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The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
Before creating a new section, please note:

Before commenting, note:

  • This page is not for consensus polling. Stalwart "Oppose" and "Support" comments generally have no place here. Instead, discuss ideas and suggest variations on them.
« Archives, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58

The aim of the Village pump (idea lab) is to encourage the preliminary incubation of new ideas in a "non-polling" environment. When you have a new idea, it is not mandatory that you post it here first. However, doing so can be useful if you only have a general conception of what you want to see implemented, and would like the community's assistance in devising the specifics. Once ideas have been developed, they can be presented to the community for consensus discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

The formation of this page, and the question of its purpose and existence, are the subjects of discussion on the talk page. Direct all comments on those topics there.


Template:Pie Chart

Just a thought, it might be nice to have a template to generate a pie chart. Just the enter the percentages & the size. This would elevate the need to reupload images of pie charts, if the represented statics change. Like I said, just a thought. 「ɠu¹ɖяy」¤ • ¢  04:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if it's feasible, but I've asked people at WikiProject Templates to please comment here. I think it would be useful for all sorts of articles:
  • 30% of breast cancer patients have a known risk factors, and 70% do not.
  • The charity spends 70% on program services, 12% on overhead, and 18% on fundraising.
  • The town's residents are 75% white, 10% black, 10% Latino, 3% Asian and 2% Native American.
If it was easy to use, I think it could become one of the most used content templates in the entire encyclopedia.
You'd probably want labels for the wedges in addition to percentages and image size, since "Overhead expenses" is more meaningful label than "12%". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If it is possible, the coder deserves a pile of barnstars... that would be one hell of a complicated template, methinks. Bar chart's probably more feasible, but even that would be impressive. Rd232 talk 22:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not feasable I'm afraid. Perhaps when HTML5 is the standard one day, we could dabble with drawing on a canvas, but I cannot see any possibility of drawing a chart of any kind with the currently available tools. Someone could try and write an extention for Mediawiki that can draw charts and serve up an image. — Edokter • Talk • 22:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pity. Extensions for this already exist though, eg this and a bunch of them here. We could try and persuade WMF to install one... Rd232 talk 22:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen Template:Visualizer? It generates a link to a chart. Logan Talk Contributions 18:39, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and Template:Brick chart is apparently a "poor man's substitute for pie charts." Logan Talk Contributions 18:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About the bar chart: Could we kludge something together with tables to do this (e.g., boxes of one pixel in height for every percentage point)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One bar chart template already exists: Template:Infobox political party/seats. Svick (talk) 11:17, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is possible, I'm not sure how practical it would be, but I'm thinking of 100 pictures each 1% of the pie. As such, any pie will only be accurate to 1%. 930913 (Congratulate/Complaints) 00:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Visualizer is beautiful. Too bad we can't just swipe the graphic and post that directly in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What we would actually need is for developers to install an inline SVG extension which would allow wiki syntax expansion inside the SVG code and thus parametric SVGs. That way, we could make not just pie charts, but all sorts of advanced visualizations inside the wiki, with the tools that we're accustomed to. Zocky | picture popups 19:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I came up with one possible way of doing it: {{Pie chart}}. Read the documentation; there are issues with Internet Explorer to be worked out, but this would require no new extension, possibly just some changes to MediaWiki:Common.css. PleaseStand (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be some information at WP:Graphs, although it's focused on regular graphics. I've described some options at WT:MED#Chart workshop and gotten a few more suggestions, if anyone's interested. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OmniGadget

I have an idea for what will become a very large but very helpful gadget. How about we make a Gadget that has a comprehensive list of most of the Wikipedia-based user-added templates (e.g. Maintenance templates, Infoboxes, etc.; not templates about specific topics.) that you can quickly add in. Each of the template buttons allows you to fill out a form to add parameters to the tag. This will not only make adding templates and infoboxes easier in general, but will also include other templates that most people probably even don't even know exist! Whenever possible, similar templates should be grouped together and placed under the same button, like {{Merge-to}} and {{Merge-from}}. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 23:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello? Anybody there? --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 20:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Current List

Please feel free to edit and add your own ideas.

