Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)

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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:

• Discussions of technical issues belong at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).
• Discussions of policy belong at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).
• If you're ready to make a concrete proposal and determine whether it has consensus, go to the Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Proposals worked out here can be brought there.

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.
• Wondering whether someone already had this idea? Search the archives below, and look through Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals.

« 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.

Native language transliterations in lead

Hi all, those of you who attended the Wikiconference India might have heard me speak there on this issue, but for the majority of the world community who didn't hear me, here goes:

Non-english Language transliterations are commonly found in the lead of articles with strong non-English connections (like Indian). For example, see the lead in Rajinikanth. These transliterations cause a lot of problems for the community. Why? Because:

1. In many articles, it is clearly disruptive because it takes up a lot of space (for example:Karol Bagh (Delhi Metro))
2. It leads to many edit wars and blocks (see the edit history of Hosur for instance)
3. It is a sheer waste of editors' time (see the RfC on Talk:Katrina Kaif)

Why do we have these transliterations in the first place? WP:LEAD seems to say precious little about that, and only scratches the surface of the topic. We have no clear indication on the need of these transliterations, since this is clearly the English Wikipedia, and people come here to read only in English.

This is the first time I'm proposing a new policy/guideline, so I'd be grateful for any feedback I could get. Thanks! Lynch7 17:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

PS: I've a couple more points in mind, but I'll see how this goes, and then speak on them. Lynch7 17:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, if anyone is interested, this is the presentation I gave at the Wikconference. Lynch7 17:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

This practice arose because of the frequent use of altered names in English: Vienna for Wien, Munich for München, John Cabot for Giovanni Caboto, Christopher Columbus for Cristoforo Colombo. Although in the last case we don't find that out in the lead but in the first paragraph of the body (fifth total paragraph). Is that preferable? Some people only read the lead, of course. Is there another way to do this? Rmhermen (talk) 04:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

That is OK (to some extent) for names which are in latin script, because users can at least read them. There is no sense in mentioning names which are in Cyrillic or Devanagari or any other script, simply because the average reader cannot understand it. For such cases that you mentioned, like Vienna or something like Delhi, we can simply can write the local pronunciation in English. Lynch7 11:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree totally. I think these are often useful. I'm mainly familiar with European languages, but it's often interesting or useful to have the original name if you want to check out a source in another language. This applies in many areas where translations/transliterations can vary: philosophical terms, geographical names, titles of books and films, personal names.

They don't take up much space (generally less than a line), but if it really is necessary to give it in 10 different languages, then I agree it could be placed elsewhere. Use common sense.

As to edit wars, are you proposing that transliterations not be included at all? No matter where you put them, there will still be arguments over them. It's useful information, so it's wrong to exclude them. And as long as the edit warrers are only changing the transliteration it's not going to damage the rest of the article.

Having any kind of policy against them would be creating a rule that isn't necessary. It's not a serious problem, so why go to all the trouble of legislating against it - would it make you happy for people to be banned for including useful information in article ledes? Wikipedia already has too many rules, which is fun for the amateur lawyers out there, but scares off prospective editors. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion. I think it causes more nuisance rather than any genuine help. I know there are many places where translations/pronunciations vary, but that can be overcome by providing the name in Latin script. For instance, We can write: "Bangalore (locally known as Bengalūru) is the capital.... ". We could also provide IPA. Our goal in the English Wikipedia should be to provide information in the English language as efficiently as possible. We should, of course, make all efforts to clear ambiguities in pronunciation, but I don't think that it is our mandate to help others find sources in other languages.

I understand your sentiment about too many rules. Indeed, I don't intend to add negatively to the rules and policies already existing; My logic is simple: In many cases, we waste too much time on deciding which language translation should go up there; and in the end, the translation serves no purpose. Take for instance: Katrina Kaif. We had a long RfC, wherein it was decided that the Kashmiri translation should go up there. How is the name pronounced in Kashmiri? Its exactly the same as the normal English pronunciation. If it is absolutely needed to aid pronunciation or clear an ambiguity, then it is probably worth having a translation there. In most cases, it is not. Lynch7 17:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

"Our goal in the English Wikipedia should be to provide information in the English language as efficiently as possible." I don't think it is clear that that is our purpose. Rmhermen (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, nowhere is that explicitly stated; but that's why we have other language Wikipedias. If we wanted to mention other languages, we put interwikis. I don't think we have to go out of our way to mention translations in clear cases where they are not needed. Lynch7 02:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I would consider an article to be defective that failed to tell me that the locals don't use the term Vienna for their city, for example. Rmhermen (talk) 05:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I was misunderstood :) Let me articulate that properly: I think its fine to have the native name in Latin script. That is, Moskva for Moscow and Dilli for Delhi. But not Москва́ for Moscow or दिल्लि for Delhi; simply because the average user cannot read Cyrillic or Devanagari. Lynch7 07:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The policy WP:AT#Treatment_of_alternative_names specifically permits "significant names in other languages", which would presumably include names in other languages that are written in their proper script. You might also like to look at WP:DIACRITICS. Some editors believe that "á" is not "really" Latin script because it doesn't have a separate button on their keyboards.

(I'm surprised to see someone who isn't a monoglot propose that non-English names be excised.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, I agree with you when the other names are "significant". But what we should not encourage is the rampant addition of native scripts just to show some connection to the native language/land (i.e. the native name is not significant on its own). When WP:AT say "which would presumably include names in other languages that are written in their proper script" , I disagree with the use of any particular script, because the script is not really important, but its the way its pronounced in the native language that is important. Lynch7 13:25, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that your opinion that the sound of the word is all that matters is generally shared.

I have once or twice found the native script to be useful, but normally I don't care much one way or the other. Realistically, even if I fully agreed with you, the two of us would not make a consensus. It appears that most editors feel that the native script could be important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposal: when you're learning about something that's primarily known in a non-English language, it helps to be able to see the way that its most common name is written. When you see "MOCKBA" in print and think that they made a spelling error, it's helpful to go to our article and find that it's really "Москва́". If it helps to know how the locals pronounce it, why doesn't it help to know how the locals write it, especially since many of us would see foreign languages more often than we'd hear them? Nyttend (talk) 00:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Having a default talk page notice on pages instead of manually using {{Talk header}}

Instead of having the {{Talk header}} template on most every talk page as it currently stands, wouldn't it make sense to have the MediaWiki software automatically include a talk page header by default instead? Something like that would save on the amount of wiki-code and template transclusions on talk pages, and it could be hidden (i.e. opt-out) if they're not needed on select talk pages. Thoughts? –MuZemike 01:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I think this would be fine for the main talk space, but for specific (user, template, wikipedia) talks it could be problematic, as there are a variety of templates used for the other namespaces. Of course the question then is, it worth the developers time to do alter something any bot can do, with no stress? Crazynas ^t 03:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Better task for a bot. Can just put a request at WP:BAG. Bots cost nothing Media Wiki costs salary. History2007 (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it makes more sense to remove most of these headers. I'd like to see a bot remove them from talk pages that contain zero text, and to warn registered users who add them at the time of page creation. If we actually needed these space-consuming warnings on every page, then we should have already added them defaultly to every single talk page. We don't need them (and the more warnings you add, the less effective they are), so we shouldn't have so many of them. They should be added to pages that have demonstrable problems, not to all possible pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I could not disagree more. Warning users for moving towards discussions? Never, never, never. We do not have 'space problems'. We could fit over 10 billion such talk pages on a $50 hard disk. In addition, deleting pages saves no space whatsoever; deleted revisions take up just as much space (plus a bit more, for the logs). Sometimes, a header can aid new users, showing them how the talk page is laid out, to get discussions started. Often, new users will not comment on a non-existent page, but if the page exists with a header, they will. I do agree that the header should be short, simple, and clear. If edit notice were not so hackish, I'd suggest using that; but Crazynas is right to consider the practicalities; Bots are cheap indeed. Chzz  ►  01:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, every edit made likewise takes up more space. In any case, my presumption has been that talk page headers are on most articles, so (going back to my proposal) instead of manually placing them as templates on talk pages, why can't the MediaWiki software automatically display the same thing on the top of all article talk pages? It would reduce the amount of code on the talk pages themselves as well as unneeded template transclusions. –MuZemike 06:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Chzz, it's not about the disk space. It's about the screen real estate.

So we have a guy at the moment who believes it his duty to the world to create talk pages for articles. He spams in a talk header on every single one of these newly created pages, plus one or more WikiProject banners. Do you know what a talk header plus three WikiProject banners is? It's a full screen—a screen that has so many cofeeroll-colored templates on it that the reader can't even see whether there are any comments or even any place to comment. Worse than that, it's a full screen whose very first action is to discourage discussion!

