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Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).

Administrator changes

added EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
removed Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

readded Beeblebrox
removed Deskana

Interface administrator changes

readded Evad37

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Redirect autopatrol

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Redirect autopatrol. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Did you know

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Did you know. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Draft

Hi, Peter - silly me, I’ve been pinging your sig name rather than your user name. I was hoping you could join me in a collaboration to help the author of Draft:Underwater Domain Awareness get his article ready for mainspace. Also, see this discussion. I tweaked the lead a bit but haven’t had a chance to get back to work on it (health and WP issues). I think the draft has potential as the primary article on the topic, as it is far more informative and brings some of the environmental issues into light. What say ye? Atsme Talk 📧 12:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Atsme. I will take a look and see what I can do to help. Further comment and discussion is likely to be on the talk page of the draft. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 14:12, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of countries and dependencies by population

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of countries and dependencies by population. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Partial blocks

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Partial blocks. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

It’s that time of year!

Christmas tree worm, (Spirobranchus gigantic)

Atsme Talk 📧 18:46, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
Time To Spread A Little
Happy Holiday Cheer!!
I decorated a special kind of Christmas tree
in the spirit of the season.

 What's especially nice about
this digitized version:
*it doesn't need water
*won't catch fire
*and batteries aren't required.
Have a very Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukkah‼️

and a prosperous New Year!!

🍸🎁 🎉

Thanks Atsme, and my best wishes for a cheerful holiday season to you too, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 16:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Merry XMAS!

Merry Christmas everybody!!!
Merry Christmas everybody!!!

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11 (King James Version)

Ozzie10aaaa (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas.

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove.


Spread the cheer by adding {{Subst:Xmas4}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:39, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Ozzie10aaaa for your kind wishes. Peace be with you. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 19:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Cheers

Merry Christmas, Pbsouthwood!
Or Season's Greetings or Happy Winter Solstice! As the year winds to a close, I would like to take a moment to recognize your hard work and offer heartfelt gratitude for all you do for Wikipedia. May this Holiday Season bring you nothing but joy, health and prosperity. Onel5969 TT me 11:12, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

New Page Review newsletter December 2019

A graph showing the number of articles in the page curation feed from 12/21/18 - 12/20/19

Reviewer of the Year

This year's Reviewer of the Year is Rosguill. Having gotten the reviewer PERM in August 2018, they have been a regular reviewer of articles and redirects, been an active participant in the NPP community, and has been the driving force for the emerging NPP Source Guide that will help reviewers better evaluate sourcing and notability in many countries for which it has historically been difficult.

Special commendation again goes to Onel5969 who ends the year as one of our most prolific reviewers for the second consecutive year. Thanks also to Boleyn and JTtheOG who have been in the top 5 for the last two years as well.

Several newer editors have done a lot of work with CAPTAIN MEDUSA and DannyS712 (who has also written bots which have patrolled thousands of redirects) being new reviewers since this time last year.

Thanks to them and to everyone reading this who has participated in New Page Patrol this year.

Top 10 Reviewers over the last 365 days
Rank Username Num reviews Log
1 Rosguill (talk) 47,395 Patrol Page Curation
2 Onel5969 (talk) 41,883 Patrol Page Curation
3 JTtheOG (talk) 11,493 Patrol Page Curation
4 Arthistorian1977 (talk) 5,562 Patrol Page Curation
5 DannyS712 (talk) 4,866 Patrol Page Curation
6 CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk) 3,995 Patrol Page Curation
7 DragonflySixtyseven (talk) 3,812 Patrol Page Curation
8 Boleyn (talk) 3,655 Patrol Page Curation
9 Ymblanter (talk) 3,553 Patrol Page Curation
10 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 3,522 Patrol Page Curation

(The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here)

Redirect autopatrol

A recent Request for Comment on creating a new redirect autopatrol pseduo-permission was closed early. New Page Reviewers are now able to nominate editors who have an established track record creating uncontroversial redirects. At the individual discretion of any administrator or after 24 hours and a consensus of at least 3 New Page Reviewers an editor may be added to a list of users whose redirects will be patrolled automatically by DannyS712 bot III.

Source Guide Discussion

Set to launch early in the new year is our first New Page Patrol Source Guide discussion. These discussions are designed to solicit input on sources in places and topic areas that might otherwise be harder for reviewers to evaluate. The hope is that this will allow us to improve the accuracy of our patrols for articles using these sources (and/or give us places to perform a WP:BEFORE prior to nominating for deletion). Please watch the New Page Patrol talk page for more information.

