Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 65

New ref tag options: <ref name="name" see="p.5" sname="source5"/>

Proposal (respond at discussion area, not here)

Note: This has been updated after initial round of discussions.

Verifying content in sources can be tedious when multi-page sources are cited without specific pages noted. This is compounded by the fact that information must be rewritten in our own words to avoid copyright issues, often rendering the "ctrl+f" find function on a browser to near-uselessness (unless you're lucky). As a result, sometimes properly sourced content is removed simply because future editors can't ctrl+f the information in the source even though it is buried in there... somewhere.

With the current system, you generally have to make a new ref-name each time you want to specify a page or section of the document. Unfortunately, when this is done, citations often end up being all over the place and the ref list gets cumbersome in length.

As you may have guessed from looking at the title above, I propose creating a few additional ref tags to point to specific locations in a multi-page text or web source without having to make a new ref-name. The following demo should be self-explanatory: (ref links coded to click and highlight just like in a real reflist, so feel free to click to see them in action)

Content Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.[1] Quisque adipiscing, justo ut ultrices scelerisque, leo ipsum lacinia arcu, id euismod arcu ante non diam.[2] Phasellus in metus vitae magna semper interdum sed eu lorem. Mauris vitae ligula erat.[1] Vivamus dictum fringilla magna quis accumsan.[3] Nullam id libero at massa sodales venenatis. Ut adipiscing feugiat erat, quis scelerisque quam porttitor a.[1][3] Maecenas et elit a magna tincidunt vestibulum.[1][3] Vivamus tempus nunc vestibulum nisi elementum vel interdum arcu iaculis. Integer sollicitudin velit sit amet enim faucibus varius.[1] Pellentesque eu libero augue.[3] References 1. ^ ap.12 cp.31 b d e Source name, access date, etc. 2. ^ch.5 Source name 2, access date 2, etc. 3. ^ a d[1] bUser talk:... c Hydro, Code. User:Codehydro. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 2010.

== Content ==

[[Lorem ipsum]] dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.<ref name="name" see="p.12">Source name, access date, etc.</ref> Quisque adipiscing, justo ut ultrices scelerisque, leo ipsum lacinia arcu, id euismod arcu ante non diam.<ref name="name2" see="ch.5">Source name 2, access date 2, etc.</ref> Phasellus in metus vitae magna semper interdum sed eu lorem. Mauris vitae ligula erat.<ref name="name"/>

Vivamus dictum fringilla magna quis accumsan.<ref name="hydro2010" see="[http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Codehydro/Demo]{{deadlink}}" sname="hydrodemo">Hydro, Code. ''[http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Codehydro User:Codehydro]''. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 2010.</ref> Nullam id libero at massa sodales venenatis. Ut adipiscing feugiat erat, quis scelerisque quam porttitor a.<ref name="name" see="p.31"/><ref name="hydro2010" see="[http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Codehydro User talk:Codehydro]"/>

Maecenas et elit a magna tincidunt vestibulum.<ref name="name"/><ref name="hydro2010"/> Vivamus tempus nunc vestibulum nisi elementum vel interdum arcu iaculis. Integer sollicitudin velit sit amet enim faucibus varius.<ref name="name"/> Pellentesque eu libero augue.<ref sname="hydrodemo"/>

== References ==

{{reflist}}

Notice how you can use standard wiki markup in see= for more interesting effects like linking via url. You can also use sname= if you want to use the same markup again, and do so without typing name=. Also note the truncation if its longer than 10 characters. Moreover, to reduce ambiguity, all ref tags with (and without) see= are clustered together, and those ref tags with identical sname= are also grouped for compactness.

First round new ref discussion archive

Note: this part of the discussion was for a version that had a url= option, which has since been merged with see=.

As a note, this ref method may be possible already in theory through the manual creation of a WP:LDR, albeit highly cumbersome, confusing, and easily mislinked. However, list-defined references are rare on Wikipedia and converting reference styles on established pages to LDR is cumbersome, whereas my suggestion above could be used on any page without redoing all other refs. Coding the options into the ref tag should be relatively simple, and I can probably do it myself if nobody else will. —CodeHydro 16:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, similar solution to Harvard footnotes except integrated into the more standard notes. I like it, not sure how much it would take to integrate it technically, Sadads (talk) 16:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Great idea! Buglet in demo (important point for implementation): refs without see= or url= should be listed in the footnote after those with these tags. The second use of [1] ( <ref name="name"/> at end of first paragraph) is placed as b in References entry 1 preceding c (I assume in order of use in article body). But c is "p.31" (from <ref name="name" see="p.31"/> at end of third paragraph). The resulting layout "b cp.31" suggests that b is also p.31 rather than loose for the whole biblo entry. Would be clearer/correcter as "cp.31 b" (assuming a/b/c in order of link appearance in article) or "bp.31 c" (looks cleaner here, but might require multiple parser passes through the article to collect the data). DMacks (talk) 16:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. With the way I have above, it seems to imply that both b and c are from p.31. In short, you are suggesting that ref tags with either see= or url= should be group together in front and all those without should be group in the end like this (new labels d and e added):

Content Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.[1] Quisque adipiscing, justo ut ultrices scelerisque, leo ipsum lacinia arcu, id euismod arcu ante non diam.[2] Phasellus in metus vitae magna semper interdum sed eu lorem. Mauris vitae ligula erat.[1] Vivamus dictum fringilla magna quis accumsan.[3] Nullam id libero at massa sodales venenatis. Ut adipiscing feugiat erat, quis scelerisque quam porttitor a.[1][3] Maecenas et elit a magna tincidunt vestibulum.[1][3] Vivamus tempus nunc vestibulum nisi elementum vel interdum arcu iaculis. Integer sollicitudin velit sit amet enim faucibus varius. Pellentesque eu libero augue.[1] References 1. ^ ap.12 cp.31 b d e Source name, access date, etc. 2. ^ch.5 Source name 2, access date 2, etc. 3. ^ aurl bUser talk:... c Hydro, Code. User:Codehydro. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 2010.

Good idea, less ambiguous :) and perhaps identical see= page numbers could be clustered as in the original proposal except with the second ref name="name" also saying see="p.31" —CodeHydro 16:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I hate the formatting messes resulting from autolinkified URLs displayed in references (http://example.com), and the "url" linktext displayed if "url= but no see=" is an improvement. But that's a nonstandard way of hiding URLs from what I can see: a normal URL link that doesn't have a name displays as [2]. That is, in pseudocode:

if (url) {
  if (see) {
    "[${url} ${see}]"
  } else {
/* current approach
    "[${url} url]"
*/
/* more standard, matching other contexts */
    "[${url}]"
} elsif (see) {
  "${see}"
}

Although, I'm confused by what happens when both are used anyway. Could you clarify the "ellipsis after 10 characters in the reflist" feature? What is the display-string that is being truncated here ("${see}:${url}", "${see}:url", is see= truncated if no url= passed)? DMacks (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I did mess up on the trunc. The original tag should have been <ref name="hydro2010" see="User talk:Codehydro" url="http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Codehydro"/> but I only typed in "User Talk" in the version you originally saw. I have fixed it. And as for the non-standard url thing when omitting the see=, I guess we can just use the standard [3] to keep it simple, though I think it to be ugly :P —CodeHydro 17:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Brainstorming further (sorry I keep getting ideas after posting previous ones!), what about scrapping url= altogether and letting see= just be normal wiki-markup? That way see=[http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5 p.5] and see=[http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5] behave like editors expect (not have to learn special syntax/feature of linking for this context). And see=http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5 displays the actual URL (autolinkified by wiki engine as usual) and looks terrible just like it always does, again encouraging editors to actually add something intelligent to display like a pagenumber or even just square-brackets. Bonus is that would allow additional standard annotations there, for example, see=[http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5]{{deadlink}} (important type of feature, needs to be targetted to the URL not the whole footnote ref entry and not where the footnote-link is in the article body). DMacks (talk) 16:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that's a neat idea. I "see" now that url= is probably unnecessary ;) Okay, everybody, hold off on posting for a short while. I am going to update the proposal above. —CodeHydro 17:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

See T15127 for a similar proposal. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a minor detail but I would suggest that "label" is more generic than "see". I'd also lean towards superscripting the entire label, e.g. something like:

1. ^ ^{a: p.21 b: p.67-80} Smith, John. Encyclopedia of Wacky things.

But that's a relatively minor formatting point. In general, I am supportive of ideas like this. Dragons flight (talk) 17:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Simply put, I love this idea. Would solve a lot of different issues that I have grappled with and seen many users complain about. {{Rp}} was created by another user specifically to stop my whining about an aspect of this problem, but this is a better solution than having the page numbers in the article text.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion area for new ref options, update 1

Okay, done adapting suggestions into proposal. As for the last idea before the section break, I decided not to add it because that would make the ref bulkier. By not having what is in see= superscripted, it is more compact by two characters ":" and a space " "... anyhow, there may be bugs in the demo, because I don't want to hold off the discussion too long before updating it. Please let me know if you find any. —CodeHydro 18:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You may wish to view WP:Centralized discussion/Citation discussion#Redux, which specifically references a proposal to add what I would claim to be a better set of functionality. This proposal isn't exactly included there, but I'm sure it would be a good improvement to make (I'm more concerned that "see" and such are ambiguous: the software should be dealing with this based on items such as the author name automatically). --Izno (talk) 18:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting discussion there, but I believe this is of a very different nature. Those are suggestions to create citation templates for specify styles like APA or MLA. While those ideas are focused on templates that help other editors retrieve their own copy of a source that's cited, this proposal focuses on locating information within the source that's already on hand but too lengthy for easy verification of individual pieces of information. —CodeHydro 18:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hardly. What I'm suggesting is that we take your suggestion and add it to the other suggestions there. The software should be able to see similar <ref ... > code and put two and two together on its own. For example, the software should see automatically that the "name" is the same, the "work" is the same, but that the "pages" are different, and be able to handle it automatically in the same fashion as your suggestion. That avoids making new parameters and increase usability in the same fashion as you desire. --Izno (talk) 01:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added a link on that page, informing people that this proposal is here. I'm not still sure about moving it, so I'll let others decide if they want it moved. —CodeHydro 13:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• There's a simpler way to do this: {{rp}}. e.g. This text is from page twelve of a book.. Fences&Windows 22:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

References

That injects the code into the text around, and I personally wouldn't want to see that outside of the <ref> or the references section… --Izno (talk) 01:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, Fuhghettaboutit mentioned {{rp}} in the first round of discussions and said the same thing about rp disrupting the text. —CodeHydro 13:15, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

In the long term, we need to transition to a footnote system that fits in better with the wiki way so that everyone will be able to understand it and easily use it without making the wikitext hard to read. Adding another attribute to an already confusing system makes it even more difficult for newbies to use.

• Abolish the ref name="..." syntax. Use only numbers to identify specific footnotes.
• Linking to a specific footnote should be as easy as [[From #2 34-35]]. Although it currently renders as From #2 34-35, it should become, for example, ^[2b]. (Footnotes that are not citations would use the word Note instead of From.)
• Defining a footnote should be as easy as including [[From #2]] Miller, E (2005). ''The Sun'', Academic Press. Pages along with all others within a single pair of <footnotes></footnotes> tags (just like the current <references></references> tags, better if the footnotes appear in a separate text box).
• Footnotes should be automatically renumbered whenever the page is saved.
• Example appearance of footnotes (borrowed examples from WP:CITE):
  1. Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78). Pages 8-9
  2. Miller, E (2005). The Sun, Academic Press. Pages a) 80-105; b) 34-35; c) 22
• Is this a reasonable approach? PleaseStand ^(talk) 16:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

"Footnotes should be automatically renumbered whenever the page is saved." means the whole page content is automatically changed (all the "From #___" actual text strings in the article)? Seems like that would make reading revision-diffs incredibly painful. You're just swapping one weird syntax/feature for another. I think you're addressing an interesting annoyance: if I want to add another cite using an existing one, I have to dig into the article-source to find the <ref name=> tag rather than just looking at the References section. But that seems less of a problem than having small article edits making a huge resulting "change" to the article sources. DMacks (talk) 17:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would require major changes to the way diffs work. However, even [[From #Brown2006 34-35]] is much better than <ref name=Brown2006 see=34-35/>. That's six less characters to clutter the wikitext. PleaseStand ^(talk) 19:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes — abolish the ref name="..." syntax! It seems its primary purpose is to avoid having to stuff bibliographic details into more than one <ref>, but I say that is misguided, that bibliographic details should not be in the refs in the first place. More generally, <ref> is a structural "container", and modifying it with details of its contents entangles structure with content. (I thought we had learned better with HTML.) So: opposed to adding <ref> parameters that encode content.

Also yes to automatic renumbering of footnotes. Occasionally it is inconvenient to have them change, but they should be in sequence, so there is no avoiding a change when a note is inserted.

But the approach above ["Pages a)..."] is misguided. The general approach I recommend is to set up all of the bibliographic details in a References section (using {{cite}} or {{citation}}) templates, then link with {{Harv}}. Sure, Harv has some rough spots, but I don't see that the current proposal improves on it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There is not a chance in hell that developers will allow any proposal where the wiki source code is automatically renumbered when you save. (It would fail horribly with templates and transclusion, for starters.) The rendered content can be automatically numbered, but no developer is going to allow automatic renumbering to happen in the source code. Dragons flight (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. We have a system where the software automatically numbers things. Having to put numbers in the wikitext sounds like a step backward. Using names is a lot more intuitive than arbitrary numbers, even if it takes up a little more space. Arbitrary, non-constant numbers are impossible to remember when editing compared to well chosen names. And if the numbers automatically change, how would you handle, say, inserting a reference in the middle of an article (triggering a renumbering) and then linking to that same footnote elsewhere in the same edit? If the new ref would be number 4 but it triggers a renumber, then all links, including the one you just added, would be changed to number 5. Mr.Z-man 03:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Refs - alternate suggestion

"1. ^ ^{a: p.21 b: p.67-80} Smith, John. Encyclopedia of Wacky things." strikes me as extremely cryptic, and if your browser doesn't support the CSS :target pseudo-class (e.g. you're using IE, or a printout) you have no way to know which ^[1] is which page. I would find something like this to be much easier to make sense of:

1. ^ ^a Smith, John. Encyclopedia of Wacky things.
   1. ^ ^b p.21. "Blah blah blee blee blah."
   2. ^ ^{c d} p.67-80

The in-text refs for b, c, and d should be shown as something like ^[1.1] and ^[1.2]. This would also allow the sub-references to sensibly contain quotes from the source and other bulky information, as shown in "b".

If I were to choose a syntax for the ref tag, I'd prefer something like <ref name="Smith">Smith, John. Encyclopedia of Wacky things.</ref> ... <ref in="Smith">p.21</ref> ... <ref name="p67-80" in="Smith">p.67-80</ref> ... <ref name="p67-80" in="Smith" />; this naturally allows wikitext in the sub-references. The code must, of course, support the case where the "parent" comes after the "child" (and especially the case where the "parent" is a list-defined reference and the child is not). Anomie⚔ 03:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I like this. Its similar to what I suggested on bug 13127 with the benefit that the software doesn't have to guess as often what you meant. As for determining the parent ref, I suggested another attribute (though that was before LDRs existed). So to determine the parent, something like 1) Ref with "parent" attribute set, 2) List-defined ref, 3) First instance in page text. Mr.Z-man 04:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, list-defined refs handily solve the problem of "how to specify the parent if we don't need to use it anywhere in the article". Anomie⚔ 15:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am concerned that the References section would be much "taller" (i.e. if editors do not actually include quotes from sources), making it more difficult to use the scroll bar (yes, some people still do use it) and wasting tons of pages in a printed copy. And using a ref name solely to identify page numbers would be a bad thing. It's already a problem with shortened footnotes since <ref name="Smith, 67-80">Smith, 67-80.</ref>...<ref name="Smith, 67-80"/> is far more confusing (when making large edits to articles) than <ref>Smith, 67-80.</ref>...<ref>Smith, 67-80.</ref>, especially because AWB's general fixes change the latter to the former. Your suggestion also does not address the complexity (as perceived by the user) of the current ref tag system; not everyone understands XML syntax. I suggested [[From #Smith2010 67-80]] for two reasons: 1) is based on the wikilink syntax used throughout articles (looks "easier" to the user); 2) is concise and readable (we don't, for example, make links using "<a href="...">...</a>") for a reason). PleaseStand ^(talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

In a tradeoff between length and comprehensibility, I'd pick the latter. Your concerns over people not understanding XML syntax are not really relevant to this particular discussion (and people can always use {{#tag:ref}} syntax if they want), your concerns that named refs are "confusing" do not seem to be shared by the community at large, and your suggestion of using <ref>Smith, 67-80.</ref>...<ref>Smith, 67-80.</ref> is contrary to your earlier complaint about the size of the references section. As for your alternate syntax, it would be easy to confuse it with a targeted link to From, and it may be that the devs don't want to add more weird special cases to the [[...]] syntax like we already have for categories, files, and interlanguage links. Anomie⚔ 15:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I could go for this alternate idea. Actually, before I decided to go with the more compact version for the proposal, my original idea was to break it up almost exactly like Anomie shows it above with the multi-lines and have them clustered under the main reference (though the ones below the main need not be numbered since there are the tiny letters). Either way, it is better to keep references to the same text in the same area... I don't like looking at disorganized lists like those shown in Latin#Notes. —CodeHydro 17:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

We do need some way to indicate that a particular use of the reference refers to a particular subreference, and without requiring the reader to click and have a browser supporting the CSS :target pseudo-class. Otherwise how do you know if ^[1] refers to the whole thing (a), page 21 (b), or pages 67-80 (c and d)? While ^[1a] is a possibility, I thought ^[1.1] might be easier to follow. Anomie⚔ 19:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

As mentioned various times in this discussion, that is basically the {{rp}} template, which makes a ref like this^[1] which is largely unused due to disruptions in the text flow—CodeHydro 02:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

^[1] is quite frankly ugly, and it's not at all clear to the reader what those hovering numbers next to the reference indicator might really mean. Anomie⚔ 11:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't care how this is done, as long as: using a new system is not required, old system still works as currently, and refs are not nested like the above example. More repeat numbers = more confusion when reading long lists of refs. [a]:p. # seems fine to me, though. —fetch·comms 18:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Generally concur. The concept of nested sub-references seem particularly ill-advised, and tending to impair reading (verification of sources) and deter maintenance editing. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that [a]:p is vague and of limited use. There's nothing to indicate that the second number is a page number, especially given that the first number is just a number and has nothing to do with the source itself. It also visually separates the page number from the source; I don't think I've ever seen any sort of referencing system where the page number is completely on its own, with no direct indication as to which source it refers to. With a system like Anomie's, it could also be used for things other than page numbers. How exactly would this "deter maintenance editing"? Mr.Z-man 23:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Simply having to learn Yet Another Citation System tends to be deterring. It is hard enough to fix incomplete, incorrect, or just plain broken citations in any system, and if some editor wants to compound the problem by using a cryptic scheme of doubtful readability then the let them fix it themselves; I can find plenty of less aggravating work to do. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

"cryptic scheme of doubtful readability", for a second there I thought you were talking about {{rp}} or the very similar proposal this is in counter to. As I see it, this is an alternative to WP:CITESHORT that allows for the short references to be immediately under the full citation instead of having the full citation in a completely different section. As far as "having" to learn anything, it would be as "required" as having to learn about WP:REFGROUP or WP:CITESHORT. Anomie⚔ 20:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Have you even read this proposal? It adds a single, optional parameter to the existing citation system, other than that, its identical to what we're using now. This is no more "Yet Another Citation System" than {{rp}}, except its likely easier for readers to understand and easier to handle with automated tools (like for maintenance editing). Mr.Z-man 17:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Straw vote

Since the discussion has gotten rather long, how about a basic straw vote? We'll have another straw vote for whether we want the compact version or the detailed version if there is enough overall support for the idea. For now just vote either Support if you want a new ref tag for specifying specific areas within a long text and keeping those notes together (regardless of compact or detailed versions) or Oppose if you do not want the new options. Use the following formatt when adding a vote:

#'''Vote''' - brief reason ~~~~

Support

1. Support - I obviously support my own proposal —CodeHydro 12:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on WP:AFD, WP:EVENT, and the notability of some aircrashes

Does exactly what it says on the tin. See Wikipedia:Notability (fatal hull loss civil aviation accidents) for details. MickMacNee (talk) 16:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for subscription/registration-requiring sources

Hi - I want to discuss the idea of having the Wikimedia Foundation acquire subscription/registration rights for editors to use those kinds of resources (newspapers, magazines, JSTOR, scientific journals, research papers, non-preview Google books, university/college resources) that are available online only for subscribers and registered individuals. There is a wealth of reliable sources that provide valuable information that is unavailable to most if not all Wikipedians. Such use and access has to be obviously for use exclusively for references. I have a few suggestions to make this practical:

1. Access to subscription/registration-based reliable sources can be strictly limited to Wikipedia editors with the rights of reviewers, administrators and bureaucrats and those editors who have written more than, say, 3 featured articles or 15 DYKs. Only permanent, reliable/responsible users should have the rights - making sure (as much as possible) that are not abused nor references misused for citations that aren't accurate.
2. It is not necessary for ordinary users and definitely not un-registered readers to directly view the sources that are cited. Just like buying off-line sources such as books right now - they can obtain subscription/registration by themselves if they so desire.
3. No text from such sources can be used as or for quotes - just for paraphrasing.
4. The sources can be clearly identified for volume no., publication details, authors, etc. to give credit to those publications kind enough to allow access.
5. Usage of such sources can be restricted for articles are not biographies of living persons, and not for images (due to possible copyright issues).
6. Administrators (and frankly any user given viewing rights) will have the responsibility of making sure 100% that such privileges are not being abused. If deemed advisable, they can be authorized to strike out the texts that are blatant copy-vios or page protect those articles (like BLPs) that must not use such sources. Users violating these rules can be blocked, placed under probation and have their rights revoked for a long period of time.

