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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.
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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.


WP needs a "Like" button.

User comments on Talk pages should have little "Like" buttons next to them, so if you agree with what somebody has said, you can click "Like" instead of cluttering the discussion with new comments saying "I agree with User:Adjwilley." We probably couldn't call it the "Like button" because of Facebook issues, but could do something like an "Agree" button, or better, a "Hear, hear" button. -- Adjwilley (talk) 20:51, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you mean article talk pages. Well, for balance you'd also need buttons for the opposing opinion, which could lead to rancor. Regards, RJH (talk) 21:26, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing opinions would be expressed in new posts, just like they always are. Editors who agree with the opposing opinions can "Like" those as well. -- Adjwilley (talk) 21:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOTFACEBOOK --Σ talkcontribs 21:38, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) No. Even a "like" needs to be justified. There's no need for a popularity-of-opinion contest. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 21:39, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
👍 Like
(edit conflict) In early mockups for the third redesign of LiquidThreads there was a give "Thanks" button (seen mw:File:Lqt-thread-full-callouts.png), presumably intended for posts that contributed some valuable insights. This seems to have been removed. You can read the discussion on mw:Talk:LiquidThreads_3.0/Design. — Dispenser 21:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The pageview stats reveal how many talk-pages are rarely read, so a "Like" button would be of limited use. When a straw-poll is needed, then the not-vote (!vote) list of replies allows each person to add additional comments to consider other ideas, and I fear the use of "Like" buttons would suppress that user feedback. However, there might be some special cases where the "Like" button could act as anonymous voting (where it would count 1 vote per username), but the problem would be sockpuppet usernames (or IPs) all clicking "Like" to give a false impression of popularity, and Wikipedia is not set-up to deter multiple usernames, as in Facebook or other websites. Instead, a WP user could easily have several dozen ("48") usernames, and the result could be, "Wow! A total of 48 users instantly Liked that idea!" I really think the danger of a "Like" button is too great because Wikipedia does not deter having 48 usernames (or 256 auto-IP addresses), but the concept seemed to be a good idea until considering how easily one person could re-click "Like" 48 or 256 times. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


For a while now I have thought it might be cool if you could hit "Like" on a page's edit history. It would be a way of seeing an edit and just saying to that user "hey, nice one!". I would like this because I see good edits every now and then on my watchlist, you know?

We could reserve that option for confirmed users, if necessary, but we could also be clear that praise in this way is irrelevant to arbitrating disagreements - discussion on the talk page does that. Because Likes are on the history page, they are also pretty out of the way. They are really just to boost up the user making a decent edit, as per WP:Wikilove.

I also think that some kind of "Like" or "Thumbs up" could be useful later, when Wikipedia's GUI gets more dynamic and user friendly. It would be a good way to sort the priority of external links and videos, or images in a gallery.-Tesseract2(talk) 15:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, something like that suggested would be great. However, Wikipedia is full of geeky pretentiousness. The Foundation has embraced the idea (go read the blog, guys) but the community is so stuck on being to cool and counter culture. The community seems to not want new editors. It certainly does not want to embrace new media or social networking even though Wikipedia is that sort of media and a social network. Of course, Comment Oppose Keep and the like are just as fun since we know as established editors that bolding things, wikilinking, and wikispeak are so cool that we can bite anyone too stupid or young to jump into Wikipedia 3 years ago. Oh yeah: +1 this comment if you dare. Cptnono (talk) 06:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia can be stuffy but this is not the right solution. It seems like it will just encourage mindless voting instead of discussion and consensus. Dzlife (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with having a like button on talk pages is that Wikipedia operates by consensus, not by direct democracy. Decisions are made not based upon how many people support an idea, but based on the discussion that has take place. Many discussion pages have something saying that a well reasoned and thought through answer is better than just an "I agree". It seems to me that, if we have a like button for talk pages, people will just like/dislike an idea without giving any comment. As it is, people who just say they support or oppose an idea on a talk page without giving reasons tend not to contribute much to the decision. A like/dislike button would make it too easy to just click like/dislike without putting any though into it or comment. This prevents a consensus based on the reasoning of the community and could deter new ideas and developments from being posted. ItsZippy (talk) 14:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Encouraging school teachers to get their pupils to contribute

This is probably not a new idea. Please forgive me if so, and also please forgive me (and not bite me too hard) if I have misunderstood how this page is supposed to be used. However, I have long pondered (decades even before the days of Wikipedia) how much valuable human effort is expended, and later discarded, by pupils and students in examination halls and coursework exercises. Could school teachers (and university lecturers) be encouraged to get their best pupils and students to upload their work to Wikipedia, as and where appropriate. As a starting point, a class might be asked to research and write a biography of a little-known but notable person. To the teacher, the subject of the biography is just a vehicle, and irrelevent to the exercise. To the pupil, the subject of the biography is what sparks their interest (writing a biography of a little-known but notable chemist might be what is needed to get a chemistry-orientated pupil involved in writing an essay for the English teacher). To both, the fact that the subject is little-known (and a stub on Wikipedia) means that the student cannot just copy-paste from the internet, but has to put in some scholarly effort.

OK, there would have to be checks and safeguards in place. But this is true of all articles on Wikipedia anyway. A teacher who persistently allows substandard articles to be submitted could be warned, and eventually blocked, in the usual way.

There are just so many biography stubs, to stay with this example, that surely any effort to get the article started is to be welcomed. Having been started, it is then easier for later editors to improve on it. That's just my thoughts. TheAMmollusc (talk) 11:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend reading Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-05-09/Dispatches. The general consensus is that writing for Wikipedia is much harder than any essay assignment or research report and the skill set don't overlap with anything learned up to that point. However, a better focus may be adding illustrations and photography to existing articles. This lower hanging fruit can be quickly explained and understood by newcomers. — Dispenser 13:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia avoids former Britannica essays: As a major part of Internet culture, Wikipedia can be studied and taught in schools, by focusing on various aspects of the Wikipedia project. For example, the heavy reliance on third-party sources, with less coverage from primary sources, is an important concept in objective journalism. Also, the avoidance of expert essays, using sourced text instead, differs from the manner in which Encyclopedia Britannica had allowed leading experts, in various fields, to write essay-style articles with no sources. Hence, there are some major aspects of Wikipedia, which can be used to focus teaching of journalism concepts. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:38, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I trust an army of students 6 to 12 to write an encyclopedia, under one IP address, which helps corrupt the students' better will with the mask of anonymity, thus causing them to vandalise articles en masse. I think I wrote a ton of stuff on that, but I forgot what happened to it. --Σ talkcontribs 22:51, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The teacher could be asked to guard against vandalism as part of the program. Robert 00:46, 7 September 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert the Devil (talk • contribs) 00:45, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we already do this, actually - great minds think alike! See "Wikipedia Ambassador Program" Social tamarisk (talk) 20:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ref: Wikipedia articles on "The Caine Mutiny", "Captain Queeg", and "Workplace bullying."

Captain Queeg in the classical WWII naval war novel, "The Caine Mutiny," was petty, dishonest, inattentive to duty, and cowardly, and these were among his better features. Captain Queeg is extensively described in several Wikipedia articles. Not described is Captain Queeg's defining signature statement, "I am an unholy son-of-a-bitch," prominent in the novel. This statement, largely unnoted, reveals a psychological lost soul with an extremely negative self-image, which is a clue to his bizarre actions and pronouncements. The novel was a fictional treatment of a real-life ship and its captain.