This month's refresher course

While New Page Reviewers are an experienced set of editors, we all benefit from an occasional review. This month consider refreshing yourself on Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features). Also consider how we can take the time for quality in this area. For instance, sources to verify human settlements, which are presumed notable, can often be found in seconds. This lets us avoid the (ugly) 'Needs more refs' tag.

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:11, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Pbsouthwood. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.Barkeep49 (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
I will see what I can do. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:31, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Solo diving

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Solo diving you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of No Great Shaker -- No Great Shaker (talk) 14:20, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Solo diving

The article Solo diving you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Solo diving for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of No Great Shaker -- No Great Shaker (talk) 21:41, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

This appears to be an error, as the article is tagged as having passed. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:07, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Apparently a known bug in Legobot. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 03:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Rationing

I have to correct that typo every time I type that word. Thanks for spotting it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Just my Gnome genes expressing themselves, WhatamIdoing. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 03:51, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Wikignomes are the best gnomes. :-D WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:01, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Ssolbergj

Per user talk:Ssolbergj#Undiscussed mass restructuring of Brexit articles, see their contributions record for 11 September 2019 (going back 500 pages at a time, it overlaps a 500pp boundary). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood:: Hi Peter! I see some of your recent edits have been to “See also” sections, changing conventional Wikilinks to Annotated links. I’m not familiar with these annotated links. Could you direct me to guidance material, or similar, that explains these annotated links? Many thanks. Dolphin (t) 21:44, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Dolphin51.
According to the Manual of Style, (MOS:SEEALSO) – One purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics; however, articles linked should be related to the topic of the article. Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous.. Most see also sections do not have annotations, and there is a template available {{annotated link}}, that provides annotation using the Short description of the linked article, so when I am adding short descriptions I often convert the "See also" section to annotated lists. This is a lot less work than opening the link, reading the article, going back and writing an annotation, and it is automatically updated if the short description is improved. If there are already annotations I may or may not convert, depending on whether the existing annotations look better than the short descriptions are likely to be (it can happen). Short descriptions will usually be good for this purpose, but occasionally they are not. In those cases it may be appropriate to improve the short description or a manually crafted annotation may be better, which anyone can do, or in some cases no annotation is better than any reasonably likely short description. In that case there should probably be no short description either, but in the rare cases where a short description is appropriate, but not an annotation, the link can be changed back to a plain link, and a comment inserted that an absence of annotation is preferred. I also tend to bypass redirects to get proper function of the annotated link. I hope this explains sufficiently, but if not, please let me know. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 09:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
PS: Annotated links can be used in other places too. Very useful on Outline or Index lists, or anywhere else an annotated list of links is used (but not on disambiguation pages for technical and stylistic reasons). They make efficient re-use of short descriptions, as the same short description can be used anywhere the article is linked from. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 09:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! This is very helpful. I will need to read it all carefully over the next few days and I might get back to you if I come up against an obstacle. Dolphin (t) 12:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
Dolphin51, please do let me know if you find any problems, or if you think of other uses or possible improvements. For example, would it be worth adding a parameter to display as italic and/or bold without having to type out the display name with the alternative format? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I came here for the same reason when I saw this addition which just bloats the article. I have never seen this done before, and it seems odd enough that we may have to take this to a higher level to settle what to do. It only made a difference for the Conversion disorder link, so why not just do what "annotation" means, which is to manually add a short description only to the relevant links? The Folie à deux wikilink contained a proper annotation: "(from the French for "a madness shared by two")" -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:05, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi BullRangifer, A lot happens on Wikipedia. Few of us are aware of everything immediately. Annotated links using short descriptions go back about a year if I remember correctly. Could be longer. I have no idea how many people are using them. I add them mainly when adding short descriptions if the page has a see-also section, and I tend to do short descriptions without any special plan.
The reason I like to use short descriptions as annotations is because they automatically fill in when the short description is created, and stay up to date if it is changed. The same article may be linked in a see-also section from many articles, in theory there is no obvious limit to how many, and creating an annotation for every time it happens seems a bit pointless if it can be done using one that already exists. By using the short description, which is a thing most articles should eventually have, a lot of work can be saved. If you prefer indivisualised annotations you can provide them. In some cases it may work better, but in most cases the short description will be better than no annotation. If the short description is not perfect, it can be improved, and when improved it has value in more than one place.
The article you linked is an example where very few see also link articles havehad been given a short description yet (there are more now, take a look). When they get short descriptions they will appear in the linked section without additional work. There may be places where this system will not work well. Just revert them, and I would appreciate notification if there is a pattern discernible, so I can avoid using them in similar situations again. If the editors of an article think it is better not to annotate the links for that article, they can remove them, but as it is a recommendation of the manual of style, it may happen that someone else will add them again some day.
If you think this should better be settled by RfC, by all means start one. I am willing to collaborate on setting up the question. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 19:08, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the great explanation. That makes sense, and I may start doing the same. It seems the breakdown is because many articles lack a short description, so I'll try to start working on that. Thanks, and keep up the good work. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
BullRangifer, Happy to have been helpful. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
  • The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

  • Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
  • When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]

Arbitration

  • Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:06, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kudpung/Workshop

Hello Pbsouthwood! I'm Cameron11598 and I am one of the Arbitration Committee Clerks I rolled back your recent edits to the Kudpung case workshop as the workshop phase has already closed. Please note this is a clerk action and should not be undone without the permission of an Arbcom Clerk or a member of the committee. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 01:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Cameron11598. Oops, sorry, my bad. Did not notice the phase was closed. Yes I know there is a big notice, but it is a long page and I guess I forgot by the time I saw something I wanted to comment on, and the notice does not display in the edit window. So it goes. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:32, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer newsletter February 2020

Hello Pbsouthwood,

Source Guide Discussion

The first NPP source guide discussion is now underway. It covers a wide range of sources in Ghana with the goal of providing more guidance to reviewers about sources they might see when reviewing pages. Hopefully, new page reviewers will join others interested in reliable sources and those with expertise in these sources to make the discussion a success.

Redirects

New to NPP? Looking to try something a little different? Consider patrolling some redirects. Redirects are relatively easy to review, can be found easily through the New Pages Feed. You can find more information about how to patrol redirects at WP:RPATROL.

Discussions and Resources
Refresher

Geographic regions, areas and places generally do not need general notability guideline type sourcing. When evaluating whether an article meets this notability guideline please also consider whether it might actually be a form of WP:SPAM for a development project (e.g. PR for a large luxury residential development) and not actually covered by the guideline.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7095 Low – 4991 High – 7095

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16:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Physiology of underwater diving, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Diaphragm (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

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Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
  • A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

  • Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

please help translate this message into your local language via meta
The 2019 Cure Award
In 2019 you were one of the top ~300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a thematic organization whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs.

Thanks again :-) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 18:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Peter. Thank you for the messages. I did join the project. I thought it would help to create a Userpage... I followed the guidelines as stated and the flow to lodge the page. I re-adjusted it but not sure what's happening. Sorry to bring you into it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tezzadiver (talk • contribs) 06:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Tezzadiver, Try just creating your user page by opening it (you can click on the link at the start of this message) and adding some content, then saving. If that does not work, ping me and I will do it for you. Just follow the advice on WP:USERPAGE about what may and may not be on it. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:38, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
PS, remember to sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:45, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
PPS, If travel guide writing is your thing, then you might like to add some dive guide articles on Wikivoyage voy:Scuba diving topics. A rather different website, they welcome original research, but some things are similar, they also do not go for excessively promotional stuff. If you want to write up some NZ dive sites, there is already a bit of structure at voy:Diving in New Zealand. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Secretary desks and slant top desks

Hello, in making up a short description for the Secretary desk article you've cut out the bookcase and in doing so you've made a short description which is more fitting for the Slant top desk article.--AlainV (talk) 10:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

AlainV. Fixed, but you can fix them yourself if you see a need. It takes less effort than leaving a message. There is a tension between accuracy and brevity. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 10:45, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Orinasal mask, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Breathing mask (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 15:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Intentional link to dab page, no action required. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 15:15, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