Obviously the Wikimedia Foundation will have to negotiate and may have to pay some sort of fee - that is something for the Foundation reps to do. Some publications may cooperate, some may not. I think its more than worth it - it will help develop literally thousands of FAs and DYKs, and make life of reviewers and those overseeing enforcement of WP:RS much easier. Of course, it gives a big leap forward for this encyclopedia's chief goal. What d'ya say? Shiva (Visnu) 13:35, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Could you clarify if you mean WMF should buy a subscription to the journals and newspapers in general (something like a private library), or just to the specific articles that are cited in wikipedia-article refs (funds for the "buy access to this article" link often found when non-subscribers hit the paywall)? DMacks (talk) 13:46, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you aware of WP:RX?—Emil J. 13:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

@DMacks - actually on both of your points (I can specifically relate to "hitting the wall" :) - I am suggesting an arrangement - get them to allow access to all their issues and archives, so that editors can search those databases for whatever info they need. I would like them to act as "libraries" for us. I don't know what best describes this arrangement - something more than a subscription I think. A comparable example I think is the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, which is public domain now.

@EmilJ - yeah I came across it, and it strikes me as a step in the right direction, right along the lines of what I'm saying, but still limited and lacking because you don't know if anybody can help, and it is also time-consuming. There is an obvious advantage to anyone working on an article to do the search directly him/herself within minutes or at best a couple of hours. If WMF would try to get such an access arrangement, it would be a major expansion to the scope of what WP:RX is doing. Shiva (Visnu) 14:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be nice, but aren't such subscriptions pretty expensive? Like six-figures a year expensive? Gigs (talk) 16:27, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It's on the order of 4 or 5 for one subscription, usually.
This idea might be a good suggestion to the strategy wiki to see what they can do with it. --Izno (talk) 17:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I see no need for the WMF to do this... such sources are easily available (for free) at any decent public library. So why should they pay for something that the editor can obtain for free? Blueboar (talk) 18:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

No comment on whether or not the program is feasible, but the reason for providing it would be precisely because a large number of people do not have a "decent public library" near them. Even in the U.S., only university libraries have JSTOR access, at least in my experience. And if you live in a non-English speaking country, your serious academic/journalistic sources in English will be quite limited in many cases, unless you're associated with a major university. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This is an attractive idea in theory, but I doubt it'll work in practice. I have four main problems with it:

• The cost. These subscriptions are fairly expensive, and there are a multitude of different sites that would require it. WMF doesn't have unlimited resources.
• Management. Links are added and removed from articles all the time. To make this workable it would have to use subscriptions to entire sites - but this would increase the cost even more. Then there's the issue of sites changing their accessibility, or sites being used as sources for the first time.
• Not allowing its use on BLPs. Of all our articles, these are the ones that most need to be verified.
• Who can access it. There are hundreds of great content editors who aren't reviewers and haven't bothered to submit their creations for FA or DYK. Leaving them out would reduce the effectiveness of this.

I'm not saying this is impossible, just that it will be very difficult to implement, and in the form currently proposed it may not bring the greatest possible benefits. Alzarian16 (talk) 22:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

@shiva: In principal I like the idea. However point 1 and 2 do not make any sense to me. Such an access is useful to all regularly active authors not just authors of featured articles or reviewers. Also note the primary goal of WP is not to produce featured articles, but to cover as much notable knowledge as possible in correct and appropriate manner (which normally is way beyond the level of featured articles or DYK).--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

@Alzarian16, @Kmhkmh - this is just a basic suggestion of points I could think of - any of them can be whacked off, modified to make this workable. Points 1 and 2 are suggested to allay possible fears on part of publishers of people getting unhindered access to books that are on the market - like there are editors like administrators here trusted with responsibilities, I thought perhaps such a concern could be resolved if you keep access to users with some sort of track record. FAs/GAs and DYKs are perhaps a criteria the community can judge editors for this purpose. I definitely think these resources should not be accessible to unregistered users or those with say, less than 500 edits. For management issues, those are challenges we can meet by forming an appropriate wikiproject or something organized of that nature - a corps of editors specifically charged with the job of maintenance, like administrators who have certain responsibilities.

As far as cost goes, thats something only Mr. Wales's people at WMF should deal with - you have all raised good points about the cost, but putting yourself in WMF's shoes, you can try some specific strategies to raise funds - (1) start a campaign to attract institutions/publishers that would be willing share as a service to further knowledge, a "donation" of sorts. (2) Like celebrities associating with political causes, maybe we can seek to form an "Authors/Researchers for Wikipedia," who can help in this regard (2) Maybe you can lobby to get a government agency to help in some way. (3) Advertise your goal in newspapers to raise public support, donations. (4) (an idea will likely be HATED :)) levy a small "contribution" from editors (not all, or it will kill the appeal of WP), but those who are regular content developers - say $1-2 or its equivalent in other currencies per year. If you can get 100,000 editors to contribute, that's $100,000-200,000 raised - a sort of pooled subscription fee, as opposed to individuals paying $20-30 a year for magazines, journals, etc. (5) Advertisements are a heated issue, but maybe the benefits will tip the balance for some limited form of advertising.

(6) Last but never the least, do it SLOWLY - don't need to get a lot of institutions on board all at once, just play it as it goes, whatever you can afford. Pick one most likely to benefit us and get them on board. From whatever I've seen, patience is the greatest virtue and asset for all Wikipedians. You can also resolve the management issues if you move at a steady pace.

Fund-raising is a whole art form. I have no doubt that WMF can form a team of people capable of scouring the world for the funds and best deals possible. Shiva (Visnu) 10:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

And hey, anything worth doing is going to have serious obstacles to overcome. If it was at all "easy", we'd already have this right now. We can work it out - all of us here, and the people of WMF have the intelligence and resourcefulness to do such things. Don't worry - we can do anything! Shiva (Visnu) 10:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Note that we don't actually have 100,000 editors. In the entire history of the English Wikipedia, fewer than 50,000 users have made more than 500 edits and only about 18,000 have been active in the past month. Advertising is not really a "heated" issue. "Heated" suggests there's a lot of debate; its been pretty soundly rejected every time it comes up. Advertising might be accepted if it were the only way to keep the site running in an emergency. I doubt giving power users access to services like this would really change many minds. Mr.Z-man 20:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be possible to get the companies that deal with these subscription services to freely allow trusted editors access to the information, given the rules mentioned. It would be to their best interests: One person casually browses from a purely educational standpoint. Everyone else that reads is then directed to pay to view, and the subscription gets more hits as a result. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 14:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. How many people would actually pay (I've seen scientific journals as much as US$30/article) just to verify the contents of a Wikipedia article, especially when they know that thousands of other users can see it for free? Mr.Z-man 20:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

The idea of sources being donated to or bought by the Wikimedia Foundation for the use by regular editors is a good one, and not unprecedented: Wikipedia:Credo accounts. In March, Credo Reference donated 100 free accounts to Wikipedians. It's a reality that much of the (good) prose content of Wikipedia is written by a small number of editors (numbering in the thousands), and having access to reference sources like Athens or Lexis-Nexis would be a great help to improving Wikipedia's content. The proposed restriction on use and the suggestion of advertising is silly and a red herring, and the conversation shouldn't get bogged down by this. Fences&Windows 00:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

That absolutely right; I was one of those lucky enough to be allocated one of those Credo accounts. Malleus Fatuorum 00:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support idea, practicalities aside -which wouldn't be easy- this would be a great leap forward and a good use of Foundation money. Not everyone has a library close or works in an University department. --Cyclopia^talk 01:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• What is the best way to present a proposal for such an initiative to the Wikimedia Foundation? Its not really a "policy", but something that Mr. Jimmy Wales himself needs to give attention to, approve and carry out. Should there be a petition, with users who support the idea in principal put their names in to recommend this to WMF? Shiva (Visnu) 22:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support – I would think the foundation has already thought of this, but we don't know for sure. If not it is worth a try. Lambanog (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Creation of a petition for the better presentation of material that may spoil a subject

A perennial proposal that always comes up is the subject of ways to avoid spoiling a subject. After some debates, Wikipedia guidelines such as WP:SPOILER and MOS:COLLAPSE have been established. But the topic keeps on coming back up. Looking at the way previous discussions have been conducted I think there is reason to doubt that the guidelines are reflective of the majority of Wikipedia's users opinion or interest. The opposed voices on this issue seem to be editors; but the largest group likely to be in opposition are probably readers. A petition where such people who may be unfamiliar with the arcane internal processes of Wikipedia can more easily and clearly express their opinion, rather than in scattered posts, would seem to be appropriate.

So in short even though petitions should be avoided, in this case a petition is warranted and should be created. Lambanog (talk) 03:43, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

En. Cy. Clo. Pe. Di. A. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Yup, what Melodia said. Otherwise:

Spoiler tags for [latest release x]! Spoiler tags for Chronicles of Narnia! Spoiler tags for The Mousetrap! Spoiler tags for Hamlet! Spoiler tags for the Bibles! Spoiler tags for The Epic of Gilgamesh!

We'd never all agree on where to put them, or on where to draw the line.

Anything that person x hasn't already read or seen, can be "spoiled".

Says I, "No no! I haven't read that yet! Don't tell me anything!"

There's a good essay that touches on this, at WP:AMORAL. Encyclopedias contain spoilers.

HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:17, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

• No. For the obvious reasons. → ROUX ₪ 06:21, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Recently discussed at Jimbo Wales'talk page re The Mousetrap. Do you mind if I tell the outcome ;-) -DePiep (talk) 06:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

For religious people, this is a plotspoiler too (to me, this very idea is ... fun). And then come those signing that petition to, eh, eliminate unwelcome facts? Or 'keep them out of view'? No. -DePiep (talk) 07:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

We've had this debate many times, the the general consensus has always remained the same. If it's under a "Plot" section, then readers should expect that section to have a comprehensive overview of the plot (given that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and will therefore contain in-depth coverage on any given subject matter). A reader proceeds to read at their own risk. The Mousetrap even goes one step further and has the ending under a seperate and rather self-explanatory title. We can't be held responsible for other people's lack of comprehension or expectations for an encyclopedia, nor can we babysit them. Their assumptions; their problem. (And for the record collapsable plot sections are a direct violation of WP:NOTCENSORED) --Dorsal Axe 11:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I almost forgot, Wikipedia already has a spoiler warning. If you feel that information is perhaps poorly and inappropriately placed in an article, then simply move it. --Dorsal Axe 11:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Search results page

There are those who prefer to use the keyboard and there are those who have a mouse-arm and need to use the keyboard. Focusing the cursor in the search bar on loading the Search results page will improve usability. Hpvpp (talk) 03:37, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

There's a user preference to do exactly this - go to Special:Preferences, navigate to the "Gadgets" page, navigate to the "User interface gadgets" section, and check the box labeled "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page." You can also use the Alt+Shift+F hotkey to give focus to the searchbox on any page at any time. Giving focus to the searchbox automatically works fine on pages like the Google main page, because you never have to scroll there. On most Wikipedia pages, you do have to scroll to read it, and breaking the ability to immediately scroll is an accessibility issue as well as an issue of convenience. It's been discussed to death and will probably not be changed. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! But, may I then propose that this "Alt+Shift+F" be added to the hover-text of the search box? And perhaps there could be added an entry between "Donate to Wikipedia" and "Help" which reads "Keyboard shortcuts"? Hpvpp (talk) 06:10, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The hotkey does show up in the search box tooltip for me, but unfortunately different browsers support tooltips differently, which has always been a major issue for us. There's a list of hotkeys at Wikipedia:Keyboard_shortcuts; I do wish it was more easily findable, but at least it exists. — Gavia immer (talk) 01:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Search Box in Wikipedia

I think it would be very helpful if when you arrived on Wikipedia, your cursor was automatically in the search box (just like in search engines). This would allow users to quickly enter what they want to search for instead of having to find and click the search box (which doesn't really stand out).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.156.107.102 (talk • contribs)

This has been discussed many times and consensus has been against it. Please see Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page#Why doesn't the cursor appear in the search box, like with Google? for an explanation. If you register an account, you can go to your account preferences → Gadgets → User interface gadgets → tick "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:07, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Navigation templates

Hi. it has come to my attention that there is a mixed reaction towards footer navigation templates. Especially for sports related articles there is a ridiculous number of templates. I personally think 1 or 2 can often be very useful but anything more really is an eye sore. Some people loathe them entirely and are attempting to remove them from articles like the Cinema of templates for film, which some users find very useful. Given that there is never going to be agreement over them, is it possible that a new option becomes available in " my preferences" to hide footer navigation templates? Dr. Blofeld 11:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that a gadget may be better. emijrp (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

There is already a guideline at Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. It specifies that the topics within a navigation template should be closely related, and mention each other to some extent. If the relation is very broad, the template may be removed from the article, or even nominated for deletion MBelgrano (talk) 11:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't address the fact that some people hate any form of navigation template and are intent on removing any form of navigation in template, however closely related or important to the article. This is my point. Can somebody make it available in "gadgets". Dr. Blofeld 13:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

This makes very little sense. Why are would we create gadgets that hide encyclopedic content? Would it make sense to have one that blocks out Infoboxes? or "Plot" sections in fiction articles? BOVINEBOY2008 14:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

No chance of a gadget, but it's easy with user.css: Just add this line to Special:MyPage/skin.css

.navbox {display:none}

Which will make all 1,300,000+ standard footer navboxes disappear completely (including the ones for project and help namespaces, etc). -- Quiddity (talk) 19:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is there no chance as a general option? I personally don't have a problem with nav boxes but others do. Dr. Blofeld 18:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

"No chance" is my opinion, based on - low desirability (I'd guess only dozens of editors at most), and non-scriptness (it can be easily implemented with a single line of usercss, so adding a gadget entry to the mediawiki-preferences is overkill), and indiscriminate-ness (it would hide all navboxes, including items like Template:MediaWiki_messages, which would lead to those users asking unnecessary questions). But you're welcome to try suggesting it at the Wikipedia:Gadget proposals page. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be optional. If an user wants to hide all navboxes, he only needs to enable the gadget, he is free to do it. Also, I think that this solution can be used to hide sexual or offensive images. Of course, the default Wikipedia is not censored, but, we must offer "alternative" Wikipedias, for usability reasons (hiding huge navboxes) or for personal beliefs. Regards. emijrp (talk) 14:38, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. And when wikipedia is as diverse as it is with millions of difference users these sort of options should be available to meet different demands.You would think though that if people get shocked by graphic imagery they would refrain from visiting page related to sex and massacres etc.. Dr. Blofeld 16:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Most navboxes now support the show/hide collapse option; it might be better to roll this out more broadly and work on some kind of "default collapse" option for users, rather than explicitly hiding them - this reduces it to a few horizontal bars at the bottom, which is fairly unobtrusive and retains the option to pull them out again. Shimgray | talk | 15:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

The thing is most of the cinema template are collapseed onto a single line and still editors like BovineBoy insist on removing them. Bovine did I say anything about hiding encyclopedic content? Who said anything about removing the infoboxes and plot? Just the footer templates. Dr. Blofeld 16:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I thought this discussion was about hiding all templates, not a continuation of the one elsewhere. Don't split discussions without notifying either one that its going on, if that is what you are doing. BOVINEBOY2008 17:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I left a message at WP:Films directing here as this is a proposal to hide all footer templates as an option, not just films but every article on wikipedia. Stop assuming things and stop ordering me about. I am pointing to the fact that you are unhappy with even collapsed templates so there needs to be an option to hide them. It isn't just you, there are many who feel the same way over templates and disagree with those who endorse them. Given that there ar emany who find footer nav plates useful, why should you persist in taking away the preferences of others? With this proposal you would have the otopn to hide them which would solve the problem. Dr. Blofeld 17:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, sorry I said that. But you mistake me. I am not opposed to those navigation templates, but am opposed to linking them to every article that remotely relates, which is not the point of navigation boxes. I support the use of them in the particular articles that they link to, but no more. BOVINEBOY2008 17:31, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that you support batches of articles they link directly to like Template:Steven Spielberg rather than indirectly related content? Well that's a good point, but the templates were made in the belief that films by year are related to other films released that year. This was the point. I would gree with you though about a 1997 French horror movie being linked to a 1915 French silent comedy seeming redundanr. The best thing in my view in that case would be a see also link to French films of 1997 but a number opposed to this so in the end we ended up keeping the entire year templates. I'm sure there are other similar templates. I agree though that directly related links are better in templates. But I do think there should be the option to hide them for all subjects as some people loathe templates fullstop. Dr. Blofeld 18:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

As a quick aside: Dr. Blofeld, it would be beneficial if you were to read and follow Wikipedia:Indentation. Thanks! Killiondude (talk) 04:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but I find indentation irritating when spewed across the page, it wastes space. Dr. Blofeld 12:32, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

How about having a new option in "my preferences" to show/hide indentation then? - Pointillist (talk) 12:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that there's an issue here. The discussion at WT:FILM from which this proposal appears to stem from is not navboxes are evil but rather a specific concern about the use of certain navboxes in certain articles. Hiding all navboxes from view won't address this issue. PC78 (talk) 03:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Linking to Wiktionary Swadesh lists — a "WikiVocab" project

I'd like to link all Wikipedia language articles with lists in Wiktionary's Swadesh lists appendix to their respective lists. Wiktionary currently has lists for around 200 languages, many of them in language-family rather than individual lists — see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Swadesh_lists. I have personally created and finished around 20 different Swadesh lists, with more coming on their way. I'm wondering if it's possible to do so in the {{Infobox Language}} template, or to create a separate template for this purpose.

My dream is for there to be a 'big database' on the Internet where anyone can access the basic vocabulary words (in standardized topical lists) of all the world's languages. Wikipedia has information on the grammar and demographics of languages, but does not often include vocabulary, which is the core and essence of language. The closest things we have to a massive comparative database on world languages are the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, Intercontinental Dictionary Series, and of course, Wiktionary's Swadesh lists. As a side note, even though this is basically the Rosetta Project's goal, the website is still quite unwieldy for ordinary users, has a very low Alexa site ranking, and does not allow wiki-style contributions. The Rosetta Project has also pulled off Swadesh lists that used to be on there, and does not have any searchable vocabulary databases as of now. And why do this? To help in language preservation, comparative linguistic studies, language learning, and more.

Or perhaps we can even create a separate "WikiVocab" website, similar in style to WikiSpecies! If we do create a big, unified, and searchable database for all the world's languages — all in one place — I believe it will be one of the greatest human achievements in modern times.

Thanks for your considerations! — Stevey7788 (talk) 10:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiVocab

Expanding the "move without redirect" ability to more users

Currently, only administrators can move a page and choose not to leave behind a redirect. However, this function is also often useful for non-admins. It's not something that can be "abused" quite easily (if someone moves a page, anyone can just move it back still), but would be helpful for non-admins. Some examples would be: trying to combat any instances of pagemove vandalism (not having to CSD the redirect created after moving the page back), userfying articles for new users, moving a userspace draft to the mainspace without leaving a userspace redirect, and/or moving a misplaced Articles for creation submission from the mainspace to projectspace. Currently, someone would have to move a page, G7 the redirect, and let an adminbot delete the redirect. Giving more users the ability to move pages and not leave a redirect behind when unnecessary would reduce the amount of pages CSD'd under R3, as well.

Basically, I don't think adding this to some other common right will be very controversial or potentially harmful and open to misuse. When used in such situations as I mentioned above, it would just speed things up and make less work for admins. To whom this right should be given, I am not yet sure. Maybe not to every autoconfirmed user, as many of the newer ones still do not understand how moving pages works, but perhaps bundling it in with rollback would work well, as it is useful when dealing with pagemove vandalism? What does the community think? —fetch·comms 20:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Good idea, fetchcomms. WikiCopter^Radio_Checklist^{Formerly AirplanePro} 20:52, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree; this would be helpful for all sorts of reasons. In fact, it's so obvious that I can't help thinking that it's probably been discussed somewhere before... Alzarian16 (talk) 21:03, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, but I do wonder whether the level of R3s or G7s is really a problem or not. Also, I don't know which way might be easier to get consensus for, but rather than bundling it into rollback it's also possible that a new user group could be created to grant just that right. And BTW, bots also have the suppressredirect right (although I don't know of any offhand that make use of that), see Special:UserGroupRights for a full list of which groups have what. Anomie⚔ 21:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not mainly about the CSD backlogs, just that this seems fairly uncontroversial to me (this doesn't even involve moving pages over existing ones, which would be actual deletion), and has many uses. I thought about adding a new group, but that's just a bit too much to me, for such a little right. I know of one bot who uses (well, will use) that: User:AFC clerk bot. —fetch·comms 21:17, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

The reason that it belongs to admins is that the MediaWiki code has that button make you actually delete the page. It just doesn't make it show in deletion log or on the page. It would mean letting non-admins delete pages which, while a good idea in this case, probably wouldn't work with the code. I Support this but think that it's impossible. Mr. R00t ^Talk 21:47, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

But, as Anomie pointed out, the bot usergroup has this ability, although they cannot delete pages themselves. —fetch·comms 00:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Mr. R00t, it doesn't even create the redirect if it is to be suppressed.[4][5] Anomie⚔ 00:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the potential for abuse or unintentional misuse would outweigh the benefits; if it is to be rolled out to more users, it should be a new userright (perhaps one that consolidates all the other userrights into a bundle package). –xeno^talk 00:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Unintentional misuse is possible (that's why I don't think everyone should get it), but where would be the potential for abuse, if the ability is restricted to users already trusted at a certain level? A "bundled rights" usergroup seems like a good idea for many users, but I foresee a rather long, tedious, separate discussion about that. —fetch·comms 01:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

¶ I've been a rank-and-file editor here for more than two years and seven thousand edits [I was automatically granted reviewer rights last May, but I've neither sought nor received any other administrative privileges.] While I'm hardly a stranger to MoS Talk pages, most of this is way over my head. Could someone save me a lot of tedious and redundant research by reminding me what things like G7 and R3 mean? Even better, could someone summarize the proposal and debate into plain English? I have a feeling that this could affect ordinary readers and editors (like clicking a link to nowhere without knowing it's been redirected somewhere else), but I can't follow what's being discussed. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

G7 is requesting speedy deletion because "author of page requested"; R3 is request speedy deletion because "page title is an unlikely search term so a redirect doesn't need to be here". Basically, I am proposing that some non-admins be given the ability to move a page without leaving behind a redirect. Currently, only admins can move pages and have a choice of whether or not to have a redirect created from the original title, or not create a redirect, but just move the page to a different title. —fetch·comms 01:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Good idea, but I don't think all autoconfirmed users should get this. Maybe all rollbackers and autopatrolled? — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to be redundant to users with both rights, as many autopatrolled users are also rollbackers (and if they're not, I don't see how it would hurt to make them rollbackers). —fetch·comms 21:02, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The user shouldn't need both, only one of them.