As a young Army officer, I worked for two personalities very similar to Captain Queeg. I went back to school with the specific intent to learn why the Army would promote and support such counterproductive officers. Nothing in the MBA program nor in my own extensive readings in management and psychology contributed to my understanding of the problem.

The first two civilian managers I worked for were both exactly in the pattern, only worse. I have since identified dozens of similar personalities. Without exception, the SOB manager is, across the board, the most incompetent managerial type experienced. Human Resources studies tell us that perhaps half of all workers (~ 65 million workers) will be subject to an abusive boss at some point in their careers, implying huge personal and organizational costs easily in the billions of dollars, as described and verified in the "Workplace Bullying" article.

These SOB personalities each follow a distinct and recognizable pattern of behavior and each has a typical signature statement, often in the form, "I am a tough son-of-a-bitch" or "I am a tough little bastard." This is not random profanity. This is a core statement of the SOB personality's defining self-image. I have labeled this behavior pattern, including the signature statement, as the "SOB Syndrome." This type statement appears to be exclusive to very disturbed personalities, but this particular and peculiar statement is indistinguishable and lost among the many bizarre and destructive statements and actions of the SOB personality. There are many reports of SOB-type behavior but these reports are anecdotal, not analytical.

Alcoholic and substance-abusing workers have a chemical marker that is easily detected and organizations generally take rapid steps to end the hazard presented by such workers. The signature statement of the SOB personality, "I am a tough son-of-a-bitch," is an equally valid verbal marker for a destructive personality that typically has otherwise excellent qualifications for his/her position; Captain Queeg was a Naval Academy graduate. These qualifications tend to maintain the SOB in his/her position and are an element within the SOB Syndrome. Consequently, the SOB is an unrecognized hazard that tends to maintain his/her position for long periods.

Sooner or later, the SOB personality will lose his/her position, typically after doing much damage to the organization. The military tends to transfer SOBs, but that does not solve the problem. Analyzing why the SOB is allowed to continue in position while abusing subordinates and failing to reach organizational goals is key to understanding the SOB Syndrome. I have done such an analysis from the perspective of a professional engineer and businessman, using recognized psychological models. My findings have been vetted by qualified psychological and educational experts. My findings are contained in my privately-published book, "The S.O.B. and Business: Destruction Dynamics in Organizations," available on the web.

I propose to add a comment on the SOB's nature and signature statement to the referenced Wikipedia articles, and perhaps a separate article on the SOB Syndrome. The SOB Syndrome is almost totally unrecognized and unaddressed within conventional management and psychological literature, and is not found on the Internet. Regardless, this is the phenomenon under discussion in articles on the "bully boss" and "Captain Queeg" references, and requires attention to document existing knowledge and to improve organizational performance and general understanding.

Any advice or guidance would be welcome.

Pa Deuce (talk) 23:26, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your idea sounds interesting, but privately published books are not generally accepted as WP:reliable sources unless the author is proven to be an expert in the field. (So if Albert Einstein privately published a book on physics, we'd take that, but if I did, we wouldn't.) Consequently, I don't think that this will be acceptable. You could, however, make suggestions on article talk pages for paragraphs and sources that you think would be appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you are doing actual research on this topic, it would be interesting to find out how many "SOBs" have been promoted to become admins, bureaucrats, and other "leadership" positions in Wikipedia. My own experience is that there are more than a few of them. What is especially interesting is that almost all of the communication can be found in relatively "permanent" form and can date over the course of several years in terms of analyzing behavior.
Basically, Wikipedia itself would be a fantastic case study with this principle and you might even be able to compose some statistics on the concept itself as well from a fairly large population in a way that would be hard for most other organizations. Since the content of most of these talk pages are supposedly "public", you wouldn't even necessarily have to get any sort of consent to perform this evaluation either.
I know that isn't quite what you were looking for here, but it is something you might be able to find some volunteers to help you out so far as collecting data or perhaps even finding somebody who might be willing to co-author a paper with you if you are interested in getting this into formal academic publications. If you can get such a concept published outside of Wikipedia in a reliable forum (like a journal of psychology), quoting that paper in a Wikipedia article is generally considered much more acceptable and it is likely that others will recognize the value of that publication so you won't even have to do the actual inserting of that article as a source. In fact, I'd still recommend that an author not insert references to his own work, although mentioning something to the effect you have the book or paper for consideration on a topic on the talk page would certainly be useful.
The line between self-published books and more formally published materials is blurring due to "new media" opportunities, so identifying what is a reliable source can be tricky. Still, don't give up hope. You just have to work a bit harder if you want your ideas recognized. --Robert Horning (talk) 23:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Portion protection

There's been trouble recently on Super Mario 3D Land about an unsourced release date. An edit war was basically started which didn't stop until my request for full protection was approved. It just expired, but I've seen no more unsourced edits (checks watchlist) since last Sunday. What if there was a way to fully protect only a portion of a page using a tag? If someone tried to edit the locked area, an edit conflict-like notice will appear, and the software will remove the edit in the locked area. An admin can add or remove the type of protection by adding the tag, then protecting the page using a special setting. This would stop any disputes about a certain portion of a page, without having to break out full or semi protection. --Nathan2055talk - review 17:50, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea, though it probably brings with it significant technical challenges. The first I can think of is simply on how: how does the software distinguish the content which should be edited and the content which should not be edited when a person edits the entire page, and technically, how does the software do it at all? --Izno (talk) 18:30, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would need significant software updates, but it's uses are infinite. How would it distinguish the area? Perhaps a <protection> tag could be made. --Nathan2055talk - review 18:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It could probably be done with the abuse filter. Have it set up so that no edits adding, modifying, or removing protect tags/templates are allowed except if done by an admin. --Yair rand (talk) 22:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that would be a fairly heavy use for the abuse filter. --Izno (talk) 00:23, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm not sure if the abuse filter could even be set to block that much edits. And then there is more trouble-removing protect tags. I'm not sure how that would work. Anyway, ever considered a RC patrol bot for this type of job? Maybe called ProtectBot (talk · contribs)? --Nathan2055talk - review 00:54, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That protection could easily be circumvented by just hiding the section in question and starting a new one with your preferred version. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 21:32, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like a nice idea. It could be a technical challenge, though. If it is a technical possibility, it sounds like it could work. I've noticed a few people who keep adding false information to pages on footballers regarding transfers (Eden Hazard is an example). Partial page protection would be helpful. I have no idea if it is technically viable, though. ItsZippy (talk) 14:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are other ideas which are in more of a grey zone, but this one can be done without a doubt. Also, it seems that many of you haven't tried googling - there is a similar solution already existent called Extension:ProtectSection. Of course, its code would have to be quality-checked and its bugs ironed out. If necessary, we could even add section semi-protection (it's actually really easy once you've got the code for protection). So, there seem to be 3 options:

  • An extension like Extension:ProtectSection;
  • A bot which would check that <protect> tags are added only by admins, and would revert edits trying to circumvent the protection, including editing the section, removing the tag, or copying the content. Other forms of blatant protection evasion would be grounds for an immediate 31-hour block and then possibly an indef;
  • An edit filter. I am currently working on one.