IMO the guy who's indiscriminately spamming in the talk headers needs to be warned to stop discouraging discussion by adding these warnings to pages that have never encountered a problem. Sure: create the page. Sure: add WikiProject banners. Sure: add your own comments. But don't start the page off with the bold-face warning that "This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject" unless you're actually having a problem with people chatting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

What about putting {{Talk header}} into an {{editnotice}}? ClaretAsh 10:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

NFCC enforcement

We now have over 400000 non-free files on Wikipedia, and many of these files have problems. I would like to formulate a proposal for WP:VPR here so that after the community discussion at VPR a request can be filed at WP:BOTREQ, should there be consensus for this proposal. I would like to have a bot that does the following:

1. scan all files in File: namespace not having a free license tag
2. check for the file, whether it is tagged with a template from Category:Non-free Wikipedia file copyright tags
   1. if it is not, place a notice on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions
   2. if it is, check the file transclusions
      1. for transclusions in main namespace, check whether it has a rationale (must be made bot identifiable)
         1. if it does, go to next transclusion
         2. if it doesn't, remove that transclusion from the article per WP:NFCC#Enforcement for violating WP:NFCC Policy 10c
            1. check, whether the file is still used in other articles
               1. if it is, proceed with next file.
               2. if it is not, in accordance with WP:NFCC Enforcement 2nd bullet point, notify the uploader.
                  1. after 7 days, check whether the file is used in other articles
                     1. if it is, do nothing
                     2. if it is not, delete the file
      2. for transclusions not in main namespace, remove the file per WP:NFCC#Enforcement for violating WP:NFCC Policy 9 and add {{GLNF|Name of removed file|Caption of removed file}}

Feedback welcome. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I restructured (but did not re-order) the numbered list. This was done in good faith, for clarity. If my edit is considered a bad thing, please feel free to undo it and throw rotten fruit at me. fredgandt 07:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• Hell no! This needs to die now, and quickly. The idea of letting bots anywhere near NFCC enforcement, except in the limited case its already in, is bad. Bots currently remove non-free files from non-mainspace pages, and place up for deletion files that are non-free and unused, however that's all that they can be trusted to do, and even then, there are problems, especially with the second task. Here are a few things that would go wrong with this:
  • A large number, upwards of 25% of the non-free files we have, use the old, non-template based, FURs. They are considered to be still acceptable, although changing them is recommended. This would mean that the proposed bot would have 100,000 false positives.
  • There are several thousand images that are in the categories for all free files and for all non-free files at the same time. Those are being manually fixed (it is on my personal hit list of tasks). There is no reason to flood the already understaffed MCQ with this.
• Please let the file workers deal with this, a bot will only cause a massive firestorm. Sven Manguard Wha? 09:47, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• "Please let the file workers deal with this" Exactly whom are you referring to with this?
• "A large number, upwards of 25% of the non-free files we have, use the old, non-template based, FURs." Then we should come up with a bot readable FUR template that should replace the current templates.

The problem is, there should not be even 1 file violating NFCC. See Resolution:Licensing policy (in particular points 1. and 4.). Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 10:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand. The current templates are machine readable to the extent that they can be, but not all images use a template. Whether an image uses a template or not is irrelevant to the NFCC, it's the text of the rationale that matters. Also, it is impossible for the validity of a rationale to be determined by a machine. Thryduulf (talk) 12:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I do understand. Yes, a rationale is not required to use a template, a rationale can just be plain text. I am aware of WP:FUR#Necessary components as well as WP:FURG#Non-template. However, there are many non-free files not having ANY rationale. The problem is, a bot cannot distinguish between a file having a non-templated rationale and a file having no rationale at all. That would need to be adjusted in WP:FUR. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 12:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

While in future it may be desirable to run a bot to check for missing rationales in that way, Sven's point is that currently there will be too many false positives to make it at all useful. Thryduulf (talk) 13:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Toshio Yamaguchi, I agree with you that the NFCC needs to be enforced, the problem is this: NFCC enforcement has caused more drama and editor burnout than any other file namespace topic ever has, and it's been causing drama and burnout for years. We still haven't settled on how the community defines NFCC criteria #8, and there's a dichotomy of "we agree that files that don't meet the NFCC need to go" and "semi or fully automatic enforcement of most criteria is a bad thing". As a result, the only thing that dosen't cause massive drama is when people carefully, and on a file by file basis, chipping away at the problems. That's what I mean by "file workers", people who work with files. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yeah, this won't help. Figuring out when, where, and how to properly use NF images is a matter that demands significant editorial judgment, and all mass-tagging does is force a bunch of thoughtless, cursory justifications that don't help support our legal standing or principles. As for the policy causing editor burnout... well, it was called WP:FU for a reason. --erachima talk 17:01, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Anyone fancy a sausage?  Chzz  ►  10:34, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

What was the exact restriction on Betacommand again? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 19:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Activation of debit card payment / net banking Donations

Dear Recipient, I was trying to donate but could not do so, as the website does not accept net banking payment / debit card payment. Please activate net banking / debit card payment for donations. You all are doing great job and people like to support such organisations but not all have credit cards. Regards Mandeep [email removed from here, to avoid excess spam] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mandeep1662 (talk • contribs) 04:56, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have moved this comment over to Meta:Talk:Fundraising 2011#Activation of debit card payment / net banking Donations. Please look out there for responses.  Chzz  ►  01:26, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

When I looked on there I was surprised to see several other complaints. Someone said: "Do you want the money or not?" People are having problems sending money and the money processing system seems to be pretty shaky. For every person who complains, there are many who do not and just walk away without donating when the system fails to accept the donation.

As you recall, one of the complaints about the Wikipedia:Flagged revisions system was that it had bugs and was not stable. And in my experience a simple system such as the Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool had so many bugs it was just embarrassing. I stopped making suggestions on that one because I saw no hope it was going to be bug free any time soon. And it is a really simple system to implement.

I am sorry, but someone has to have to courage to say the obvious in the open: "Enduser software development at Media Wiki is in sad shape". People have problem donating money and the money is then used to implement systems that break too easily. But in fairness, that is in contrast to the "system level" staff at WMF who maintain the servers for data access and are doing a pretty good job handling a very large number of requests per second.

There are clear problems with end-user software at WMF. Ideas, now that this is the idea lab? History2007 (talk) 10:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the WMF is that they're an organization full of dreamers, with neither a great wealth of practicalism nor a great wealth of involvement in the Wikipedia community. They say 'let's get Wikipedia into college classrooms' and 'let's get Wikipedia into third world countries', (apparently without considering the possibility that both of these initiatives would cause a number of problems for the existing editors) and have not spent nearly enough time saying 'let's get Wikipedia to work properly or be editor friendly.

How long has the community been asking for WYSIWYG? Where is it? How many features have been rolled out that either didn't function correctly or got panned by the community?

The solution is simple: Don't donate to Wikipedia. I don't, despite being able to, as a vote of no confidence to the WMF. As long as the WMF continues to meet its fundrasing goals, I have zero confidence that the systemic problems that it has the ability and responsibility to fix will ever actually get fixed. (Since I don't see enough people not donating, I'm resigned to having to work around the burden that is the WMF indefinately. The one good thing I can say about them is that unlike the Conservapedia ownership, I won't get banned from Wikipedia for expressing disagreement with the WMF). Sven Manguard Wha? 15:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not believe in starving them until they change. I think if enough people comment they may just wake up. But in fairness we must remember that in their attempt at hiring the best developers they face competition from Google, Apple, Facebook and others who offer much higher salaries and stock options. The best way is for them to keep their limitations in mind and also to get more experienced managers rather than hiring dreamers as you call them. The systems are up and running. They are not perfect, but they run. Yet they can be improved based on user feedback. So where do we post feedback? History2007 (talk) 15:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

All kinds of places. :) Right here isn't a bad start; I read through the village pumps weekly to try to find everything that might be of interest to the Foundation. They want to know what's concerning the community. But possibly the best forum for reaching out to staff directly is answerswikimedia.org. That goes to the community liaison (currently me), and I put it into the inbox of whomever needs to see it. There are various public mailing lists, of course, that you can contact, but staff may or may not read notes sent there. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

So is "Mdennis = MRG"? In that case, Hi.

If posting here is not a bad start, I will post here because more non-WMF people may read it and comment further. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Mdennis = MRG, yes.  :) (And for the record, Maggie does an awesome job of making sure that stuff from answers gets to us, and in making sure that we're aware of threads like this one. I also trawl through the wikis at least weekly looking for things like this.) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

And at last count she was editing Wikipedia 27 hours a day and doing great. Now if you can find 20 more people like her many problems will be solved... but that would be a dream... History2007 (talk) 23:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that you all understand the massive complexity of receiving electronic donations from outside the US. There are almost 200 countries in the world. That means there are almost 200 banking systems in the world and almost 200 sets of banking laws in the world. We have users who believe that "their" banking system is the one True™ system that obviously everyone should support, even if (in the case of India, Mandeep's likely country of origin) their home banking system is notoriously complex and widely shunned by the e-commerce community.

Even places that do nothing at all except process donations don't support every method of fund transfer. See JustGive.org, for example: your choice of four credit cards, and if you don't have a credit card, then you can't give. Consider PayPal, surely a leader in processing money online: four credit cards, a US (only) bank, Green Dot MoneyPak (also US only), and... that's it. Oh, and PayPal has suspended a lot of transactions to and from India again because of fraud problems. So that's what the full-time professionals do: a few options, very heavily dependent on major US credit card issuers, and if you don't like it, too bad.

By contrast, the WMF is accepting multiple credit cards, PayPal, eWallet, bank transfer, direct debit, internet banking, and Moneybookers, depending on your location. They're offering far more options than the average processor. We need to give them credit for doing far more than normal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Continuing the dream, keeping it alive

I should comment on the statement above by Sven Manguard. I thought about that further, and I think there are two separate issues:

• Sven said that: "Wikimedia people are dreamers". I had not thought about it that way, but now I think he is right in characterizing the initial basis of Wikipedia. Only dreamers would have dared start this type of project. But then only dreamers would have dared talk about building mechanical devices that compute (remember him or her?) or putting satellites around the earth. But those systems are "real" now, just as Wikipedia is. So when Jim Wales first started it, Wikipedia was nothing but a dream and yet a group dreamers have kept it going for a decade. And the results are pretty impressive overall. It is an impressive reality now.
• But as the man said The Times They Are a-Changin'. Just as the dream of a computing device is no longer a dream, neither is Wikipedia. What usually happens is that dreamers start things, succeed in some cases, and then reality takes over. The computer industry that started as a dream is now a cold-hearted, intensely competitive reality. Wikipedia can not remain a dream for ever, and must at some point meet reality. A decade may be a good milestone.