Note: I was sure I'd seen this discussed before as a bad idea (eg here), but I think those considerations are taken care of by bugzilla:16950, which shows the move log on a deleted page in addition to the deletion log. As far as I can see that means the idea is no longer dangerous (as it once was), though I'm not entirely convinced it's worth the likely misuse by inexperienced people not leaving redirects when they should. Speedy deleting unnecessary redirects, in my experience at CSD (not recent...) didn't take much time. What took time was borderline cases that required more thought on whether to accept or decline. Rd232 ^talk 21:37, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

How inexperienced do you mean? I mean, rollback is open to misuse as well, but one would just revoke the right and undo the harm done. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe it will be best if it becomes its own user group. Us441(talk)(contribs) 22:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

That sounds sort of overkill for just a teensy little right. Who would get it, then? People more experienced than the ordinary rollbacker but less than what? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Admins. Us441(talk)(contribs) 23:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Adding another user right seems overkill. In my opinion, there are far too many individual user rights as it stands. Including this in something like reviewer seems fine. Killiondude (talk) 00:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

My concern lumping this in with a pre-existing userright is that users will be presented with a new options, probably unawares as to its appropriate use. –xeno^talk 13:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, except that depends on PC being kept or not. Rollback seems to be a slightly "harder-to-get" right than reviewer, so that's also why I thought it might work. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I see no harm in folding this into either the Rollbacker or Reviewer right. Logically I think it makes more sense with reviewer, as this new right seems "closer" to the reviewer function than the rollback function, in my mind. I think the chance of abuse is miniscule. I also agree that it would be overkill to add an extra user bit for something so insignificant as the ability to not leave a redirect behind after a move. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

It could be used to move an article from mainspace into userspace, and then db-u1 the article. An admin not paying attention might then delete the article without checking the relevant history. This is just one of the potential vectors for abuse, and there are several for unintentional misuse. –xeno^talk 13:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Who would do that? The chance that some malicious user who takes a month or two to amass several hundred edits, get rollback or reviewer, then go on a mass pagemove vandalism spree, is pretty small to me. In the case you mentioned, any admin who doesn't check the history before deleting that is, frankly, an idiot. I hope everyone agrees that this ability is useful, but the issue is over who would be entrusted with it. Is there any technical way to only give a right to people who are in a certain two usergroups? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 16:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

There is still the unintentional misuse aspect, or the case of users using it to push a particular point of view regarding a title. And, no, I don't think there's an ability to grant an ability based on an intersection of userrights (and in any case, this would still raise the objection that a new ability being rolled out to users with them not knowing the proper use thereof). –xeno^talk 17:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

"... this would still raise the objection that a new ability being rolled out to users with them not knowing the proper use thereof'". A bit like admin rights then. Malleus Fatuorum 17:17, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, new rights have been rolled out to admins, but they are generally expected to exercise good judgment - enough to educate themselves before pressing a new button. (I realize this is a best-case scenario) –xeno^talk 17:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You may have that expectation, but I certainly don't. Malleus Fatuorum 17:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Hence, generally expected. –xeno^talk 17:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

If your argument held water it would not have been necessary for you to qualify it with "generally". Generally regular editors (remember them, the ones who actually write this stuff?) are expected to exercise care before pressing any buttons aren't they? Malleus Fatuorum 17:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

True, but they haven't been vetted in a trial by fire. Thus, there is a higher probability that may unintentionally misuse the feature (even in good faith) if it becomes available to them without prior notice. –xeno^talk 17:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Your "trial by fire" would be better described as a ducking stool as used in a witch trial; make a few enemies and you're damned whatever you do. Malleus Fatuorum 17:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose my objection is already addressed somewhat by the instructions in the move dialog. –xeno^talk 17:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Clearly this has no more chance of gaining that mythical "consensus" than any other of the similar proposals that are regularly shot down, and even if it did whatever software changes would be needed wouldn't happen, but I do wish that a few minds would start opening up to ways in which wikipedia no longer needed administrators, or at worst very few of them. The wikiway to everything seems to be "we need more administrators", instead of looking at "why do we need administrators"? Malleus Fatuorum 17:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a strong objection to this being granted to users, I simply foresee that if it's given to them without prior notice (or without them explicitly requesting it), that it will be misused, even if unintentionally. Do you think it would be wise to simply give every user admin tools? –xeno^talk 17:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

As it happens I do, so long as they're easily but fairly removed, but that's a discussion for another place. Malleus Fatuorum 17:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair 'nuff. Thanks, –xeno^talk 18:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it would be useful for some non-admins to be able to do this. I will credit Xeno's objections, however, and propose a middle ground: create a path to request this ability which requires first earning the rollback bit and using it wisely for a stretch of edits or a period of time. bd2412 T 19:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The rollback bit is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, and to talk of "earning" it is little short of risible. How did you "earn" your sysop bits? Malleus Fatuorum 19:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

If the rights were granted in a separate new userright, my objection would be largely moot (because they would need to request the right, and in doing so would be read the riot act directed to review WP:R#SUPPRESS before using the tool). –xeno^talk 19:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Which part of the blocking policy were you forced to read before your popularity contest RfA? Malleus Fatuorum 19:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

'Twas many moons ago, but I think I read the whole thing before answering Q4 in my RFA. –xeno^talk 19:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, you and every other admin hopeful. We clearly inhabit different universes, so you enjoy yours and I'll enjoy mine. Malleus Fatuorum 20:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

How did I earn my sysop bit? Like this. bd2412 T 21:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Quite. So clearly you were not elected on the basis of your ability to write abuse filters, for instance, or to hand out and remove user rights like rollbacker. It's hard to know whether the old-timer admins like you are dishonest or just stupid. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I was elected on the basis of my judgment. For example, having the modicum of common sense needed to avoid implying that someone I don't know is dishonest or stupid. bd2412 T 03:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Clearly your election victory was a long time ago, and perhaps in the interval you've become either dishonest or stupid. It's difficult otherwise to explain your resistance to accepting what's self-evidently true, which is that nobody but the fawning admin wanabees trusts administrators with rights they were not elected to have. Malleus Fatuorum 05:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think the volume of usage is such that we really need to give this to more users. But if we have to, making a separate user right for this is just stupid. Its mainly useful for cleaning up pagemove vandalism, so give it to rollbackers. Mr.Z-man 22:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Improving the workflow for new editors

Hello. I am working to improve our account creation and first edit flow. I invite you to join and help us! —I-20the highway 14:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Semiadmin

I have a new user group called Semiadmin. This group is for former admins who lost adminship for misusing Rollback, but were good in other administrative work, like blocking, deleting, etc. This way, we can have those admins keep other admin tools. Us441(talk)(contribs) 22:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

There have been various proposals for partial admins in the past, they tend to fail on grounds of trust - if you trust someone with one part of the toolset why not give them the whole lot? As for this specific proposal, I don't think we've had many admins lose adminship for misuse of rollback, at least not recently. Rollback is fairly easy to acquire, and if someone has lost it through either edit warring or excessive errors I would have thought they are best advised to fix the problems that lost them Rollback before trying for adminship. ϢereSpielChequers 22:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think this would work out very well. If you can't do one administrative thing right, most people wouldn't trust you to do any. And I've never heard of an admin being desysopped for misuse of rollback... usually it happens when they abuse the deletion or blocking mechanisms. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Usually it doesn't happen at all, even when they do, but I agree that there's no obvious value in a semiadmin user group. Malleus Fatuorum 17:04, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

This is basically a perennial proposal. —I-20the highway 22:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed bot to add "Commons" and "Commons category" templates to articles

Hi! I wish to inform you that I asked here the approval for a bot able to add, in few very obivious cases and after appropriate checks on Wikimedia Commons, the templates {{commons}} and {{commons category}}. For details or questions please check Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FrescoBot 6. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 10:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

copied from Template talk:Commons#FrescoBot 6 for greater visibility. –xeno^talk 13:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The Creation of Wiki Forum

Dear Wikipedians As a new member of Wikipedia which I find interesting, I noticed there was little interaction with editors, if there is interaction it is very hard to find. I propose that we have a forum, similar to chat rooms in which editors can discuss articles and be able to organise project meetings, discuss wikipedia problems and solve problems together as a community. There is to be monitors that will oversee the discussions and chats, as many as possible and chat rooms with language dictionaries, a visible report tool and a instant response to reports. 'Thank you for listening to my topic. I hope you shall assume good faith and help me in our mission to make Wikipedia a better place to be" Yours Sincerely, RosePetals1

We already have talk pages. Bear in mind that Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. MER-C 10:51, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:IRC, in particular see #wikipedia-en on Freenode. Herostratus (talk) 14:27, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

This technically is a forum. Though once LiquidThreads is rolled out ... ViperSnake151  Talk  16:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

A single place to go for unstructured discussion has advantages (friendly, good for newbies, and encourage all sorts of discussion). IRC kind of does that, but a lot of people don't use IRC (including me). An onwiki single place to go doesn't exist because it would become overloaded with everyone going there (even if only to be directed elsewhere). Imagine WP:ANI multiplied by every other traffic heavy page - the idea of a central place has some appeal, but it's just not workable on wiki. Hence IRC. Rd232 ^talk 16:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

System for Literature

Hey guys, I just stumbled upon this article and saw a potential for all of wikipedia. The article is this The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The poem isn't listed, and i know that it is the norm not to. What I am proposing is a resource on open licensed literature,(in this case it is 14 verses and the author has been dead for over 100 years) that stores the literature so that it can be linked to on the article page. It could be as simple as a (show) button.

What do you guys think?--Iankap99 (talk) 21:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Our sister project, Wikisource, accepts such source material, and can be linked via the template {{Wikisource}}. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
  • And if you read the existing article very carefully, you'll see that it links to the poem, already on Wikisource, in German. Uncle G (talk) 23:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

New etiquette board?

• Wikipedia:Antiquette

Evidently, there is a proposed new process board for WP:Etiquette or WP:AGF issues, which I stumbled upon by following links at the former guideline this morning. I don't see that this has been widely publicized and felt it might be of interest to those who monitor this board. Please see Wikipedia:Antiquette. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• What's the difference with WP:WQA? --Cyclopia^talk 17:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I can only respond with what I see. :) It seems that only members are allowed to discuss civility issues there, although membership is inclusive, and that each member may be maintaining a list of contributors whom s/he feels are problematic (or "anti-etiquette"). (See User:Porchcrop/Antiquette). It's a bit confusing at this point. You might want to ask there, though. I'm not sure if the proposer will respond in this thread. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:42, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Good or bad, I've brought User:Porchcrop/Antiquette to MFD. A privately-kept list of alleged offenders - perennial, at the mercy of the page owner - nothing confusing here. Proposals for discussion are fine, but private black lists aren't. East of Borschov 09:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• A forum in which "members" (and only members) discuss and, presumably, work on sanctioning the behaviour of everyone else for not coming up to their standards. Hum. I cannot help but feel we've been here before, and it just ended in tears last time... Shimgray | talk | 17:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
  • What is this even supposed to be, a drama-gossip/hate list board? Absolutely unacceptable. Labeling people as "antiquette" is itself the antithesis of etiquette. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Isn't this already covered by WP:RFC/U (minus the membership - that's Arbcom)? Airplaneman ✈ 02:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• I've read what a lot of people think this to be. I've also read just the bits that Porchcrop originally wrote. It's not really clear, just from the latter alone, what this is supposed to be. So I'll merely add this: If someone wants a per-user page which can be used to converse with me, User talk:Uncle G is right there. I'll not be signing up as a "member" of some undefined organization just to give me what I already have automatically, thanks to MediaWiki. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:39, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• I've marked it as failed, as there appears to be no chance of this being approved (no support, strong opposition, bemusement at the reason for this). Fences&Windows 19:53, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Seems like the state of the snowball was clear. :) I've removed the link from Wikipedia:Etiquette accordingly. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• Please note that the user list in User:Porchcrop/Antiquette is to identify any user that has has violated either of these guidelines. I've found that these people keep telling others not to violate any policy or guideline when they themselves have been violating the guidelines WP:Etiquette and WP:AGF, this means they have a history of violating guidelines. Here are some examples of how they have (shown in Etiquette):

1. Be polite, please and Be civil - When they send out rude comments and not using manners such as "Please", "Thanks", "Cheers", "Sorry", etc. Like for example, when a newbie aor inexperienced editor that is mature and well-behaved that makes a mistake (but doesn't show any bad behaviour), they scold or criticize the editor when the editor didn't even know it was inappropriate. They are just degrading and biting the newcomer.
2. Give praises when due - When I have been constructive abundantly to the project, I haven't gotten any praises for those good edits, and I would like to know why.
3. Do not ignore questions - When I see that there are questions (sensible and appropriate questions) that are unanswered.

The Etiquette guideline is not the only guideline people violate. Assume good faith is the other guideline people violate, (fewer times this guideline gets violated than Etiquette) when all these people keep giving offensive myths and other inaccurate scoldings, criticisms, and degrades to good editors.

Remember: If you want to give ANY negative information about another user, also give positive information about that user.

Perhaps, all these users that have been identified as "antiquette" Wikipedians could give explanation why they violated the Etiquette guideline:

1. (Counterproductive list of users redacted) — Gavia immer (talk) 01:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Hoping all of you can understand all of this. Thanks. -Porchcrop ^{(talk|contributions)} 00:00, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

• I've nominated the page for deletion. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Antiquette. If it's not tolerable in the userspace, it should certainly be deleted from the Wikipedia space. Swarm^Talk 02:32, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Request for revision deletion page

Recently, {{Copyvio-histpurge}} was nominated for deletion, and it was basically said that it should be replaced with some request page. I agree on this, and thus thought of simply doing some draft myself. So, I was wondering what you think of the general idea and what about the draft I started? I know it's still in the very first beginning, so I'd be happy to hear suggestions. Also, feel free to immediately fix any possible mistakes that you notice on the draft. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

There's an existing, ongoing discussion on the Administrators' Noticeboard, specifically Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Time for WP:RFRD?. This should probably be merged to that discussion, though of course the original discussion quite possibly should have happened here instead. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

A bot platform

I am developing a bot platform and I like to see if the project received wide support before continuing. d'oh! _talk 13:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The idea looks fine. As with any programming project; get some code done first :) One of the things that comes from experience is that it is really realyl easy to design a framework - but building it is another matter :) it just gets left till the spec is perfect. Get hacking with some code and show us what it can do. You will find it progresses a lot faster --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 19:35, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Good point, I have been developing and I will have something to show off soon. d'oh! _talk 12:57, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Better way to watch for recreated pages

New users sometimes recreate pages soon after they've been speedily deleted. 99% of the time it doesn't resolve the reason for deletion. Watching the deletion log for bluelinks works somewhat, but it would be better to have a more explicit/automated way of watching for this. How about extending Special:NewPages to include the time since previous deletion if any (perhaps with some highlighting of recently recreated ones), or some other way (editfilter/bot/etc)? Or does something like this already exist? Quarl ^(talk) 07:13, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The most feasible way of doing this would be to create a tag for this, I think. Perhaps for exact titles that are recreated within a certain time of each other. I'm not in love with tags, though. Mostly because even if the edit isn't "bad", the tag remains on that edit forever (afaik). Killiondude (talk) 00:21, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

MY Wikipedia

My Wikipedia By Mark Johnston

What: My Wikipedia

Purpose: Adds personalization, tracking, and meta storage functionality to Wikipedia.

Functionality: Gives users the ability to bookmark, track, and share favorite Wiki pages in easy-to-reference hierarchical structure

Justification: Currently there is no way to bookmark or track visited (or "favorite") Wikipedia pages. A high percentage of Wikipedia users are educators and others who wish to build and maintain a personal knowledgebase online. Giving users the ability to store favorite pages would allow them to build repositories of information that would 1) Assist life students in their personal education journeys; 2) Help users organize information in a manner that suits their learning style; 3) Increase the value of Wikipedia to users; 4) Expand Wikipedia to be more than just a database of information, but one that is meaningful to users based on their unique knowledge needs.

Proof of concept narrative: Place an, e.g., ADD THIS PAGE TO MY LIBRARY button on all Wikipedia article pages. This way people can create their own, custom virtual encyclopedias comprised of only content they select. They would have the ability to create "sets" and within a "set" could reside a hierarchy of custom (or default) "Books" to which they could assign articles. Example:

I create a Set called "Biblical studies" Within this set I create a bunch of Books on various topics (i.e. Good vs Evil)

One day I come across an article about Marquis De Sade. I click the ADD TO MY LIBRARY button. I then am prompted to select a Set and category to assign the article. (i.e. I select Bible Studies for the Set, and "God vs Evil" as the Book). I might further be able to assign an even narrower meta category like "Opponents of Christianity" and keywords such as "sadist" as well.

Then whenever I wanted to access my Set, I would have a page for the set showing all the categories and articles assigned to it. Or maybe I just have a simple search box that I can search by keyword. But in any event it's MY Set and only contains articles I have assigned to it. I can then share my sets and books with others. Thence it adds a social component to Wikipedia too

Sample My Wikipedia page

Welcome back, Don Corleone

MY SETS

Biblical Studies

Indented line:Indented line

New Testament Articles
Old Testament Articles
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.255.42.130 (talk • contribs) 23:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Make Wikipedia:Books in your userspace. Or use Delicious (website) or your browser's bookmark organization tools. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:53, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Or register a user and do this on your user page, it is not that hard. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Some of the requested features already exist. Registered users have a "watchlist", where they can check recent changes to specific articles of their election. Articles are already included inside a hierarchical structure, the categories (located at the bottom of the page). Personalization is also possible by selecting "Skins", another feature available to registered users.

On the other hand, it's better to have a single article about Marquis De Sade than dozens of articles "belonging" to specific users, as it allows all of them to work toguether, which is always better than many people working on their own. Consider for example that you find a common mistake or misunderstanding in it and fix it. In a single article, you can fix it, explain it at the talk page, and that's it. Otherwise, you would have to repeat the process dozens of times, or worse, fix a single one and leave the others with the mistake. MBelgrano (talk) 12:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Why does something tell me this may be some sort of homework assignment that someone decided to post here for some reason? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Problems with talk page archiving

Talk page sections that point out errors and deficiencies in articles are often archived even though they have not been addressed. This effectively means that the record of the error/deficiency is lost. The archiving of talk pages also breaks bookmarked links to sections, which can be a real pain. In an ideal world neither of these things would happen. 86.161.153.79 (talk) 19:32, 29 September 2010 (UTC).

Queue obligatory mention of mw:liquidThreads. –xeno^talk 19:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

A lot of things would be better in an ideal world. What's your proposal? Mr.Z-man 22:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Inbound talk links could theoretically be checked for by an archiving bot, and updated accordingly. Not sure it's worth the effort, but possible. Rd232 ^talk 12:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Filtering of user contrib list

There may be some way of doing this already (if there is, I apologise, but if there is I'd like to know what it is!)... it would be extremely useful, when looking at the list of my recent contributions, to see only those where there have been further edits after my edit - i.e., I'd like to see a list of all of my recent contributions where the word "(top)" does not appear on the contrib list. Before you suggest it, yes, I know that my watchlist can be used for that, but for someone doing gnome-work like retagging 500 stubs in a day, the watchlist can quickly blow out to unmanageable levels, and the temporarily-watched newly-edited items would soon drown out the articles I'm watching more permanently.Such a filtering system would also be very useful for anyone running a bot which does minor edits. Is there any way of (a) currently making a filtered list which removes the items where i was the last editor; or (b) creating such a filtering system? Grutness...wha? 10:53, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

First, go to Special:MyPage/vector.js and add importScript("User:Nihiltres/nothingthree.js");

Second, to Special:MyPage/nothingthree-config.js and add something like the following:

addOnloadHook(function() {
    nothingthree.tops.toggleTab();
});

Third, go to any contribs page and hit the new tab to fade out contribs marked with "(top)".

There are a few more scripts in my nothingthree.js collection, and you can see some documentation for them through the symbol in my signature. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 13:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

There is also User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib.js (and the fork ale_jrb made for me at User:Ale_jrb/sandbox.js). –xeno^talk 13:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

var userHideAllSubsequent = true;
importScript('User:Ale jrb/sandbox.js'); //        (toggle to hide "top" edits)

Thanks to both of you - those look like exactly the sorts of things I'm looking for! Grutness...wha? 22:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Protection conflicts - make 'em work like edit conflicts

Maybe I missed it in the archives (I looked).

It seems every day, when I protect an article, there's an occurrence of me and another administrator protecting it at the same time. When each of us pull up the protection form, the log at the bottom shows the article isn't currently protected. But then, inevitably, one of us submits the form first.

It would be real nice if, when I submit the protection form, a message similar to "Edit Conflict" would come up saying that an article protection is already in place, show me the most recent log entry, and ask if I want to override it with my settings. Sort of like what happens when I fail to include an edit summary: I am asked to confirm my submission.

Is there any reason why some sort of notification about protection conflicts between admins couldn't be implemented? ~Amatulić (talk) 21:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? ~Amatulić (talk) 18:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I would find that useful if the devs could create a "protection edit conflict" of sorts. There have been several times in the past when I've been party to either overriding someone's protection or they overwrote mine due to the close proximity in protection time. Killiondude (talk) 18:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

'Tis T18441 –xeno^talk 18:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

• There is also the case of a move conflict, where with a {{db-move}}, two admins action it and end up with a redirect to a redirect and original article deleted. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding a "gloss" with refs

I've made a propsoal for a guidelines (not obligatory) to add a "gloss" with refs so later editors know what is supported by them (and to what extent). The purpose being to prevent refs from gradually coming to be associated with statements they do not support. The proposal is here. Thanks, --RA (talk) 22:11, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Add projectwide css to highlight different posts in a discussion

Per a discussion here, I would like to propose the addition of some css into Mediawiki:Vector.css which allows for the highlighting of indented threads in any (Wikipedia- /User- /mainspace- ) talk page discussion, giving an appearance sort of like LiquidThreads, but (I feel) less controversial and certainly less forum-like. This effect, seen , may be found at , and makes it much easier to see responses and posts from different users, making it an advancement in usability and accessibility. I have added this code to my own vector.css page, and it has been a great help in looking through longer threads. While the drawback to implementing this sitewide is the need to update some talk page templates using indentation, this is only a minor issue and should not stand in the way of helping users who may have trouble focusing on long blocks of text and may also act as a sort of compromise between LiquidThreads supporters and opposers.