See also sections

I notice that you have been converting the See also sections in a lot of articles using the {{annotated link}} template. Has there been some decision that this should be done globally, or is this your own project? The idea seems problematic to me in a number of ways. SpinningSpark 19:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Spinningspark, I have no idea who else may be doing it, and make no claims to ownership. I have been doing it for probably a year or so, in parallel with adding short descriptions. MoS recommends annotation for see also links when it is not obvious why they are relevant, and this is an easy way to provide them using existing descriptions which are automatically updated whenever the short description is improved. In most cases the short description is better than no annotation as all and they can be changed easily enough where they don't work well. When there is no short description available yet, they look no different from a plain link until the short description is added to the linked article, at which point all the annotated links to that article are populated. There has been very little comment or pushback except from a few people who have not looked into it to see what it does, and they appear to be OK with it when they look into it in more detail. What exactly are your concerns? Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 20:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
My reading of the MoS is that annotation is the exception rather than the rule. It is certainly not recommending it as a matter of course. In most cases, the reason for inclusion of a link is self-explanatory in the context of the article. Annotations should explain why a link had been included when it is not obvious. Generic descriptions do nothing to help the reader in those cases where the connection to the target is obscure. An explanation crafted for that specific context is needed.
A further thing I find problematic about this is that it is transcluding text into the article that is not visible from watchlist diffs. Many of these short descriptions are imported from Wikidata and are very poor quality. I've had to revert a few myself because they are so unhelpful, or even wrong. As you point out yourself, this text can change in the future. In those cases the watchlist is not triggered at all, leaving scope for something objectionable to get in.
If you are doing this on articles on which you are a substantial editor anyway, that is not a big issue. But imposing this globally without a discussion with wide participation or a guideline to back it up is problematic from my point of view. SpinningSpark 14:36, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
@Spinningspark:, My reading of MoS is that when it is not obvious what the connection is, an annotation to clarify is desirable. Whether they would be exceptions or more generally used I suppose would be open to interpretation. As I am unable to guess the level of understanding of each topic by each reader, I have assumed that at least some will find almost any reasonably correct annotation of a see also link useful, and very few if any would find them objectionable. To me, the default should be to help the reader. Where anyone considers a customised annotation to be better, there is nothing stopping them from putting one there in place of the templated version. When a better annotation already exists I do not replace it with a template, but there are remarkably few good annotations.
The short descriptions that are imported from Wikidata are those which have been copied from Wikidata by Wikipedians, who thereby accept responsibility for them being acceptable. No direct transclusion from Wikidata can be made using the annotated link template. It does not work that way.
Some short descriptions will be sub-optimal, occasionally even outright wrong. They are like any other content on Wikipedia. When we find one that is wrong, we can fix it.
When a short description is edited it shows up on the watchlist of anyone watching the article in which the short description is part of the content. This is generally considered the norm for content. It could be quite distracting to have it show up on the watchlist for every article where it is transcluded. This is also how we keep tabs on templates, so perhaps not totally different to what has been the status quo.
If you feel there is a need for wider discussion, you are free to start an RfC at any time. If you do, please ping me to discuss the formulation of the question. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 18:18, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't feel it is for me to start an RFC. I don't want the guidelines changed. So what question are you suggesting I need to start an RFC on? WP:STYLEVAR already advises against mass changes of article styles that are not prescribed by guidelines. SpinningSpark 20:47, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
@Spinningspark:, Maybe the question is whether using transcluded annotations in see also sections (or elsewhere) constitutes a sufficient change in article style to require general approval or a change to guidelines? I don't mind starting an RfC if we can agree on the question. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 05:42, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, I don't think that annotation requires approval. At least, not on the level of an individual article. What is already widely accepted, and written into guidelines in several places, is that editors should not run around the wiki changing everything to their personal preferred style en masse. If guidelines mandate a particular style then it's ok, but not otherwise. SpinningSpark 09:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Should I take it that you consider adding an annotation a change of style? or does it require the addition of several annotations in the same section? or is it the use of a template to display an annotation that constitutes a change of style?· · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:17, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
PS: If I had been adding the same text as local content annotations in the same places, how would it affect your opinion? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 18:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't understand the question you are asking. SpinningSpark 20:47, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I am trying to establish whether the use of transcluded content is the main issue, or the general addition of annotations per se. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 05:42, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I have a problem templates, but I also feel adding annotation as a matter of course is distracting clutter. You are right that we can't know the depth of knowledge of the reader, but we really have to make some assumptions or it would otherwise be impossible to effectively write any article. Whether or not we explain or link a term depends on the context of an article. This applies throughout the article, not just in See also. Here's an example: the multiplication article links to addition and explains its relation to multiplication. The homogenous differential equation article uses addition in several places, but nowhere is it linked or explained (or even mentioned). It would be insane to do so. Any reader who needs addition explained is highly unlikely to get any benefit from the HDE article. Another example: Impressionism does not feel the need to either link to, or explain, the meaning of "colour". We can all agree that colour is fundamental to art and impressionism in particular, but the article fails to describe it. Why is that? Because, in the context of impressionism, the authors are rightly assuming that the reader is familiar with the concept of colour and linking it would be WP:OVERLINK. SpinningSpark 09:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Spinningspark. I would like to point out that I am usually not adding any links to see also sections, just annotating existing links, so the issue of whether the link is appropriate is not really relevant. I have usually just assumed that the editors of the article have already agreed that the existing see also section contains relevant links. This may of course not be true, but it is a separate issue. I have occasionally removed redundant links, usually redirects, and have converted redirects to direct links where it seemed more appropriate.
Where you say you have a problem with templates, I assume you mean this specific template {{annotated link}}, because it transcludes content into the section, and you consider that content of an article must always be local? Please correct me if I misunderstand your point. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:10, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry if my examples were less than clear (first thing that popped into my head rather than carefully chosen), but agreed, it is the annotation we are talking about.
I wouldn't say that all content must be local, but transcluded content is generally undesirable if it can be avoided. While I have a problem with that, it is not the central issue. It is more that the practice results in the insertion of material that has not been crafted for relevance to the article. SpinningSpark 14:09, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Spinningspark, Not crafted for relevance for the article is a good point. It would be optimal if there were lots of local annotations that were specifically crafted for relevance for the article, but that is not happening in most (almost all?) articles, as the most common case by far is a bulleted list of bare links, without obvious relevance to a casual reader and no annotation to give them an idea of which, if any, links in the list are likely to be useful to them at that time.
My own opinion is that in most cases the short description is significantly better than no annotation, but a customised annotation can be better, so there must be the option to customise an annotation to override any transcluded annotation.
There are two obvious ways this could be done. There is the simple default, which currently exists, of replacing an annotated link with a plain link and an annotation, and not converting to annotated link where there is a better annotation locally, which is what I have been doing, or modifying the template with a parameter |local=true to prevent display of the short description. This may seem unnecessarily complicated, but it has the advantage that editors will know that the annotation has been assessed as better to keep local, which may stop them from transcluding an inferior annotation. It should also be fairly simple and low overhead code. Another way might be for the local parameter to actually contain the local annotation to be displayed, with the option for |local=none to suppress annotation altogether when the relevance is truly obvious, which can happen occasionally. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Use of annotated link template in "see also" sections==