My concerns are threefold:

• Rising discontent with WMF. The staff at WMF always seem so happy and cheerful. That seems to be their culture. That does not apply to the community any more. Where ever I look, I see more and more "discontent" among Wikipedians. Comments like "do you want the money or not" on that page are typical. Personally, I was so unhappy with the Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool's lack of quality that I just walked away and stopped making suggestions. They were all so nice about it, and yet it was pointless in the end. I doubted that they could get it working, although it was a really simple piece of code if done right. The the bugs in the Wikipedia:Flagged revisions deprived Wikipedia of an essential system and in my view has wasted a lot of time in dealing with vandals.
• Rising dismay within the community. I have been surprised by the number of "messages of dismay" that I see. The comment below by user:DCI is an example. Here is a bright young dreamer who wants to help, but is mostly talking to an empty room. But why is the ProjectHistory room empty? And that is not the only project. Look at this comment: Is this group dormant? That was on Oct 29. Then 3 days later someone else asked: "is anyone working on this project?" I had to joke back that it was time to "occupy Wikipedia". The community is dismayed by rising apathy.
• Rising editor attrition rates I have seen a number of good editors just give up and walk away. They are tired of vandals, tired of edit wars and tired of spending energy "building sand castles". There are just too many IPs now and there was a study that predicted that as IPs increase established editors will be overwhelmed. Has anyone thought about that? Not that I know of. The Flagged revisions system would have helped, yet hapless development made it die. What a disaster, I told myself when that happened.

My general feeling is that unless the reality that The Times They Are a-Changin is accepted, there will be user dismay, increasing dominance by vandals and loss of good editors. And worse, the failure to "attract scholarly content". I posted just above about "outreach to authors" whereby authors are emailed to contribute an article. I see no other way to get improvements. How many responses did I get? Zero. There we go. Something needs to be done to keep the dream alive. History2007 (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I see you've been here for a bit less than five years. Doesn't that put you right on schedule for burnout?

Seriously, people were saying the same things back when you made your first edit. We hadn't seen the decline in editor number quite yet (nor in editor need: vandalism reversion and copyvio detection was 100% manual back then, and we really needed a lot more humans to deal with basic maintenance), but there was much fussing about how the WMF was awful and the admins were all corrupt and how all those newbies were all doing low quality work and would never amount to anything and were proof of the decline of civilization and the end of the wiki way and besides all my friends have moved on in their lives and Wikipedia just isn't much fun with my friends gone and all of these new hopeless, clueless newbies screwing up all the time.

You know, all those worthless newbies like you and me: our first registered edits were just six days apart.

So I realize that you're feeling discouraged and you're realizing how much the English Wikipedia has changed over time, but I don't think that the discouragement is any more warranted than it was back when we got our start. Somebody's doubtless starting today who—especially if s/he gets a little encouragement—. Turnover is the natural order of things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I do not agree. There is more junk now than before, as low quality material gets added and it is hardly even edited at all. It just sits there as junk, gets read and repackaged as incorrect books (really!) to the detriment of science.

And what does "will turn out to be one of us" mean? Is "one of us" someone who sees low quality, shrugs their shoulders and moves on? Or is "one of us" someone who does not like low quality? You tell me.... The real definition you have in mind may be that "one of us" is someone who is in fact in the first category, but tells themselves they are in the second category, shrugs their shoulders and moves on.

But seriously the linearity assumption you make about there will always be new people, and the "churn out mentality" of "get them in, burn them out. Next!" is fundamentally flawed because of the ratio of experts to novices. There is always another novice who can come in to type incorrect material into an advanced article, but the supply of experts is limited. Does that not bother those who are "one of us"?

And the links I pointed to with questions such as "Is this project dormant" are manifestations of the fact that several projects are in effect dormant. I did not invent those questions, I just observed them. And a survey of the project activities on those 3 projects confirms that trend. Times are changing. Key articles are being neglected. Yet, there are always new people who come in to add an article about the 3 person music group they formed in their garage last week now that Wikipedia is becoming the new Craigslist. You can always "get in new people" but are they going to fix the key encyclopedic articles? It does not look that way at all.

The last thing Wikipedia wants is to be "viewed as a joke". And the way to avoid that is insisting on reliability, not promoting "churn them and burn them". Word travels fast on the internet and even Jay Leno has been joking about the low quality of Wikipedia content and people wonder if Wikipedia should sue him. It does not help when some of the responders there supported Leno and went further than him. It is time to improve reliability, not continue the "churn and burn mentality".

Now that there is all this talk of donations, would you like to make a personal appeal: "Welcome to Wikipedia, we have plenty of quantity... Let us not talk about reliability... But send a donation anyway." No, the word is out that there are problems. The Times They Are a-Changin' for sure as the nature of user access changes. This is a dynamic world in which organizations "come and go" pretty rapidly, it is not the Middle Ages. History2007 (talk) 23:05, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

By the way, based on the above, I did a quick search and came across this. Are some schools still banning Wikipedia? It would be interesting to know if that is still continuing, or not. History2007 00:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

History2007, the same complaints were made even before you started editing. The oldest WikiProjects were created in 2002, and the problem of inactive groups was sufficiently widespread that the template for marking them as inactive was created in 2004. This is not a new problem!

There are far more articles now than there used to be, and many of them are trivial stubs about pop music or geographical locations. The tension between deletionists and inclusionists, and whether permitting articles on unimportant or ephemeral subjects would turn Wikipedia into a joke, goes back to the very first days. The essay describing deletionism as a philosophy was written in 2003. This is not a new problem!

You worry that key articles are being neglected because so many teenagers waste their time on trivial subjects. There is no reason to believe that if we delete the pop culture junk that the teenagers who write them will magically be capable of, much less interested in, working on articles about more serious subjects. The complaints about key articles being neglected were made years ago. Why was WP:VITAL created in 2004? Because editors felt that key articles were being neglected. This is not a new problem!

It's true that Wikipedia has trouble retaining experts among its editors. It's equally true that Wikipedia has trouble retaining parents and full-time employees among its core editors. We have less trouble retaining teenagers, childless adults, people with disabilities, and unemployed people. Why? Experts, parents, and workers have other things to do with their time. But this has been the case from the very beginning: those with time on their hands have long been overrepresented in Wikipedia's editor base. We hope to retain editors, but we are aware that people move on in their lives, and that it is normal for other activities, like earning a paycheck or getting some sleep, to eventually become more important to adults. This is just as true for Wikipedia as it is true for World of Warcraft. This is neither a new problem nor a unique problem for Wikipedia!

Despite the occasional outbreaks of pessimism by editors, Wikipedia survived the last ten years despite worries about these same problems, and we are likely to survive the next ten years despite them, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that was so very well said. I wish every editor on WP could read it. I always find it baffling when people talk about "editors who waste their time editing x type articles" as if a Pokemon lover would suddenly edit articles about major rivers or something were there less Pokemon articles. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:12, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Well written is one thing, agreed to is another. I do not agree. As to survive, I think Wikipedia will probably survive, but "survive as what?" The risk is that of morphing into a subsidiary of Facebook or TMZ.com with more focus on social issues and what Charlie Sheen has done than scholarly content. TMZ.com will probably "survive" too, but as a gossip news site not an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a unique website - whose stated goal is to be an encyclopedia, not a gossip website. Or maybe I have misunderstood the goal? As for predictions, the web is a fast moving medium. Do you remember a company called Netscape? They used to be pretty confident too. One of the people who asked for donations on the banner ad was an engineer who said: "I can confidently say that over 50% of the knowledge I have gained in the last 5 years has come from Wikipedia." I said to myself: "I really hope you have not read any of the pages on digital signal processing". Let me leave it at that. And I must say that I find this attempt at "criticizing criticism" to be unreal. As the number of articles increases, the ability to patrol them decreases. That is the problem. And as the number of experts dwindles, the process of morphing into TMZ.com may just become real. Do any of the banner ads for fundraising say: "donate so we can write about Charlie's latest rehab visit or Lindsay's necklace"? No, they appeal to knowledge. So if your idea is that: "Wikipedia is primarily oriented towards Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan rather than scholarly content" then let us type that as a policy somewhere and see if it survives. That will help all experts pack up and go, if that is what you like. But that is not the stated goal of Wikipedia. History2007 (talk) 04:31, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

While I do not agree with everything History2007 says, I would have to echo the note of despair. It does feel like it's all downhill from here. It feels like Yahoo. (By the way, I'm a pretty new user.) While several have rightly pointed out that the same complaints we make today were made five years ago, I wouldn't say that's a good thing. It shows that the problems weren't solved. Just because we've survived five or ten years with the same thorns in our side doesn't mean we should just accept those thorns. And sooner or later it will get to be too much, and all the junk will build up like the water accumulating in the Titanic and the massive Wikipedia will be sunk. Of course Wikipedia won't just disappear; by "sunk" I mean what History2007 said, Wikipedia will lose its respect and class.

It's almost 2011, and we are having an internet discussion by adding to the end of a text file. While I don't mind it too much, I think it's a sign that the WMF has some catching up to do.

I do believe that Wikipedia could do much better. Leonxlin (talk) 18:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Restructuring WikiProject History

Below are some ideas on restructuring and revitalizing WikiProject History, which is currently quite dormant. I have left messages on the talk pages of related projects and of editors who may be interested in this idea, but I would like to hear input from the general Wikipedia community on this matter. I believe that WikiProject History should be a useful coordination tool that, as mentioned below, is active and a focal point of collaboration on history-related articles. DCItalk 16:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

General Points

• Restructure the front page so that it more closely resembles that of WikiProject Military History. This design is easy to navigate, and getting to specific areas of the WikiProject is made quicker and less difficult.

• Forge closer ties with some of its "daughter" projects. WikiProject History should serve as a focal point for history-related article improvement drives and discussions, and should be a community of editors supportive of smaller, fairly inactive region-specific history projects.

• Expand the A-Class review process. This should be a major function of WikiProject History (conducting A-Class reviews for smaller, "daughter" projects).
  • A-Class reviews can be closed only by the Assessment and Review Coordinator or one of his/her delegates. The coordinator/delegate must follow reviewer consensus when determining whether or not to close a review. Any member of any History WikiProject is eligible to be a reviewer.
  • The Assessment and Review Departments should work on developing articles to GA and FA status.

• Host task forces devoted to improving recently-created articles. Some editors should work with WikiProject Deletion Sorting to save as many quality history-related AfDs as reasonably possible. WikiProject History shall create a fairly inclusive New Article Task Force, the members of which will devote part of their time on Wikipedia to improving and expanding new articles. The Contest Department of the website (see below) should institute a "DYK Contest" for members of this task force.