Please consider trying out this css for yourself (the exact code is:

Extended content

.ns-1 dd, .ns-3 dd, .ns-talk dd, .ns-5 dd, .ns-7 dd, .ns-9 dd, .ns-11 dd, .ns-13 dd,.ns-15 dd, .ns-101 dd, .ns-103 dd, .ns-105 dd { margin:0; padding:0; } .ns-1 dl, .ns-3 dl, .ns-talk dl, .ns-5 dl, .ns-7 dl, .ns-9 dl, .ns-11 dl, .ns-13 dl, .ns-15 dl, .ns-101 dl, .ns-103 dl, .ns-105 dl { border-top:solid 1px #a7d7f9; border-left:solid 1px #a7d7f9; padding-top:.5em; padding-left:.5em; margin-left:1em; } .ns-1 dl, .ns-3 dl, .ns-talk dl, .ns-5 dl, .ns-7 dl, .ns-9 dl, .ns-11 dl, .ns-13 dl, .ns-15 dl, .ns-101 dl, .ns-103 dl, .ns-105 dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl { background:#f5faff; } .ns-1 dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl { background:white; }

and that goes in Special:MyPage/skin.css). It works fine on Monobook, although the colors may need to be tweaked for that skin, but I think that this change will only be aid in readability after one gets used to seeing it. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:35, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me, as long as it can be disabled in personal CSS. Access Denied ^{[FATAL ERROR]} 03:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Not sure how, but I think that would be possible. Someone more technically-minded than I should tell you for sure. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Like I saif before, I support this proposal. This layout is an important usability and accessibility improvement. Especially for people with dyslexia. This layout used on the french Wikipedia was reviewed by an accessibility expert and another accessibility expert specialized in dyslexia. I can provide translation of their review if people are interested. Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

If possible, can you provide a link to this review, or post the translation online somewhere if it's not on the French Wikipedia? I am interested. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

OK. I copy-pasted the review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Readability guidelines#Discussions. I'm going to sleep now. So I'll translate it as soon as I can, unless a kindhearted person does it before me. ;-) Dodoïste (talk) 04:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I found the colours a bit jarring, so I modded mine to be much more subtle. This change will mean custom-colored user talk pages (which I dislike anyway) will look weird, but overall it seems to be useful. I really don't like the colours as they stand though. sonia♫ 04:33, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your sentiment wrt custom-colored user talk pages, but what is slightly more annoying is that it also interferes with various informative boxes (see e.g. the top of Wikipedia talk:IPA for English or the {{discussiontop}} and similar templates such as here). Otherwise I like the feature.—Emil J. 11:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. It also interferes badly with mathematics, as (1) displayed equations get a different colour as if they were an intervening post by someone else, and (2) <math> tags rendered in PNG have always white background even when inside a blue post. See e.g. Talk:Integral/Archive 4#Explicite multiplication signs to improve legibility for new readers.—Emil J. 13:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I see it uses ".ns-talk", so why does it (uselessly) repeat the selectors for ".ns-1", ".ns-3", and so on? And is there any good reason to force this on everyone instead of just making it a gadget? Anomie⚔ 16:17, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

This usability and accessibility improvement benefits to everyone. Thus, there is no reason to limit it to user preferences. Except one thing: power users don't like changes. But power users are definitely able to check "disable this layout for discussion" in their user preference, for example. Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 16:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

"I think it's better" isn't a particularly good reason. I personally find it harder to read (i.e. less usable and accessible) with lines and colored boxes all over the place. Anomie⚔ 17:27, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I guess I have no choice but to translate the expert's reviews. But it's fairly long so it might take me a few hours. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is the translation finally: Accessibility review of the French layout for discussions. Most important part are translated. Dodoïste (talk) 02:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, the .ns-1 etc selectors are redundant. This simpler code works as well:

Extended content

.ns-talk dd { margin:0; padding:0; } .ns-talk dl { border-top:solid 1px #a7d7f9; border-left:solid 1px #a7d7f9; padding-top:.5em; padding-left:.5em; margin-left:1em; } .ns-talk dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl { background:#f5faff } .ns-talk dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl { background:white }

In fact, some of the numbered namespaces (103, 105) do not even exist on English Wikipedia, see WP:NS.—Emil J. 11:52, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

A few thoughts

Visit User talk:Access Denied/Experimental Sandbox with this CSS added to your custom CSS page to see what I mean. A few horizontal lines are missing. This also currently doesn't support non-talkspace discussion boards like ANI. The best way to implement this (once perfected) would probably be through a gadget in Preferences. Access Denied ^{[FATAL ERROR]} 04:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

That sandbox shows it working as it is supposed to, I think? It is based on indents. The same indent = the same color. Yes, I realize it doesn't support AN, ANI, village pumps, etc., though this may be fixable, because seems to work, and that is not a talk page. A gadget might be a more difficult solution, due to the need to change templates if widely used, but I know no javascript. Is it something feasible? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

At fr.wiki we have the following JavaScript in fr:MediaWiki:Common.js that transforms requested pages into talk pages.

Dodoïste (talk) 04:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

JavaScript that transforms requested pages into talk pages

function TransformeEnDiscussion() {
  if(  (wgPageName.search('Wikipédia:Le_Bistro') != -1)
    || (wgPageName.search('Wikipédia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs') != -1)
    || document.getElementById('transformeEnPageDeDiscussion')) {
    removeClass(document.body, 'ns-subject');
    addClass(document.body, 'ns-talk');
  }
}
addOnloadHook(TransformeEnDiscussion);

Monobook version

I went through and made a few changes for those of us who use monobook:

Code for monobook

.ns-1 dd, .ns-3 dd, .ns-talk dd, .ns-5 dd, .ns-7 dd, .ns-9 dd, .ns-11 dd, .ns-13 dd,.ns-15 dd, .ns-101 dd, .ns-103 dd, .ns-105 dd { margin:0; padding:0; } .ns-1 dl, .ns-3 dl, .ns-talk dl, .ns-5 dl, .ns-7 dl, .ns-9 dl, .ns-11 dl, .ns-13 dl, .ns-15 dl, .ns-101 dl, .ns-103 dl, .ns-105 dl { border-top:solid 1px #97c7ff; border-left:solid 1px #97c7ff; padding-top:.5em; padding-left:.5em; margin-left:1em; } .ns-1 dl, .ns-3 dl, .ns-talk dl, .ns-5 dl, .ns-7 dl, .ns-9 dl, .ns-11 dl, .ns-13 dl, .ns-15 dl, .ns-101 dl, .ns-103 dl, .ns-105 dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl { background:#f2f8ff; } .ns-1 dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-1 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-3 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-talk dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-5 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-7 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-9 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-11 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-13 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-15 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-101 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-103 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl, .ns-105 dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl dl { background:#f8fcff; }

Also, I've found that background:inherit can be very useful. Access Denied ^{[FATAL ERROR]} 04:40, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

ASA to metric conversion

Time and again I find statements such as: "...approximately 26 miles (41.84 km)..." It would appear to me that "approx. 26 miles" is better converted as "approx. 40 km" or maybe "approx. 42 km" (This example is from: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Nova_Southeastern_University Respectfully, Mike Wintzer

FYI that's easily fixed. In your example the article was using too much precision for the conversion (it had {{convert|26|mi|km|2}} when what was needed was {{convert|26|mi|km|0}}). Please feel free to fix problems like this yourself! See Template:Convert#Rounding for more details. - Pointillist (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit conversions and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), where, when this comes up from time to time, nearly everyone agrees that precision should not be greater in the conversion than the original figure. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

NPP patrolling bots

To me, the best and only way to solve unpatrolled articles is to create patrolling bots. It should be possible. I am a violinist ♫ talk to me here! 12:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

First find your bot writer Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_36#possible_botting_of_speedy_deletes is an example of a bot that would do a few thousand non-contentious speedy deletions a year, many from New Page Patrol. But you need a volunteer to write and run it.

It would be great to extend Igloo or Huggle with options that would show suspect new articles to hugglers and allow them to also tag for speedy deletion/mark as patrolled. That wouldn't directly alter the back of the queue as you very rarely get blatant vandalism or attack pages there, but it might help indirectly by screening some more at the beginning.

Where a bot would be doable and really useful to NPP would be to select a list of candidates for the wp:autopatrolled flag, at the moment it is very time consuming checking out potential candidates who've submitted a well referenced new article only to find they may not meet the criteria. A bot that created a shortlist of likely candidates would make a real difference - I'd certainly be willing to review a bunch of them and where appropriate flag some as Autopatrolled. Again getting a willing bot or report writer is the difficult thing, I've tried several times to find one for this. But flagging more editors as Autopatrolled would certainly take some of the workload off NPP. ϢereSpielChequers 16:15, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Bot writer here - ping my talk page if you decide on something here to be coded. 930913 (Congratulate/Complaints) 05:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Alternative

What about making more use of the existing {{new unreviewed article}} infrastructure? That already has dated maintenance categories etc (and I see discussion above about creating a new one). It's also already integrated into WP:Twinkle for easy tagging. A big part of the problem with pages being unpatrolled longer than 30 days is "hard" articles - articles no-one's quite sure what to do with. If these are tagged with {{new unreviewed article}} (which a bot could do automatically, and in the mean time it can be manual) then you have the dual purpose of (a) warning the reader that it's a new article that's not really been reviewed by the community (b) placing it within a process where it may well be ages before someone gets round to doing anything about it, but at least it's being tracked, which is better than the status quo. This is a low-cost alternative - it doesn't even need a bot, though that would be helpful. Rd232 ^talk 13:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a great idea to me. Fully support. Alzarian16 (talk) 20:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I fundamentally disagree here. At the minute, very few articles make it past 30 days and drop off the end of the list. Why? Because the 30 days is a stick. It prevents (as MZM mentions above) endless procrastination. Tagging and leaving will just leave us with a load of rubbishy articles on potentially non-notable subjects languishing for ages - potentially, cleanup crews will get there first, just to see the whole article deleted. Not good. Plus I can think of a good few ways to game the system, too. I mean, it sounds like a good idea, but the 30 day cutoff is a useful motivation that we should keep. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 21:30, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

"potentially, cleanup crews will get there first, just to see the whole article deleted." - that's contradictory: any cleanup should either be trivial, or involve removing the new article tag. In addition, it's contradictory to say that the 30 day cutoff is a Big Stick, whilst allowing articles to drop into the long-term tracking pool of Unreviewed New Articles, which involves "potentially non-notable subjects languishing for ages" is no stick at all. From an NPP point of view, articles dropping off with {{new unreviewed article}} on them is only marginally better than dropping off without it. Nor is it an unfamiliar tag: because the Article Wizard adds it automatically, patrollers should be used to seeing it. So it shouldn't necessarily have that much impact on NPP behaviour for a bot to add it to, say 15-day old unpatrolled articles. Rd232 ^talk 23:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The thirty day cutoff isn't a stick, it's just a loophole that means that every now and then a bunch of unpatrolled articles get past NPP. ϢereSpielChequers 06:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Quick Reference

I get on here, and I start learning about a topic, and by the time I have clicked on link after link I have forgotten what exactly I started with. This is especially true with technical pages. Many of the links I click on I would only need a quick reference to continue with the article I am on. I know I can open it in a new tab, I know I can just look quickly at the new page, but I see some other link in the new page that I end up exploring and well this continues. I would really like a small reference box to appear above the text, with a quick definition or important information, when the mouse rolls over the embedded link. A quick summary I believe would make mine and many others' wiki exploring much more efficient and focused. With technical pages this would be key there are do many items that all would be required is a definition. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.113.221 (talk • contribs) 14:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a benefit of creating an account; there are customizations that can be made in the user interface so that, when you hover over a wikilink, it shows the first few lines of the article. —C.Fred (talk) 14:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Yup. It's Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. Fences&Windows 23:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Advertising

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I know that this is a perennial proposal, but I would like to reopen this for discussion because consensus can change. I would like to propose that a single innocuous random ad be placed at the bottom of every article. The ad would not need to be on the behind the scenes page but only the articles. The money can go to the wikimedia foundation or to various charities chosen by the community. This website is simply far too popular to ignore the tremendous amount of good that can be done even with one day of advertising. It would also motivate me to work on the encyclopedia more because the work would be contributing to a source that is doing a lot of good. I would like to discuss this with the community now. --Iankap99 (talk) 20:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC) The foundation is currently asking for creative proposals for fund-raising advertising in the encyclopedia – see here for details. The projected income from soliciting donations is apparently much higher than the return from hosting third party ads, and of course there is less potential for conflict of interest. - Pointillist (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC) If I may, I don't buy that, I think the donations game will be over. I think after the last drive, the donations wont even be close. I also never understood why people would think there would be a conflict of interest, we know that wikipedia is done by us. Also the prospect of me constributing for charity would motivate me and many others.--Iankap99 (talk) 22:12, 3 October 2010 (UTC) The charity-choosing process would be terribly divisive (geographically, ideologically, etc.). --Cybercobra (talk) 21:31, 3 October 2010 (UTC) I see what you mean, but something like this would be uncontroversial. World Cancer Research Fund--Iankap99 (talk) 22:11, 3 October 2010 (UTC) No it wouldn't, because I would oppose it. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:22, 3 October 2010 (UTC) Almost any charity will have its detractors, the anti-vivisection lobby would be likely to be offended at any medical research charity. Picking one or several charities would inevitably mean not picking many more charities that others believe are more worthy. I've seen several proposals for advertising in the last couple of years, but I've yet to see one that tackles the problems of us breaching NPOV by advertising, and therefore endorsing, another entity (charitable or not). Or the problem that the foundation has a particular charitable remit that probably doesn't include fundraising for others. There is also the issue of the priority we get in searches from certain search engines - would we get such high rankings if we started to compete for their advertising revenue? ϢereSpielChequers 22:38, 3 October 2010 (UTC) Ok well then what about the money going toward the wikimedia foundation? And NPOV wouldn't be breached because the advertising would be random, there would be no reason to think that the content would be compromised.--Iankap99 (talk) 23:11, 3 October 2010 (UTC) Even if the ads are randomly displayed (and that can go poorly as well; ads for exterminators on articles about the Holocaust are the classic example), there's still a company paying to display them. Even if ads for Company X don't appear on the article for Company X, Company X is still giving the WMF money to run ads. Even if NPOV isn't actually violated, there's still an appearance of it. Mr.Z-man 23:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC) The exterminator example is an interesting pun, but it can in no way damage the article. The company x example too, doesn't hurt the article. All of the arguments saying that NPOV would be breached are that others would think that it is breached. But no one actually argues that the article will be harmed.--Iankap99 (talk) 00:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC) You are missing the point entirely. Obviously nothing that actually compromises the quality of articles would be accepted. So there's no point in comparing any theoretical system to that. It needs to be compared to Wikipedia without adverting. We can put out as many press releases as we want claiming that it has no effect on the content of articles, we could even be truthful when we say it. That won't change the fact that a lot of people won't believe it. Mr.Z-man 02:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC) Consensus isn't changing on this issue right now. Your proposal is nothing new, and it's quite obvious that people are disagreeing even now. I, for one, oppose this. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:21, 3 October 2010 (UTC) If we decide to allow advertising, then how can we continue to respond to advertisement pages and spam with "Wikipedia is not for advertising" when the misguided newbie (or not) points out that advertising already exists on every page? I also oppose this proposal. Intelligentsium 23:31, 3 October 2010 (UTC) We say that wikipiedia is not for independent advertising. There's no reason that this should stand in the way of a major economic proliferation opportunity for WMF on such weak grounds of how to explain to a newcomer what belongs on a wiki page.--Iankap99 (talk) 00:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC) STRONG, STRONG, STRONG OPPOSE. Sorry for the shouting. Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 00:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC) I don't think a change of this type would ever come from a proposal from enwiki. It would be a major Foundation change of direction; if it ever happened, it would be their lead, maybe with some attempt to get the various communities (of which enwiki is just one) on board, presumably on the basis that the alternative would be dire, like some kind of financial/technical collapse. So, this discussion is pretty moot. Rd232 talk 17:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC) However, if the largest wiki by far, en.wiki, was behind it, wiki never says no to the community.--Iankap99 (talk) 00:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC) Hopefully that won't happen. But if you want to convince the foundation you could try putting your case on say meta:Wikimedia Forum, but I suggest you first read Encyclopedia Libre, and try to think how your proposal can generate big enough positives to offset splitting the community in the same way again. Be aware that when you say "lets take advertising" what a lot of people will be reading is "Lets split the community and gamble that the version with advertising and probably a minority of editors can beat the version with no advertising and probably a majority of the editors". Wikipedia only survived the Spanish split by ditching the idea of advertising before it was implemented. ϢereSpielChequers 00:41, 5 October 2010 (UTC) Even if a supermajority of the community supported it, advertising is such a divisive issue that you can assume that most of the minority will just leave the project. You would need near-unanimous support. But as fetchcomms said, there is nothing new in this proposal that is going to win people over. Mr.Z-man 02:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC) The WMF recently conducted a focus group of previous donors. One of the conclusions was that people would rather donate than see paid ads. According to the linked page, "respondents were unanimous" on that point. A survey conducted of donors also found a similar result; 77.3% indicated that keeping Wikipedia free of advertising was a very good or extremely good reason for donating. 35.7% were very concerned or extremely concerned that Wikimedia would be forced to sell ads. Mr.Z-man 03:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC) This is a snowball, that is the sun... There is no Wikipedia financial crisis, what possible rationale is there for whoring out the site to ubiquitous consumer capitalism? —Carrite, Oct. 5, 2010.

Increase Special New Pages from 30 days to 60 days

At Special:NewPages any article not marked as patrolled within 30 days is automatically marked as patrolled. The unpatrolled queue varies in length but is usually between three and four weeks, however there are times such as now when it runs to 30 days and a couple of hundred articles a day are being marked as patrolled simply because they have survived 30 days. I propose we lengthen the time period to sixty days, (see later in this thread - for technical reasons this has been amended to add a hidden category to articles that are still unpatrolled after 30 days) this will hopefully reduce the number of articles which get through Newpage patrol by default rather than because someone has looked at them and marked them patrolled. ϢereSpielChequers 14:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not actually convinced this would solve the problem at all in the long term. Quite frankly nobody patrols pages in the middle of the queue - they either get reviewed in the first few hours after they're created, or they get checked when they approach the end of the queue. If pages are getting through the thirty-day period without being patrolled, the only real solution is to recruit more patrollers to review the back of the queue. Otherwise, we'll increase it to 60 days, gain a brief respite, and then in all likelihood the backlog will reform at around the 58-60 day mark. If the change can be made easily, there's no real harm in it - but I equally doubt it will help significantly. ~ mazca ^talk 15:17, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Whilst I agree that most patrolling activity is at the two ends of the queue, I do believe that a fair bit of deletion occurs in between - not least when projects look at articles newly tagged or categorised in areas of interest to them. As to whether extending the queue to 60 days merely postpones the problem or reduces it, I suppose that depends on whether this is just one of many oscillations in the length of the queue and in a month it could be back at three weeks, or whether there has been some fundamental change to the NPP process and the back of the queue team are no longer able to keep abreast of matters. I'm inclined to think of this as just an oscillation and therefore that increasing the queue length to 60 days will greatly reduce the number of articles that get patroled by default. But I also think we could take some pressure off NPP by appointing more suitable candidates as Autopatrollers, and of course more patrollers would be welcome. ϢereSpielChequers 15:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I'll second that proposal, WSC. The articles that languish at the bottom of the list are those that most new page patrollers don't know what to do with. The fact that they are all generally problematic, means that there really are a lot that must be either speedied, PRODed, and sent for AfD, rather than be allowed to default to 'keep', or should at least be tagged to point out their deficiencies. A significant number of them are:BLP, which is our greatest area of concern.--Kudpung (talk) 15:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

How can we be sure that anyone is working from the bottom of the list? I know I do, but what I can get through is just a drop in the ocean. Perhaps we could organise a special drive with barnstarts as a carrot - or would that simply invite too much more drive-by?--Kudpung (talk) 15:49, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Well there are a number of editors who certainly have worked there and discussed their findings. At the beginning of the year the backlog was actually cleared at one point. If the oldest unpatrolled artcle is less than 30 days old then I'm happy to assume that some editors are or have been active there recently. If I'm working there and get edit conflicts then I know there are others active. As for incentivising this with barnstars et al I'm cautious, I'd much rather have patrollers who tag what they are certain should be deleted, mark as patrolled what they are sure belongs and attempt to categorise the rest; But who don't individually attempt to keep up with the flow - as that in my view leads to people feeling pressured and even taking shortcuts. ϢereSpielChequers 16:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Why are unpatrolled pages marked automatically as patrolled in the first place if they haven't been patrolled by anybody?--Tikiwont (talk) 16:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Because behind the scenes, it's edits in recentchanges (not active on enwiki) / newpages (active on enwiki) that are marked as being patrolled, rather than articles. Once an edit falls off the end of recentchanges/newpages, there's no edit around to require patrolling. So the pages aren't exactly marked as patrolled, but there's nowhere that the software stores that they're unpatrolled, which comes to much the same thing. --ais523 16:15, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd prefer a full record of such pages as opposed to have some of them fall off. So why not disable the cut-off or make it 90 days at least. --Tikiwont (talk) 16:39, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The proposal makes sense to me. If in a while we end up with the same situation with new articles c 58-60 days old, at least we'll have learned something, and in the mean time, some articles won't have gone unpatrolled. In addition, maybe there should be more of an effort to eg use {{new unreviewed article}} for problematic articles no-one's quite ready to grasp the nettle on - for the "hard" cases "that most new page patrollers don't know what to do with" (as someone said above). (This could be added as a suggested option in the NPP guidance.) Rd232 ^talk 17:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I think there's a misunderstanding of how this feature works. It's based on the recentchanges table, which has been set to 30 days for a very long time now. I don't think there's much (if any) chance of this time being increased, especially not to double its current value. It also wouldn't solve the underlying issue very well. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

But why should it continue to be based on the recentchanges table? Surely new page patrolling is important enough to have a table of its own that would allow longer timespans? Alzarian16 (talk) 17:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I suppose another table could be added. I think 30 days is reasonable, personally. This wiki has thousands and thousands of active contributors. If it can't keep up in 30 days, it's probably not as much of a priority as people make it out to be. I don't think the solution is to enable a bigger backlog. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