1.) Things this gadget should probably include:

2.) However, this gadget need not include options for:

  • Actions that are already performed by other Gadgets. These include:
    • Adding categories: HotCat already does this.
    • Citation templates: refTools does this.
  • Templates maintained almost solely by bots, like {{Uncategorized}}.
  • Templates not related to actual article editing, like the things that Wikipedia:Friendly and Wikipedia:Twinkle do, and things like archiving.
  • Add more.

Index to article talk page results?

I see that article talk pages are used to explain, resolve, and develop consensus on issues regarding the article. But when discussions are over and get archived, it can be difficult to locate them (searching the archives being an inadequate tool at best). In some cases the FAQ feature has been used to provide summaries and links into the archives. But forcing what should be a simple topic heading into the form of a question tends to be grotesque, and even distorts the identification of the topic or issue. So we are largely dependent on the memories of current editors to have any sense of where we have already been.

I am wondering if institutional memory (in regards of article issues, etc.) would be better served with an index facility very similar to the FAQ facility to provide a summary of results, conclusions, or consensus reached (or even just discussed), with links into the archives. It could be very similar to the FAQ format, but needs to replace the question and answer format (and the rather strained fib that people are frequently asking about these) with something like a header and summary. Comments? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • It has already been done long since on several talk page archives, with topic-based, rather than date-based, indexes. Some people do, or at least used to do, this with their user talk page archives, too. (User talk:BD2412 comes to mind. But xe is far from alone in this.) The problem is maintenance. It cannot be done by robots. Ask yourself this: Are you willing to maintain such an archive? You might like to ask BD2412 and others how much effort is required in order to continually archive by topic. Uncle G (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am wondering if I was not clear enough. I didn't see what I am thinking of at User talk:BD2412, and it certainly is not to "continually archive by topic". (Heavens, no!) If the talk pages are considered analogous to a long-winded meeting, and the archives to a tape recording of all that has been said, then what I am thinking of would be like a summary of what results were reached. Currently this could be done in the FAQ framework by contorting significant results into the form of a question, and engaging in a little fib that this literary invention is "frequently asked". What I would like could be just like the FAQ feature except that "question" would be replaced by (say) "header" (and not numbered), and "answer" replaced by "text", and entries added when there is something to note. Then we could view this list of results reached without having to revisit lengthy discussions dug out of various nooks and crannies. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Software for web forums allows topics to be "pinned" - as other threads expire, they remain at the top of the list. I think this could be a good idea for article talk pages. There then wouldn't be a centralized index as you have suggested, though. Herostratus (talk) 01:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  That this listing or index of results reached be in a central — or at least a known — location is an elemental part of my idea; the purpose is diminished if people have to search around for it. But tell me more about this "pinning". Is that just a way to keep a section (discussion, thread?) visible? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template autoloader

  • Hi! I have made a small bit of JS, which you can find at User:Inductiveload/Template autoloader.js. This grabs the blank template off the documentation page and pastes it into the edit box, so when you need, say, a blank {{Infobox book}}, you just enter the name into the autoloader, and it retrieves and pastes the blank template. This, I think, is very useful for templates like infoboxes and citations which have a lot of parameters which I (and I assume many others) have trouble remembering. You could go to the template doc page and copy-paste, but that's a bit of a hassle when you could just write the name in a box!
  • At the moment, it only works for {{Infobox book}} and it requires the blank template on the template page be wrapped in <pre id="autoload">...</pre>.
  • Thoughts and comments? Inductiveload (talk) 15:31, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is pretty much what I wanted for my OmniGadget idea. I basically want something that allows you to quickly and easily add maintenance and infobox templates to pages. Do you think you can make more? --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 23:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Filter on search engines

If a topic has not been covered by Wikipedia it would be neat if a box would appear above or below the ads that normally appear in Google. That box would say something like "This topic has not been covered in Wikipedia. Would you like to contribute information for a new page on the topic?" and another option could be "Would you like to suggest this topic for a new page?"

If someone clicks on the second option, the ideas will go to a page where someone can click on a blue link of that new word that will take them to an editing page for the new word. It would be a interesting way to get people to create new pages, put more information into Wikipedia and can eliminate repeat pages. People like to share information and would love to see a list of ideas of things they could write about.

ex: I type "fishing" into Google and Wiki doesn't have a page for it. It gives me the two options of writing about it or suggesting it. I suggest it and it goes into a list of topics that have not been covered. Someone else wants to write about a new topic, but can't think of one. They go to the page of listed suggestions and find "fishing."