• WikiProject History should be less of a "front-line" WikiProject, unlike the Military History WikiProject in this regard, and more of a coordinating effort. An enhanced A-Class review process and forging relations with "daughter" projects would help to achieve this goal.

Membership and Leadership

• All current WikiProject History members would be members of the new, revitalized project. WikiProject Military History members, as well as members of all region-specific history projects, would be automatically inducted into the project, although these users could opt out at any time.

• All members of the WikiProject should have an equal say in WikiProject affairs .
  • However, a group of five coordinators should be elected by all editors that are part of the abovementioned categories to make the WikiProject "flow" smoothly. These coordinators must have been members of the WikiProject or an affiliate for at least six months. They would serve for twelve months each, and would be elected in February of each year. The candidate with the highest percentage of the vote will be appointed chief coordinator, and will appoint the other four coordinators to head the departments that'll be listed below.
  • Each coordinator would have a specific task, or "department".
    • Chief Coordinator. This coordinator would serve as a guide to other coordinators and members of the project.
      • The chief coordinator would have authority to appoint members to Project Review Panels, which would assess the functionality of different parts and "daughter projects" of WikiProject History.
    • Assessment and Review Coordinator. This coordinator would sort and (close A-class) reviews, with the help of two delegates that s/he could appoint. He or she would coordinate the Assessment Department and the Review Department. The A+R Coordinator would work with Project Review Panels to improve the quality of articles coming within the project's scope.
    • Membership Coordinator. This coordinator would deal with membership issues, and would direct and judge "contests" on the project. He or she would coordinate the Contest Department.
    • Resources and Assistance Coordinator. This coordinator would assist members in need. He or she would coordinate the Resources Department, and would provide assistance to members who need guidance or support with articles. This is in contrast to the Membership Coordinator, who would deal with issues and run contests.
    • Content Coordinator. This coordinator would work on improving articles in need, and would direct efforts and drives related to this. This person would coordinate the Content Matters Department.

Coordinators should defer to member consensus when encountering major issues or when making important decisions while carrying out the duties of coordination.

Front Page

As I am no expert at page designing, I will list some ideas I have on how a front page ought to look, at least from my perspective:

• The front page should feature an A-class article weekly, changing with Wikipedia's featured article on Saturdays/Sundays.
• The front page should be topped by tabs leading to each Department. Some departments, including the Assessment, Review, and Content Departments, along with some news bits, etc. that deserve a piece of the page, should be given "boxes" that fill the page.
• Membership information should be provided down a ways on the page, along with a list of members where one can sign up as a project member.
• Collaboration between "daughter" projects should be stressed on this front page.

Role on the Encyclopedia

The three pillars of this project should be:

• Activity.
• Coordination.
• Increasing Knowledge.

WikiProject History should be active, helping to coordinate its "daughter" projects on a daily basis and conducting A-class reviews at a reasonable speed. It should be constantly working to increase knowledge by improving articles and assessing them appropriately. It should be an integral part of the encyclopedia, and an example of editor collaboration on improving the coverage of a subject area they are interested in. Let's make WikiProject History a part of Wikipedia's future.

Thank you for reading this, and for commenting, if you are interested. DCItalk 23:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I wish we could do that for project Computing too. It is good to see enthusiasm on your part, but there does seem to be an uneasy feeling of apathy recently in scholarly projects that do not involve details of celebrity rehab visits... But if Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton do something crazy next week, you can be sure that those precious facts will show up in Wikipedia in 3 minutes flat... sigh... History2007 (talk) 16:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

What makes a WikiProject work is collecting a group of people who like each other and want to communicate with each other about what they're doing. There is no amount of top-down structure that will help you find and retain these people. If you want to WP:REVIVE this group, you need to collect your ten best wiki-friends and beg them to keep you company on the project's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Are statistics available for "Time spent on article" for Wikipedia?

Have there been any studies done on how long people stay on Wikipedia pages, on average?

I'm trying to figure this out so that I can understand the implications of the page traffic statistics (i.e. when it says that 10,000 people visit an article per month, how many of them actually stayed and read a significant portion of the page vs. just leaving right away?

If there isn't something like this available currently, who would be the best people to talk to as far as getting this type of information?

Thanks! -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I strongly suggest reposting this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) for a more appropriate response. fredgandt 01:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

To make along story short, regardless of whether this is posted here or there, it will be an unreliable measure that will not say much, given the nature of the website, and it will also be a total waste of money given the high volume of data that will need to be processed. A page view in that statistic is not necessarily a different person, and the same person may view a page 3 times in one day, in any case, and they may open "other tabs" and read both and it seems they were on that page for long, making it pretty hard to do data analysis. I would not even attempt this project for several years. There are more serious issues at Wikipedia. May I mention content reliability? History2007 (talk) 16:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

• How could this possibly be measured? I often leave browser tabs open for days or weeks at a time before reading them or closing them without reading. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:24, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a futuristic browser could report on the amount of eye movement upon exiting the page! LadyJosie (talk) 09:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Upcoming holidays

Can we make a template that tells us like the next 10 upcoming holidays? (Maybe based on this) --My Sistemx (talk) 17:24, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this would work, simply because we'd have difficulty deciding which holidays would be included, and including everything would be impractical; for example, most people in Australia probably don't care about holidays in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Perhaps you could create one in your own userspace? That is rather easy to do; if you're not familiar with doing that, just say so and we can help. Nyttend (talk) 00:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Background color for references in the edit window

It is very hard to distinguish the 'text' from the references in an edit window. The < ref>....</ref > segments could be highlighted by a pastel background color, to make editing easier. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It already exists (although "gray" seems to be the definition of "pastel"). Go to My Preferences:Gadgets and under the "Editing" section, turn on WikEd. One of the many features of this gadget is that all syntactical elements will be highlighted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. But it does not seem to find out whether articles already exist to be linked to, the way the standard editor does (using the chain-link icon). Am I missing something? --Greenmaven (talk) 23:59, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Got it sorted! --Greenmaven (talk) 08:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Fundraising: Wikipedia-Loaded_Hard_Drives

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_ideas#Sell_Wikipedia-Loaded_Hard_Drives is on a page that is virtually dead. So, I found this page. Am I in the right spot? Here is a copy and paste of an idea for fundraising:

(I am new and I hope this is the right place for an idea. Please move me if this is the wrong place. I signed up specifically to help with fundraising.) OK, here is the idea: Sell hard drives with all of Wikipedia loaded on it. The "2012 Model" would be loaded at the end of the year, boxed up, and delivered to buyers. The survivalists will love it! "Show-offs" could show it off with some neat logo and a Jimbo signature. How big would the drive be? What would it cost? Can the files be made compatible with Windows and Apples or is it Unix? I think nonprofits are allowed to make some money. We would have a profitable product and the dreaded ads could be avoided.LadyJosie 17:01, 15 December 2011 (UTC) LadyJosie (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo and friends: My investment buddy's phone number Douglas_Youvan is in your donation comment email, sent a few minutes ago. He would be willing to fund this idea under certain conditions that are relatively easy to meet if this idea is feasible. LadyJosie (talk) 15:08, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is any "added value" here to make a hard drive attractive. Wikipedia is free and free items do not add value to physical items. And Wikipedia changes, so the material would be dated by the time it ships. And most computers are web connected now anyway. The logistics of this would probably distract WMF from what they are doing - so this would show up in their liabilities column at the end of the year. History2007 (talk) 16:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the added value is circumventing the bandwidth and jack-hammering it would take to download the encyclopedia to a local drive. Just copying the current articles (no discussion, past versions, etc.) might be impractical over the internet. And there are people disconnected from the web, including some who might be in a natural disaster or off in the middle of nowhere! LadyJosie (talk) 22:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia content is available on CD ROM for any disk manufacturer to use. WMF has no advantage there. WMF does not own the content it displays. You can ask Seagate or Fujitsu if they want to do that anyway. This will be a waste of time, for all involved. History2007 (talk) 00:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Very good. Thank you. Where does one obtain these WMF CD ROMs? I keep doing calculations (in my head) that this is a thousand hours of download time and 10x what a typical person could afford in terms of a drive just for the current articles. Amazing ... I'll try to move on to another idea. LadyJosie (talk) 02:46, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:Helpdesk probably knows. History2007 (talk) 09:54, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks History2007; I will check with them. LadyJosie (talk) 15:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I remember many moons ago we discussed something similar as a joke on IRC, but it's actually not a bad idea. The idea was roughly a "free culture workstation". Basically, a current popular Linux distro (some flavour of Ubuntu, say) with Kiwix/Okawix and the offline versions of Wikipedia, plus all the relevant software for doing image editing and video editing, maybe with plugins to help automatically upload to Commons. I we could get volunteers to package a Wikipedia distribution of Linux (Ubuntu Wikimedia Edition? ), then I'd suggest the economics of it work out like this: a 1TB hard drive is about £79.99 at the moment. You whack £20 on top for the convenience of having the OS setup for you and then you put delivery and so on on top. Individuals (and chapters?) start producing and distributing them in accordance with some community agreement, and those who are giving 90% or more of the profit to the Foundation get to use Foundation logos or something like that. It's probably not that useful in the English speaking world, but for a lot of places where Internet access isn't cheap, fast and stable like it mostly is in USA, Canada and western Europe, it might be worth trying. Letting individuals and chapters work out the economics of it in their particular countries would probably be best. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Tom, Thank You. I do remember hearing something about WP being packaged into LUNIX (PC lingo). I think if Youvan is presented with a financial plan, he would foot the bill with the idea that there would be pay back of a "loan" from sales profit, but the loan would not be enforced if the project failed. Sell on Amazon and similar retailers, world-wide. How can direct contact and discussions be started? LadyJosie (talk) 15:19, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