— Kudu ~I/O~ 20:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was just now checking the Quetiapine article, and noticed how frequently this page was edited, 27 times in the last month and on average every 2.73 days since it's creation in 2003. The article has contained controversial and plain wrong information more than once. Maybe this type of topic (psychiatric medication or psychoactive drugs) could use some partial protection for sections based on official sources like the FDA, Summaries of Product Characteristics and Patient Information Leaflets content etc. Not so much to prevent edit wars but rather to indicate some "higher standard" for the information provided in those sections. At the moment it's hard to tell whether any of it can be believed at all. DS Belgium (talk) 09:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Narcotics Anonymous for wikipedians

Hi, I'm egg centric and I'm an addict....

Ok, first of all, despite being a member of NA (and less than a week than that) I'm perfectly aware 12-step programs are by themselves total rubbish, in the sense there's a lot of god-crap and that they have no proven efficacy. So I don't want to argue about that stuff. I totally AGREE with Penn and Teller.

Nevertheless... there is a HUGE thing about talking to other addicts that is really great - and that DOES help. So I was wondering if there could be a narcotics anonymous/alcoholics anonymous/whatever for wikipedians. I appreciate that wiki is not for hosting these things - but my idea is that it would be for wikipedia users. In truth it would probably end up on the IRC bit - there's already an online NA chatroom in the UK which is rather succesful, and that could work here too. Thoughts? Egg Centric 20:27, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could this be what you're looking for? --bodnotbod (talk) 08:18, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously not. — Kudu ~I/O~ 21:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel like Wikipedia is the right place for such a thing. There are many suitable forums that can be found online. — Kudu ~I/O~ 21:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This editor is very old and may stop editing suddenly.

Editors come and go of course and there is nothing wrong with that but what about long-standing editors that suddenly and unexpectedly stop editing? There does not seem to be anyway of finding out what has happened to them. It is possible that some of these editors are getting on a bit and might have passed away, and no-one here will ever know, which seems a bit of a shame. Would it be possible/feasible/desirable to have some sort of voluntary scheme whereby editors can leave contact details (perhaps a next of kin) and instructions to contact after 1/3/6 months. I understand that some people work away for extended periods or go on long holidays but explanations/templates can be added to user pages to avoid confusion. I am not entirely sure where I'm going with this so feel free to chip in.--Ykraps (talk) 10:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing it the other way round might be better. We could offer a PDF form that people can print, which would say something like: "I am a Wikipedia editor under the name ___. In case of my death, please send an email to ___ / leave a message at http://en.wikipedia.org/___ . Please disclose / do not disclose my real life identity." If this becomes popular, we could even combine it with an automatically generated public/private key authentication. Editors would post the public key to their user page, and the PDF form would contain the private key, to be presented by the "executor" of this "Wikipedia will". Hans Adler 11:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have no very strong view on the idea in general, but I do have a very strong view that public/private key authentication of such things is absurd and of no value whatsoever.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I was thinking too far ahead, mostly because a relatively prominent Wikipedian may have died recently. It's tantalising not to know if an anonyous editor has died or has disappeared for a different reason such as stress reduction or sock puppetry. It can be stressful for part of the community not to get closure on this. On the other hand, we don't want jokers going around claiming the deaths of editors who are inactive for other reasons. While not a BLP concern in the usual sense, similar considerations w.r.t. editors apply here. Hans Adler 11:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I'd love to have a userbox that says "This editor is very old and may stop editing suddenly." LOL (as I believe you young things say). Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:28, 25 August 2011 (UTC) (aged 59½)[reply]

Okay. Just to expand my thoughts a bit, this is how I saw it working: 1. The scheme is completely voluntary. 2. An editor would enter details on a database such as; My next of kin's name is ....., His/her contact details (or simply an email address) are.........., Please contact after (time) if there has been an unexplained stop in my editing. 3. The editor gets a userbox for his/her page that explains they are part of the scheme. 4. Only admins have access to the database and only admins can make contact once an enquiry has been made by an editor. 5. An explanation is posted on the 'missing' editors user page. (would it be appropriate for other editors to leave messages of condolence here, do you think?) Hans' idea is good and would mean less work for the community but as statistics show that as (in the UK, anyway) most people can't be bothered to even make a will; it probably aint going happen!--Ykraps (talk) 12:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea for a web service by some trustworthy provider, final sign offs for things like Facebook and suchlike. It's not something that I care about personally but I do know lots of people seem to worry about their persona on the web. Perhaps it is something that is already being done somewhere? I'm not sure how one would achieve the necessary trust but judging from how little some social sites seem to care for security perhaps that doesn't matter ;-) Dmcq (talk) 21:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's easy enough for individuals to do this individually, using the same processes that their friends and family will need to use to deal with their real life accounts. Most people should have a list of usernames and passwords for their most significant accounts, written on paper and stored with a copy of their wills. Adding "and please post a note to Wikipedia" after the "The retirement account number is _____, and if you want to see it online, the username and password are..." or "Please phone this e-mail outfit and tell them that I died and want the account deleted" is not very difficult. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't oppose anything like this but I agree with WhatamIdoing. See User:Bobamnertiopsis/userboxes/isdead. It might be possible for the person who places the userbox on the page to supply the code for the committed identity. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:30, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could get some editors to act as precogs and tell the older editors they are going to die next week, so they could set their affairs in order... just kidding. But more seriously, I do not see this as much of a problem, as really good editors leaving so unhappily. I did not know User:RickK, but came across his name by chance and saw that after 30,000 edits he left very unhappily. And there was a really good editor User:Radagast3 who left so unhappily he even deleted his own user page after he was blocked for one month by an "involved admin" and the community did very little abut it. So we can not stop people from dying, but there should be much better policies to avoid the loss of really good editors like Radagast3. History2007 (talk) 20:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW -- and it's probably not worth much -- there is Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians, and if you post someone's name there maybe someone who knows what happened will fill in the details. But probably not. Herostratus (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Hans and WhatamIdoing that a system whereby people put something in there will makes sense. I also think a public key system where the private key is in the users's will makes sense. Why do you think it absurd Jimbo? Too hard to implement? We are only talking about recording two numbers and having someone verify that one is a factor or the other. Very easy. Yaris678 (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't see the point to this. I have had at least one Wikimedia account where I forgot the password and have no other means to edit on that account. What did I do? Simply move on and create a new account. My "old" account looks like I suddenly stopped editing.
There may be a legitimate reason why some people stop editing. They could have a personality conflict with other editors/admins. They may not like a policy change. They may simply have stuff happen in their life which pulls them away from regular contributions. None of these reasons are death, but perhaps it would be useful to find out why they left.
I did know of one particular regular contributor whose widow e-mailed Foundation-l after his death as a means to let some of those who worked with him on some projects that he passed on. I don't want to make light of this (especially as I just buried two good friends of mine this past couple of weeks... sheer coincidence but it is something I'm thinking about). Then again, if somebody wants to leave "bread crumbs" behind so they can be found or that others can find their fate, I'm not against that either. I would not like to see foundation resources devoted to this effort beyond simply letting user pages of these "departed" editors remain where they are at with perhaps some sort of semi-protection or other safeguard to keep those pages from being edited. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's one thing if a user just stops editing and nobody has any idea why. (Although the user themselves may not be happy with this. People want to get their things in order before they die, and for some this may include notifying Wikipedia why they stopped editing.) But some editors have a lot of Wikipedia-friends who may be worrying about the user's condition and may be waiting for closure. Or think of Wikipedians suddenly stopping to edit on the day a disaster strikes their region.
Closure also helps to prevent inappropriate messages from accumulating. E.g., Orangemarlin, a difficult but very popular editor, took leave on 8th July to undergo difficult heart surgery and has not edited since, but initially continued to get talk page messages related to editing disputes. Maybe he will be back in a month to leave a short message that he has decided no longer to waste lifetime on Wikipedia. Maybe not. Maybe we all just have to get used to the fact that this, including the lack of closure, is what cyber-tombstones look like. Or we could do something about it and transfer conventional ideas of propriety into Wikipedia (while making sure to prevent abuse by pranksters). In any case I don't think foundation sources should be wasted. Hans Adler 09:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid that I don't have the slightest idea of what resources are required and I have no desire to consume large amounts of power/memory (?) meant for storing articles. However, I receive an email everytime someone edits my talk page and I don't see why something similar can't be done when there has been an unexplained lapse in editing.
Personally I'm not too bothered about people who stop editing because they got bored or disallusioned because that is their choice and if they feel so inclined, they can leave an explanation on their talk page. Dying is quite different. I am not a very active Wikipedian and if I was hit by a bus tomorrow very few people here would notice and I doubt very much if any would care but I would not want them to think I left without saying goodbye (I was brought up to believe that was rude). Other editors are much more active and interact with a great many other editors on a daily basis. In these situations it's likely that some sort of bond is formed and therefore, like Hans, I believe some sort of closure is required.--Ykraps (talk) 07:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is an overlooked problem, which will only become more serious with time. There's a similar problem in the Open Source world: I know of one project that came to an abrupt end when its maintainer fell off the Internet, & only after a determined user tracked down the real-life identity of the person did anyone learn he had died. His family knew nothing of his software project, & so they never thought to let anyone online know about his death. A simple way to address this problem would be for Wikipedians to ask their family, in the event of their deaths, to contact someone in the community with the news. One way would be to open an OTRS ticket with a message along the lines of "Joe Blow, username Such-n-such, died on this date. His obituary appeared in this newspaper." OTRS is set up as a contact point for non-Wikipedians to communicate with us, so that wouldn't be an unusual request. Yes, this solution isn't fool-proof, & some veteran Wikipedians who have become very alienated from community might refuse to do this just to spite us -- but it would be a start & would be better than nothing. (And had Orangemarlin made arrangements like this, then people like Hans wouldn't be as worried about his silence; no news would simply mean he's on an extended WikiBreak.) -- llywrch (talk) 06:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete button an individual userright