One solution would be to more strongly encourage the guiderule that suggests people patrol from the back. –xeno^talk 17:30, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether you think 30 days is reasonable or not this is a volunteer project and every now and then 30 days is not long enough at NPP. Remember this process is cyclical and we've often had 30 day backlogs before. This is about what happens when articles go over the thirty days - are we still happy to go on automatically marking them as patrolled or do we want to treat them differently? ϢereSpielChequers 21:19, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I asked Domas about this. He says it's more likely to be reduced to 7 days. I really don't see any chance of this proposal being implemented. The underlying problem and possible solutions should be re-examined instead. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:40, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The reasons why articles sink to the bottom is not one of lack of encouragement. It's the difficulty level. However, we naturally need people working hard and accurately at both ends of the list - for quite different reasons of course. One thing is for sure, of the thousands and thousands of active contributors working on the Wikipedia, there are probably fewer than five or ten (I'm just guessing) working on NPP at any given time. Nothing short of at least 45 days is going to give us a chance to keep the current backlog down, and to prevent some really bad articles from slipping unchallenged or unimproved through the net. --Kudpung (talk) 19:02, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that I think the main concern here is that (substandard) articles will disappear into the ether after the magic cutoff of 30 days, hows about I have a go at coding a permanent log of all those that dropped off untouched? I might not be successful, mind, and also, even if I were, maybe I shouldn't publicise the fact. But we can cross that bridge if we come to it. How does that sound? - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 19:24, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer to see an extension to at lest 45 days, but your idea jarry, isn't such a bad one either. What would you call it? 'Log of not so new unpatrolled pages'? ;) --Kudpung (talk) 19:54, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer a wp:hidden category, category:Unpatrolled new article that way anyone can find them, and just as importantly people can remove the hidden category almost as easily as reviewing them. ϢereSpielChequers 21:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course, once you've got the list, you can just make a bot add the category. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 21:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but a list may not get updated each time someone works on one of the articles on it, whilst if we use a hidden category any editor working on one of those articles could decide to remove an unpatrolled category. And if you want a list the category itself gives you one. ϢereSpielChequers 21:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Great, another maintenance category that can get backlogged for years. This isn't sensible. Either people care enough to patrol them in a reasonable timeframe or they don't. I suppose there's no stopping a hackish bot implementation (which is probably the "best" solution you're likely to get anytime soon), but it's rather silly all around. At least don't include "new" in the category titles, please. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Happy to make it category:Unpatrolled articles if that suits you, but I wouldn't be so sure that it will become another of the permanent backlogs, we've had NPP for years and it is usually below thirty days. All this proposal does is close a loophole in the process. ϢereSpielChequers 00:09, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It'd be great if it stayed at about 30 days (or maybe 45 days). But I think history has shown that once the incentive is removed to keep it pruned, it's going to fall behind (that is, unless a few dedicated people keep an eye on it constantly). This is the same way that anything on this site works. Right now, there's at least an incentive to act because after 30 days, the pages will "fall off the cliff." That's after 30 days, not after a week or even two weeks. Thirty days in wiki-time is quite a while. You'd also be introducing a bot dependency, and bots have a horribly nasty habit of breaking or having their maintainers disappear after a few weeks or whatever else. I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but a lot of this seems very predictable. We'll see what happens. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

On another note, can the watchlist and recent changes made to go back furhter? YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 00:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It's all the same database table, controlled by the same configuration variable (mw:Manual:$wgRCMaxAge). As I said above, I talked with the person who's the go-to guy for Wikimedia database infrastructure and I've heard him talk about this before. It's a "hot" table (constantly changing and constantly being queried), it already contains a lot of data (think about how many edits and actions are done in a day, times 30), and there are real implications to changing the timeframe. Dumps would suddenly expand, the Toolserver's replicas of the databases would suddenly expand, queries that relied on the data only being so old would suddenly be returning older results... it's certainly not impossible to change $wgRCMaxAge, but it wouldn't be a small thing. Watchlists and Special:RecentChanges are already limited (watchlists to seven days, RC has no pagination) because of how expensive querying the database is (and updating a zillion rows with info like "(top)" and whatever else). --MZMcBride (talk) 02:42, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to sound naïf, but I know nothing about tables, dumps, and programming bots - I wouldn't even know how to make a simple template with a built in function - so a lot of this is over my head. However, if we already have bots that automatically add categories and compile lists of categories that can be made available to those who subscribe to them, where, in laypersons' terms, is the real difficulty in automatically creating a list of the new pages that are falling of the cliff? Kudpung (talk) 03:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I'll try a poor analogy. You've got the ocean (all edits to the site). That's the revision table. You've got a good-sized river that flows into the ocean. That's the recentchanges table. Along the edges of the river, people have set up their houses and their town, based on the size of the river.

This proposal is about making the river double its size. Now, there isn't anything impossible about this. It's certainly possible to implement, but doing so has consequences. Suddenly instead of being 100 feet wide and 500 feet long, the river is now 150 feet wide and 666 feet long. That changes a lot, in some large and small ways.

As with nearly any software development, given enough time and energy, nearly anything is possible. Nobody is saying that raising the new pages limit from 30 days to 60 days isn't possible. They are saying it might not be desirable to do so due to the side effects, though. And they are saying that there might be better ways to solve the underlying problem.

All that said, the subsequent proposal is to build a dock into the ocean a bit. That is, to implement a bot that will automatically categorize these pages and then generate a list of them (either dynamically or statically). That also certainly isn't impossible, but as I said above, it's a bot dependency (which isn't usually great) and it just delays the inevitable underlying issue (that there are pages to patrol). It kills the incentive to patrol new pages if the deadline has been moved (cf. procrastination). I'm not sure what the equivalent analogy is, but I think this clarifies a bit. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually agree with you (FWIW). A list that people know the existence of removes the attraction of getting it done before the thirty days (one might call the effect moral hazard). A list that nobody knows the existence of makes sure any pages that do fall through get checked. So, if I say now that it might be possible, would someone like to volunteer to privately take on full responsible for checking the list (without giving away its existence) if I could build it? Then we all assume I failed and go back to the regular 30 day patrol. Hell, I'll even say I failed if it helps. But it'll be a thankless task, since you could never claim your prize; to do so would to be to admit that articles no longer disappear into the ether and ruin the whole NPP temporarily. If you're still interested, email-this-user me, rather than posting here. Then it'll look like to all intents and purposes that the project failed on two separate fronts. (I realise, of course, that the above sounds very non-wiki-like. But you might say that needs must. If you want to object to the whole idea, feel free; it's not a perfect solution.) - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 18:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Tempting, and thanks for the offer, but this is of its nature a task for multiple people not for one editor. I've been happy to go through new pages screening out attacks and reading the articles that interest me and marking them patrolled if I think it appropriate. But there are whole subject areas that I ignore and I assume others think likewise. I also bitterly resent the idea that a loophole should be left in the process simply because the existence of that loophole might encourage editors to work harder - we are volunteers and leaving arbitrary loopholes to motivate volunteers to work harder seems to me a terrible way to demotivate a group of volunteers. ϢereSpielChequers 12:28, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for Wikipedia in American English

If you go to List of Wikipedias, you may notice that although it appears that are many different languages in which Wikipedias exist on the net, some are actually different versions of the same language (there are separate entries there for Bavarian, German and Alemannic - the latter I take to mean Swiss German as opposed to High German). In the same way, do you think we could have two Wikipedias in English - one in U.K. English, one in American English? This would certainly clear up problems such as how to spell "ageing" (ageing in U.K. English, aging in U.S. English - go the article Ageing and visit its talk page and you will see my point. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

No. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:06, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no question that the issue is a perennial irritation and will be for the foreseeable future. I personally despise the spelling aluminium and deplore the Chemistry WikiProject's choice to favor it just because IUPAC does.

But this is a minor point. On the other hand, the loss of expertise on both sides of a split en.wiki project would be anything but minor. We muddle along with WP:ENGVAR; it isn't perfect but it mostly works. --Trovatore (talk) 00:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

It works perfectly fine. The very minor differences between American and British (and Australian, and South African, and Canadian, and etc. etc.) versions of the English language are not really enough to justify the split into seperate Wikipedias. There are a few minor usage differences, and some small differences in vocabulary that do no more than cause a second or two of awkwardness. Articles written in ostensibly "British" English are perfectly understandable to an American reader (or Australian, or Canadian, or Kenyan, or Bermudan, or Jamaican, or...), so there's no impending need to create a new Wikipedia just so one can use the words "petrol" and "lift" while the other uses "gasoline" and "elevator". --Jayron32 00:27, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Then you get editors like me that use a hopeless muddle of British and American spellings. To date, the only time I have been absolutely perplexed was when a Haynes manual told me to rub down my engine block with paraffin to get it clean. I had no idea that they meant kerosene, not candle wax.—Kww(talk) 00:45, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Regional differences between variants of German are much greater than in English, especially in written form. I'm a native German speaker, and Bavarian description in Bavarian and Alemannish description in Alemannish are sort of decipherable, but barely a word is spelt exactly as in standard German. Rd232 ^talk 06:34, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The regional differences in English are not enough to justify separate versions, nor are we likely to see standardization on one particular national variant. Much as Americans may think they dominate the world, they are only a small fraction of the English speaking world. Besides, as soon as we get American English and British English Wikipedias, we'll have to have Indian English, Singaporean English, Ebonics, Australian English, South African English, and so on, it's not practical for what amount to trivial differences. Triona (talk) 07:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• Out there in the real world, people used to read dozens of English-language books, magazines and newspapers that were published on the other side of the Atlantic (or of the world), and got used to most of the variations, with only a minor irritation or grumble here and there. Now they go to different websites. There is a North American BBC site, but I don't think it changes its spelling to U.S., while I don't think CNN Europe changes to British spelling. While an Anglicism or Americanism will periodically remind one where (or by whom) something was written, most of the time you have to be paying specific attention to small details even to notice the national style. [I had to be bilingual in my youth because I crossed from London to New England when I was 6, back again at 8, and then finally back in New England at age 11 (leaving for California at 17). But the differences were usually easily surmounted. If you live in another English-speaking country, you will find how very small the differences really are; they're enough to distinguish, without significantly impairing communication except at the slang or local dialect level which would confuse one at home. The successive introduction of the telephone, gramophone/phonograph, wireless/radio, talking pictures, television, mass air travel and the Internet, plus several wars in which the Anglophones served together, greatly reduced differences in the spoken language, too.] And where there are genuine ambiguities and obscurities, Wikipedia should clarify them (e.g. paraffin/kerosene, faucet/tap)—rather than leave the confusion as some kind of token of authenticity—which I think is a pillar of Wikipedia:National varieties of English, or should be. There are, as yet, no separate Wikipedias for the versions of French, Spanish or Portuguese spoken in the Americas as opposed to their European versions, although there are some very small little-used Wikipedias for Flemish, Walloon, Luxembourgish and Afrikaans. See meta:List of Wikipedias. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for all the comments - I see that the proposal soon stimulated an interesting response. I do appreciate that there are probably greater variations in different versions of German than of English, although I do remember reading in a Reader's Digest back in the 1980s that a publisher had already published the Dictionary of U.S. English. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• There's no question that English has dialects. There's always going to be tension between Yanks and Brits on WP over which one is the better one. But we can be better than that; we can overcome these tribal temptations and work on a basis of mutual respect. WP:ENGVAR is an imperfect but mostly workable framework for doing so.

  Certainly others have made other choices. There are two Norwegian Wikipedias — two, for a language without a huge speaker base, but mutually comprehensible with Swedish! I haven't looked at them much, but their depth of coverage must surely suffer enormously. The better choice would be to merge with Swedish WP and come up with a SCANDVAR guideline to work over the rough spots. --Trovatore (talk) 19:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• No need to rely upon your memory. There's an encyclopaedia around here, wherein you can read all about Noah Webster. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 19:34, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

One minor point on the English-is-more-mutually-intelligible-than-German debate, that coincidentally I was just talking about at User talk:TFOWR: I have, on quite a number of occasions, seen articles listed for deletion as "patent nonsense" simply because they were written in Indian English. If there's ever a split, which I doubt, that would be where it is most likely to occur, I conclude from experience. Indian English writers seem to have the hardest time at the English Wikipedia, and are the largest group most often overlooked in the perennial British/U.S./Commonwealth/American discussions. Uncle G (talk) 19:34, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

No, please for the sake of my sanity! As a Brit who moved to the US 15 years ago at the age of 35, I have enough problems figuring out which version of English I do/should speak/write and for which audience... – ukexpat (talk) 19:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The obvious solution is to use Canadian English, given it is a mixture of the two! ;o) Resolute 20:05, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You've got your toque on too tight. Go have a butter tart, you'll feel better, eh? :-) --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Ahh take off, ya hoser! Resolute 20:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the obvious solution for those who find the confusion here too much to use Simple English Wikipedia instead :) Dmcq (talk) 21:07, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I suspect it is a bigger problem than we think, though I think the solution is a different sort of multi dialect wiki not different wikis per dialect. We aren't as successful at recruiting editors as we once were; Not so much here in the land of warm beer, but definitely in the land with with extra Zs and fewer Us on the keyboards. Our classic routes to recruiting editors were; Newbie spots vandalism and fixes it, submits a new article or fixes a typo. Nowadays the vandalfighting bots and hugglers are getting rid of the vast majority of vandalism before a newbie has a chance; New pages is a newbie biting trainwreck; And we have relatively few genuine typos but loads of things that look like typos to your PCs spellchecker. I fear that we lose too many genuine good faith newbies who find their laborious adding of "ation" to every sixth word on the article on a British King has been reverted with a snarky and unintelligible comment. My preferred solution to this is to put icons on the screen so that people can click on the US, Australian, Canadian, or British flag and have Wikipedia displayed in the dialect of their choice see -Strategy:Proposal:More_multi_dialect_wikis. Or we cld mk txt spk wki Lol ϢereSpielChequers 21:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

We await your solid and 100% accurate contribution to the codebase to automatically and seamlessly translate between the multiple dialects of English. (will it tell me I have an apartment tire? or that a character in a movie elevatored his friend off the floor?) --Golbez (talk) 21:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that at some point we might need to do some AWB work to establish which bonnets were hoods and which were hats. But I understand we can have 50,000 rules before we need to upgrade the software, and that would get us a lot more than 90% towards the goal. ϢereSpielChequers 22:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

So out of curiosity, what would the rule for flat vs apartment look like? I think you're making this sound much easier than it actually is. Chinese can switch back and forth because, in my understand, that is primarily an issue of the characters used, rather than the words. --Golbez (talk) 22:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Flat vs apartment is one of the easier ones, as apartment would display as flat in the English version you could just use AWB or similar to change flat to apartment where the English meaning of flat was used. The vast majority of the differences are as simple as:

English - American English translation

English	translation rule	American English
Colour	=	Color
Favour	=	Favor
centre	=	center
Flat	<	Apartment
Pavement	=< (except Limestone pavement doesn't change)	Sidewalk
Under the bonnet	=	Under the hood

True that would only do 90% of it easily, and there would be some work involved in getting the other 10% right. But 90% is better than nothing, and judging from the number of people who come here wanting to change things between different versions of English I don't anticipate that there would be a shortage of new editors to do the rest - if anything this could recruit a whole new generation of wikipedians. It does get complicated for words like Fag, and I imagine we'd need some sort of system to store such words as Fag (cigarette) and then display them as fag or smoke. The biggest advantage of that would actually be for the large and growing number of people who use EN Wiki via machine translators, as these are amongst the words that are most likely to throw translators. ϢereSpielChequers 12:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

So we would have to either use another term for "flat tire" (deflated tire?), or we would have to use a template to say {{not-us-english|flat}}, or what? Also, will it know not to change quoted titles? I don't think we should have an article discussing The Colour Purple. Etc etc... what you're suggesting here is machine translation, nothing more, and there's a reason machine translation isn't used on a large, automatic scale. --Golbez (talk) 12:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

You weren't perchance referring to The Color Mauve, now, were you? ;-) — Ah, the benefits of a trans-Atlantic childhood ! (everything that you learnt so well in one school or from one group of friends was of course absurdly wrong in the next.) —— Shakescene (talk) 18:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

No, that's why I showed that as a one way rule - Apartment can be displayed as flat to English readers but you can't go the other way for American English readers without marking which meaning of flat you are using, and for words like flat where one meaning predominates you'd probably leave that as the default. Words in quotes would also need to be left, and you'd probably need a {{no translate}} template. I agree that if this was nothing more than a machine translation you'd only get 90% of the job done, and the remaining 10% would require semi-automated editing. But the 90% is probably worth doing in its own right, its the remaining 10% would greatly improve machine translation from EN wiki. ϢereSpielChequers 13:12, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing is that simple. "Four apartment buildings were demolished" is rather confusing if it is rendered as "four flat buildings were demolished". dramatic (talk) 07:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

First of all, I apologize for misunderstanding the meaning of your symbols with regard to flat vs apartment. But I disagree with your assertion that it's "worth doing in its own right". What of the sheer effort involved to not only template but maintain the templates for the many millions of words that shouldn't be converted, or could be converted incorrectly? For example, marking every single instance of the word Center in Verizon Center, plus the number of times it's referred to across the Wiki, times the number of other Centers that would be incorrectly converted? No thank you, I'll take an re over an er any day. This is not exactly a solution in search of a problem, but it's certainly one that far outweighs the problem. It's a shotgun brought to kill a flea. --Golbez (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I think we have very different perceptions as to the size of the task, the potential benefits and who would take on the burden of doing the work. Many millions of words that shouldn't be converted or could be converted incorrectly would mean an average of more than one such anomaly per article. I very much doubt if it would be that high, but I agree that above a certain size a task can become daunting. However I'm not convinced that we have yet quantified the size of the task. As for the benefits, I believe you underestimate both the number of Americans who are thrown by English spellings and especially the amount of machine translation, or machine assisted translation that is already going on. I suspect it would be possible to quantify the number of newbies who leave after an Engvar warning, and someone else will doubtless have other theories as to why our editor base under-represents the USA, Google translate might even be willing to calculate some stats for us as to its use on Wikipedia. As for the sheer effort, this is a volunteer project, so no-one need put effort into this who doesn't think it worthwhile - we could even have a don't care option for those who want to see articles in the dialect they were written in. In my view this is more a few spots of carefully applied lubrication to a machine that has some stiff joints rather than a shotgun to shoot a flea, but if someone can quantify things I'm happy to review my assumptions ϢereSpielChequers 15:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If you really want to make things friendly for American editors, you can please stop distinguishing "American English" from "English". You can say "British English", "UK English", or "Commonwealth English". Unmodified "English" fully includes American English. --Trovatore (talk) 15:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for an interesting discussion - perhaps we should leave things as they are, I can certainly understand American English.ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:29, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

arbitrary break number 1

Yes, no one seems to have pointed out yet that if I were really keen to start a Wikipedia in American English, I could go the WikiMedia Incubator (go to List of Wikipedias and see the talk page there). However, I did want to start this discussion here first. I think that the main points from the above discussion can be summarized as follows:

1. Although there are certainly differences between U.K. English and U.S. English, these are probably not as great as the differences between different forms of German. 2. There are already Wikipedias in different forms of English - such as this one versus the Simple English Wikipedia or the Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia (then again, there is the Lowlands Scots Wikipedia - since Lowland Scots and English are intelligible, I shall leae it for others to decide whether this is effectively an English Wikipedia, although I can see the arguments that it is not). 3. The similarities between U.S. English and U.K. English are close enough for us to use the one Wikipedia (after all, it would mean goodness knows how much hard work to shift articles from one to another).

I would also like to add these comments. There are certainly differences between U.K. English and U.S. English, but some U.S. English words are so commonly known in Britain today that some people use them. We could all understand the terms "candies" and "cookies" for sweets and biscuits, and the word "mail" is almost used here as a synonym for post. There are, it is true, some words that have not caught one on this side of the pond (we always say "pavement" and never "sidewalk"). There are some languages that have Wikipedias in different forms of the same language - as one of the above Wikipedians noted, the New Norwegian and Dano-Norwegian Wikipedias - but these are probably justiied. After all, Danish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, but given that these are quite definitely different languages, they would still need separate Wikipedias.

Thank you again for all the above comments,they are all apppreciated. So, many thanks indeed, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

But I say "footpath" and never "sidewalk", and if I say "pavement" it's a technical term for the surface of the road. Oh no, we need a separate Wikipedia in New Zealand English! Fortunately, I understand all of the above. dramatic (talk) 07:53, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Why should the Americans be the ones to leave anyway? Start one in British English :-). No, don't, really; the status quo has its irritations but is better than any other idea I've heard, a conclusion you seem to have come to as well.