So English speaking countries excluding USA, Canada, Australia and UK. Right? I guess you just meant India. The non-English Wikipedia (except German) is not worthy of distribution anyway. History2007 (talk) 15:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team is the place. Does anyone know where the "done" check mark is? Perhaps we should discuss more of this over there with the already assembeled team. LadyJosie (talk) 16:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Torrent_Project#Where_does_one_actually_buy_a_CD-ROM_set_containing_Wikipedia_Articles.3F didn't work out. I think I know why: Having a set of CD-ROMs, Blue-Rays, terabyte hard drive, etc. is insufficient because of the file structure and management. I've done website work with MS Expression Web. You use an import wizard to bring in a website via FTP. It requires and admin password to that site. I'll bet it blows up as it brings in 4 million articles, and I don't think it can be told to go for articles and their necessary hyperlinks only. So, I have a new idea, a product for the WMF to sell for profit: Clone and sell a stand-alone, loaded WMF server. Questions: What is the cost of the minimal hardware and software? How much labor is involved in the setup from a new computer in a box to a loaded computer in a box with a buyer's address on it? Would an external company be used for the work? With the answers to these questions, we could come up with a proposal. For the "nay-sayers", please consider that there are people who will buy just about anything for its novelty. I also contend that this product is useful in remote places or after a disaster. And I contend that the rather paranoid survivalist who expect Nuke EMP and the net going down will love it! Someone else can sell them the Faraday cage ... Oh, that suggests military buyers. LadyJosie (talk) 15:43, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry but this is moving beyond ridiculous. WMF is not a "storefront". The Wikipedia chapters are not sales offices. I suggest this thread be discontinued or deleted, since it is a clear attempt at using Wikipedia as a "commercial enterprise", beyond its stated mission. WMF was not formed to be a storefront and can not be used as such per its charter. History2007 (talk) 16:55, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I am here because I saw the banner ads to raise money. Rather than give a man a fish, is it not better to teach him how to fish? In association with a good company and some access and legal agreements between the WMF and that company, some income might be generated. WMF would not be a store front. In good faith, should you not assume I am here to help, and that I have found a donor interested in this idea? The word "ridiculous" reflects on my character. Why not use softer words and facts, rather than emotions? Above, you said: "Wikipedia content is available on CD ROM for any disk manufacturer to use." I would agree that if you can find those CDs and a computer capable of running them to obtain the main articles as of some date, this discussion is over. LadyJosie (talk) 19:46, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

In my view, it is the case that this discussion is over. You can just ask the donor to click on the banner ad, contribute (not give a loan) and be done with it. End of my conversation here. History2007 (talk) 19:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to cleanly retire off Wikipedia. The reason for the % decrease in editors is obvious. LadyJosie (talk) 20:27, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The Wiki 1.0 project has always been (in my opinion) needlessly complex. You can download the 0.8 release here: Wikipedia:Version 0.8/downloads. You can download the schools project cd here: [1]. You can download the whole wikipedia here: Wikipedia:Database_download. The school project used to be distributed on DVDs but I don't know if that is still available. Rmhermen (talk) 17:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Given that this sort of thing has actually been done - foundation:Press releases/One Laptop Per Child Includes Wikipedia on $100 Laptops - I'm not sure why you are all tearing this new user apart over it. Prodego ^talk 20:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

WYSIWYG Editor

I Think That to encourage new editors we should add a graphic wysiwyg editor although still let those who want use wikitext --Willdude 132 (talk) 17:38, 20 December 2011 (UTC)Willdude 132

We're working on it. — Edokter (talk) — 18:20, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I can switch on my edits page with colors. It is not WYSIWYG, but it helps separating for code elements (comments, templates, images have different colors). It helps. Do I recall yuo know this thing, Edokter, and how to invoke it? But it is buggy, e.g. for search&replace, so I sometimes have to switch it off (now you've forgotten too, Edok ;-) . -DePiep (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Unmute Wikipedia's personal appeals by offering them in appealers actual voice

Hello,

I wanted to connect and see if Wikipedia would like to have your donation requests on the homepage to be in the Wikipedia employee's actual voice? Hearing the request in yoru founder's voice versus reading the text certainly makes for a more compelling plea as it can be infused with emotion, passion versus static text. Please advise as we woudl love to help make that a reality. See example below:

http://wikipediaqwips.tumblr.com/

I may be reached at (Redacted) to discuss further.

Best, Joanna — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.101.162 (talk) 20:38, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that's an interesting idea, Joanna. It may be too late for this year's fundraiser, but I am passing the idea along to the fundraising team for future consideration. I will let them know how to contact you in case they would like assistance with this. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

In the history of banner advertising, increased "emotion delivery" has been the trend. The earliest banner ads were static, if you look back to the very early days. Overtime almost all banner ads have added some movement and animation to convey more emotion. In time, video will become the norm, so WMF might as well just plan ahead for the year after next. And even the Wiki-users could make their own appeal videos, which can be invoked from within the animated ad by clicking a button. Some people such as myself turn off the sound on their computers anyway, not to get distracted by the banner sounds, but it is hard to avoid animated banners. So animated banners will be a good step for sure. History2007 (talk) 19:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest having audio/video as an option when they get to the appeal letters, and test that to see if it increases conversion, but doing it in the banners will just cause people to shout, scream and throw things at us. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The fact that there are so many banners may be offset by having more effective banners and more controls on shutting them off. But most banner designers these days use some animation, however gentle, and static banners have been fading out from the web. Just surf and see. History2007 (talk) 19:51, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference is: it doesn't work here. When we try that sort of thing, it invariably doesn't perform as well. We've tried some of the more "slick" banner designs, and the static ones work far better in this environment. Test results are all at meta. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Very professional, well executed campaign analysis. But I have never seen animated one on my screen somehow. Have the banners been placed regardless of context or have they been varied by context, e.g. the ER doctor showing up on pages that have to do with medicine? History2007 (talk) 20:13, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

We unfortunately don't have the technical ability to vary the banner placement by category. It's per project/per language. We'd like to try that at some point though.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

(PPS - somewhere on the meta pages are the results of banner testing by the German chapter, in which they tested video... I'm sorry, I don't have a link handy, but if I can find one, I'll add it.) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:25, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I bet you that if you just put a request at WP:BAG someone will write a bot for you in less than a month. There are a number of pretty clever bot programmers there and they do not even have to write it anew, they will just have to modify their existing code. There is actually a good pool of talent there that can be used at no cost just for the asking. So the bot would just read the categories on some pages (not necessarily all) and select the "most appropriate" ad for it based on some initial criteria that can get fine tuned in time. If you suggest it at WP:BAG please let me know and I can get involved in the design if you like. And this experiment will not cost WMF anything, so it is worth trying.

Eventually, the most suitable ads can be selected by the bot "on the fly" in that bot can self-adjust the suitability parameters as it figure out that Ad "A" works best on page type "B" and will slef-optimize as it goes along. This is not hard to do. And this can be tried on 10% of the banners. If it works can get extended to another 10% etc. In my experience, variation by gradual adjustment usually outperforms random selection. History2007 (talk) 20:31, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I just remembered that I actually wrote a simple Perl language program some time ago that read Wikipages and figured out some of the content, extracted images, etc. It is only a small program and if you ask someone to leave me a message I will look for the support libraries etc. and give it to them. It is pretty straightforward to get the context, then select the banner etc. So the technical barrier is not there in fact. History2007 (talk) 22:01, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Fictional Lists taskforce

A fellow wikipedian and I have been talking about setting up a taskforce (possibly a wikiproject) to cover lists of fictional things. Why? Because the vast majority of them are crufty, and serve as repositories of indiscriminate information. I'd like to have help setting up the taskforce, or being pointed in the right direction, and help doing this, if anyone would be interested. I believe that it would best be as either a separate wikiproject or a taskforce of wikiproject lists. If anyone has any constructive ideas or advice please let me know. Thanks! Ncboy2010 (talk) 01:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Please clarify "fictional things" and provide a few examples. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 01:59, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Now I see. Maybe you meant something like List of fictional kangaroos and wallabies? That would not be on my path, but I would be interested in a list of "fictional entries" in Wikipedia. I have seen a few and fixed them. But there are probably more, and I think we could learn from them and avoid more in the future. There are even low quality books published based on the "invented pages" that used to exist in Wikipedia. An example is this. The Wiki-page on Discourse on ostentation was an invention and was redirecteed as WP:OR, but the low quality books based on it are still available on Amazon, mostly from the same semi-fake publishers. I guess those books may be a form of fictional kangaroo of some type now and you could list them in your project. History2007 (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that you two should join a related, existing group like WP:WikiProject Novels or WP:WikiProject Lists. You could help both of them out by working on fiction-related lists. All you have to do to get started is show up and say hello. If someday it turns out that there are so many of you working on these lists, then you could create a WP:TASKFORCE, but right now, I'd bet that it'd be more fun just to get started on improving the lists than to figure out how to set up a page that would probably only be used by the two of you. Besides, being connected to the larger subject areas usually gives you useful information about what's going on (e.g., items that need to be added to the lists you're working on). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Option to these "Personal appeals".

