have said during his lifetime.

Does any one remember either of these incidents? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Jarre one is linked from his talkpage. The news story is still good. Basically, someone edited the aritcle right after he died to include a quote, and someone (or someones?) wrote an obit based on the WP article, including the quote. Many film score fans were peeved that it was done to Jarre specifically... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Autocategorization of redirects

There is a proposal for an autocategorization of redirects (by the software itself), which would offer several advantages. Input would be appreciated. Cenarium (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Trading Card Game

The Wikipedia:Trading card game (proposed/created by TomasBat), is obviosly a trading card game, but of Wikipedia. It is a project page still, but maybe one day it will be an article. There are several bugs and delays with it as the project started to be in inactivity. I, RatónBat, TomasBat's brother, suggest users to come and help this project. Actually, we are trying to have the rules, but we have 5 proposals, and we decided to make voting sesions (which is at it's discussion page) to decide which will be the rules for the game. So please come and vote so we get to a conclusion and finish this project. Thanks for everything!--RatónBat Talk 2 me!! 23:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

maybe one day it will be an article. Let's all hope not. People should not be creating User space garbage in the hopes that some day it will make it into article space. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When I said that, I was saying that someday there will be a trading card game of wikipedia, and there would be an article of it.--RatónBat Talk 2 me!! 00:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Training room?

The recent news that Wikipedia lost 40,000 editors in the first three months of 2009 has got me thinking. When I joined Wikipedia three years ago, it was still possible to start an article that failed pretty much every one of the tests that would today get it listed for deletion. As I faltered and stumbled, I learned the tricks of the trade, I developed the article until I brought it up to feature status. Today, you don't really have the option of faltering, and new users are often turned off by the dismissive nature of reverting or rolling back their edits. Would it be possible then, to create a "training room", where new editors could, under the supervision of a (nice!) experienced editor, learn to edit pages without actually saving anything onto the mainspace? Say you wanted to edit an article, but clicked a "train" icon instead of "edit". Then your changes would appear not on the page itself but on a duplicate of the page created just for you to experiment on. A senior editor would then be alerted and could then explain, in a helpful and not nasty way, how to ensure that the edit survived for longer than three seconds. Seems like a good option to make Wikipedia friendlier to newcomers. Serendipodous 00:11, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the adoption center needs more highlighting, that´s all. In my opinion, this project can do pretty much of help in this matter, but I don´t see much newcomers to direct themselves there or even notice the existence of that page. - ☩Damërung ☩. -- 18:35, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a different approach is needed? I'd like to see projects take on 'apprentices' (my word - substitute another if it sounds old fashioned). This would be more successful than a centralized approach, because it is easier for an experienced editor to help a newbie if they are both working in the same field. --Kleinzach 00:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Articles for creation is a non-confrontational environment. Fences&Windows 01:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm. Unfortunately the chances of the IP recommending a new angle on Sexual dichromatism (or an article on a town in Sumatra) meeting the right editor through WP:Articles for creation must be close to zero. --Kleinzach 03:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, I got some gems when I was doing heavy AFC work a couple years ago I accepted about 50-60 articles over about a month's time. Now how many of them benefited from me being the "right" editor, I can't say. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changing AN/I notice template

I'd like to change the AN/I notice template to be more accurate and serve its intended purpose. I've proposed a change and started a discussion at the template's talk page. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 04:16, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a an RFC at Template talk:Refimprove. It would be helpful to include a link to a commercial search engine in the template. But this means that there will be external links outside the "External links" section in hundreds of articles. Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? See Template talk:Refimprove#RFC: Should a link to a commercial search engine be included in the template Refimprove? -- PBS (talk) 17:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mark pages less than 24 hours old for no-indexing

Proposal: Mark all newly created pages and all drafts newly moved into article space as "no index" to search engines. After 24 hours, remove the mark.

Purpose: This, combined with Wikipedia:New pages patrol, would discourage vanity and advertising articles, which would in turn lessen the load at NPP.