I would point out also that the Wikipedias for small languages such as Plaatduutsch (or however you spell it) or Lowland Scots are a bit different in purpose. They are not really there as the primary reference for speakers of those languages, who surely must be competent in some better known language as well (unless they're subsistence farmers or something, in which case they are not likely major users of online encyclopedias). Rather, those WPs are intended to help advertise and preserve the language in question. Neither American English nor British English needs that sort of help. --Trovatore (talk) 23:25, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Excellent point. Rd232 ^talk 13:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Funny you should mention Scots. Over at sco.wiki, they've adopted a policy quite different to WP:ENGVAR: the various Scots dialects are deprecated, and a generalied version of Scots is used instead: sco:Wikipedia:Spellin an grammar#Raesons for this policie - "ti dae awa wi arguments ower the richt spellins o words. That wastes time better spent writin new text for airticles." I've tended to be a big fan of ENGVAR here, but the sco.wiki approach has some merit - we're here to write articles, not argue over spelling. The problem here is possibly wider than we might think, as well - it's not just American English vs. "British" English - there are several varieties of English within Britain, with Scottish English being used for Scottish subjects, but not outwith that area. Non-American English includes more than just British English: New Zealand articles are written in an English understood by most Pākehā, with terms that are maybe less familiar to other English speakers. Now, I quite like this, because I quite like the quirkiness of our language. But it's less than clear. New Zealand articles aren't written exclusively for Kiwis. Non-Scots want to learn about Scottish topics. Expecting readers to learn several varieties just to read about different topics seems less than ideal. It's not a huge burden, but it's still a burden. I'm not an American English speaker, though I have a great deal of respect for Noah Webster, but I'd be inclined to accept American English as a standard on en.wiki. However... would it be possible to have some sort of technological magic, where a reader could select their preference (on a page or cookie level, if necessary, so that we don't disenfranchise IPs) and the wikicode {{magic|sidewalk|en-us}} renders as pavement for British English readers? TFOWR 13:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

If we want to make wikitext even harder to get grips with for newbies (and harder to edit for all), then templating every variant word is a great way to go. If one day Mediawiki can separate refs from body text properly, then that approach might possibly one day work for variant words and phrases... but I think the maintenance implications for software developers and Wikipedia editors are being underestimated. Rd232 ^talk 13:48, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I missed the part where I insisted that newbies had to get formatting absolutely perfect! ;-) List defined refs already exists, but that's a different matter entirely. Back on topic, we already use templates for refs and locations, etc, and we currently don't expect perfection from new editors. Article development is iterative: with this template a newbie would write "sidewalk", and a more experienced editor would - instead of changing it to "pavement" ("per ENGVAR") - add the template. I'm not convinced there's much dev work here - some Ajaxy magic to hide/show a div when the setting changes. The real work is for editors (experienced editors, not newbies) who need to maintain a table in a template. But realistically - once the template is set up, how often will it need to be changed? TFOWR 13:57, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not the expectation of perfection on the part of experienced editors, it's how scary it looks and how complicated to read and understand and edit, and the implication carried from looking at it that it's all very technical and you need to be some kind of expert. The more editing wikitext resembles programming, the more we drive people away. Rd232 ^talk 19:11, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I have no doubt that the way they are doing things at the Chinese Wikipedia would work for us:

• Global translation rules
• Supplementary per-article translation rules, so if you use an unusual word that needs translating you just add it to the local translation table
• Markup to use in the rare cases that the other methods don't work and the translation of a phrase must be hand-coded.

This system would close a few tins of worms and open a few new ones. And I think there is no good solution for the problem of article titles that are in one of the variants. On one hand I think it's cool and would like to see it. On the other hand it seems a lot of effort for very little gain.

There is also the political dimension: In the age of globalisation there is a huge new unifying force for the English language. So far Wikipedia is a significant part of it, because it helps to make editors and readers a lot more familiar with standards of English other than their own. Personally I think that's a good thing and should not be abandoned. But of course it is only tangentially related to Wikipedia's norms and values. Hans Adler 14:22, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the current rough solution is the best. The risk is that standardising on American English wrecks the ability for people like myself (UK) to contribute - simply because there is no way I will be able to contribute in American English :D (not so much the spelling differences which I could work around but for the colloquialism). Even worse, articles on UK (and other non-US English speaking countries) topics will risk being incomprehensible to readers in those countries - to take a bad example, I doubt "hood" is as widely known as the US version of "bonnet" as you expect. I see this first hand; the company I work for also randomly sells high end outdoor catering appliances - we had to rewrite our entire website prose for the US market because it made no sense to any of you guys :) I think the current implementation is the best - ok so it is not standardised, and without strict policy definition it risks arguments and edit wars over single words. But on the other hand it leniently allows for the right language in the right place, where that does not make sense on a local level then it is easily changed. <joke>(also; we were first :) so if we standardise on anything it should be UK English ;))</joke> --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 19:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Without wanting to get too pompous or pontifical, English has always been an evolving language, sometimes (in my humble opinion) changeing † for the better and sometimes for the worse, and always absorbing an enormous number of outside influences in every generation while discarding other features both "native" and imported. The spread of popular music, film, television and the Internet (as well as physical travel and migration) has only accelerated this process. Pinning down a "British" Wikipedia that Lord Reith would hardly consider acceptable, or an "American" one that would cause Noah Webster to weep, is pretty futile. While the Oxford University Press's U.S. editions do indeed use American spelling and punctuation, most people don't expect to see the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language spelt in a U.S. variant, or the Columbia Encyclopedia in a British one (the Columbia Encyclopaedia). And that's not considering all the recent influences of Caribbean, African, South Asian and East Asian English, plus the influences brought by 1st and 2nd generation Commonwealth immigrants to Britain, Canada and Australasia, and by Hispanic, Asian and Caribbean ones to the United States. Much of that vocabulary, grammar and style, as with most variations in every generation, is of course transitory colloquial street speech that will not last, but some will seep in directly or indirectly; the changes will assimilate so completely that first-year student of philology a century from now will need to do research to recognize their origins. You certainly don't need different editions of Wikipedia to handle all that; just commonsense and a great deal of care to ensure that a word or phrase you're using isn't either obscure or outright misleading to someone in a different country or with a different background. ¶ Because of its nature and origins, Wikipedia will always be written in a strange cosmopolitan semi-popular/semi-academic style, complete with arcane conventions, that no human being would ever use anywhere else, but that's Wikipedia. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC) † [I was going to go back to delete the "e", when I realised/realized that this once-common, and not-incorrect, British spelling makes a relevant point.]

That's a good point; unlike many languages (French in particular comes to mind) which have governments which laughably claim ownership over the language and attempt to control it, English has no such authority, and thus grows and changes organically. It's is famously as impure as a cribhouse whore, so why even attempt to pin down two versions, let alone the hundreds that are in use? --Golbez (talk) 19:59, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me of a point I forgot to make in my sea of other prose: although there have been many attempts to establish one, there is as yet no credible or widely-recognized/recognised (let alone legally binding) English-language equivalent of the Académie Française or the Real Academia Española (which, I learned from Wikipedia, has roughly 20 matching official authorities, one for each of the non-Iberian Hispanophone countries, including an embryo one for the world's second-largest speaker of Spanish, Los Estados Unidos de América. Yet, although there's a Catalan Wikipedia, there is as yet no Latin American or Ibero-Spanish Wikipedia, let alone a Mexican, Cuban or Argentine one.) After decades of wrangling and heart-wrenching, the linguistic authorities in Portugal, Brazil, and the other Lusophone countries finally came to an agreement (almost a treaty) about which accents to keep and which to retire (cf. a similar debate about the evolution of German among the West German, East German, Austrian and Swiss authorities), but even if they had not, I think Portuguese Wikipedia would have remained a single Project. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

¶ Some references (out of order) within Wikipedia for my remarks above: Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990, German orthography reform of 1996, Association of Spanish Language Academies, and List of language regulators. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:43, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

English has no such body — and a good thing too. Those academies are a terrible idea. They MUST NEVER EVER EVER be tolerated in English. --Trovatore (talk) 01:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense suggestion. All these variants of English are easily understandable to anyone with understanding of one. This is hardly like variants of some other languages eg Chinese YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 02:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• Just a little philosophical aside- wouldnt it be interesting to split English Wikipedia in two and see how each evolves, not spelling-wise, we already know what changes to each article would occur, but as far as policies, guidelines, consensus-decisions and such. How would different problems, both current and future ones that pop up be handled in each Wikipedia... as it is each language Wikipedia does have different "rules" and policies down to the smallest thing. I would find it interesting in how consensus is reached in each Wikipedia and how they may differ, even in the smallest aspects, after 5, 10, and 20 years.Camelbinky (talk) 01:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

As an Australian English user I can comprehend just about every other version of English. I just note that probably every second day I find myself reverting an incorrect spelling correction, almost always from UK to US English, and almost always by an IP editor (who is never going to read this stuff!) I feel that this Wikipedia, using all versions of English, is actually providing an education to those who don't yet know that there is more than one "correct" form of English spelling out there. HiLo48 (talk) 01:08, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Variations in any language can be viewed as proposed improvements (-our => -or), or explorations of possibilities (windshield, windscreen?), but if the ultimate shared form is to be determined by worth (instead of by commercial or population dominance) then there needs to be forums of mixed usage where they can be compared. Some readers may find this confusing, but that kind of challenge is a valuable education, evolutionarily necessary. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

arbitrary break number 2

It seems to me that (1) a "main" English wikipedia should exist. (2) And that any variant English wikipedia should be accessed via tabs , like the Chinese wikipedia, which uses tabs for different Chineses. (3) should these come about, a new reviewer flag would be needed so that any new contribution to a dialectal article branch should also be in the main branch article, and that the new dialectal article edit does not go live until the main article is checked for consistency with new facts or imrpovements, but that's quite a bit of work. There would not no auto-sighting on the dialectal versions, going live would require a log entry stating the check was done.

I wouldn't want to read 6 different English variants just go get information, by rereading material over and over again, just because a fact appeared here and not there. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The software could be enhanced to "transliterate" the English content in the database into different types of English, able to be selected in the preferences by users and auto-voodoo selected for anon users based on useragent info. This has been suggested as a solution for date formats, but the main drawback is that the internet caches would then need to have multiple copies of the same pages, in order to give the desired English to users. There would probably be some efficiency in that British users and anons in Britain would likely want to read Wikipedia in British English, so there would be less need for American English version of the content in British caches. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:34, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Multiple English language versions are indeed a non-starter. But a single EN wiki that people could choose to view in their preferred spelling would be a step change improvement in the pedia. Especially if we take John Vandenberg's suggestion and default the appearance to IPs according to the predominant spelling of that area. The reduction in good faith US corrections of GB spelling that we need to reverse would be a big bonus, it can't be a particularly positive start to one's wiki career to have your first edits reverted as unhelpful. ϢereSpielChequers 11:36, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I completely support this proposal as I can't understand American English. I'm joking. The reason that there are different Chinese Wikipedias is that there are two major languages spoken in China, and they are almost completely different. Ajraddatz (Talk) 15:30, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Copying userrights from sysop to bureaucrat

I would like to see if there are any objections to copying the following userrights from the administrator group into the bureaucrat group:

• Move pages with their subpages (move-subpages)
• Not create redirects from source pages when moving pages (suppressredirect)
• Override the title blacklist (tboverride)
• Use higher limits in API queries (apihighlimits)
• Search deleted pages (browsearchive)
• View deleted history entries, without their associated text (deletedhistory)
• View deleted text and changes between deleted revisions (deletedtext)

removed from original proposal as not strictly necessary

• Bypass IP blocks, auto-blocks and range blocks (ipblock-exempt)
• Bypass automatic blocks of proxies (proxyunbannable)
• Quickly rollback the edits of the last user who edited a particular page (rollback)

This would allow a bureaucrat to perform their duties without requiring a sysop flag. –xeno^talk 19:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Aren't all crats sysops anyway? Is this not a solution in search of a problem? → ROUX ₪ 19:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that a bureaucrat can't shed his or her sysop flag without losing abilities required for the job. (And, while no non-sysop has ever been successful at RFB, adminship is not a requisite.) –xeno^talk 19:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm not understanding.. why would they need to shed the flag? Also, if it is (theoretically) possible for a non-admin to become a crat, isn't that an argument against adding admin privileges to the crat flag, as then crats would have abilities which the community hasn't approved at rfa? → ROUX ₪ 19:37, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I can think of at least two bureaucrats who have considered relinquishing their sysop flag but continuing to perform their duties as a bureaucrat. As for your second sentence - the abilities would have been added prior to any potential successful non-sysop RFB so the participants would know what they were getting into. (This is a bit of a red herring, as it's a highly unlikely scenario. The primary reason is to allow bureaucrats to resign their sysop flag if they so desire.) –xeno^talk 19:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I dunno. I'm not objecting, really, just not understanding why the need to remove the flag. Plus this would set up (even more than already exists) a more explicit 'leveling up' thing. → ROUX ₪ 19:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose a bureaucrat could simply declare "I am no longer using administrative buttons", but they'd still be there, and (quite likely) people would still request they use them to perform various tasks (unaware of their declaration or otherwise). –xeno^talk 19:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah.. so you are suggesting instead of the crat flag being an add-on, it is a phase shift? One or the other? Are there any crats who have stated they will no longer be performing admin duties? → ROUX ₪ 19:48, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Not one or the other, and it would not change the current RFB promotion process. But it would give bureaucrats an option to relinquish their sysop flag without losing abilities integral to the bureaucrat role. For your second question - I'm not sure. –xeno^talk 19:50, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

While I understand the need for the additional move privileges and access to view deleted material while performing username changes, why would a bureaucrat who is not trusted by the community with any other access beyond that of a normal user need to bypass IP blocks or use the rollback function? --Allen3 ^talk 19:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I must admit, the rollback was something I threw in there to prevent having to have bureaucrat, rollback, but I'll strike it. For the ipblockexempt and proxyunbannable bits, I'll have to ruminate on it to see if I agree that they shouldn't be included (struck for now). FYI the viewdeleted parts are also for evaluating statements made at RFA about candidates' deleted histories. –xeno^talk 19:59, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I am one the bureaucrats Xeno is referring to above. I toyed with the idea of just picking up my 'crat flag for awhile and leaving the sysop flag down for awile. Xeno's comments here, though, turned me off to the idea. Just peeked through my logs, I've done one deletion since returning at the beginning of the month, and no blocks. But I have done renames. I've been trying to focus my efforts on article creation at the moment, as that's why I came out of retirement. Useight (talk) 20:02, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there any harm in a crat just keeping his/her sysop flag even if they don't use it much? I mean, this just sounds sort of weird, and why would a crat really need the option of not having their mop? I don't see any harm for actively editing users keeping their rights, even if they don't use them much. (Now, for users who haven't edited in years, that's a different story.) But I just don't see when this would really be necessary. It's not like being an admin and a crat is hurting you or anyone else, I'd hope. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

There are any number of reasons why someone might want to relinquish the sysop rights. Just ask any sysop requesting voluntary removal at meta why they've done it. –xeno^talk 02:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

IMO, this is a solution without a problem that will waste both the community's time in discussing it and developer's time in figuring updating sysop and bureaucrat groups everytime updating the sysop group becomes necessary. I mean, I guess we could if we want, but I don't think it is worth it to even bother discussing it. NW (Talk) 21:43, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with NW. If a crat wants to stop doing sysop things, they should just stop doing them. Its not like there's a limit on the number of sysop accounts we can have. Mr.Z-man 22:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

While it is not required for a crat to be an admin, I can't imagine the community electing one who isn't. I don't see why a crat would want to stop admin roles either, but eh. He can just stop. Don't see the need for this, per NW. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:55, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

There are countless reasons why someone might want to give up their sysop rights. It's part of the reason we have a WP:RESYSOP procedure. –xeno^talk 02:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Self evidently pointless. Why on earth do we need this discussion? All 'crats are admins. This is either make-work or a solution in search of a problem. The only time I can see someone getting +crat without +sysop is at a foundation level; in which case it's not the communities problem / issue. Sorry, but this is without value. Pedro :  Chat  23:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

@NW/Pedro: Despite your belief that this is a solution in search of a problem, do you have any specific objection to the proposal? –xeno^talk 02:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

This is rather needless. If a crat decides to resign the sysop bit but not the crat bit, then we should start worrying. But really, why would someone bother doing that, as things like viewing deleted pages and whatnot are useful to crats? I don't get why any crat would want to resign their adminship but still want to retain certain abilities (like viewing deleted pages). Either you keep both or none; it's just absurd to bother with the possibility of a non-admin crat. If you don't want to be a sysop but you do want to be a crat, stop using the sysop tools and keep using the crat ones. That seems easy enough. I mean, I understand where this proposal is coming from, but it just seems... weird and without any current application/purpose. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

"why would someone bother doing that, as things like viewing deleted pages and whatnot are useful to crats?" Precisely. Right now they couldn't. Do you think they should be permitted to do so; if they desire? Is it such an unreasonable request to add a few words to an array to give them the option? (The future application you speak of) –xeno^talk 04:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

In this case, would it be reasonable for a new user right to be created for me, because I don't want the block ability but I like the rest of the stuff? What's wrong with all-or-nothing? I mean, this isn't a big deal, but I just cannot see why on earth anyone would ever bother doing this. Why should they be permitted to do so, if they so desire, but not me? (Why would they so desire?) Seeing deleted pages is part of being a sysop; just ignore the other abilities, no? (If I could, I would revoke from my account the ability to block users, because I don't like doing it.) I mean, can you specify one or two reasonable rationales for why one would wish to be a crat but not a sysop, rather than keeping the sysop bit but not using it other than for seeing deleted pages and such? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:14, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

This isn't about creating a personal userright, this is about copying some required abilities for a bureaucrat into the bureaucrat usergroup. As an analog, there are several abilities in the admin flag that are also granted by other userrights (some redundantly, like autoconfirmed and "all users") because they are required or useful for the job. Reasons for not wanting to hang on to the sysop flag if one is not going to be using are numerous: it gives a more accurate count at WP:LOAA, it would discourage other users asking one to carry out administrative tasks, clean the interface of buttons that won't be used, removes the guilt factor for hanging onto a right one isn't using, the list goes on. As I suggested above, just query any user who ever gave up the flag voluntary as opposed to simply stopped using it. What I really don't understand is the push-back to this proposal. You wonder why anyone would bother doing this, but on the other hand: where is the harm in the redundancy being added? –xeno^talk 18:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, if a crat removes their sysop bit voluntarily, can't they give it back to themselves? ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 03:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Technically yes; but from a practical standpoint, they should re-request at BN to avoid the appearance of impropriety. –xeno^talk 04:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure, why not? I always assumed bureaucrats can do everything admins can do, anyhow (Who would vote for someone as a bureaucrat, but vote against the same person as an admin?). --Conti|✉ 11:07, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

THIS. --Cybercobra (talk) 15:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I can't see what the problem with this is. Bureaucrats aren't required to be admins by policy, so it makes sense to give them the buttons to do their job properly without the admin bit. Jafeluv (talk) 10:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Jafeluv and others above. If these rights are needed to do the Crat job, then put them in the Crat userrights. Leaving them out seems like an end-run around the fact that Crats are not required to be admins. If these tools are needed for the job, then they should be granted to the job. Whether or not all current Crats are Admins is irrelevent. Policy doesn't require it, so there should be no artificial construct that makes it seem like a requirement. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 19:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Policy doesn't require it, but practice does. Policy is supposed to reflect practice. Its incredibly unlikely that we will ever appoint a bureaucrat who isn't an admin, the only time this would matter is if a bureaucrat gave up the admin tools, which AFAIK has never happened. Changing policy to require crats to be admins would resolve this in a much simpler way while having no effect on how things actually operate (since we'd just be codifying standard practice). Mr.Z-man 22:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

And how would giving crats the additional rights change how things actually operate? Jafeluv (talk) 06:19, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say it would. But changing the policy would be less work than this, we could do it immediately, and it wouldn't waste the time of the sysadmins. Mr.Z-man 14:48, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

There really is no work involved, apart from adding 7 words to an array. –xeno^talk 14:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

And then we get bureaucrats wasting the time of the stewards when they want a "break" but want to actually give up the tools for reasons that to me are just asinine. Then they waste the time of the other bureaucrats when they want the tools back a month later. It isn't very much work, but it is absolutely pointless. I see zero benefit from this other than to indulge the whims of some self-important users. Mr.Z-man 19:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

By that logic, we should eliminate the WP:RESYSOP procedure because it is a waste of time that allows people to indulge themselves? –xeno^talk 20:19, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

In a large number of cases, yes that's all it is. The idea of giving up the tools just so you can take a break or worse, "get a fresh perspective" (ugh) is just as asinine. If someone wants to take a break, just take a damn break. Not as many people will care as you think (or wish). You don't need to make it into some grandiose show like the changing of the guard. Mr.Z-man 00:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think this was meant to be "some grandiose show"? I actually thought this was going to be a quiet proposal that would pass with no objections. The sound and fury that has presented itself against it has been quite shocking and peculiar. The proposal in its base elements is actually pretty tame. Seems like people are objecting for objection's sake. –xeno^talk 00:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about this, I was talking about the great lengths some people go to whenever they go on/return from a break, something that this will only encourage more of. Mr.Z-man 00:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Other than your belief that relinquishing userrights is an asinine maneouver (which doesn't seem to be widely shared given that we have both m:SRP#Removal of access and WP:RESYSOP procedures to allow it), do you any specific objections to the proposal? –xeno^talk 01:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying that its always asinine, and I think you know that. Just the reasons why some people on the English Wikipedia choose to do so. There are plenty of valid reasons for relinquishing rights. My main objection is that its pointless. I can say with 99.999% certainty that we're never going to appoint a bureaucrat who isn't already an admin. If a bureaucrat wants to not use the admin tools, they can just not use them. If they want to go on a break, they can just go on a break. I can't think of, nor have I seen here, a good reason why someone should have +crat and not +sysop. Mr.Z-man 05:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

In essence, you don't like the idea of a bureaucrat giving up their sysop rights, and you can't think of a good reason why they would want to, nor do you like the examples I provided above. Fair enough. I appreciate your willingness to elucidate your position. –xeno^talk 14:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the stewards won't be able to deal with the dozens of requests they get from bureaucrats every week. They'll be overwhelmed.. Yes, yes, I know. Sarcasm. Really helpful. But the "wasting everyone's time" argument is just so damn silly. This discussion has wasted more time than the implementation and the effects of the implementation would ever have. --Conti|✉ 22:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

All of the arguments in favor are just as silly. Mr.Z-man 00:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

How so? Seems pretty sane to me to assume that bureaucrats should have all the abilities admins have. --Conti|✉ 06:31, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

How convenient that they already do, because they're all admins. Mr.Z-man 22:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much, yes. :) So here we have a situation where, practically speaking, implementing this or not doesn't really make much of a difference. Yet implementing this really wouldn't require any real effort on anyone's side (I'd be curious to hear from a developer whether this is actually true, I'm simply assuming it is), and some people find it useful, not to mention logical. This is a tiny, insignificant change with no extra effort involved from anyone. Worst case, nothing will happen. Best case, some people will find it useful. Why on earth would someone want to oppose this so vehemently? I don't get it. --Conti|✉ 13:39, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

By that logic, adminship really shouldn't include the rollback ability. :) We assume that someone who cannot be trusted with rollback cannot be trusted with adminship either, after all.. Really, this is silly. Just make the change and then let's all do something productive again. --Conti|✉ 16:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

If rollback had always been a separate group, there's a pretty good chance that sysop wouldn't include rollback. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.Z-man (talk • contribs) 19:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

And it would be a sensible thing to integrate rollback into the sysop privileges eventually then. --Conti|✉ 22:55, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it'll make any difference either way, but I agree with this for "correctness" reasons, more or less. Because of the possibility of a 'crat adminning themself, you couldn't make a user a 'crat unless you trusted them to be an admin, so it's not the sort of thing which is likely to make a difference. I can think of a potentially useful use for this, though; sometimes, in an emergency, you get developers or stewards temporarily granting themselves rights in order to perform actions (although more often on other wikis than enwiki, where there'd likely be many admins or 'crats willing to help in such a situation within ready reach). (I note that there have been cases of developers granting themselves admin rights before now in order to perform admin actions, IIRC occasionally causing controversy.) Although I can't think of a reason for an emergency closing of an RfA as passed, it doesn't take too much of a stretch to imagine a situation in which an emergency user rename was needed for technical reasons (even if a bit unlikely). (The extra permissions probably wouldn't be required for bot-flagging/unflagging.) In such cases, it would leave a clearer log entry if the user in question just marked themselves as a 'crat, rather than having to mark admin as well. I admit that this is a really contrived example, but as it doesn't matter either way, why not go for the more technically correct option? --ais523 20:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Heh, and I just realised a situation in which a steward would need to close an RfA: if all the existing 'crats went inactive simultaneously. Not that that's at all likely to happen, of course... --ais523 20:11, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

So forming a Bureaucrat Union and going on strike could be powerful! Useight (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Copying userrights from sysop to bureaucrat - arbitrary break

I'm scratching my head, but I still don't get why this is worth doing. In any emergency situation, a bureaucrat can make themselves an admin if they genuinely need to. For any non-emergency situation I'm struggling to see why a bureaucrat who for some reason is not an admin should have the rights that come with adminship without going through RFA. It just seems intellectually muddled to me, and I can't see any technical need to kludge it. Rd232 ^talk 14:29, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Bureaucrats have two jobs requiring userrights: renames, and setting userrights.