That is how it works. I hope you like it and I hope someone can improve the idea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.57.96.252 (talk) 02:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What would Google gain from implementing that idea?—RJH (talk) 15:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We actually have several mechanism for wanted articles (by type):
So what we actually need are people writing :-). Then we need reviewers (you can help) to give feedback for the Featured and Good articles candidates. — Dispenser 23:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Suggestion

I have an idea that often users want to suggest rather than actually put a live edit to a page, so I would propose that some system, whether it be an actual action with a log or a page devoted to this purpose be established. Possibly a system similar to that of pending revisions on certain pages, but this time voluntary and with users endorsing them? This is a raw idea.--ForgottenHistory (talk) 22:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_64#"Report_an_error"_feature. Fences&Windows 20:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View dif In-Article

Often when viewing "dif" pages it can be hard to exactly find where the changes took place in-article, so I'd generally suggest a change around this, although not replacing the current dif.--ForgottenHistory (talk) 23:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try WikiBlame to find when a change occurred. —Pengo 04:19, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Every language but English?

I started the sine article recently, and found there were already 20+ other versions on other language Wikipedias. This got me wondering what other articles exist in multiple other languages but don't appear in English. Has anyone tried to make a list of topics which have not been translated into English, sorted by the number of other language Wikipedias it appears in? Or is anyone willing to try making such a list? Thanks in advance. —Pengo 04:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So you didn't see sine wave? Ntsimp (talk) 18:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the same. Read the articles for more. —Pengo 20:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're looking for a new Wikipedia:Database reports. A multi-language page counter may be expensive (CPU-wise) as the databases ares spread out many servers. Finally, as I pointed out above we already have enough to write about. PS: An efficient way might be to look at pages with 20+ interlang, excluding English filter out (somehow) stuff covered in subsections on enwp. — Dispenser 02:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

additional filtering in the "find sources" template

Not sure if this is the right place or not, but with googles expansion into selling e-books I have noticed a lot more self published work appearing in the searches I do there. In the "find sources" template (used in AfD nomination pages and elsewhere) that links to the google books search it already takes out "-inpublisher:icon". I think it would be a good idea to add filters "-inpublisher:Lulu" and other major self publishing houses. Active Banana (bananaphone 16:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! Do it. plugs User:Fences and windows/Unreliable sources Fences&Windows 20:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where and who would we contact to implement that? I am clueless about the inner workings of templates. Active Banana (bananaphone 19:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Find_sources&action=edit. You can easily find the bit that says "&as_pub=-icon". Just add text at that point. Fences&Windows 21:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling variations should adjust for each user based on what country they are located

If you are in the U.S., you see U.S. spelling variations If you are located in the U.K., you see U.K. spelling variations Etc., Etc.

I think this could be used to end thousands of edit wars in process and thousands of others yet to occur.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TravisMunson1993 (talk • contribs)

It has been proposed before, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_31#Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals.23Enforce_American_or_British_spelling, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_41#User_preference_for_US_or_UK_english_spellings, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_65#Proposal_for_Wikipedia_in_American_English. Fences&Windows 20:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What evidence you have for these "thousands of edit wars in process"? From what I have seen our current practice seems to work remarkably well in preventing edit wars over such trivial issues. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is doing a wonderful job of educating (mostly American) editors that other forms of English exist. Don't protect them from that shocking reality. HiLo48 (talk) 23:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with HiLo48. Wikipedia is about reaching across bounds.--ForgottenHistory (talk) 19:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:No text

I have seen articles recently on the Mexico City Metro, if you can call them articles, where there no info other than images and templates. I was just wondering whether this would be the right place to propose a template asking people to add text or info, or will {{expand}} suffice? Simply south (talk) and their tree 21:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would content that such articles are reason for speedy deletion on occasion.--ForgottenHistory (talk) 19:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

anonymous posting

hello all,

i've been anonymously editing wikipedia for many years now, but i am getting really worried about its future. i am finding myself more and more often disabled to edit articles, and i am not talking just about controversial topics, but topics in general. i have an impression that the semi-protected tag is being misused.

do other editors have similar experience and impression? what can be done about it? (please do not suggest to create an account as i will not do that).