Thoughts on it? It would be very helpful for new page patrollers. I remember getting CAT:CSD to 93 articles singlehandedly once, and would've hit triple digits if I hadn't mentioned that on IRC.

Obvious theoretical limitations could include not being able to delete a page with over 20 revisions, or something else. --Σ talkcontribs 05:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We've had this idea so many times... always defeated. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 06:06, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that deletion is actually the number one or two (Blocks being the other) thing people are worried about in RfA's. So I doubt that anyone who can't pass an RfA could pass this. I also think it's a little less useful than it might appear, because you still need a second admin/deleter anyway. Rather, I should say that in my opinion you do. Except in the case of copy-vios, attack pages, and recreation of deleted pages, I think it's really critical that one person tags the articles and a different person actually does the deletion, even if the first person is an admin. It bothers me to think of things like A7 not having at least the bare minimum of 2 eyes checking them; I say this even more now as an admin than before, because I find myself declining a fair number of A7s, since it is a very subjective decision. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A large number of A7s I get are "Person was born in 1996-2001", which is even worse, as they are minors. Getting just the delete button should be easier, as RfA requires 3+ good articles for some reason. In my CSD log, I noted that a page I tagged took 12 hours to be deleted under what should be speedy deletion. CAT:CSD is (as of this timestamp) at 49 articles, which is almost a backlog. --Σ talkcontribs 06:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It still won't convince people to support this. If you are worried about a page's content, blank it after tagging. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 07:06, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Read the edit notice. --Σ talkcontribs 07:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
? It says "reply" Oh, you meant that one — well, I'm just telling you that this has been proposed many times before and has always been shot down; so in essence, you're wasting your time. If that's your goal, g'ahead. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:30, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly enough, I remember backlogs of 200+ articles in C:CSD to be common when I was more active in deletion (a couple of years ago), and that was when we used to promote a lot more admins. Of course, back then we didn't expect all of them to be content-perfect AND to do lots of admin work. —Kusma (t·c) 08:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
+1. "Back in my day...." the CAT:CSD was out of control. Two digits is like heaven. Sorry, I see this as a potentially dangerous situation with very little need at this point. Until the error rate that I see at CAT:CSD decreases, I'm unlikely to support anything like this, in either my personal or professional capacities. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Σ, you may not have realized this, "speedy" means "without having a week-long discussion first". It does not mean "deletion guaranteed to happen within minutes or hours after tagging". In fact, we get justifiable complaints from people when pages are deleted so quickly that the authors have no opportunity to address the problem. This is a serious problem when we have so many NPPers who don't understand the difference between "says something positive about a notable business" and "hopelessly promotional spam". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I saw for the implementation of WikiLove, an abuse filter logs its use. Why not have this implemented, with an abuse filter to log all non-admin deletions so the deletions can be reviewed? Also, there would be a required policy for this, including things like must have tagged at least 50 successful CSDs and must have had and used rollback constructively for at least 2 months (obviously the user would be autoconfirmed), and other requirements. (I don't usually tend to support a minimal number of edits, as some people edit more than others, whether manually or semi-automatically.  Hazard-SJ  ±  04:34, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is not only a bad concept and idea, but something absolutely horrible. I have spoken up about the "New Page Patrollers" before and have been adamant that many of them are simply clueless about many topics with often a refusal to simply learn what is a legitimate article and what isn't. If it was just an isolated case, I could be content with that but it goes well beyond just a couple of users in this case.

This is also a basic and fundamental philosophical battle over what a wiki is all about, when articles should be kept or deleted, why they should be kept or deleted, and what impact it has upon new readers and new contributors. I stand by my assertion that the new contributor experience on Wikipedia is horrible to down right rude to the point that I am amazed that anybody new comes to Wikipedia in the first place, much less would be willing to help out on any project.... and that is just with the edit wars on existing pages. The new user experience on creating new articles is especially fraught with difficulty, where even I as a rather experienced hand at Wikipedia content need some substantially thick skin and by necessity must engage in Wikilawyering just to get a new article to stick around for more than 30 minutes when I create it.

As a basic philosophical principle, I don't think any reasonably sourced content should ever be deleted from Wikipedia. This includes content for which the citation may not necessarily be apparent or so formally mentioned either, and that there is a proper role for stubs. I know some people feel differently on this, but it is a basic principle that also reflects strongly on the basic principles of Wikipedia in a most basic manner. I will battle against those who would turn Wikipedia into Nupedia, which is something that to me is an ever present problem with many users who would have that happen. Nupedia failed explicitly because it was not friendly to new users and could not sustain or grow articles.