The first three are needed for carrying out renames -

1. Move pages with their subpages (move-subpages) self-explanatory

2. Not create redirects from source pages when moving pages (suppressredirect) to avoid leaving behind redirects from usurped users userright shared by bots

3. Override the title blacklist (tboverride) in case a title blacklist false positive shows up during a rename userright shared by account creators

The following rights may be required when granting permissions; to review user history or community statements -

4. Use higher limits in API queries (apihighlimits) in case number crunching is needed userright shared by bots & researchers

The following primarily for evaluating RFAs -

5. Search deleted pages (browsearchive) userright shared by researchers

6. View deleted history entries, without their associated text (deletedhistory) userright shared by researchers

7. View deleted text and changes between deleted revisions (deletedtext)

Do note that only two of the userrights proposed to be added are admin-exclusive rights. –xeno^talk 06:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support - I think it would help the crats do their jobs. I thought they could already perform this action. According to the table at Wikipedia:User access levels bureaucrats can perform all of the actions you mentioned. Is the table incorrect? --Alpha Quadrant ^talk 04:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is the table:

User access levels

Special:ListGroupRights is an automatically generated list of granted user group rights. The below table is manually updated, and also includes global groups with local access. Permission   Allows user(s) to… All users Registered accounts Autoconfirmed and Confirmed Bots Administrators Bureaucrats other groups abusefilter-access-protected-vars View and create filters that use protected variables Y EFM, EFH abusefilter-bypass-blocked-external-domains Bypass blocked external domains Y abusefilter-hidden-log View hidden abuse log entries OS abusefilter-hide-log Hide entries in the abuse log abusefilter-log View the abuse log Y abusefilter-log-detail View detailed abuse log entries Y Y Y GR abusefilter-log-private View edit filters marked as private Y abusefilter-modify Modify abuse filters EFM abusefilter-modify-blocked-external-domains Create or modify what external domains are blocked from being linked Y abusefilter-modify-restricted Modify edit filters with restricted actions abusefilter-privatedetails View private data (IP addresses) in the abuse log CU abusefilter-privatedetails-log View the AbuseFilter private details access log abusefilter-protected-vars-log View logs related to accessing protected variable values abusefilter-revert Revert all changes by a given abuse filter Y abusefilter-view View non-private abuse filters Y abusefilter-view-private View edit filters marked as private CU, EFH, EFM, OS apihighlimits Request API queries in batches of 5,000, rather than 500 Y Y Researchers applychangetags Apply tags along with one's changes Y autoconfirmed Not be affected by IP-based rate limits Y Y Y PCR, GR, IE autopatrol Automatically mark all edits made by the user as patrolled Y AP, GR autoreview Automatically mark all revisions made by the user as "accepted" Y Y Y PCR bigdelete Delete pages with over 5,000 revisions Stewards block Block an IP address, user account, or range of IP addresses, from editing Y blockemail Block a user from sending email Y bot Edit without their edits showing up in recent changes Y browsearchive Search deleted pages Y CU, OS, Researchers centralauth-create-local Forcibly create a local account for a global account Y centralauth-merge Merge their account Y changetags Add and remove arbitrary tags on individual revisions and log entries Y Y EFM checkuser View all IP addresses used by a user account or show all edits from a given IP address CU, Ombuds checkuser-log View the checkuser log checkuser-temporary-account View IP addresses used by temporary accounts Y Y TAIPV, Ombuds, GTAIPV checkuser-temporary-account-log View the log of access to temporary account IP addresses CU, Ombuds checkuser-temporary-account-no-preference View IP addresses used by temporary accounts without needing to check the preference collectionsaveasuserpage Save books as user subpage Y Y createaccount Create a new user account for themselves or another user Y Y ACCP createpage Create a new page Y createpagemainns Create a new mainspace page (users without this right are redirected to the Article Creation Workflow landing page) Y createtalk Create a new talk page Y Y delete Delete a page with ≤ 5,000 revisions Y deletechangetags Delete tags from the database Y deletedhistory View the history of a deleted page or a user's deleted contributions, provided it is not CSS or JS Y CU, OS, Researchers delete-redirect Delete single revision redirects during page moves PMR deletedtext View the text of deleted revisions, provided the page is not CSS or JS Y CU, Ombuds, OS, Researchers deletelogentry Access the RevisionDelete tool and change the public visibility of log entries Y OS deleterevision Access the RevisionDelete tool and change the public visibility of edit revisions Y Permission   Allows user(s) to… All users Registered accounts Autoconfirmed and Confirmed Bots Administrators Bureaucrats other groups edit Edit any page which is not protected Y Y IE editcontentmodel Edit the content model of a page Y TE, IE editinterface Edit the MediaWiki namespace to affect the interface Y IA, IE editmyoptions Edit your own preferences Y editmyprivateinfo Edit your own private data (e.g. email address, real name) Y editmyusercss Edit your own user .css files Y editmyuserjs Edit your own user .js files Y editmyuserjson Edit your own user .json files Y editmywatchlist Edit your own watchlist Y editprotected Edit fully-protected pages Y IE editsemiprotected Edit semi-protected pages Y Y Y PCR, GR, IE editsitecss Edit sitewide .css files IA, IE editsitejs Edit sitewide .js files editsitejson Edit sitewide .json files Y editusercss Edit other users' .css files IA, IE edituserjs Edit other users' .js files edituserjson Edit other users' .json files Y IA extendedconfirmed Edit 30/500 protected pages Y Y XC, IE globalblock-whitelist Disable global blocks locally Y hideuser Block a username, hiding it from the public OS import Import pages from other wikis Y IMP, TWI importupload Import pages from a locally stored XML file IMP ipblock-exempt Be unaffected by blocks applied to the user's IP address or a range (CIDR) containing it Y Y IPBE managechangetags Create and (de)activate tags Y EFM managementors Manage the list of mentors Y markbotedits Mark rollback as bot edits, to keep them out of recent changes Y GR massmessage Send a message to multiple users at once Y MMS mergehistory Merge the history of pages Y IMP minoredit Make an edit marked as 'minor' Y move Change the title of a page by moving it Y Y PMR, GR move-categorypages Change the title of a category by moving it Y Y PMR movefile Change the title of a file by moving it Y FMV move-rootuserpages Move root user pages Y Y move-subpages Move pages with their subpages Y Y PMR movestable Move pages under pending changes Y Y GR mwoauthmanagemygrants Manage OAuth grants Y nominornewtalk Minor edits by this user to user talk pages do not trigger the "you have new messages" banner Y noratelimit Not be affected by rate limits Y Y Y ACCP, EVC, GR, Stewards Permission   Allows user(s) to… All users Registered accounts Autoconfirmed and Confirmed Bots Administrators Bureaucrats other groups nuke Mass delete pages Y oathauth-enable Enable two-factor authentication Y Y CU, EFM, Founder, IMP, IA, OS, TE, TWI override-antispoof Allows the creation of accounts with mixed-script, confusing and similar usernames Y Y ACCP pagetriage-copyvio Tag pages in the Special:NewPagesFeed as likely copyright violations, through the pagetriage-tagcopyvio API Copyright violation bots patrol State that they have checked a page that appeared in Special:Newpages Y NPR protect Change protection levels, edit and move protected pages, and edit cascade-protected pages Y IE purge Purge a page by adding &action=purge to the URL Y read Read pages Y Y renameuser Change the name of an existing account Global renamers, Stewards reupload Overwrite an existing unprotected file Y Y reupload-own Overwrite existing files uploaded by oneself Y reupload-shared Override files on the shared media repository locally Y review Mark revisions as being "accepted" Y PCR rollback Use a special link to more easily revert a bad edit Y RBK, GR sboverride Bypass the spam block list Y sendemail E-mail a user (using Special:EmailUser/username) who have associated an email address with themselves Y setmentor Set user's mentor Y skipcaptcha Perform CAPTCHA-triggering actions without having to go through the CAPTCHA Y Y Y GR spamblacklistlog View the spam blacklist log Y EFH stablesettings Configure how the latest accepted revision is selected and displayed Y suppressionlog View private logs OS suppressredirect Not create a redirect from the old name when moving a page Y Y Y GR, PMR, IE suppressrevision Access the RevisionDelete tool and change the public and administrator visibility of edit revisions and logs OS tboverride Override the title blacklist Y Y TE, PMR, IE tboverride-account Override the username blacklist ACCP templateeditor Edit pages under template protection Y TE, IE titleblacklistlog View title blacklist log (note: the log is empty, as it has not been enabled) Y torunblocked Bypass automatic blocks of Tor exit nodes IPBE transcode-reset Reset failed or transcoded videos so they are inserted into the job queue again Y Y transcode-status View information about the current transcode activity Y undelete Undelete a previously deleted page or specific revisions from it, view deleted revisions Y unwatchedpages View a list of pages which are not on anyone's watchlist Y upload Upload a media file Y Y urlshortener-create-url Create short URLs Y Y userrights Edit all user rights Stewards viewmyprivateinfo View your own private data (e.g. email address, real name) Y viewmywatchlist View your own watchlist Y viewsuppressed View revisions hidden from any user OS vipsscaler-test Use the VIPS scaling test interface Y writeapi Use of the write API Y Y Y Permission   Allows user(s) to… All users Registered accounts Autoconfirmed and Confirmed Bots Administrators Bureaucrats other groups

The table is oversimplified, there is no inheriting. People just belong to more than one group, i.e. everyone belongs to "(all)", all registered users belong to "Users", all current Bureaucrats are also Administrators, and so on. The real list of who can do what is at Special:ListGroupRights. Anomie⚔ 18:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Flag Option for Broken References

Instead of just removing broken references, I suggest the option to Flag broken reference links so future Wiki readers will be aware that the reference is not valid.

Reference Flags would appear (at least to viewers currently logged into a Wiki Account) as a small symbol by the Reference Number, in all locations that it is shown, to make its need for correction more obvious.

This Reference Flag could also be applied to statements still requiring references.

A particular statement or reference could be Flagged repeatedly and after a defined number of Flaggings, or when the conditions of a set algorithm are met, it could be changed to a higher grade Flagging. This would make that particular statement or reference more obvious to those in the Wiki community and thus more likely to be fixed/Edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RossCaleb (talk • contribs) 01:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Other than the ability to repeatedly flag it, I don't see anything this does that the {{Dead link}} template doesn't do. —C.Fred (talk) 01:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Community Sanctions noticeboard

Hi, there is currently a proposal at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#How to enforce that might involve reactivating WP:CSN, but as a community-run version of Arbitration Enforcement board. Input would be appreciated over there. Thanks, The Wordsmith^Communicate 01:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Public Energy Consumption Records

The Wikimedia foundation should publicly release the financial records. We built this encyclopedia, it would make sense for us to see the server costs, salaries, and donation statistics. --Iankap99 (talk) 22:36, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Something like foundation:Annual Report, you mean? — Gavia immer (talk) 22:49, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you I have another one that there's a lower chance of existing.--Iankap99 (talk) 23:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone else think that the energy consumption records should be released?--Iankap99 (talk) 23:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

This isn't the place to deal with that. Only the Foundation can decide what to release and what not to release. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 23:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Anything released by the Foundation would be primary, so to be useful, the data would have to be reported by a reliable secondary source. Anyway, what's with this "we built" stuff? What have you built? - Pointillist (talk) 00:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

We all built this encyclopedia.--Iankap99 (talk) 19:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

New edit filter?

A recent discussion at AN or ANI (can't remember which) noted that a vandal was redirecting multiple Today's Featured Articles to the same target page; as a result, a filter was created to prevent articles from being converted into redirects to that article. While this is potentially useful, I see a greater problem in the possibility of vandals redirecting featured articles: therefore, I'd like to propose a filter to prevent anyone other than autoconfirmed users from converting featured articles into redirects. EdoDodo, who put together the filter I mentioned above, suggests that producing such a filter wouldn't be hard, since the filter could check for the little {{Featured article}} that is meant to be displayed on all articles. I've proposed this because I can't imagine a good reason to convert a featured article into a redirect under any normal conditions. Nyttend (talk) 20:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Maybe do that for GAs, too? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 16:19, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I've set up filter 365 to see what happens. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it's stopped 67 edits so far, and I don't see any false positives. Nyttend (talk) 18:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Handy link. There have been a couple, as I'm still adjusting the parameters. It does a bit more than check for redirects, and Good Articles can still be subject to bold edits which we obviously don't want caught up in it. Another day or three to get some more data, and it should be OK to set to disallow. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Community-based discretionary sanctions proposal

Hello, I'm currently drafting a new, standardized community-based discretionary sanctions system, somewhat similar to Wikipedia:General sanctions (but, with approval, intended to supercede that system for future topic areas placed under probation). It is currently located at User:The Wordsmith/Community sanctions. Input would be appreciated in drafting a proposal ready for RFC. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Porting videos from Khan Academy to Commons, and including them in articles

I'd like to get others' ideas on a large-scale porting of videos from Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/) to Wikimedia Commons and including those videos in relevant Wikipedia articles. The videos are freely licensed (CC-BY-SA-3.0) and thus compatible with Commons's licensing policy. There are a handful of KA videos already on Commons (see [6]). My idea is to get all KA videos onto Commons. Each video could be automatically tagged with at least one high-level category based on which section of the main KA page it is featured. Presumably, there are tools that could be used to programmatically transcode the videos into .ogv format -- this may be the biggest technical task. From a Wikipedia policy perspective, I could foresee an objection being made that directly including Khan Academy videos in Wikipedia articles runs afoul of WP:NOTTEXTBOOK; however, I think many of those videos are more informative than they are instructive. As an example, consider how including http://www.khanacademy.org/video/phases-of-meiosis?playlist=Biology into Meiosis#Phases would benefit that article. It seems that many other articles could benefit similarly. Emw (talk) 15:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me, especially since they're specifically made (if I understand you rightly) to be educational. Even if they fall afoul of NOTTEXTBOOK, videos on Commons are useful to projects such as Wikibooks and Wikiversity, which are meant primarily to be teaching aids. Nyttend (talk) 00:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Bot to fix accidental category or interlanguage links

It is a known problem on some discussion pages where someone will try to wikilink to a category or to a page in another language, and accidentally put the page into the category or create an incorrect interlanguage link instead. AnomieBOT is currently in trial for fixing this sort of error. If you know of a discussion page where this sort of error is relatively common, please add it to Category:Pages automatically checked for accidental language links to give the bot more work to do. If you have any comments, go to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 43. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 00:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Change default skin back to monobook

I think the reasons for this are pretty obvious. It has a cleaner and simpler look and better usability without the over-the-top nature of the vector skin. Anyone agree with me? Access Denied ^{[FATAL ERROR]} 07:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Nope. --Yair rand (talk) 07:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Nope. d'oh! _talk 07:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

MONOBOOK FOREVER etc. etc. The thing is, the foundation paid loads of money for a new skin, and they are not going to revert the default back because of that fact. I'm sure this topic has several threads in the archives of the various village pumps, if you'd like to do more research on it (you're a little late on the draw). Killiondude (talk) 07:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but then I'm still using the windows classic theme. Noodle snacks (talk) 09:27, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The Usability Project claims otherwise. I'm just set in my ways and thus personally use MonoBook; setting the preference isn't very hard at all. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think we should stick with Vector. The reasons are pretty obvious. It has a cleaner and simpler look and better usability. Anyone agree with me? (X! · talk)  · @497  ·  10:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Alzarian16 (talk) 11:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes.—Emil J. 11:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

(in case it wasn't clear, the point of my reply was to show how baseless and subjective the arguments were. Personally, I do support Vector. I use it, and I think it's much better looking than Monobook could ever hope to be.) (X! · talk)  · @928  ·  21:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• Just revert back yourself. They even provided a helpful button to revert back to monobook on all Wikimedia projects, which was a great help. You can even keep using the former (and better) Wikipedia logo with css. –xeno^talk 12:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of which skin is default, let the people (and that means unregistered users) decide for themselves which skin they want. Hpvpp (talk) 22:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Allowing unregistered users to set preferences for themselves is counter-productive. They can register an account if they want that amount of control over how the site is displayed for them; that's not an unreasonable expectation on our part. EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

And unregistered users can't actually have preferences. They are associated with the account, which doesn't exist in this case. It would have to be saved to a cookie, which is totally different from how it's currently done. If the choice of skin is so important, why not create an account? Reach Out to the Truth 23:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Most people use Wikipedia for what it is intended, namely to get information. Having to log in to an account to get a preferred look-and-feel is not worth the effort if the purpose of the visit was just to get some information. In addition, there are many sites out there that offer customization without that hassle so why can't Wikipedia, that very popular site? Furthermore, there are users out there that are not as computer literate as Wikipedia editors. Moreover, there are users out there that do not actually want, for whatever reason, to become that much computer literate, they just want to be able to get the information. And then there are the elderly of which there are many who would find it challenging to become computer literate. But they still have there preferences. And, lastly, there are those who have a dislike for change. And, indeed, "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". I, personally, don't appreciate it when people change something saying that "it's for your own good". Now, it might well be that vector is better for me, but I haven't seen a scientific demonstration to that effect. Failing that, let the choice of skin be stored in a cookie. (Which I proposed here, but which got ignored.) The majority of users are not contributors, but still have preferences which should be honored. Wikipedia is there for users and not just for registered users. Hpvpp (talk) 23:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

You can register, and have your prefs. If people caresmart enough about it to know they can change them in some fashion, they are smart enough to register. You don't even need an email here, unlike most sites. Your account will never even be visible if you never edit. Obviously allowing people to edit without registering is a good thing, but that doesn't mean that prefs should be saved without somehow. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:13, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Some people not liking change is not a very good reason to avoid change. Your previous thread on this was not ignored. As was said in that thread, Wikimedia's caching infrastructure doesn't and can't support allowing anonymous users to have any preference that affect page display. In any case, almost nothing changed for people who do nothing but read articles. A few colors changed (slightly) and some things might have moved a few pixels but the only major difference for readers is the relocated search box. The rest of the major changes affect editors only. Mr.Z-man 02:16, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Hpvpp (talk) 22:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I like Vector, but if some IP doesn't, they can suck it up or create an account (yay!). The WMF did spend a lot of effort on this switch and it's happened. Either change it in your settings or spend some of your own money and time showing why Monobook is better (which it isn't, because it's outdated ugly). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Now there is still a lot of room for improvement for the Vector skin. Some changes are good usability-wise, some others are really lacking. It would be really long to thoroughly explain - especially to users who are not familiar with the Web usability guidelines - so I won't say more. But I am confident that those issue will be solved later on, and going backwards just won't help. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:07, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It's been quite a while since they trashed their cash, they can quietly admit the fact and turn monobook back on. Never say never. East of Borschov 06:34, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I say switch back. I find it rather hard to verbally describe how to navigate this new one, which is why I stick with Monobook for all the private wikis I've set up for my clients. Frotz (talk) 04:06, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm use to monobook and use that as my skin but I find there's one big advantage to having vector set as the global default. It makes it immediately obvious if I'm for some reason not logged in. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:52, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Same here. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point, I guess I can get rid of my green save button now =] –xeno^talk 12:52, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Vector already appears more user-friendly to me than Monobook, and it's more likely to be the basis of further improvements. There is always resistance to change in a user interface. Even the mere fact that the resistance stayed within reasonable bounds even though Monobook had been the default for such a long time indicates that it is an improvement. Personally I am missing one of my former extensions (which isn't compatible), but am otherwise very happy with the change. Hans Adler 13:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Not only do I think that vector is more user friendly, I like the look of it, and would opposing having the default switched back to monobook. Ajraddatz (Talk) 15:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I tried to get used to Vector, but I couldn't. The main thing is I just don't like where the search box is. The Monobook choice for the search box location is better. --Trovatore (talk) 16:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Glad to see that Ron has the same opinion. I've tried many times to get used to vector but I give up after just a few minutes. The main problem is the editing window toolbar. Where in monobook there is a neat row of easily clickable buttons, vector hides them all in drop downs, and doesn't even provide them all. I still have an occasional stab at vector to see if there's anything I 've missed, but I can't get used to it. --Kudpung (talk) 10:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the vector tries to be "simpler" but in hiding things in drop-downs or spans, you're really increasing the number of clicks required to do things. It's not like it was hard to find things on monobook. --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 10:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Append welcome templates automatically to first talk posts on new editors talk pages

I often welcome editors. I also often see that editors have been "welcomed" by a spam, prod, image copyvio or AfD templates, or such, almost all the time those "welcomes" are automated and not personalized. This is problematic, as it 1) introduces the editor to the community in a rather scary way and 2) makes it less likely he will ever be properly welcomed. I know that there has been some objection to an automatic welcome bot, as not personal enough, but as things stand, a lot of editors are not welcomed for months or years, and others are welcomed by unfriendly warning templates. I'd like to propose that we consider a welcome bot again, or if it is still not acceptable, that most warning templates (listed above) would automatically transclude Template:Welcome in them if they are posted to new talk page (i.e. they create it). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

How would automatically including Template:Welcome at all solve the problem of other "welcomes" being automated and not personalized? Anomie⚔ 15:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... we already have some discussion about the value of the overwhelmingly warm welcome made automatically when making a first warning about some really blatant vandalism! I tend to manually delete it. --Kudpung (talk) 16:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

If someone is vandalizing, they don't need the nice {{welcome}}. Even in borderline cases, where I think it's more misunderstanding than intentional disruption, I feel weird leaving the Welcome, because the first line welcomes the person for their contributions. But, for instance, if a person comes on adding something intended to spam an external link, or to introduce a POV statement, I don't really want to thank them for their contributions, as the contributions are anathema to our project. I still use it, because I like giving people the wide set of links in case they are serious about improving the project, but I almost feel like I'm contradicting myself: "Thanks for contributing! I've deleted your contribution!" I'm not sure if there's a solution here, though...but I definitely don't feel the need for a welcome Bot.Qwyrxian (talk) 01:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This problem is so obvious that I feel sure it was a mistake in the design of the template syntax or whatever else puts the warning automatically on the user's talk page. This discussion should be now be moved quickly to the appropriate talk page, for example either the vandalism talk page, the template talk page, the Friendly talk page, or the talk pages of the editors who made the template. When doing so, please be sure to leave a note and a link here so that it can be followed up - I'm extremely interested in seeing, or participating in the outcome.--Kudpung (talk) 05:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The prod and prod-nn templates already welcome automatically. Abductive (reasoning) 06:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Wrong argument, methinks. I have understood that the point we are making here is that giving blatant vandals, corporate spammers, and copyvioloatosr, a beaming warm welcome and a plate of cookies with a Level 1 warning is the wrong way to instill discipline. We don't warn them with PROD, we either radically CSD them, or place big maintenenance templates on the top that don't don't give a hearty welcome. Level 1 warnings with air kisses on both cheeks are fine for the people who edit or create in Good faith, but who are just too lazy to read the rules first.--Kudpung (talk) 08:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't making an argument, just stating a fact. Abductive (reasoning) 09:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry! I didn't mean to sound critical. I realise now that you were stating a fact, but it came across as if you were defending the idea of welcoming the miscreatns ;) --Kudpung (talk) 10:18, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You are making a valid point that some vandal-welcome templates are too friendly; but this is NOT the point I was making. My point was the opposite: that often, good-faithed new editors are not welcomed, instead the only interaction they receive from us is a warning that a file they uploaded will be deleted, or one of many other similar warning templates. Obviously, we are not dealing with vandals here, but good editors who may not be aware that there is a larger community out there. Instead of welcoming them properly and inviting them to it, we are scaring them way with automated, impersonal, technical messages... Here's another case: User talk:Click2sunny. That editor has created a decent first article, that good deleted, than recreated it an obviously acceptable form. Instead of being thanked for his efforts and improving the first article, all he had on his talk page was the warning about deletion of his first article. That the admin who posted to his talk page did not bother to welcome him in addition to warning, is sad; but common - which is why I say we should have the welcome process automated, with welcome template being added automatically to a bunch of templates. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

We need Template:Welcometest, Template:First article, Template:Welcomespam, and Template:Welcome-anon-vandal but less yellow to be more widely used (and further improved, and further variations made).

