Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or – for assistance – at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Does Wikipedia:Article feedback actually serve any useful purpose?

A simple enough question: does Wikipedia:Article feedback actually serve any useful purpose? I rarely bother to look at article feedback, since it seems to consist largely of pointless comments such as this gem for our Human article: "117.207.14.93 did not find what they were looking for. IMPROVE this page". Do other contributors actually (a) read article feedback, and (b) act on it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I personally have read hundreds of comments and acted on dozens. Without article feedback, I would not have realized how many people reading about less-common medical conditions are primarily interested in the prognosis. (I had always assumed that symptoms would be more interesting to our readers.) Without article feedback, I would not have realized that some of the articles on my watchlist, like High school diploma, contained zero images despite images being readily available. Images aren't very important to me, and there are more than 2,000 pages on my watchlist, so I haven't really read most of them for years, if ever.

If you personally don't care about these reader comments, then ignore them, but leave them for those of us who do care. Generally, AFT is only enabled on a page these days because an editor specifically chose to enable it, so if it is currently active, someone at that article wants it there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it serves some useful purpose, as WhatamIdoing explains. Other other side of the coin is if it serves any disadvantages. I think it does. It splits the communication process into multiple channels causing extra complexity. This encourages a division between readers and editors, and probably negativity impacts the uptake of new editors because of that. So the real question is if the benefits outweigh the costs. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me, the majority of readers aren't in the slightest interested in editing or learning about how Wikipedia works. The split between the consumerist majority and us producers has always been there. What some consumers are willing to do, is rate and especially to complain. They should get every opportunity. Of course, the complaints of the semiliterate, semithoughtful majority must be handled cautiously. They have no idea of the big picture, and we must guess and calculate how and whether their concerns should be met. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whom should I ask about getting the feedback tool put on Cancer pain ? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See the simple instructions at Wikipedia:Article Feedback/Help/Editors#How can I add this tool on articles I watch?. It might take a minute to have an effect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I tried that but User:Nemo bis removed it with an edit summary I didn't understand, and now that category is a red link. Is there some other way of inviting reader feedback? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:36, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that after someone "enables feedback" (in the toolbox on the left side), somebody else disables feedback, anonymously - since WMF developers forgot to log somewhere when and who enables/disables feedback... This is almost funny. ;-) At Wikipedia_talk:Article_Feedback_Tool/Version_5#Re-enabled_on_all_pages User:Blethering Scot writes "When i enable feedback AFT5 appears at the bottom then 24 hours later i have went in to these articles and it is no longer enabled." At Wikipedia_talk:Article_Feedback_Tool/Version_5#The_category_system_was_not_great.2C_but_the_status_quo_is_far_worse User:Altamel writes "why doesn't the Article Feedback Activity Log track who enables and disables feedback on pages? I re-enabled feedback on Laurie Island after somebody disabled it, but I wish I could discuss with that user why they disabled feedback." Currently this special AFT page Articles with feedback on English Wikipedia says that: These 125 articles have feedback enabled on English Wikipedia. ... This list is refreshed daily. But those articles that i checked all had feedback disabled. --Atlasowa (talk) 20:41, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As ive stated several times i strongly suspect there is a bug rather than users simply entering a disable war. Ive had to reenable on a page every day since the cat was removed and given its page view stats seems highly likely its not being removed by a user.Blethering Scot 21:48, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi folks, thanks for reporting these issues -- and sorry for not responding sooner. We are disappointed to hear that anonymous editors disabled feedback on over 2,000 articles without consulting their fellow editors about this. Our deepest apologies to those of you who were inconvenienced as a result, especially Anthonyhcole, Altamel, Atlasowa and Blethering Scot, to name but a few. Fortunately, we kept track of which articles had feedback enabled as of last month on this spreadsheet, and we will re-enable feedback on these articles shortly. We are also working on a patch that will prevent anonymous editors from enabling or disabling feedback on a page (to complement Gerrit patches 64621 and 64620). If all goes well, these patches should be deployed next week, so that only logged-in editors can enable or disable feedback -- and all these actions should appear in the logs, for transparency and accountability reasons.

The Article Feedback experiment is still going strong on the French Wikipedia, where feedback from over 40,000 articles is now being evaluated by their editor community. They are finding the tool useful and keeping up very well with their moderation workload, without the issues reported by the English community before we deployed our new tools. Our current plan is to continue to monitor this experimental feature on a few pilot sites through the end of the year, then determine our next steps with the community, based on these pilot results. In January 2014, we plan to report back to you with these findings and recommendations, and discuss their relevance for the English community.