Possible unintended consequence: Slimy editors would start hijacking existing articles or writing an article likely to slip past NPP then go back a day later and turn it into adcruft. But the not so slimy ones wouldn't bother, so it would be a net good for the project.

Note: This will require a code change or bot to manage. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's critical for new pages on recent events (such as 2009 Jeddah floods or 2009 Nevsky Express bombing) to be indexed as soon as possible, so that they get traffic. Cenarium (talk) 18:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) Oppose. Articles like 2009 Fort Hood shooting and 2009 Nevsky Express bombing are created in response to current events, rapidly obtain a very high profile, and in my opinion a big part of what Wikipedia can do right. Since Google News started adding Wikipedia results to its listing, it is not uncommon to see such pages listed even within the first 24 hours. In addition, I would say the issue of deciding what to index and how to rank the results is really a problem for search engines and not for us. It goes too far to say that all new wiki pages are bad, but at that same time, I would assume that most search engines would treat new wiki pages as lowly ranked (since they will have few or no incoming links, for example). Also, there is nothing magical about the first 24 hours, except possibly that we clean up / speedy much bad content within 24 hours (and if that's true, then it is already about as strong a deterrent to bad article creation as one could hope for). Dragons flight (talk) 19:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial Support Provided this was amended to noindex on unpatrolled new articles I would support, but as Dragonsflight explains above we need to have articles suddenly on new subjects. ϢereSpielChequers 19:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea, but it might be better to use an "index this" template of some sort, for those few articles where it actually matters that the thing be indexed right now (not in 1 or 2 days or a week). Some templates like "current events" could include the "indexthis" template automatically. Rd232 talk 09:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if _NOINDEX_ is allowed to work (enabled in the software) for the articlespace, then I'm sure that getting _INDEX_ enabled in the article space wouldn't be too far-fetched. That being said, I don't know the likelihood of that happening. Killiondude (talk) 09:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I imagined the software doing this automatically, so everything younger than, say, 7 days would be noindexed - unless it was specifically INDEX-tagged. Rd232 talk 22:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If a search engine like Google has detected a page is noindexed then does anyone know how long it will typically take before it discovers a status change to indexed? Google is quick to spot new pages so I fear many of them would be discarded as noindexed and not revisited for a long time. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it takes that long. Pages can also be specifically submitted for reindexing. Anyone have any details? Rd232 talk 22:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Something to add to a warning template

something could be added that discusses how easy it is to revert spam, so there should be not point in even doing it.Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 20:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No one has anything to say about this?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, give it more time. Less than a day here isn't likely to get many initial comments. Personally, I'd say there's no point; spammers will spam, regardless of how easy it is to revert. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, you can only do soo much to fend off the idiots. At a point, the information will scare off more of the normal contributors than they will scary of vandals/spammers etc. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's also quite simple for one to delete unread spam messages from their email inboxes, but spammers still send spam don't they? PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 04:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Only when there is not a billion of them, and the spam folder dosn't automatically delete its contents.Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 17:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Draft namespace

Have there been previous discussions regarding a Draft namespace? I'm curious why one hasn't been implemented yet. It could be automatically noindexed from search engines and it could neatly categorize userspace drafts, among other things (like the Article incubator). Anyone have links to a previous discussion or know why it can't be done here? --MZMcBride (talk) 23:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a recipe for lots of half-written articles going nowhere. How would I come across a "draft" and add to it, build it up? Would it not be little different from a userfied page, with just one or two editors working on it? What if two people are working on the same "draft"? Why not just put it in the main space and let everyone work on it (and allow it to build up naturally)?
I don't want to put the idea straight down, those are just questions, it has potential but it would be quite a change to the normal early life-cycle of an article. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 00:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, userspace drafts have the most obvious issue of "belonging" to a particular user (which is almost always entirely arbitrary). Namespaces are for content separation and categorization. This mountain of crap content exists already (mostly in the User namespace, though in the Wikipedia namespace to an extent), this would just be a cleaner way to store it. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's a good idea. The whole purpose of a wiki is to make articles EASILY findable from the start, so that they can grow organically as people who happen across them and know a bit that's not already in there can add it themselves. Stashing incomplete articles somewhere where they won't get Googled makes this almost impossible. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 01:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Between userspace for 1-person or 1-person-led collaborations and the incubator for peer collaboration I think we have enough places to draft articles. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The incubator is nice because a common prefix makes for easy exclusion in robots.txt, though a separate "folder" for this kind of content doesn't seem crazy. It's a bit strange how the namespaces are used currently (some breakdown is available here: Wikipedia:Database reports/Page count by namespace). --MZMcBride (talk) 01:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had questioned this proposal above but now have an anecdote from this morning that would cause me to re-think. I am (was?) in a content dispute with another editor. As part of it, the other editor suggested that we bring our dispute to a wider audience. I opened a subpage on a relevant task force and put the bones of an RFC together. I then invited the other editor to put their piece in before the page be advertised. The other editor took offense to this because he perceived that I as jumping the gun and catching him off guard. Fair enough.