Sell ads. They are less annoying than these "Personal appeals". You could give the user an option to hide the advertisement. That way anyone can easily support Wikipedia by allowing few ads on the pages. At least give us an option to hide these appeals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.100.148.189 (talk) 10:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there are a couple of options for hiding the appeals. At this point, the easiest option for you may be to click the x in the top corner of the ads. They will go away, I'm told, until the cookie placed on your computer is removed or expires. Alternatively, if you create an account and log in, they will go away automatically. At this point, they are not being shown to registered users. In future years, before they are disabled for registered users, they can be manually turned off by a gadget. See Wikipedia:Suppress display of the fundraising banner. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Selling ads will never work, as a large number of contributors will leave Wikipedia en masse if that is every implemented. This is a regular proposal. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 02:12, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Separate question for Maggie/MRG: Does the fundraising only work once a year? After I read that I just started a page for Right-time marketing because there was none - but have not had time to finish it. However the idea is widely used, and I am sure WMF marketing people are familiar with it. So could someone help us understand why selective marketing campaigns are not performed "at the right time" on selected pages throughout the year? Or can they be performed yet? Those types of campaigns/banners, say on US related pages at Thanksgiving, on Chinese related pages during the Mooncake Festival or on Irish related pages on Saint Patrick's Day may just work through their emotional appeal, if positioned right with the right message. And they would not be as repetitive as the IP above was complaining, but would generate donations for sure. Have they been tried before? History2007 (talk) 04:53, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the fundraising banners are annual, usually starting in November. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. So the next question is, does it make sense to perform a small experiment to see if a seasonal, non-irritating, focused fundraising that uses a special occasion can generate revenue? It may be performed for 2 weeks or so on say 50 pages that relate to the special occasion. It would be a classic application of Right-time marketing which will probably generate revenue without affecting the entire encyclopedia. History2007 (talk) 17:33, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

By the way, the occasions do not need to be just festivals, and during October, the birthday of Picasso may be an occasion for art pages, while in March the birthday of Einstein for physics pages etc. And these pages get 300,000 to 500,000 views a month each, so with the other 49 pages around them, there may be 1million banner displays for each of those occasions. And of course most of the "art viewers" will be unaware of the banners the "physics viewers" are seeing even if the birthdays zones of Van Gogh and Einstein overlap a little during March. However, these would have to do much better than the "0.000110" type of value for donations per impression to make an impact, although that number may be low due to the repetitive nature of the impressions per reader. But then the whole idea of Right-time marketing is to improve both the click-through rate and the revenue rate of blanket message delivery. The test needs to determine that ratio to see if it will work. History2007 (talk) 18:40, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Just a comment, I just saw another discussion about the fundraising banners and It prompted me to find the project page at META:Fundraising 2011. They have a discussion board for questions and comments. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 19:39, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Right. That is were I found the "0.000110" type ratios etc. But that is for 2011, this is probably more general. Anyway, I can not type in two places, and have probably typed more than enough on this. The idea is out there now, let people think about it. But I do hope we can do better than "0.000110" by selecting categories as discussed above and selecting the right occasions, etc. History2007 (talk) 19:52, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll pass your thoughts along to the fundraising team. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

How about ethical advertising? For example, if you deny advertisement space to companies that already have too large market shares, and favor smaller players instead, then Wikipedia advertisements can work against monopolization and help balance markets. The challenge, then, would be to establish viable systems for transparency and community-based control of the advertisement policies which will make and keep the system as fair and beneficial as it can be. Since ethical marketing probably brings in somewhat less money than profit-driven marketing, a good objective would be to make the ad system as ethical as it can be so that it yet brings enough money to keep Wikipedia running. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vesaaeo (talk • contribs) 14:16, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

1. Doesn't solve the "contributors would all leave en masse" problem.

2. Who would decide what counts as "ethical"? What if we were to advertise a company based in Israel? That'd only pour flames on the Israel/Palestine edit warriors. What if we advertised handguns or gambling or pornography? How would we decide whether to allow them? It'd cause huge problems with contributors not wanting to participate. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:50, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Tom. That may open its own Pandora's box. And the whole issue of "external manipulation" will come in and taint the image of Wikipedia. Even running ads for medications may be a problem, given the interest of pharmaceutical companies in Wiki-content. Last May I started a page on an "academic tool" called Wiki-Watch which I thought was interesting, only to find out a few months later that the professors who managed it were paid consultants to some pharmaceutical firms and subject of newspaper investigations for Wiki-manipulation, etc. I no longer even watch that page, it turned out to be a debate among a few Germans who seem to know each other. So those types of commercial ventures will just attract the external influence problems and unexpected headaches. The best way for Wikipedia is to ask for a large number of "small but sincere donations" from the general public and continue that way. But the banners need to become less repetitive, more focused and more innovative. History2007 (talk) 16:03, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I have enjoyed the personal appeals. I read all those I saw because I found the first one moving. I was prompted into making a donation and when I started feeling bugged by them I used the X button. Is there a problem? What I want to know is:

• how effective have they been in raising funds
• how close to desperation is WM that advertising is under consideration
• Or is this just a topic that gets brought up by people with no idea of the financial facts

Greenmaven (talk) 16:32, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The personal appeals have evidently been very effective! You can see the fundraiser for this and previous year here. The WMF has no plans at this point to revisit its stance on advertisement (see the Foundation wiki), but it is something that some would prefer we do. I get several letters a week from people who would prefer an advertisement model to the current fundraiser appeals. That said, we also get letters from donors who specifically mention that they donate because we do not advertise. Unsurprisingly, there's no universal agreement. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't (well, didn't (clicked the "x" icon after reading several)) find the fundraising banners irritating or annoying at all. Just thought I'd mention it. fredgandt 16:47, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Irritating or not is one issue. I am sure different people have different feelings on that. Another issue is, "can additional revenue come from donations outside of these once a year banners?" That is the question. I guess the answer is yes, but only a a few tests will determine that for sure. History2007 (talk) 17:25, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I think someone mentioned a 'Donate Button' earlier. It would be tacky on every downloaded page, but how about only on every 100th article page? It could be very unobtrusive, and a little intriguing: sometimes you see it and sometimes you don't... A little bit shy and embarrassed to ask...? --Greenmaven (talk) 17:42, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a donate button in the left side navigation panel. fredgandt 17:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

How embarrassing! I forgot about it. That reinforces my point — we become habituated to what we see regularly. Something more eye catching, that occurs at unpredictable intervals, is what gets noticed. It would need a little color and a very brief message e.g. "Wikipedia is financed entirely by donations from people like you". I hope someone picks up on my idea of something that goes out on every 100th page served. To the receiver that would deliver the pages pseudo-randomly at an average rate of 1:100 --Greenmaven (talk) 22:04, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

One idea would be to use a DYK+request in a banner that may even come up once every 1,000 views or whatever. I would call that an "infodonational" banner, just as there are infomercials, etc. And they could even be selected from past DYK items, etc. or by help from Wiki-people in the Arts project. The idea would be like the "tip of the day" feature that exists within many products such as word processors, etc. But these would have to tie into specific categories again, so on art pages, there may be an infodonational "... did you know that Van Gogh was at times inspired by Japanese wood block prints?" followed by "Wikipedia has over 100 pages on Van Gogh, donate too help us keep the tradition alive... " or some message crafted like that, etc. That would come up on the 111 pages that relate to Van Gogh, etc. or even pages about post-impressionism, etc. And of course, using the Right-time marketing approach also on Vincent's birthday. History2007 (talk) 00:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if merchandising has ever been seriously considered? Jigsaw Puzzles and home quiz games (Trivial pursuits'esque) are an obvious couple of money spinners. "Citation needed" T.Shirts and caps. Puzzle globe key-rings. Paper weights, "Did you know?" calendars, Pen and mechanical pencil sets... The list is as long as the mind is open. Since the foundation is allowed to trade (pretty sure non-profits can still trade) and the Wikipedia logos are copyrighted, it seems an obvious possibility. Wikipedia Monopoly! (pun intended). fredgandt 18:14, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The Foundation have had a job advert up for a while for a Merchandise Manager, which might suggest that there are plans afoot for sorting out the merchandise side of things. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:20, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I just found this Wikipedia:Merchandise and slumped. Very shoddy. fredgandt 18:22, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Historically speaking, mendicant organizations have not done well with merchandise. Somehow (but I know of no axiom) these activities seem to have required different organizational cultures: either a merchant or a mendicant. History2007 (talk) 18:48, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Here the UK lots of charities get a significant part of their revenue from merchandising. Wikimedia has some obvious opportunities here especially in calenders - we could be the provider of that most difficult of things the "dad gift" - apologies for stereotyping the sort of people who'd appreciate a Battleships calender. ϢereSpielChequers 10:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

CSD criteria

I was wondering if we could add objects of transportation that don't show importance to A7. Lately I've seen many very short articles on ship, cars and airplanes that would definitely be CSD'd if it was a company or club. Does this sound reasonable? --Kangaroopowah 17:02, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

They probably do not appear often enough to merit a change of A7; also, I think it's really hard to define those strictly enough. For the record, the correct place for this suggestion would be WT:CSD. Regards SoWhy 17:18, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

User ratings

(If there's a past discussion of this I should be aware of (I couldn't find any), please share.) I feel that Wikipedia would benefit tremendously from a system in which users could get some sort of easily visible indication of how much/well they have contributed or progressed, something to get people to feel "gee what a great editor I am". The most effective way I see that this can happen is some sort of user rating system. And right here I can already anticipate furious opposition (learning from the uniformly negative reaction to Tesseract²'s like button idea above, which surprised me), and I fully understand that, so I guess I'm just looking for feedback at this point. I will appreciate all of it. =) Please consider the following:

• "Where has this succeeded before?" The first that come to my mind are Reddit and Stack Exchange. Now, Wikipedia already has "Rate this page", but on Reddit and Stack Exchange it goes beyond just content rating: based on content rating, users are rated too. The single most important motivation to produce quality content on those websites is to increase one's rating.
• "How would the rating be computed?" There are certainly many options I can imagine. You might earn points just for making an edit. This number might be increased if people have liked that edit. "Liking" can be avoided perhaps, if you get points for having edited an article that gets positive reviews. The number of points could be proportional to how much you contributed to that article, etc.
• "We should be editing out of the goodness of our hearts; you can check your contribs any time, and we even have barnstars." But we're human too. I don't think anyone should feel ashamed to edit for the sake of praise, or even status. Currently the encouragement and praise editors get for their work is paltry, mostly because it all comes from other people, who justifiably don't spend too much of their time giving out barnstars, which are hard to qualify for in the first place. A rating system is a cheap sort of automated praise that can be given in unlimited amounts and is still demonstrably effective. They provide a more instant gratification for one's work.
• "This will discourage new users." On the contrary. The immediate reward of jumping from a zero to a positive rating is very encouraging. On StackExchange, your first answers, questions, comments, and even upvotes earn you special awards too, causing new users to be flooded with notices like "Congratulations! You've just earned the Teacher badge". In retrospect, this had a very positive impact on my experience with Stack Exchange. Also, instead of feeling spite or frustration with more experienced users, people on Reddit and Stack Exchange, I notice, show respect.
• "We don't want a hierarchy of users. Wikipedia is not a contest. Rating users is fundamentally against the idea of open access for everyone." It doesn't have to be that way. We already "rank" registered users higher than IP addresses, and confirmed users higher than newly registered ones. Then there are admins. On Stack Exchange, no attempt is made at hiding how privileges are earned (by accumulating reputation), and yet no one seems to have qualms about some users having more privileges, including those that could potentially cause mean behavior, like privileges to close a question, downvote a post, etc. I would also like to stress that there is a very wide range of ways a user rating system could be implemented. On Stack Exchange, one's rating appears everywhere next to your username; on Reddit, you have to go to the user's page. A possible system for Wikipedia might not even display one's rating to other users, or perhaps just to certain other users. (Heck, even just displaying one's own edit count privately somewhere easy to find would do some good, I think.) The rating also does not have to be a number, but maybe one of several levels, like at Slashdot. The rating may be somewhat fuzzy. The rating may be multidimensional. (As you can see, if it's users comparing themselves to each other that bothers you, there's many ways to avoid that.) Or maybe there wouldn't be one rating at all, but badges or trophies that you earn for doing certain things. (I'm aware that things similar to these exist. Can we have more of them? This is most easily done using an automated system.)
• "Won't this lead to edits made for the wrong reasons?" In a well-designed system, there shouldn't be any behavior that increases one's rating without benefiting the encyclopedia. I don't think we can rule out the entire concept of user ratings based on fears of say, rings of users who move up on each other's support. First, this is already possible in Wikipedia's current system of voting. Second, before a mechanism has been decided on, I don't think anyone can say for certain that users will be able to devise strategies to beat the system.