188.2.48.67 (talk) 18:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just made a very rough calculation using info from Category:Wikipedia_semi-protected_pages:

almost 2000 pages listing about 200 articles each with semiprotection = about 400,000 articles which are semi-protected. that is 10% of all articles in english wikipedia! this to me seems like a clear abuse of this tag. 188.2.48.67 (talk) 18:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ups, my bad, there are 1,939 pages total. that's not that big number. i guess all might be o.k. 188.2.48.67 (talk) 18:32, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
it would be an "abuse of the tag" only if you can show that the majority of those articles are not currently or perpetually subject of vandalism edits. I am worried about the future of the project based on the countless countless countless hours that sooooooo many editors need to spend undoing vandalism from IP editors just to keep the quality from sinking rather than being able to that time and energy actually improving the quality of Wikipedia's content. Active Banana (bananaphone 19:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Amen to that! It's a huge waste of time. I have never yet (and I've been in many discussions) heard a good reason for allowing IP edits. Registering an account is easy and has many advantages. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"IF" you were an unproblematic IP editor your concerns would be understandable, since you would be the victim of inconvenience caused by the actions of other IP editors who are disruptive. You see, while not all IP editors vandalize, make unconstructive edits, or are incompetent, the vast majority of such edits are made by IPs. Just ask any new page patroller or vandal fighter. It's a huge problem, so innocent and constructive IP editors pay the price for the actions of idiots, children, conspiracy theorists and mentally ill individuals. NOTE that I am not identifying you as such or saying that none of your edits aren't constructive. I'm just describing the general problem and why we need semi-protection. There are actually many editors who desire that all editors be registered users, and also that controversial and featured articles be permanently semiprotected. So far that's not happening.
OTOH, since you are a problematic IP hopping editor who has caused problems before,[1] [2] your complaints are rather ironic, since this situation is caused by the actions of yourself and others like you. What goes around comes around. If you would register ONE account (thus collecting your widely spread contribution history of disruption in one place as required) and act responsibly, you wouldn't have any problem.
Some of the Serbian IPs used by this editor:
Let me know when you have registered a username and I'll be very willing to help you to success here. You need allies. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
funny how you complain about huge waste of time, and yet you wasted all these words above. my reply to your silly accusation was given before on my talk page, i am sure you read it, just seems you didn't comprehend it. 188.2.160.70 (talk) 23:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reader feedback feature

Many websites let users rate content and add comments. Perhaps Wikipedia should do so too. The idea would be to display a button or link beside each article, or a tab at the top, that would open a form showing current user ratings and comments, and let readers add their own ratings and comments. For example:

Ratings: (some sort of visual representation of current ratings)
What do you think?
Article size
O Too short
O About right
O Too long
Readability
O Very easy to follow
O Clear enough
O Hard to understand
Coverage
O All I want to know
O Some gaps
O Big gaps
Your comments ___________________________________________________
Other readers said
(Log of recent comments)

The great majority of readers are not comfortable with editing an article, but would have no problem giving opinions. The feature would open a direct channel of communication from readers to editors. Editor tools would of course be needed to display lists of articles with negative ratings. Articles change, so ratings would have to be aged, counting for less and less as edits accumulate. There is potential for abuse, as with standard editing, so controls would be needed to stop double-voting, ignore voting during surges and so on. But on the whole, listening to the audience seems the right thing to do. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I like the basic idea. There are some things we would need to avoid, such as it turning into a comments section like on a blog, FaceBook or newspaper article comment section.
Ideally the content should not be visible to other readers, only to registered editors. If it's visible to other readers, it will be used as a bulletin board for POV promotion or attacks. We want true, individual responses, unflavored by other's opinions and not part of an ongoing discussion or argument among other readers who have left comments. Therefore I'd make the "Other readers said" part and the "Log of recent comments" invisible. Those parts would still be visible to registered users, but not to IPs or the general public. Organized campaigns against articles will come and we need to minimize their impact. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An explanation at the bottom would thank the reader for their help and assure them that their comments will be treated discretely and viewed only by registered editors. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:38, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that makes sense. Blog sites, newspapers etc. must have ways to handle the problem, but we have the problem of a huge audience and a very limited "staff" to handle issues. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to remember reading (and seeing) recently that something like this already exists in a test phase on a limited number of articles. Anyone know more? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:02, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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