Introducing the ability to delete articles to new page patrolers who don't meet the standards of administration is to me a mistake so far as it is perhaps the single most abusive ability that you can have if in the wrong hand, even more so than a user block. I will be the first to admit that there is a need to delete some pages, but it is an ability which by its nature should be done rarely and with soberness knowing that you are destroying the work of others and censoring content. For myself, this is the #1 administrator privilege that should be reserved exclusively to admins, even if all other abilities and "user rights" are available individually to other users (like page blocking, user blocks, etc.) Only in the hands of somebody competent who also has the power to "undelete" should this privilege be given. It is also with page deletions that I think somebody who holds administrator rights should be most held accountable for their actions where abuse is just cause for removing this privilege.

Let the backlogs build up, and I don't care if there is a backlog of thousands or even millions of articles. That can be dealt with in time and is not an excuse to be unfriendly to new contributors as so commonly is the problem with those trying to "clear out" some sort of cleanup category. I would rather that we become much more friendly to new users than necessarily having a clean project free from errors. --Robert Horning (talk) 06:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the dangerous delete button shouldn't be used on a regular basis like NPP as so many people go there and they may occasionally delete the wrong page. I wonder how useful this tool would be for the clerks who work at WP:Copyright problems (And, if CSBot is working, WP:Suspected copyright violations too). There are quite a few users (with me included) that work over there but all of these users have good judgement and have plenty of experience in the copyright area. Minima© (talk) 06:43, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If they have good judgement and plenty of experience, they should be admins with perhaps extra privileges above and beyond adminship. The problem here is in part thinking that being an admin is some sort of special privilege granted to just an elite few with an incredibly high bar set as well. I've had adminship on other Wikimedia projects but have neither sought for nor for that matter really desired the ability on Wikipedia as anything needing deletion from my perspective could be accomplished by those with the ability as it is a power that should be used with great reserve.
If we have a backlog problem in some area where we need competent people reviewing proposed pages for deletion, the problem can and should be solved with perhaps an effort to seek out and find competent editors who can be trusted with the privilege. A great many people are falling through the cracks on Wikipedia in part because it is such a huge project that quality contributors are being ignored as well. If there is a particular group of editors who need the privilege, we shouldn't be so stingy with the ability. Indeed, it is the undeletion ability that is far more critical to be handed out, where from my humble perspective more people should perhaps be given the ability to undelete than delete.... but that is just me. If the number of admins on Wikipedia doubled over the next couple of months, I would view that as perhaps a good thing. --Robert Horning (talk) 07:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There can be near-perfect new page patrollers who have <1% of all tags being mistagged and declined, but cannot write articles, close AfDs, or meet all those other unwritten criteria for adminship. --Σ talkcontribs 08:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Adminship was never supposed to be a big deal. Just as there are specialized editors doing various projects, the same can be said for admins as well where some will specialize in a particular area of project administration. Closing AfDs, other than the actual deletion of the content itself, shouldn't even be the exclusive domain of admins either although it is helpful to get somebody who is experienced and hopefully neutral. The only real admin function that is "dangerous" besides the deletion button is the blocking/unblocking of users, and then for the technically minded folks who want to mess around with Special:AllMessages, something I wouldn't recommend even for experienced admins unless there is widespread group consensus that a change is needed.
I'm merely suggesting that if they can be trusted, that they should be trusted and that is that. Breaking out this particular bit of authority to somebody who is in theory less trusted implies that there is something wrong with the trust metric being used in the first place. My argument here is if you have some new page patrollers who can be trusted and show consistency on their markups, that it is about bloody time they become admins on Wikipedia. It shouldn't be that big of a deal to become an admin and perhaps they might be willing to branch out to other areas of the project over time as well. Having adminship on a wiki should not necessarily put you into an elite category of user, and existing admins shouldn't be blocking new adminship so vigorously or raising the standard to impossible heights. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I would like to add that I supported the concept of introducing newer users and people wanting to get more into the administration of project to have a tier of user rights between admin and autoconfirmed users. I'm not completely objecting to perhaps even some minor admin authority like perhaps setting some pages to semi-protect status or something similar could be useful in some cases for "probationary admins" trying to prove they can be trusted. Deleting pages, however, is a big deal and it is this authority that I think should be in the exclusive province of full adminship. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Giving someone the power to semiprotect an article is giving the user to partially salt a page and censor the edits of new users and IPs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Σ (talk • contribs)
Which gets back to the trusted user issue again. Admins already have this ability, which is done on a rather routine basis but does have oversight from other admins, bureaucrats, and others who can also change that status. The problem with the delete button is that often you don't really even know if the article has been deleted unless you look through the logs, at least as a mere mortal ordinary user. Semi-protect status is proclaimed on the page itself in a variety of ways, and usually a request for review on the Admin noticeboard is sufficient to get it removed if this ability is being abused. It doesn't stop you from being able to read the article or for a determined ordinary person to actually register a new account and eventually being able to edit that article.
I'm just using that as an example of something which currently isn't being done but I think would be more reasonable as a probationary authority that could be granted for somebody wanting to do more on Wikipedia. Being a member of a group which watches news media and semi-protects "hot topics" for a short duration doesn't seem like that bad of an idea, or allowing non-admins to join in to help with anti-vandalism efforts in some more substantive manner. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bad deletions can be easily reversed. I have no strong feelings regarding semiprotecting pages. --Σ talkcontribs 00:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In practice it is rare for anybody to reverse deletions, where there is strong hesitation to second guess another admin. To do so is usually considered a prelude to or tantamount to wheel warring. Just because such action are "easily reversible" doesn't mean that they are in practice. If you don't have the ability to delete/undelete pages and are fighting somebody in an edit war who does, it ramps up the problem considerably.
It is this uneven aspect of the use of the tools, where mass deletion of pages is common but mass undeletion is so rare as to make a Signpost article and to be really big news, likely as the result of ArbCom intervention and deadmining somebody after considerable and obvious damage has happened. I'm not necessarily suggesting that this is a terrible thing as it shows the quality of admins on Wikipedia, but my suggestion is that it is hard to get things undeleted or to even know if a deleted page even exists, particular as an ordinary Wikipedia user. In practice, bad deletions are not easily reversed even if in theory they can be. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am bound to tightly disagree - admins shall be admins. The reason "we" want our adminship candidates to have experience with content authoring and other activities than deletion is not because of the extra buttons (apart from deletion, I mean). I am of the opinion that once a user can be trusted to use the delete button, there isn't much of an issue to grant him the block and protect. The reason content writing experience is preferred for adminship candidates is because it's historically known to teach content policy skills which may be useful even in CSD work. — Kudu ~I/O~ 14:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does WP have a policy for sexually explicit photos?