Userspace would not have been an appropriate place to create the subpage (it belonged as part of the collaborative effort). Project space proved an inappropriate place also - because it is 'live'. If a Draft namespace existed it would have been clearer that the other user was being given time to get their speak and their references in before we both took it to the wider community. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 16:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Increased usability through breadcrumbs?

We have location-based breadcrumbs enabled over at WikiFur. I think they aid usability, and might do so here, especially now Google displays them in search results (example).

I'm aware Wikipedia has an aversion for subpages, in part because there are many potential categories that a topic might belong to. However, for many topics I think it is possible to reach consensus on a single hierarchy that is most relevant/useful. For example, Mint chocolate might have:

Culture > Food and drink > Confectionery > Chocolate > Mint chocolate

Each breadcrumb tree would start from a category within Category:Main topic classifications and work its way down to the "most relevant" category of the article. Of course, if the feature can be designed to coped with multiple inheritance in a sensible, compact manner, so much the better.

The extension WikiFur uses would not meet Wikipedia's needs; it works on a per-category basis, rather than per-article, and only allows administrators to edit the breadcrumb definition page - even on a wiki with 12,000 articles, this page can get rather large. It also does not check for categories efficiently. I'm sure a scalable solution could be created, though.

As for the feature itself, what are your thoughts? GreenReaper (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ban off topic political debates

Yes, I know it's coming, Wikipedia is not censored. However, I've become aware of an increasing number of off topic political debates going on outside of the main space, and I find it very unprofessional. I've also been seeing a lot of disgraceful suggestions that people vandalize Conservapedia. Regardless of one's political views, we must all see the immaturity in this; suggesting the vandalism of another site is more of what I would expect out of 4chan and Encyclopedia Dramatica, not Wikipedia. At any rate, bringing biased, unneeded policical chatter into talk pages and discussions could cause readers to get the wrong impression of Wikipedia. Many employers, including Hospital Corporation of America (one of the many), has specifically banned off topic political discussion on the company networks, it seems to me that such a ban would also be beneficial to this encyclopedia project. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 04:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How is invoking WP:NOTFORUM insufficient? --Cybercobra (talk) 04:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that covers it perfectly in most cases, but it seems as if WP:NOTFORUM is under enforced. I have seen cases on user pages however that this would NOT cover, and although I believe users should be allowed to declare what their political views to a certain extent on their user pages, I've seen some political comments on user pages that were just out right uncalled for and I believe a specific policy would fill in that gray area. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 22:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is already some history here. I got chastised for advocacy over a signature-line that incorporated an "09f9" protest. If I had merely kept this on a user page, I don't know if it would have been an issue. There has also been at least user-box that was deleted either by the community or by ARBCOM because, while it amounted to a political statement, it presence also invited disruptive editing and was therefore seen as disruptive in the inciting-a-riot sense of the word.
I think the bottom line should be: Is the specific instance causing a problem? If its not, we've got more important issues to worry about. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed new 'small text' button

See commons:File talk:Button small text.png. 91.84.208.36 (talk) 00:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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