After the March RfC on Article Feedback, the closing administrator resolved to keep this tool on an 'opt-in' basis on the English Wikipedia, so that editors who want reader feedback for their articles could use it for that purpose. To support their needs, we created this special 'opt-in/opt-out' tool that makes it easier to enable or disable feedback (without requiring prior knowledge of the AFT5 category name). As a result, you can now simply click on 'Enable feedback' in the article toolbox to enable feedback on pages you are working on, as described here -- and the old AFT5 category is no longer needed. Once the new patches are deployed, anonymous users will no longer be able to disrupt this experiment -- and enabled articles will be added to this list, which is refreshed daily.

We will post an update on the Article Feedback Talk page once the new patches have been deployed. We regret this temporary inconvenience, and will do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. For an update on the current status of this project, check these updated slides. Thanks again for your interest in Article Feedback! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that great response, Fabrice. I know you've got a lot on but, if you remember, could you or a helper possibly ping me once the above is fixed? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome, Anthonyhcole. I will be sure to ping you when these issues are solved. Thanks for your patience and understanding! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the original question, I have personally made many improvements to articles based on specific feedback from readers. Dcoetzee 01:11, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Dcoetzee. I am glad that the tool has been helpful for you, and appreciate that you took the time to point that out. I have heard similar reports from quite a few editors, who don't always have time to participate in discussions like these, but find the tool useful as well. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also addressing the original question: this tool needs to be used with discretion. It would be pointless on Justin Bieber or Pokemon, anything of value would be lost in the background noise. But as the main author and watcher of Cancer pain, I want all the criticism and advice I can get, and this little tool may facilitate that. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The Article Feedback is particularly effective on pages like yours, which typically get a lot more useful feedback than high-traffic, controversial pages like Justin Bieber, as you point out. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I find article feedback to be really useful. Especially on newer articles that benefits from feedback from more than one user. I think article feedback should always be available on all articles.--BabbaQ (talk) 23:04, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Forum for exchanging books?

I'm aware of WP:RX, but is there any centralized place on Wikipedia for the exchange of books for use as sources? I happen to have some too-heavy-to-ship books (including a set of fairly new science encyclopedias) that I no longer have the space for, but I'd rather give them to an editor within delivery range who'd make use of them. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:03, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You might be best off posting something on WT:RX. If you'd rather not: I would suggest contacting someone you know who edits Wikipedia and who is interested in the books' topics. If you aren't well-acquainted with any WP editors in real life, I would suggest asking some editors you've worked with in the past. —Theodore! (talk) (contribs) 23:56, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As a member of a local chapter, maybe the local chapter mailing list would be a good way to reach active members, and ones who are likely to be within driving distance. (Not identifying the chapter in case it is private information).--SPhilbrick (Talk) 16:26, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

amazon.com is still the very best forum for exchange of books one doesn't need and which WP:RX or your local chapter can't find a willing editor to take. I was amazed how quickly an obscure bound religious tract I'd found and couldn't use sold after I placed it on amazon.com. And when called on a source for an edit, I almost invariably can find it on amazon.com and send the URL for the article on amazon.com (obviously an 'honest broker' as to whether a source exists) to the person asking about the source's provenance and availability (VERY important for article sources not otherwise available on the WWW or currently in print/provided with an ISBN). And amazon.com provides a way to recoup shipping costs which is very equitable (USPS Media Mail charge per unit weight). loupgarous (talk) 16:54, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Local chapter mailinglist or local noticeboard on-wiki are your best bet. There's no centralised location I know of. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:37, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tedickey

I'm sorry but I still do not know how to correctly deal with spam and Googling for an answer does not make anything more clear.

User: Tedickey seems to think that he needs to delete all minor edits by any users on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tedickey

I have already reverted his edits but he seems to think that he has the sole right to edit this article. Another user's edit has also been reverted by this malicious user but I have not yet reverted that edit.

Could someone please help me solve this problem? This is the second time I have had to report such a problem on Wikipedia, so if someone could help me report these issues correctly in the future that would be great. The first issue was resolved by removing the user who continually reverted edits unnecessarily, spat his dummy out and then started spamming. It would be nice if we could stop this user doing the same.