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

Resolved
 – A member of en:WP:FEMINISM contacted legal and found out they actually do have a policy on possible child pornography: [[1]].--Henriettapussycat (talk) 19:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me start out by saying I'm not trying to censor anyone here. As long as we are verifiable adults. What I've been starting to wonder is if WP has any policy for age requirements with sexually explicit photos? I know there is a policy for public/private pictures of individuals. If there is, could someone point me to it? If there isn't, why is one not set in place? This could be a possible legal fiasco for many people. --Henriettapussycat (talk) 15:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To the extent that the image is appropriate to the article it is included in, the image has educational value, and thus should not be an issue if a minor views it, Wikipedia is not censored after all. As for a minor who searches out pornographic images that are not used in articles, we would be fighting a pointless battle to try to stop them, as such content is extremely accessible online, regardless of age. There would be no way to prevent a minor from accessing the images without also interfering with the ability of Adults to anonymously access the same images. See also Wikipedia:Sexual content. There is also the poll about letting users disable certain images for themselves, but that would do nothing to stop a minor seeking such images. Monty845 15:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem also comes from defining what is "sexually explicit". Is this one? How about this? How about here? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:04, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I just said this isn't about about censoring anything, or whether or not a minor is viewing these pics (that's a completely different issue). What I'm talking about is making sure the pictures are of adults. Number one you listed is the only one that applies to my question. Number two is a person wearing a thong, and number three is an illustration. Number one: are all the people featured there adults? And just because they "look like" they're of age doesn't mean they are. Teenagers can have boobs like that.
Seriously, read what I wrote. This doesn't have to do with censorship. This has to do with making sure child pornography isn't happening. I don't know the laws in other countries, but the US is very explicit about what constitutes as child pornography, and makes sites keep detailed information about photos which are sexual in nature, including the age of the subject. If Wikipedia is not monitoring this, there is a potential legal issue for them.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 16:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah I misinterpreted the issue you were raising, I think your original statement was somewhat ambiguous. Wikipedia:Sexual content does have two failed proposals that are on topic, it is also worth noting that some articles specifically do use nude (though arguably not sexually explicit) images of underage individuals, for instance [[Virgin Killer]]. Still I don't know a good way to verify age without making it very difficult, or even impossible to upload images taken by third parties that are either PD or otherwise acceptably licensed if they don't already provide the info, how is the uploader going to find it? Monty845 16:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, perhaps if the uploader can't find it, it shouldn't be uploaded? Just a logical conclusion. And I can make a few assumptions of why these propositions have failed.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 16:24, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is, if WP doesn't do something about this, eventually some entity where WP is based will come down on them about the issue. I can guarantee.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 16:27, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you are worried about the legal consequences for the foundation, I think you should correspond with them directly. Really what needs to be done as a matter of law would then be a question of a combination of Federal and Florida law and that should only be answered by the foundation's legal counsel. Monty845 16:42, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, probably something hysterical will happen some day, what with the servers being in Florida, but that is indeed irrelevant and very much up to the foundation to sort out, not the community. Anyway, the image is not of a minor (a breast reduction on a minor with two tattoos? unlikely) and in any case she could be of any age and the image is still not be child pornography as it IS NOT PORNOGRAPHY. It's breasts. Nothing pornographic. Egg Centric 17:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, you're mistaken. The image about which Henrietta is speaking is a closeup of a vagina spread very wide open by a pair of hands. It is not obvious that the subject of the photo is an adult; she may or may not be. Rubywine . talk 17:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops. Without seeing the image it certainly sounds like it could potentially be child pornography, but on a practical note how on earth would anyone ever know? I almost certainly isn't and seems an irrelevant concern (I can't imagine anyone is being sexually abused to put images on commons - I know human depravity has no limits and it's possible in theory, but that's just too unlikely to really worry about) Egg Centric 17:48, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A further thought: Why not just ask for all self-made potentially pornographic images to have some kind of model release? That should answer any plausible child porn OR abuse concerns. You'd have to grandfather in any current images for practicality. Egg Centric 17:52, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I believe would be the best of all solutions. Then there is a paper trail.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 17:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent idea. So we're all in agreement then. Henrietta, SlimVirgin has provided a link to what is probably the best place to raise this. Commons_talk:Sexual_content Rubywine . talk 18:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What's wrong with raising it here? I can't imagine that anyone would object to such a policy if carefully implemented, and there'll be more eyes on it here to get it right (as it will have to be carefully worded for sure). Egg Centric 18:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing wrong with raising it here whatsoever, if people here are empowered to take some action. My intention wasn't to challenge this discussion at all, it was just to point out that we've been pointed to the Commons forum (and by an admin who has experience on trying to raise related issues). Rubywine . talk 18:28, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I gave Henrietta quarter of an hour to create it then got bored, so here's your discussion Egg Centric 18:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I had to leave, real life beckons! But thanks. This is where the discussion is at pump policy. --Henriettapussycat (talk) 19:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The {{2257}} requirements have been recently discussed in the gender gap and best summarized in post by Andreas Kolbe. Additionally, images uploaded to the English Wikipedia are generally only done so to take advantage of "fair use" exemptions allowed here. — Dispenser 17:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not considered a porn site, that's why. But just because it isn't under these conditions now does not mean that these conditions will not apply in the future. And in any event, it doesn't mean that child porn is not being uploaded to WP.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 17:55, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If someone uploads child porn to Wikipedia then it's probably, frankly, a good thing, as I believe logs are kept indefinitely and the publicity surrounding it when discovered would force the police to do something (and I'm sure foundation would cooperate 100%). Result: paedophile imprisoned. But again, I expect this is a concern about something that won't happen in practice. Egg Centric 18:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Child porn has been uploaded. The files and logs were purged from the database (see Signpost). In any case, this is should be moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) since this is the wrong place for this discussion. — Dispenser 18:27, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bloody hell, I take that back then. Were the uploaders reported to legal authorities, and if not, why not? I believe that such a policy should be implented if there isn't one. Egg Centric 18:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with Egg Centric, we need to have some accountability here... I'm not some radical conservative trying to get all the nude pics off Wikipedia. I just don't want child porn on here. I'm definitely going to move this conversation.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 19:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to suggest that further discussion is directed to Commons, here:

Commons_talk:Sexual_content#Release_form_for_sexual_images_as_mitigation_against_child_pornography