Preamble:

  1. The Manual of style suggests annotations to links in "See also" sections where the relevance of the link may not be obvious to the reader. Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous.
  2. The short description is intended to be a concise explanation of the scope of the page. Short descriptions are being systematically added to Wikipedia articles as a search aid for the benefit of the reader, and eventually every article should have a short description. At present about 2 million exist. There is a gadget available specifically to add and edit short descriptions in main space.

Proposal:

Converting a plain Wikilink to an annotated link using the template {{annotated link}} is proposed as a convenient option. The appearance of the links remain unchanged where there is no short description available, and when a short description is created, it is automatically appended to the link with a spaced en-dash (default) or other character string (optional parameter). The annotation changes as and when the short description is edited, and to manually override with a custom annotation, the template can be removed. Combinations of short description followed by a custom additional annotation are trivially simple. A number of these conversions have been done to test the concept and there do not appear to be any technical problems.
Note that the short description used for annotation is content of the Wikipedia article in which it is located and to which it refers, editable by any user on Wikipedia, shows up on watchlists like any other edit, and is not drawn from any other source.

Examples of annotated links demonstrating options and possible usage. (comments in parentheses):

  • Underwater diving – Descending below the surface of the water to interact with the environment
  • Underwater diving – Descending below the surface of the water to interact with the environment, with additional local annotation.
  • Underwater diving— Descending below the surface of the water to interact with the environment (optional em-dash separation)
  • Mollifier – Integration kernels for smoothing out sharp features (article without a short description - if a description displays, someone has added it since this edit)
  • Buoyancy control (disambiguation page)
  • Red link (Wikipedia) (page that does not exist)
  • Diving helmet#Reclaim helmets – Rigid head enclosure for underwater diving (linked to a section - uses the article short description - sometimes this will be a bit confusing)
  • Reclaim helmet – Diving helmet that returns exhaled gas through a hose for recycling (linked to a redirect with possibilities with short description - a fix for the problem above, and the redirect may encourage someone to write the article. )
  • Diving weighting system, also known as Weight belt – Ballast carried to counteract buoyancy (shows the use of alternate titles)
  • International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) – International trade association for the marine contracting industry (shows handling of abbreviations)
  • Buoyancy compensator – Equipment for controlling the buoyancy of a diver (shows use of piped alternative title)
  • NOAA Diving Manual – Training and operations manual for scientific diving (special formatting possible in piped alternative)

Annotated links have also been used in list, index and outline articles for this purpose, for example these lists have been extensively annotated using this system:

Additional examples may be added below if needed.

Questions:

  1. Does the transclusion of a short description as an annotation to a link in a "See also" section of an article by using {{annotated link}} constitute a variation in style?
  2. Are there circumstances where the annotated links template should not be used for an unannotated "See also" section link without prior talk page discussion? If so, what?
  3. Does the {{annotated link}} template need other optional parameters? If so, what?
  4. Other questions?

Discuss:

I will put this up for comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style when I get around to it. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 13:50, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

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