Thanks. KenSharp (talk) 20:06, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I'll add the link to my bookmarks I promise! — Preceding unsigned comment added by KenSharp (talk • contribs) 20:06, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@KenSharp: the usual first step is to try and talk with the user in question on their talk page. If that does not work, it's best to follow the steps at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution to try and come to a peaceful resolution. Hope this helps. 64.40.54.46 (talk) 02:47, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vidstatsx and YouTube

There's an request for comment underway at Natalie Tran. The question is about using Vidstatsx statistics to track YouTube views. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:23, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation update August update

A note to any one interested in the education program; I've posted a WEF update at the Education Noticeboard. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redirecting talk pages of template sub-pages

I have requested a bot undertake a task which will have it search through all templates on Wikipedia, and look for templates with the following subpages: /doc, /sandbox, and /testcase. If the talk page for these subpages does not exist, and the talk page for the main template does exist, a redirect will be created. This prevents fragmentation of discussion between the various talk pages; particularly as documentation pages seem to be under-watched. I've been making edits like this manually for five years or more; I don't think I've ever been reverted.

It had been suggested that wider publicity would be in order; please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BlakesBot where your comments will be welcome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:44, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Possible feminist canvassing?

It seems that an organization called FemTechNet is recruiting more women to participate on Wikipedia. That's great, although "goal being to collaboratively write feminist thinking into the site" makes me wonder. See this article in Mother Jones. If there's a male or non-feminist bias to articles, that's fine to correct them, especially if significant contributions from female scientists were neglected mention. Still, I could be wrong, but the Mother Jones article suggests a flavor of inserting feminist bias.

Not sure what noticeboard I should use to discuss this. ~Amatulić (talk) 07:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I brought this up yesterday at the feminist wikiproject, it seems they already have editors engaged with them.AioftheStorm (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that. My personal view is that there are two classes (at least) of editing WP articles for feminist reasons.

One is to include (as an example) references to Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction work in characterizing the structure of DNA and her puzzling omission from the Nobel Prize awarded for the discovery of that structure in articles dealing with DNA and the Nobel awarded for the discovery of its structure. That's (if done appropriately - not in a "shotgun" fashion for every mention of DNA in WP, regardless of the relevance of Franklin's work to the article in question - and, of course, with valid sources conforming to WP:PROVEIT and other WP source standards) fine, to me. Other editors doubtless have other opinions.

Another would be to waywardly approach every article in WP with feminist implications with edits that say "by the way, the feminist perspective on this is.... " - I can't think of anything less encyclopedic.

And I'm sure those two cases are simply points on a continuum, so that one doesn't exclude the other, and other cases entirely may be present. I don't see any actual harm in the sisterhood getting together to talk about feminist issues they feel are inadequately addressed. Being feminist doesn't automatically eliminate good WP editorial judgment.

We ought to wait till someone in particular transgresses our norms, then consider what in particular caused him or her to screw up, not assume that if a feminist made a mistake in editing that this was a deliberate attempt to impose the conclusions of a "feminist canvass" on a WP article.loupgarous (talk) 16:32, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Franklin's omission from the Nobel prize is not puzzling: She died in 1958. The award was given in 1962. They do not accept nominations for dead people, no matter how obviously deserving the dead person was. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given our own admitted problems of imbalanced viewpoints here, the idea that we would be getting an influx of feminist editors, especially tech-savvy ones, does not exactly fill me with fear. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:28, 27 August 2013 (UTC) (Full disclosure: I am a feminist, and have not only been known to associate with women but to marry one and be the father of another, the son of another, the brother of two more and the uncle of more. Some he-man girlhaters may therefore consider me to be biased and pro-gurll.)[reply]

Alexis Reich

User:‎2600:1011:B115:215D:6D30:B23C:785F:B383 appears to support the rule that a trans woman should be referred to as he/him before the operation and she/her after the operation. I reverted this user 3 times and I don't want to violate the 3RR. Please try to think of something to do. Georgia guy (talk) 18:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:SpacemanSpiff

Nominated for the deletion. I question, but no answer. See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 August 27#Template:Infobox Tamils

SpacemanSpiff mentioned that template would disqualify the FA of the article due to template. I asked such guidance, but no answer. See User talk:SpacemanSpiff# Tamil people and Talk:Tamil people# Template

While on the template’s deletion issues, SpacemanSpiff removed template from the article. If so, nominated for the deletion will not display on the page. When revert he/she does the same, but warned me. I asked a question, but no answer. See User talk:Tamil23# August 2013

He/she removed a picture and rationalized for WP:NFCC. Is it a big issue? See Tamil people Revision history

Still the article Tamil people has wrong info vs picture. SpacemanSpiff did do anything than Edit war with me. If he/she is keen on article, why can’t she/he take care of it. Eg: There is no picture of S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and Muttiah Muralitharan, but name links are there the in infobox. Picture and link has no order.

I ask you to the community regarding injustice done by a single person, so called administrator. What is his/her motivation? --Tamil23 (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]