The Commons discussion includes links to all four discussions on Wikipedia. Rubywine . talk 20:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, OK, but the thing about that is that Commons has a different job than the Wikipedias. I'd describe their policy (de facto anyway) as "We'll host anything, provided 1) it's not under copyright restriction and 2) it could conceivably be used for some reasonable purpose". And use of an image on any of the Wikipedias (even, probably, internal use) is more or less proof of the latter. (Lack of such use is not necessarily a cause for removal, although it's an argument that they consider, I think.) Certainly child pornography could be used to illustrate an article on child pornography, even if not on one of the Wikipedias then in someone's scholarly paper. They might be (and I guess are) constrained by legal fears, but only reluctantly I think, and the "We'll move the servers to Iceland if it comes to that rather than bow to any law regulating our content" camp has a fair amount of traction there, I'd say. So Bob's your uncle. There was a suggestion in the study on controversial content that came out last fall that, to address this dichotomy of purpose, Commons be spun off from the Foundation into its own entity, with their own corporate structure, fundraising, and servers, and that's probably a good idea but I haven't seen it gain any traction.
So that throws it back on the individual Wikipedias. I would say, regarding some of the arguments above, that kicking it upstairs to the Foundation is no answer. The Foundation doesn't see it as their job to regulate content, and they really can't even if they wanted to without running roughshod over the structures they have in place. We're a self-governing community, and need to govern ourselves on these issues. And if history teaches us anything, it's that entities that can't or won't govern themselves effectively will perforce find themselves governed by someone else. Herostratus (talk) 18:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very interesting response, thanks. After the conversation I had at Commons today, a spin off sounds like a good idea. With their attitudes, behaviour and total lack of preparation for questions about their policy, I can't see them as an asset to the future global expansion of Wikipedia. Or even the continued existence of Wikipedia. On your point that child pornography is suitable to illustrate academic studies, let alone Wikipedia articles, if you're talking about photographs that would be illegal to publish in print, I can't agree. I doubt that academics would source such photographs from Commons. Academic use of such materials would be regulated. Rubywine . talk 22:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, yeah, no academic would use a photo of child pornography to illustrate why child pornography is bad, or some other related issue.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you might use parts of photos. For example, I read once that law enforcement uses the child's facial expressions (which apparently get sadder over time) to infer the length of time a child has been abused. So you might show a series of cropped images that show the child's face. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay let me say something to those who are undereducated on this issue. Possessing child pornography for any reason is illegal. And I don't say this as some person on the street, I used to intern at a women's shelter. I know laws on this sort of stuff. So no--a researcher would not have these photos, and if they did, they would be thrown in jail if they made it known they had them. Also, facial expressions--perhaps by children who are in treatment for sexual abuse, but not during the act, and even then, patients and test subjects are to remain anonymous, even in gender. I can't believe I have to inform people this is not correct.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 00:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will respond to those claiming that others are "undereducated" on the issue. § 1466A makes it clear that a visual depiction of children in a pornographic sense must "lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;" in order to be illegal.
You claim that the possession of child porn "for any reason" is illegal, but there are many cases contrary to this: the possession of child porn by the state as evidence and as use for victim recognition(the UK government has a database of nearly 3 million child porn images, see JOHN, S. (2002, January 15). New Side to Face-Recognition Technology: Identifying Victims. New York Times. p. 5. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.), the development of child porn in dramas and documentaries to critique against it, for example all of the child porn on Law and Order SVU, as well as any scientific inquiry that someone may have. It is not unreasonable to assume if some scholar had a legitimate reason to analyze child porn that they would be allowed access to the department of justices large collection to run some sort of anonymous test. It is also not unreasonable to imagine the police using simulated child porn in a sting operation on a pedophile ring. I know that volunteers receive basic legal training, but that is not enough to be trying to teach the law to others, if you want to make a legal argument then appealing to authority with such qualifications will obviously be insufficient. As for banning child porn on Wikipedia, we already do that.AerobicFox (talk) 17:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously it is not illegal for the state and other authorities to have it as evidence. I didn't write that because anyone would logically know that--that is common knowledge (at least I assume anyone who knows anything about law enforcement would know this). Fictional child porn, such as on SVU, is not the same as actual child porn, and yes, I know about disputed cases in art. Get off your high horse on this. No one was being paranoid, flapping their hands, or anything such thing. All we did was question whether Wikipedia had a policy. People were rather rude to us and told us Wikimedia needed no policy, because it's a ridiculous idea to even fathom, and couldn't cite any policies (neither could you, in fact). We got to the bottom of it and found out that Wikipedia did have a policy. You also don't know what other training I have received as I don't you, and I am not going to start assuming. I may not know a thing about issues concerning copyright or other parts of the law, but I do understand issues concerning children due to my profession, including child abuse. Now get off it and stop treating me like I'm a five year old child.--Henriettapussycat (talk) 19:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

watchlist-item expiration

No idea if this has been discussed before and whether it's even technically possible: It would be nice if there was a gadget to have watchlist-items expire (maybe after half a year or so). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well I could write a Toolserver tool that prunes a watchlist by your last edit, edit traffic, number of watchers, and (possibly) page traffic. — Dispenser 02:31, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I often wish for separate buttons: "Watch this page" and "Watch this page for 60 days".
The problem with an automatic pruning is that I don't want to apply the same standards to everything. I watch some pages that I've never edited and never will, solely because a particular sockmaster can't stay away from them. But perhaps a recommended-for-pruning list would be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, something like that would be useful indeed. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 01:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
List pruning tools would be great. I've given up on pruning mine and it's grown to over 13,000 entries, which is much too large. The number of watchers and the last edit date would be two important factors in deciding which to remove.   Will Beback  talk  23:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've come up with a way for a gadget to know when to unwatch a page: Watch a sub-page like PAGENAME/expires=20120101, when checking the watchlist pull the raw watchlist, compare timestamps, and present the users with pages to unwatch. Optional: If all items were removed, set a cookie to avoid checking until the next item expires. — Dispenser 17:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thats funny something similar just came up in the last couple weeks somewhere else. So just wondering but wouldn't the user need to create a subpage for the watchlist for each date they want to delete? How would that work? The reason I ask is because I know that the watchlist is a restrictied visibility item meaning that its not readily stored and accessible on the servers to everyones view (ie. private). Thereby making the use of a tool to clean it up rather labor intensive because it requires me to manually remove them and place them in a separate list. Especially if you like me and have a very very very large watchlist. Personally I would be fine with an option that allowed me as an individual editor to use a user/subpage as a watchlist by default or in addition to the private one (or better yet be able to state which i want the article to go too in case I don't want someone to know I have x or y article on my radar) so that tools like this could be used. I also realize that many want to keep them private which is ok too. Personally I think there are a whole bunch of things that could be done if this was done including:
  1. Removing deleted articles from my watchlist
  2. Setting an article to expire after X time or X event
  3. Allow the automatic addition of articles to a watchlist if added to a certain category (Medal of Honor recipients for example)
  4. Better notification to the user if an article was submitted for something (like article alerts) be it For deletion, review, GA review, FAC
  5. etc.
--Kumioko (talk) 18:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You can watch red linked pages, so no need to create subpages. Sharing your watchlist can be done by copying Special:Watchlist/raw or as my in tools using the API with your watchlist token. But that's the easy part, the hard part is creating a useable interface. — Dispenser 19:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative uw-speedy1

My idea

Welcome to Wikipedia. Maybe you did it accidentally, but you may not remove a speedy deletion tag from a page you've created yourself, as you did in [{{{2}}} this edit]. If you are convinced the page should not be speedy deleted, you may contest the speedy deletion by adding {{hang on}} on the top of the page and, then, elaborate your opinion on the talk page of the article. Administrators will consider your reasoning before deciding what to do with the page. Thank you.
I would very much like to get your feedback about this topic. Alex discussion ★ 11:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For starters, the hang on tag was retired a while ago. Other differences between this template and {{uw-speedy1}} are an optional diff parameter and a different first sentence. "Maybe you did it accidentally, but you may not remove" vs "It might not have been your intention, but you removed". I think both wordings will get the message across, but prefer the original one. All that being said, doesn't User:SDPatrolBot handle this nowadays? Yoenit (talk) 12:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? Alex discussion ★ 12:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
User:SDPatrolBot replaces speedy deletion templates removed by the creator and issues warning templates. It uses a custom version of {{uw-speedy1}} which you can see for example here. I don't seem to be running now, but when it does there is no need to hand these warnings out manually. Yoenit (talk) 12:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're right! But, why should we hand it manually, anyway? There is a several scripts that can easy (with one click) revert those edits and warn individuals. (Link is diff of reverted edit). For sure, it must be customized with the present wiki standards. Regardless of first sentence, it's quite a better worded in some parts, and it also provides a link! We could merge good sides of both versions, so we'll got potential better template, if you agree? Alex discussion ★ 13:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
at any rate, "created by yourself" is not correct English for the intended meaning. It should be just "created yourself". Ntsimp (talk) 13:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Smart phone editing

There are a few iPhone and other smart phone apps that allow Wikipedia to be read on a smart phone. I was wondering if it would be possible to create an app which allows people to edit Wikipedia with their smart phone. ItsZippy (talk) 14:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've never used a smart phone, but it's my understanding that they have web browsers. Ntsimp (talk) 14:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can edit Wikipedia using mobile Safari. But if there was an app that made it a whole lot easier (easier to select blocks of text, easier to scroll in the edit window, ability to use the edit toolbar), then I would be a happy person indeed. –xenotalk 21:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just to follow up on these ideas (which I agree with), there is a Meta portal for the mobile projects being done at the Foundation. I was thinking of adding a single idea log to it as well where we can catalog and describe these ideas, but in general I just wanted to point out that place. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suppression by administrators

This is slightly similar to how the system worked a while ago.

