Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Header

There is a separate header for the Incidents noticeboard, so changes to it may not be not reflected in other noticeboards.

The main discussion page for headers is here:

• Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Header

As a courtesy you must...

That's kind of a convoluted way of saying things. No other noticeboard expects a "must" action, and this is not generally reflected in practice. Anyone object if I go ahead and standardize the "you must" "you are expected to"? It may be less terse, but more consistent with current usage and other notification expectations. Jclemens (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Outing

In a hurry to address a problem, I just missed seeing the "dangerous personal information" because I was looking for "Outing". Any chance of tweaking that banner wording to add "(Outing)"? LeadSongDog come howl 22:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Walls of text

It seems that we get a number of posts where the text is so lengthy and convoluted it's hard to tell what is being asked of admins. I'm thinking that we should be adding a new point to "How to use this page" and also Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents that says that notifications on here must be short and to the point. What are others opinion? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 00:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be good. When I see walls of text, my head explodes. --Tom (talk) 17:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Frivilous and unsubstantiated?

Do we really need to tell folks that, and how do we define those? --Tom (talk) 17:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Notification

Yesterday, there was a discussion at the ANI Discussion page about slightly modifying something in this template. The template currently says: "You must notify any user that you discuss." Thus, when a user opens an ANI thread, he may purposely discuss the alleged offender plus also discussing various editors who deplore the alleged offender, but carefully not discussing anyone who agrees with the alleged offender. The latter people do not get notified. Anyway, here's the language that was suggested to me: "You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion." Of course, further people could be notified, but that would be covered by WP:Canvassing. I plan on making this change later today.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Autocollapse

Equaczion set the header to autocollapse, which I, personally, find annoying. I've reverted the change, and am opening up this discussion to see where consensus lies. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Basically copying my response to BMK on his talk: I had set autocollapse as the default to tone down the header clutter on ANI. It seems like overkill to have such a large nav always displayed there, and takes focus away from the ANI instructions, which are more important. I think people tended to ignore everything at the top due to it being too confusing before. People who want to see the other available noticeboards can still show it when needed. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I think not having the header there for reference whenever it's needed is simply going to increase the number of times people post inappropriately to AN/I instead of to the other noticeboards. And then when they do, if they're told "You should have posted on X", they're likely to say "But I didn't see that" because it's collapsed and not staring them in the face.

I'm sympathetic with the desire to streamline the mass of text at the top of AN/I, but I don't think collapsing the noticeboard header is a good idea. Of course that's not a deal-buster, just a preference. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the intent is sound, I just doubt it works this way in practice. There's so much going on up there right now that I think it's more of a tl;dr. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:31, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• That was pretty smooth EQ [1]. At least you didn't delete the front page. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:44, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I meant to do that. Sort of a test to see if people were paying attention. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:46, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Sure you did.... but more on topic, I use the top header very often as my dramah menu. Not that my convenience matters, but I'm likely not the only one. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:48, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Ug, and it looks like you did it at AN as well. I won't block you for it, but I'm not a fan ;) Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:51, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) Do you think it's worth the clutter though? I do see the benefit to it, I just think the cost is too high. The ANI instructions matter more and they're currently drowning in the other boxes. Less-experienced individuals need to be informed of things like "discuss on user talk first" and "notify users you bring up here", which are always difficult to get across, only made more so right now due to their relative lack of prominence. Actually I didn't touch the AN header, though it might still be my fault -- someone else changed [2] it to match ANI. Which I think counts as proof they agree with me (yay?) Equazcion ^(talk) 23:55, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
      • I uncollapsed the AN header for now too, til this is settled. Equazcion ^(talk) 00:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
        • It is just a matter of opinion. For example, when the average person looks at a 32 channel audio mixing board [3], they see a confusing mass of knobs and sliders. I see a beautiful harmony of organization and purpose. Maybe you just aren't a music person. That doesn't mean we can't discuss it or do it, that is just my opinion. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
• I have no preference on whether or not it is autocollapsed, but I do think it is misplaced. As far as I'm concerned when a page has a "Welcome to the incident noticeboard" message that should come first. After reviewing the other noticeboards though, I see that continuity may be a valid reason for keeping it at the top. Ryan Vesey Review me! 00:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
  • It looks like User:Nyttend proposed this too, based on this test change, but I'm not sure where it might've been discussed. I tested such a change on the current header here if you want to see what that would look like. Failing the autocollapse, I think that would also be a good change. Equazcion ^(talk) 00:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Having a larger discussion on the overall design might be a good thing. I have to give you credit for your boldness EQ. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:42, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Blech. I hate larger discussions. They often lead to more people commenting. But seriously, it seems like a relatively minor issue to start big thing over. I left notices at ANI and the AN talk page about this discussion, so it might get large here anyway... Equazcion ^(talk) 00:50, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Where's the purge? It just loaded yesterday's page for me again. --64.85.220.231 (talk) 00:56, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I had taken out purge, but just re-added it (different place, but should be just as easy to find). Equazcion ^(talk) 01:27, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