Again, thanks. Leonxlin (talk) 05:34, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I foresee serious opposition from the makers of Sertraline. If Wikipedia can act as an antidepressant, that would cut into corporate profits and chaos will ensue. But seriously, how about judging the "reliability of content" (which will last and make Wikipedia valuable) instead of the anti-depressant effect which will wear off next week.

Now, let me talk about the extremes. How about a larger scale "The best of Wikipedia, the he worst of Wikipedia" analysis. I just came across the four color theorem. I see that in the "best of Wikipedia" category. It is accurate, concise, well written and informative - what an encyclopedia article should be. The worst may be characterized by load balancing: inaccurate and inactive. If those types of lists are made per project, we may yet be able to achieve encyclopedic value by learning how these types of articles come about. History2007 (talk) 22:08, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. But I'm all for publicizing article evaluations. And how will people get the motivation to move articles out of the worsts list, or into the bests list? There are long lists of crappy articles piling up everywhere, especially in semi-active task force and project pages. I think earning points, karma, rating, or just some sort of recognition (which is not likely to be given by a real human being, especially if you're checking off items on a to-do list that no one reads anymore. Therefore some sort of automatic recognition should be created) would boost activity significantly. Thanks Leonxlin (talk) 01:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

"This number might be increased if people have liked that edit. "Liking" can be avoided perhaps, if you get points for having edited an article that gets positive reviews."

I already made a number of edits which a lot of users would probably dislike because they don't see them as an improvement, but these edits are improvements in the sense of Wikipedia policies. So would I be a bad editor because I make a large number of edits which a lot of other people do not like? One problem I see is that people who are unfamiliar with Wikipedias rules could dislike me as an editor because they for example don't like my edits enforcing WP:NFCC. I don't think this would be a good thing. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 00:08, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it has to turn out that way. The very existence of Wikipedia is a testament to the fact that leaving decisions up to people who don't know the rules doesn't necessarily lead to anarchy. To take an example that specifically has user ratings, look at Stack Exchange. They have some pretty strict rules about what you should and shouldn't post. One example of what they discourage is forum-style discussion questions. As a newish-average user, I've seen many such interesting open questions that were closed. I've probably upvoted many of them myself. But they still get closed for not conforming to policy. Somehow the rules still stand.

I'm glad your objection isn't a fundamental criticism of the idea but just a concern about what might happen under a bad implementation. Just off the top of my head, here are a few possible defenses to the problem you've highlighted:

• User ratings can be set to only increase.
• Don't allow down-voting.
• Make the votes of established users count more.
• Create a system in which enforcing rules specifically gets you points.

I'm sure a more thorough system can be worked out if enough people agree with the general idea. Thanks! Leonxlin (talk) 01:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I do agree with Toshio, and do see this as less than productive. The long and short of my view is that this is a step towards making Wikipedia morph into a variant of Facebook instead of making it morph into a superior version of Encyclopædia Britannica. The key focus should be better content quality, not becoming yet another social interaction website. History2007 (talk) 04:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The spirit of this is wrong. If you're here to become liked or rise on some sort of (any kind of) "ratings"-scale, you can go elsewhere. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 05:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Right. History2007 (talk) 05:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I do agree with Toshio, and do see this as less than productive. The long and short of my view is that this is a step towards making Wikipedia morph into a variant of Facebook instead of making it morph into a superior version of Encyclopædia Britannica. The key focus should be better content quality, not becoming yet another social interaction website.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this at all. Facebook does not rate users. Facebook users therefore post a lot of crap and have little incentive to post better content. Britannica's incentives to create good content are 1) to make money and 2) writers have to get past the reviewers or else they won't get any money. A user rating system would be a super-easy automated way use the evaluations of content to give users rating points. I don't see how this has anything to do with becoming a "social interaction website". A user rating system uses computers to give people rating automatically. Again, I would like to bring up Stack Exchange. The content of Stack Exchange is very much focused on the objects of discussion rather than interaction between users, as you insist Wikipedia must be. Stack Exchange accomplishes this very well, not in spite of but because of its user rating system.

The spirit of this is wrong. If you're here to become liked or rise on some sort of (any kind of) "ratings"-scale, you can go elsewhere.

We're all here to make Wikipedia better. =) I sincerely believe that a rating system would bring in so much more help from users who just need that little push to start editing. Thanks for your responses. Leonxlin (talk) 22:56, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you familiar with WP:Editor review? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:38, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Notes and References

Dear Wikipedians, what about moving the Notes and References section to a separate tab? Those sections are growing and growing, and not so rarely are simply skipped by the reader.
The tab could be placed between the Article and Discussion ones. IMHO, it will improve readability and perhaps editability as well. Have you already consider such a change?
If there is a better place to discuss this idea, please guide me there. Thanks! --(GD) (talk) 21:51, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Beyond the fact that it'd likely require some sort of heavy software rewrite, it'd be a really really bad idea. As it stands now, you click the number and it jumps to the ref. With your idea you'd have to reload a new page each time, and then hit the back button, etc. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, as it stands now it would be difficult. Modification would definitely need to be made to Cite.php. The reference could probably be javascript loaded if you clicked on it, with graceful failure of course. This would probably decrease the size of pages loaded. Not that I support the idea, of course; just pointing things out. --Izno (talk) 01:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Having further reading on a separate tab isn't a bad idea. It's something Citizendium has which I rather liked. The idea being that having a comprehensive annotated bibliography with each entry expands the value that students can get from the encyclopedia. To some extent, it is possible to use Wikiversity for this too. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Accept Bitcoin donations

Bitcoin is a new currency created by netizens. It is already accepted by the NYC chapter of Wikimedia, the Internet Archive and many others. Accepting this currency without having to deal with currency conversion could probably be handled easily and for free via bitpay's arrangement for Non-Profits. Wcoenen (talk) 23:51, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

While there is certainly some support for Bitcoins among donors and the community, currently the Wikimedia Foundation does not intend to accept it or any other form of currency that is not backed by the full faith and credit of an issuing government. See the Foundation website. This decision may be revisited in the future, but there are no plans to reconsider the matter at this time.

And I can't believe you've been editing since 2005 and your talk page is still a red link. I didn't know that was possible! I'm about to fix that. :D --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The policy of not accepting artificial currencies seems a reasonable one. After all, nobody can predict Bitcoin's future and your options for spending Bitcoin are still very limited. However, that's why I mentioned bitpay: they make it possible to use Bitcoin as a payment mechanism to accept dollars. They handle the currency conversion on exchanges for you (unless you chose otherwise) so that you never have to deal with bitcoins. When used this way, Bitcoins become just another way to accept dollar payments, like credit cards or paypal. The bitcoin aspect of the transaction only concerns the donator. Wcoenen (talk) 02:18, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It might be an idea to ask some other chapters. WM NYC accepting BitCoin is an interesting start, but it'd be worth seeing if a national chapter would be interested. That said, you can't pay Foundation employee salaries, server hosting and/or office rent with BitCoins, so I'm not totally sure what the benefit is in Wikimedia chapters or the WMF accumulating BitCoin if they are just going to convert it back into USD or Euros or GBP etc. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:42, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Let us see if Charlie Schumer will donate that way to the NY chapter... kidding. History2007 (talk) 13:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Mirror deletion nomination from commons

What about using bot to

• insert something like this on description pages of files nominated for deletion on commons
• notify enwiki uploaders.