  • Administrators using RevDel can select the Suppress revision from other administrators option. They can also use hideuser feature when blocking.
  • Administrators cannot see suppressed revisions, even the ones they hid. Only oversighters/suppressors can.
  • Users requiring suppression would still be directed to go to an oversighter/suppressor and not an admin. This would be for patrolling use only.
  • The same requirements would apply to admin suppression as for oversighter suppression. Issues involving admins using suppression when not required instead of RevDel will be dealt with in the usual matter (as appropriate).
  • Entries to the suppression log can be filtered by enforcer (admins or oversighters). (optional feature)
    • These entries can be patrolled by oversighters to assess the admin suppression. (optional feature)
  • The bulk of this is dependent on bug 20476.

What do you guys think? — Kudu ~I/O~ 21:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain how these changes would be improvements or what problems they'd address? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Will Beback (talk • contribs) 21:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would allow admins to deal with libel, outings and other suppressible issues more quickly, especially since there aren't always oversighters available around the clock. — Kudu ~I/O~ 20:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Conversely, it would create the problem of certain revisions being unviewable until an oversighter/suppressor is available to unsuppress it, if an error is made in the suppression process. —C.Fred (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you see an issue with the cycle time for suppression requests right now, or do you believe the current oversight team is overloaded? - Alison ❤ 21:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC) disclosure: I'm an oversighter[reply]
Hmm... I'm not sure if there would be much added benefit over-and-above the current system of administrators using regular revision deletion and then flagging it to an oversighter. Yes, it would mean that other admins would not be able to view the oversightable material while it is being reviewed by the oversight team but this is usually not a huge concern. And on the other hand, it would would increase the probability that material would be inappropriate suppressed and add work for the oversight team as they would have to patrol the admin-suppressions. As an alternative, I think a pretty neat feature would be a checkbox for administrators to check to automatically flag the deleted revision for review by an oversighter - it would either generate an email to the oversight queue or have it appear on a special page for oversighters to review (or both). –xenotalk 21:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC) disclosure: sitting arbitrator and holder of oversight permissions[reply]

I can assure we are not currently overwhelmed/understaffed. As of this moment there are no pending requests in the queue and 24 persons with oversight permission signed in at OTRS waiting for work to do. That's what it has been like most of the time for the past year. I would add that currently WMF policy is that all holders of CU/OS permissions must identify themselves to the Foundation, so all 1,544 admins would need to submit identification. I don't think we need to do this, and furthermore I don't think we can do it. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:34, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm that. Whenever I get the chance to log into OTRS (which is not enough, I'm afraid), I wonder if my queues have been set wrong in preferences because I don't see any open tasks!
As I understand it, Kudu is suggesting we give admins the ability to simply quickly oversight something - but not view anything more than they can now - so it probably wouldn't require identification. (See wmf:Privacy policy#Access to and release of personally identifiable information; wmf:Access to nonpublic data policy)
However, the more I think about it, the more issues I see arising: already too much material is revision deleted that shouldn't have been; it would reverse the onus, essentially requiring oversighters to have to explain every time they had to convert a suppression back to a deletion; and would lead to more complaints submitted to the Audit Subcommittee. –xenotalk 22:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if I like the idea of admins being able to suppress, but not view/unsuppress suppressed revisions. Just generally, allowing anyone to take an action they can't reverse is troublesome, at least potentially. And of course, allowing admins to view suppressed revisions would render the whole system rather useless. If there's a compelling need, I'd say consider it, but in lack of that I just think the cons outweigh the pros. That said, the idea of admins flagging a revision for review by oversighters makes a lot of sense.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I don't much care for the flagging idea either, due to the potential for the Streisand effect. That is why suppression requests are best done through emailing OTRS. That's actually better than just flagging it because the reporting user, which does not have to be an admin, can describe in detail what the problem is without calling undue attention to it. It's a well-designed system that has had a lot of thought put into it. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In my idea, the fact that an item was flagged for suppression would only be available to users with the oversight permission. And indeed, perhaps the interface should simply provide a convenient way to generate an email to the OTRS queue with a field input for a rationale while performing an admin-level revision deletion (someone could probably write a script to accomplish this). –xenotalk 15:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. Interesting. If we can find the code-fu to actually do that I could totally get behind that. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Time and Date code

Is it currently possible to have a time & date code written into an article? For example, the 2011 Rugby World Cup page has dates and times of matches to be played, but doesn't show the time zone (which is obvious, but that's beside the point). What would be neat is if there were a universal way of writing the time & date unambiguously such that the system would show you the local time. For example, I'm in Singapore, and the time that the match is playing would be shown in Singapore time. Has that already been implemented and is just not being used? Is it worth doing? What do people think? Grj23 (talk) 02:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the time of the match matter in the first place? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:10, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Linkrot - What to do?

I would like to gather some input on what can be done to eliminate Wikipedias problems with linkrot. I already made a number of proposals none of which actually led anywhere. The following is a collection of links to previous discussions regarding this topic:

I still come across a lot of articles with dead reference links, so I think the linkrot problem is still far from being solved. I encourage all editors to comment on this topic. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:10, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think they are separate issues. To repair link rot, we have people who monitor the category, and add information to the bare URL. Once the link has gone dead, it involves a different process to recover the source. While it might make sense to repair both aspects simultaneously, I will admit that I clean a lot of link rot by adding the information, while leaving the dead links for another. (partially because I have yet to learn the means). My76Strat (talk) 22:32, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am mainly concerned with the dead links. The problem is that once a link has died it is in many cases impossible to restore it. We need to do something before the links go dead, at least that's my opinion. The coverage of services like the Internet Archive doing link archiving on a regular basis are not satisfactory for our purposes in my opinion. And the majority of our editors does (for various reasons) not do anything to ensure the reference links they introduce will remain stable in the future. Also I know that Wikiwix already archives Wikipedias links and I appreciate that. However I think that alone is not sufficient to preserve the verifiability of our entire content (if that is possible after all, I doubt it). And I would like to highlight again that we are all volunteers here. If online only sources go dead, the information supported by that source is in question and the work put into researching and putting together that information can be regarded as wasted completely. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My GSoC project was on this and through it I created the ArchiveLinks extension. The route we decided to go was to partner with archive.org. They will be archiving all new links on demand from a feed that the extension produces and making them available shortly thereafter (i.e. within a matter of hours/days ). The extension then hooks into the parser to add links to the cached version after every external link on the wiki. Feel free to ask away if you have any questions. --Kevin Brown (talk) 01:26, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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