This header is an unmanageable wall of cluttered text; on the Internet banners are invisible. Anyone expecting users to actually see the notify notice buried in it has unrealistic expectations, as evidence by the frequent fail to notify incidents we have. I had previously suggested this much cleaner version but it got committeed back into the horrible ugly camel it is now. I support any and all reductions down to the bare essentials and was glad to see Equazcion's efforts head in that direction. With regard to other boards -- A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds (Emerson). Nobody Ent 03:19, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I'd love to be able to get stats on how often the "show" links are actually clicked next to "how to use this page", "are you in the right place", and the RFC nav box (I know that's currently impossible). I stuck to more-or-less uncontroversial changes for now though. Equazcion ^(talk) 04:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Seconding "unmanageable wall of cluttered text." Support for cutting way down, but not for auto-collapse. Please also note that auto-collapse is pointless for people (like me) on slow connections: You still see the whole thing while the page loads, and then it folds itself away. - 124.148.129.70 (talk) 10:17, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

removed oversight link

The chronic problem with the header here is there's so much stuff it doesn't get read because banners are invisible. There is a prominent notice about oversight on the edit notice -- folks who don't notice that are not going to read the the stuff at the top of the page; while should be oversighted stuff appears at ANI the existing issues -- failure to discuss first, failure to notify other editors et. al. are more common. NE Ent 23:51, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It certainly doesn't hurt to add it. If even one person notices that line and makes their report via email rather than on ANI, that's a good bit of work saved for an oversighter, and more importantly much less visibility for the information being reported. Due to the size of this noticeboard, it may not be practical to remove these reports unless they're caught very quickly, and doing so often breaks the page history. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 16:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Anything that's added makes it less likely the rest of the header will be read -- per usability practices there should be way less here but I've never been able to get consensus to trim it down very much. NE Ent 19:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Really? It's one line of text. Considering the importance that oversight reports not be made in public, I think it's an important one to include. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 20:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

How about this, then - there's already a line in the "Are you in the right place?" box on this. Rather than adding anything more, let's just move that where I tried placing the line yesterday so it's not hidden when someone goes to look at the header. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 20:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Not following; added oversight and removed a couple lesser nags -- how's that look? NE Ent 21:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 22:20, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Blocked?

@EEng:, why do we need a link for people that are blocked? They can't post on this page anyway, and won't their talk page have a template with instructions? Natureium (talk) 20:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Whew! For a second when I saw the title of your ping I thought I'd got blocked again. Of course, I'm used to it by now. Anyway, I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure so I left it (transferred it from the AN header, actually). I guess we can remove it. I assume that when someone's blocked with no TP access, the can't-edit banner that comes up when they try to edit directs them to UTRS? EEng 21:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• Can an admin sympathetic to what we're doing here unprotect Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents and Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard? I don't see why they need protecting any more than the rest of the clutter on the boards. EEng 21:28, 11 June 2018 (UTC)