It may rescue part of files (as more people interested in keeping useful files will know about deletion notification) and reduce need for things like Template:Keep local (it is impossible to use enwiki watchlist to watch file on the commons but it is possible to watchlist local page). Bulwersator (talk) 01:33, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Good general idea! Ramaksoud2000 (talk) 06:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is the general idea you get. Thank you for the help! --Katarighe (Talk · Contributions · E-mail) 14:02, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Emergency lockdown proposal

Unencyclopedia has had a Vandalize-Wikipedia day before when it had very few users. If it had one now, the results would be catastrophic. This also applies to any other massive event that it could be applied to. The proposal is this: on the day in question, all Wikipedia would be semi, or full protected, depending on how organized and how much they planned in advance for this. Account creation would be limited to one per ip instead of ten per ip two weeks before said date. The right to implement this lockdown plan would only be given to WMF staff and Jimmy Wales. This is needed because vandalism severely threatens credibility an is the reason teachers reject Wikipedia as a valid source. Wikipedia would lose most of its reader base if it was found to be subject to heavy vandalism. NOTE: THIS PLAN HAS MANY POSSIBLE VARIATIONS. I AM JUST TRYING TO SEE IF THIS IS A GENERALLY GOOD IDEA. NOT IF THIS VARIATION WOULD WORK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramaksoud2000 (talk • contribs) 05:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol, User:ClueBot NG and Wikipedia:Blocking policy. Bulwersator (talk) 10:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I know, I'm very famaliar with those, but this would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Ramaksoud2000 (talk) 15:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer to see page protection rules loosened somewhat to allow swift protection of articles as an when they are attacked. Protecting every page is a huge task. I suppose IP's ability to edit could just be switched off, but this I think would be a "success" from the attacker's POV. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I oppose such a plan. If there's a need, our devs know how to lock the database, and do it occasionally for maintenance. I don't see a need to formalize any more than that. I'm big on contingency planning - but this is such an unlikely contingency that any such plan would likely be unhelpful. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• There really is no formal procedure needed for this; in case of a catastrophic attack, the database will be locked anyways. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
• Didn't we work out from the server logs a couple of years ago that some site had tried something like this? We currently handle over a thousand vandal edits per hour, you'd need to recruit a lot of vandals to make a difference to that, and as long as cluebot is up you'd need to make a big difference before someone had to put a help note at ANI. ϢereSpielChequers 01:25, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Noindex unpatrolled new pages

The idea was brought up by WereSpielChequers during a discussion about CfD criteria. This is to prevent unpatrolled pages to be indexed immediately after creation. This will lower the incentive for films/books (and others) of questionable notability. These cannot be speedied since they're not in the speedy-scope, and if it goes to AfD the publicity will last 7 days. Noindexing them will prevent this. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 00:58, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the idea, would like to see unpatrolled pages have Noindex for upto 24 hrs and any page nominated for either PORD or AFD that is less than 14 days old also noindex, the latter to stop gaming of the system. Mtking ^(edits) 01:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

To avoid the usual objections to allowing anyone to add noindex in mainspace this would be combined with the unpatrolled status, marking an article as patrolled would remove the "noIndex" tag and {{Noindex}} would remain an invalid tag for unpatrolled articles in mainspace. The main advantage is actually for attack pages and the really nasty stuff. The idea is fairly simple. Currently you can't mark any pages in mainspace as noindex. Under this proposal all pages that have not yet been patrolled would be marked as noindex, patrolling them would remove that. Because we currently only have two colours at special:Newpages we would now need a third - articles tagged for some form of deletion. Under the new system if you spot an attack page you blank it and tag it for deletion, it doesn't need to be marked as patrolled and if it gets deleted without being patrolled it probably won't ever get picked up by search engines. So attack pages which currently get mirrored and repeated in Google caches will hopefully not do so. (For those unfamiliar with the process Noindex is an instruction to search engines not to include a particular page). ϢereSpielChequers 01:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

If it's technically feasible, I'd be for it. Malicious users seem to realize that their work will be splayed across the Internet even if it gets deleted here, and noindexing would nip that at the bud. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

By the way, whatever happened to the flagged revisions story? That would have solved these problems, and then some. Right? History2007 (talk) 21:41, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes it would, but unfortunately we didn't get consensus for that change here - though it seems to work well on DE and some other languages where I've encountered it. However this proposal is at newpages rather than recent changes and it avoids the contentious bit of flagged revisions, just as most newbies never know their edit hasn't been patrolled they won't know that it took an hour or two to be picked up by Google. I suppose I should have said that the NoIndex part of being unpatrolled might as well be as unseen as the unpatrolled bit. ϢereSpielChequers 23:12, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

And there isn't really any urgency to have google and others list something within 10 milliseconds. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Just one problem I thought of; as soon as someone tags something for speedy deletion, if they use automated tools it will mark the page as patrolled. For G10s this isn't such a problem, but for some other kinds of pages this would kinda defeat the purpose, because as soon as they're tagged they'll be marked patrolled and indexed. It'd be ideal to find a way to work around that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes that's why we'd need to shift from our current two colour system to a three colour system with tagged for deletion as the third group. This would have a couple of advantages though, for manual taggers you'd be able to skip the process of marking as patrolled articles that you are tagging for deletion, and when someone removes a speedy tag the article would revert to unpatrolled. ϢereSpielChequers 00:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the basic idea, but maybe it should be for a limited time after creation, to allow the new page patrollers to catch the obvious abusive articles without them being indexed, and prevent genuine articles from having to wait 30 days to be indexed. Are articles that fall off the back of the unpatrolled backlog (i.e., have not been patrolled in over 30 days since creation) automatically marked as patrolled? I'm not sure about noindexing for articles for deletion. There is nothing preventing a user nominating a featured key article for deletion (indeed, I remeber this happening once, I can't remember the article now), this would be noindexed for whatever period it takes for someone to speedy keep it. Quasihuman | Talk 12:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

New user integration

This is another proposal intended to encourage editor retention. I've been on WP for about a year now and I've found that what has helped me to feel part of the WP community is being aware of the history and culture of this project. I refer to Willy on Wheels, the Cruse-Cohen hoax, the annual April Fool's AfDs, WikiMeetups, the ongoing Cabal joke etc. Even though some (or many) of these were before my time, my awareness of them has made it clear to me that there is more to WP than editing, tags and warnings, which is what greets most users. One of the things that has helped me become aware of WP culture is by reading WP Signpost. I don't think it can be denied that the Signpost plays a significant role in building awareness of WP culture among its users. Accordingly, I'd like to suggest that new users are automatically subscribed to Signpost, albeit with an opt-out option. What are others' thoughts? ClaretAsh 04:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you'll gain more support by suggesting they be given the option, perhaps via a convenient button ... "See this week's issue in a different window", and "subscribe". Tony (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I saw Tony's comment pop up in my watchlist and thought this idea was titled "New user interrogation". O.o  fredgandt 05:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• Give them the opportunity, don't force it on them. Some just don't want to read about it. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that Signpost is going to be relevant to most newbies, and it isn't written with a newbie audience in mind, there is too much jargon for a start. You could try including a mention of it in welcome templates, but I think this raise a broader issue of integrating newbies; My instinct is that this needs to be a progressive process, Maybe linked to the birthday process or some sort of suggest bot. For example we occasionally run trawls for Autopatroller candidates and appoint bunches of them. We could set up similar proactive processes for other wiki related things such as a bot message when you first add a category thanking you for that and telling you about Hotcat. I'm not sure what trigger point would predict that someone was ready to learn about signpost, maybe 1,000 edits? Up to now we have integrated new editors in an almost osmosis way, people spot things in others userpages or by hunting around. That's fine for me and people with my learning style, but maybe we need to make it easier for people with different learning styles to become part of the community? ϢereSpielChequers 10:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Good points. Regarding welcome templates, what do you think of them being automatic upon creation of a new account? I've noticed when visiting another project for the first time while logged in that, in some cases, my talk page at that project is automatically created with a welcome template. Would love to see that implemented here. ClaretAsh 11:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm a longterm supporter of automatically welcoming newbies, and I think we might finally get consensus if we made it something like "autoconfirmed editors who have not yet been manually welcomed, blocked or warned for vandalism or other badfaith editing". I think that would counter all the arguments that usually sink that proposal. The other thing, and it is a deal breaker, is to find out whether welcomed users persist longer than unwelcomed ones. I think the research on that indicated that they did, but it was complicated by the proportion of "welcome warnings". ϢereSpielChequers 12:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Welcome warnings; now there's a bad joke. "Welcome to Wikipedia. We hope you like the place and stay. New section: Please don't fuck up like you did at article X or you'll be kicked out." and all with one click of Twinkle!

Seriously, though, your arguments make sense. But do you think autoconfirmed might be too late. I mean, waiting four days before informing a user of our guidelines? How about "editors who have made 10 edits (to pick a figure at random) and who have not yet been manually welcomed, blocked or warned for vandalism or other badfaith editing". Those first few days are the make or break period and we don't want newbies who have met only the 10 edit criterion to lose interest and disappear (e.g. 3 edits on Saturday, 8 on Sunday, back to work Monday to Friday, Wikipedia forgotten by the following weekend).

As for editor persistence, I suspect some of it would come down to attitude. I can only reflect on my own experience but I've been here a year, have received the occasional criticism and the occasional praise and I expect to be here for the forseeable future. And I was never greeted with a welcome template. In fact, I may be wrong but I can't recall being greeted with any information about any of WP's guidelines. I learnt it on the go. ClaretAsh 13:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost is mostly read by old-timers. The Dispatches section would be most helpful to a new editor. Especially the old dispatches. ResMar 13:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you but where can I find this Dispatches section. There's nothing mentioned here or here. ClaretAsh 14:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Extending WP:Signpost availability

This idea is related to the thread above but I'm starting a new section to avoid two separate discussions from choking each other. Outside of WP, I'm a member of a private non-profit foundation. There's member fees, annual meetings, online forums, the works. Importantly, though, there's a regular newsletter. As it happens, I've only ever attended the one meeting, I haven't looked at the forums in years and I have little to do with the organisation. Nonetheless, I still receive the newsletter. Through that newsletter, I am aware of recent news and current activities. Consequently, I feel a part of the foundation and am both ready and able to help out whenever I choose to do so, whether it be by participation or, significantly, by donation. I am a non-participating member of the organisation, but I still have all the voting rights of any other member.

Accordingly, what do other WP users think of somehow involving our own non-participating members? I refer to our readers, our inactive and retired editors and, importantly, our donors. The obvious suggestion is to allow them to opt in to receiving or otherwise having access to the Signpost. I'm sure there's more ways, though.

The advantages of such involvement include:

• Encourages new users to join
• Encourages more editing
• Involves the wider community in "our" encyclopedia, raising awareness of what we do and, importantly, what we stand for (always a good thing when schools and colleges still ban our work)
• Encourages more people to donate.

What are other thoughts? ClaretAsh 14:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

fundraising: friend/patron icon for givers

People who make donation would get opportunity to place an icon/widget "Friend of Wikipedia" on facebook/linkedin or any web page. It might be different ("bronze”, “silver"...) levels of "friendship”. Technically, donor can choose to get unique ID when they make first donation. This ID can be provided to count consecutive donations. The web icon/widget incorporates ID into a link that shows donor name and donation sum.