Ideally, they would be among the top options in twinkle and huggle and etc. (I suggested part of that last year, but noone replied or acted on it). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the automatic welcome is that there's no way to check for a manual welcome (without welcoming and warning in two steps). I run into this a lot with, of all the templates, {{db-vandalism-notice}}. It auto-welcomes if the page didn't exist before; I'll miss it half the time while previewing and wind up with two welcome templates on the user's talk page. If I assumed that behaviour on all the templates, I wouldn't welcome about 90% of the new users whose talk pages I leave the first comment on. —C.Fred (talk) 21:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Use a bot to welcome new users. Personally, I find the redlink comment to be the most convincing. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

IPhone/Android apps

I have an idea about donation. I am a developer and it would be a pleasure for me to donate part of my time to develop applications for IPhone and Android that give richer experience to the users. The apps can be sold for one 99 cents. All the money would be collected by Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Riemaxi (talk • contribs) 08:13, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

There are many applications for mobile about Wikipedia. The official application should have discussed by Wikimedia board. You can be free to create an application and donate the profits to Wikimedia Foundation.--Kaspo (talk) 14:46, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The current application is open source and available here http://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-iphone —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:06, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd be willing to help develop/port any android app for this. I'm already a registered android developer :) [stwalkerster|talk] 01:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Bio articles: proposal to allow lifespan year-ranges at the opening

Editors' attention is drawn to a straw poll at WT:MOSNUM concerning whether, where the full dates of birth and death appear in the body of a bio article, the style guides should recommend (but not insist on) the use of years alone at the top of the lead to express the lifespan. The exception to this recommendation would be where the actual dates of birth or death are significant per se. Tony (talk) 03:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist options

When I have a Bot edit on my watchlist I can hide it with the button "Hide bots", but the page disappears from the list. This is of little utility, because I do not know if prior to the bot edit there is a substantial edit. So in any case I have to go and see directly the page or the page history.
It would be much more useful if the "hide bots" button could hide only the bot edit, not the page, and show me the last edit before the bot edit. The same is true also for the other hide buttons (minor, anonymous, logged-in), except "hide my edits" (because in that case I already saw the prior edits).
Is it possible to modify the options to achieve this? --GianniG46 (talk) 01:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree it would be good if there was an option for this. You can, however, go to your preferences → watchlist tab → and tick the option for "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent". This will allow you to see prior edits even after hiding bot edits, though it is a bit of a blunderbuss solution because you may not want to see other expanded edits.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

See also T11790. Anomie⚔ 03:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I've seen the Bugzilla item is almost the same than mine, and when I have time I will log there. For now I am trying the expanded wathchlist option.
Now I have a related, perhaps more difficult, question: if you look at the page history of a "popular" page, like this, you see that it is unreadable, because 80% of the edits are vandalize/revert sequences. It would be great if one could have an option to hide/unhide these edits, which would be very useful if one is trying to follow when, how and by which certain statements were added or modified in the page. I don't know if this is even conceptually possible, but I know that the clever wiki programmers can make also impossible tasks, so may be someone has some tool for this. --GianniG46 (talk) 08:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of a solution for this but given your post, I thought you might get some use out of WikiBlame, a tool that allows you to search for exactly what revision in a page's history added (or is to "blame") for particular text.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I use it, when I look for just one precise expression, but sometimes I would prefer to follow directly the evolution of a section, for example by using sequentially the tool "compare revisions", and it is a pity I cannot do this without passing through dozens of bot edits and do/undo sequences. --GianniG46 (talk) 23:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Unanswered Questions

Ever read through a Wikipedia article and not find the information you were looking for? You realise that something specific is missing, but you haven't got the knowledge or time right now to update it.

At the bottom of each article, there could be a section called 'Unanswered Questions'. Directly below the section-title could be the words "You can help by answering them."

This is a more accurate alternative (or in addition to) to "this article is a stub you can help by expanding it". People will see specicfic questions that are unanswered and may think, "Hey, I can answer that!" or "Hey, I think I will go and research that."

It will provide guidance to how an article needs to be improved. Editors can ask questions to be answered, or answer specific questions to improve an article.

This idea has already been used in Lostpedia, the Lost Wikia, for asking questions about lost.

Stormyharbour (talk) 09:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo has basically what you are talking about over at his other project Wikia with WikiAnswers. It is, as he stated recently, his day job while Wikipedia is his hobby (oh, Daddy loves the other child more than us). He may be someone who would be quite interested in something similar here (or most against it; as Wikia is a for-profit enterprise with advertising and this would put us in competition which Wikia has said it does not wish to compete directly against us).Camelbinky (talk) 02:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that is what Stormyharbour is proposing, the proposal is a new section at the bottom of each article where readers can ask questions on the subject when the article didn't cover it. Then when a editor see the question and if they knows the answer or can research about it the question can be "answered", by adding the new information to the article. A replacement of the {{stub}} template and give good feedback to editors. I like the idea. -- d'oh! _[talk] 10:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that I imagine the vast majority of such questions would ask things that we couldn't answer (because there are no reliable sources) or shouldn't answer (because they're out of the scope of the article). So, we'd also have to give editors the ability to remove questions because they aren't relevant to that article, and we'd have to live with the fact that a very large number of questions would never be answered, like "Who is Celebrity X dating?" or "Why did leader Y invade country Z?" It might be interesting to try out, if the technical issues aren't so much that developers would be unhappy if the feature had to be pulled. 10:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwyrxian (talk • contribs)

Sounds like something the WP:Reference desks and the individual article talk pages should handle. In the meantime there's an {{unanswered}} template for unanswered talk page posts (Category:Unresolved questions or requests). -- œ^™ 02:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Custom "New Messages" alerts

A recent ANI thread that suggested a user might not realise someone was actually trying to contact them made me think we should look at the possibility of custom "New Messages" titles in the message bar that appears when something has been posted to your talk page.

E.g.

• "Another editor has contacted you, please check your talk page" for manually typed messages from other editors
• "Another editor has posted a template/warning/prewritten message has been posted on your talk page, please check and see what the problem is" for templated warnings manually posted
• "A automated bot has posted a message on your talkpage, please check your talkpage" for bot posted messages.

Possibly also "editor" to be replaced by "administrator" when an admin posts to flag the potentially more serious messages.

Is this technically feasible? Can the new messages system be programmed to recognise (by flag or similar) different types of messages? Could we take this further and have most recent messages? A short message preview appearing? Something like

• (Time/Date) - GenericBot has posted a warning about image blah.jpg.
• (Time/Date) - Editor (username) has left you a message.
• (Time/Date) - ALERT - You have been reported to WP:ANI. (flags off the ANI-warning template)
• (Time/Date) - Administrator (username) has left you a message. (flags off admin flag on the account)
• (Time/Date) - WARNING : ACCOUNT BLOCKED, See your talk (flags off either technical block or block template)

Information to appear where just the "new messages" shows. Far more informative and improves communication. Is this idea good? Feasible? Technically possible? Wanted? Unwanted? Thoughts everyone? Exxolon (talk) 12:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

These are all nice ideas and fair questions, but you have missed the most important one: "who is gonna do it ?" —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The most important question is the color. The fact that I get an orange message bar that makes my heart miss a beat even if i did not screw up anything is one of the major drawbacks of this site;) Seriously, yes to improvements indicating also the number of new messages, setting the default colour to skyblue or the like and highlighting only templated messages or alters as orange only. Blocks are already clear enough from logging in as far as I know, though.--Tikiwont (talk) 14:14, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I note that we don't have a message system. We have talkpages, and to a computer, talkpages are incomprehensible. At best he can be taught a few things, but it will always be messy and full of errors. Compare it like someone (no computer expert) using the web. Then suddenly instead of the rendered webpage, you get the actual HTML. You can read some parts, but most of it will just be jibberish. That is what a talkpage looks like for a computer. LiquidThreads might improve that a bit though. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:23, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Even if it's possible, I wouldn't set apart a message from a common editor and a message from an admin. It would be better to set apart a warning from a common message. If a user vandalizes an article and receives a warning, it matter little the identity of the user making the warning, who does not need to be an admin. And for messages like "Could you check if this article is ready for FAC nomination?" or similar, being admin or not is unimportant. MBelgrano (talk) 14:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not really possible or feasible with the current system. Maybe, if consensus for getting LiquidThreads installed, it may be possible, with some modifications to LT, but almost definitely not with the current system. I'm not trying to say NO, but I'm just telling you from a technical perspective. It'd just be very hard IMHO to write something like that. [stwalkerster|talk] 01:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Not to be a grouch, but I don't care much for the idea. A message is a message is a message; in theory, the person leaving said message should use a descriptive subject line, which would be visible in your watchlist without "reading" the message itself. I don't think the "an admin has messaged you" variant is a good idea; a non-admin can leave a message just as "administrative" as a non-admin and, by that logic, admins can say stuff that is just as unimportant as a non-admin. A message that gets displayed that informs you that you've been blocked isn't a bad idea (though, ideally, a block is accompanied by a talk page notice; the only times where an account is getting blocked without a talk page notice would be for socks that don't "need" to be informed anyway). EVula // talk // ☯ // [7] (whoops, didn't sign)

You might be able to do this with a bit of java script to load the talk page, the the nessacary API queries, and parse it update the message banner accordingly, though you'd be introducing additional http requests which of course increases load for a somewhat trivial feature. The Article Quality metadata script basicly works the same way, except by loading &section=0 of the article's talk page, though here you'd need to do more than just 1 additional HTTP request. Your looking at at least 2 requests. One for the property of the user flags (is it a bot/admin?), the other for is the user currently blocked, in addition to the request for the page, or possibly the diff. Alternatively you'd probably need an extension to mediawiki to do that (you could probably use the ArticleEditUpdateNewTalk hook). I'm not quite sure what the DJ is referring to about mediawiki being unable to parse talk pages, as long as it is standard wiki syntax there shouldn't be too much of a problem and all those checks can be done using conditionals. It's not like you actually have to lingustically understand the message to be able to determine properties about the message. --nn123645 (talk) 13:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I support changing the color of the new message template and maybe adjusting the new messages alert, but I oppose this liquid threads idea. I tried out the tool at en.labs.wikimedia yesterday and I didn't like it. It was clunky and much harder to read than normal talk pages. It looked more like a forum than a talk page. --Alpha Quadrant ^talk 16:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I really don't like the idea of separate colors of banners for notes left by admins and non-admins; that would mean that I'd be scaring everyone. As well, I really don't like LiquidThreads; it's the reason that I've found Wiktionary discussions very confusing. Nyttend (talk) 01:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't particularly care about the colour; it could be bright pink and would still serve its purpose. For the sake of new editors, however, I support having the text changed to something more descriptive. Anything works in that regard, even "Another editor has left you a message (show changes)". Ajraddatz (Talk) 04:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia-wide discussion on bullying

Since bullying has been in the media and talk shows (almost always with Dr Phil showing up as a guest) I think the bullying and terrible things that are allowed to happen on Wikipedia need to be addressed and we need to have a bullying free civil discussion on the following things that go on around here. (And cue the obligatory stupid comments against me personally saying "Camelbinky did this..." and "Camelbinky said that..." only supporting my position anyways)

• Someone has a problem with another user, and then that user's "friends" bombard the other user with talk page posts. Is escalation and ganging up on an editor really needed? How does that further building an encyclopedia?
• Continued contacting on another user's talk page with no reason behind it other than to "prove you cant be banned from a talk page".
• Wiki-stalking by following the person's contributions and intentionally taking the other side in a discussion, challenging edits, and otherwise making it unenjoyable to edit (all of which IS in fact against policy to do already, but hardly ever enforced)

These and more happen to editors every day and it cause them (like me) to end up not getting any work done because of the stress. As I've made public before I have social disorders and like many other people in the world (including editors on Wikipedia) can not handle such stress. Even "average" (whatever that is) editors should not have "bullying" done against them whether they can "handle" it or not. Please keep your comments civil, do not attack me personally, and I would love to have a real discussion here regarding the bullying that can, and does, happen every day on Wikipedia and what should be done about it (except- just ignore it). Obviously "just ignore it" does not work as we've seen in our schools, colleges, and online social communities. We do have minors on here, and people of all ages and abilities. We've seen individuals commit suicide over what is said in online social communities like Myspace and Facebook; and while one individual in Missouri was initially found to have not committed a crime in what effectively was pushing a person over the edge online to commit suicide, other states including Missouri are changing laws in order to prosecute people. Eventually someone WILL commit suicide due to harrassment on Wikipedia and the person who pushed the deceased over the edge will find an unpleasant truth- they are in jail for what Wikipedia found to be a "non-issue" that someone should have just "shrugged" off. A society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable. Currently Wikipedia can not be judged to highly.Camelbinky (talk) 02:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And here is a link if anyone wants to read about the Missouri case that lead to the current national discussion on bullying and the Missouri law regarding cyberbullying that was enacted in its wake. And yes, the law does apply to Wikipedia regardless of Wikipedia's servers being in Florida, and was the only the first such law to be enacted, more are still being considered in the Missouri house and senate.Camelbinky (talk) 03:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree, though there are already policies on bullying and harassment, there not fully enforced and even if they are enforced it a long process which most good editors will question the point of editing Wikipedia or even worst think about suicide. A wide discussion is badly needed on a good way to enforce these policies, efficiently and timely. -- d'oh! _[talk] 04:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC) - Withdrawn, clearly there is something more to this discussion then what I am aware of as such I don't want to be involved and I am withdrawing comment. -- d'oh! _[talk] 14:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Some questions:

• What do we consider bullying here? I mean, from my experience, it seems like more of a term that is freely thrown around when somebody or some group of users do not get their way. We need to be able to differentiate that from the actual bullying that may be going on here.
• Speaking as an administrator, what roles do we collectively play here, as editors, administrators, functionaries, and even WMF staff? While most people should be knowledgeable in how to handle immediate intervention should a suicide situation arise, keep in mind that, in a more legalistic sense, we are lay people; nearly everybody here lack the professional training that is required in most psychologists, social workers, etc. to be able to handle some such problematic users. All school districts at least in the U.S. are obligated to provide such a service; does that mean we (the Foundation) are also obligated to? I think something like that in which Internet communities are obligated to provide social work and psychological/psychiatric services would need to come through years of legal and legislative effort. –MuZemike 05:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

"And cue the obligatory stupid comments against me personally saying "Camelbinky did this..." and "Camelbinky said that..." only supporting my position anyways" — are you saying that any criticism directed towards you automatically counts as "bullying" or "harassment"? No, I'm not going to post diffs, one only need look at your recent contributions to find what may have prompted this thread. I agree that there is a lot of unpleasantness around the project at times (although I've not witnessed anything I would describe as bullying, I have heard plenty of other editors say that they have) and it can be a stressful environment. I have seen a great deal of incivility and personal attacks (although there seem to be many who are confused as to what those two things really mean); I would love to see an end to all of that. As far as Wikipedia-related suicide goes, I'm extremely sympathetic to people's physical and mental health problems, and well aware that we're not all thick-skinned or brimming with assertiveness, but at some point there has got to be some kind of personal responsibility where one's own health is concerned. If a you know that editing Wikipedia stresses you out and is detrimental to your health, but you keep coming back, then you are at least partly responsible. (That's not directed towards anyone in particular, but the hypothetical suicidal editor.) A kid who is being bullied at school doesn't have many options. An adult being bullied in the workplace probably has a few more. If you're being bullied on a website, you always have the option of switching off your computer and walking away.--BelovedFreak 08:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you expect "Bully Policy" to work when all existing policies fail? I'm not making fun, I just don't see any solutions. Wikipedia is not a democracy and editors have no rights, so the bosses say. It's like living in a ghetto, but as Beloved said, one mouse click and it's over. East of Borschov 09:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• How in your mind does your concern over alleged bullying justify comments like this? Parrot of Doom 10:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• You indicate above, Camelbinky, that you have social disorders. The person without social disorders recognizes that they way to amend a situation they caused, by insulting another editor with inaccurate facts, no less, is to strike your incorrect commentary, apologize, or otherwise stop antagonizing the very editors you appear to be calling "bullies". If there are any "bullies" here, you seem not to have correctly identified them. I don't see any productive use of this thread: we already have civility policies that aren't enforced (you are allowed to target Malleus at ANI, knowing that he can't do same without being blocked), and adding a "bullying" policy to already unenforced policies won't accomplish anything. Now, about that apology and strike ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Nope, not going to happen because when Malleus awhile ago basically called me a retard both on AN/I and on Jimbo's talk page no one did anything except one or two people saying "it was uncalled for" and I received no apology and it he dismissed it as just "his opinion based on how I write" and has continued to comment that my contributions are "crap" in his words. So, no, I dont feel I need to strike or apologize because as a person who is bullied often tries to stick up for themselves it always turns on them and those who support the bully because he is "more popular" always shine the light on what the bullied does wrong. I think this is crap that this has all become about me when this is a serious problem that occurs to lots of editors. And my articles arent crap and I will never forgive someone for calling something I love to do crap. And I suggest you seriously stop posting to my talk page about this matter or posting about it everywhere else. How about leaving people alone and not escalating things? How do you think you are making situations better by doing the things you do?Camelbinky (talk) 13:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Diffs? Nev1 (talk) 13:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Your grasp of the facts seems to be at best tenuous Camelbinky, as you so ably demonstrated yesterday at ANI. I have no recollection of ever calling anyone a retard, and that certainly isn't a term I would be likely to use. A search of Jimbo's talk page archive reveals only one use of the word, and it wasn't from me and it wasn't directed at you. It seems to me that you're the one doing the bullying CB, and resorting to playing the victim and blustering every time you get caught out. Playing the victim is a very common strategy amongst bullies. Malleus Fatuorum 13:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you efing kidding me?! I said "basically" and you never used the word retard. I believe it was something along those lines and why do I want to spend my time finding diffs regarding something like that?! OMG! This is ridiculous. Amazing how you happen to know this strategy. Whatever. I cant take this. You win. You are soooooooo right, I'm a big bad bully, yup, I've been so mean to you by sticking up to you and not wanting to take your crap and give back to you what you do to me and try to make you feel how you make me feel. Whatever. Just stay away from me.Camelbinky (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I see. So you weren't exactly telling the truth in other words. It's not really so amazing that someone with a degree in psychology would know how bullies ofen react when they're caught out if you think about it though. Malleus Fatuorum 14:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You have a degree in psychology? Funny I'm sorry I cant believe that because when I said I had a degree in Poli Sci and am a graduate student you said that you couldnt believe that I went to college and some other things regarding my intelligence. So I find it fair that I now question your credentials. I'm done with this. This thread was supposed to be about bullying on Wikipedia and a serious discussion. But of course it has to be all about me instead and ruin a serious problem. This is why things continue to be like this in the world.Camelbinky (talk) 14:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You've very ably demonstrated several times over the last few days that what you believe has only the flimsiest of roots in reality, so what you believe doesn't really interest me very much I'm afraid. This thread had absolutely nothing to do with bullying on wikipedia or anywhere else for that matter, as any fool can very easily see. Malleus Fatuorum 14:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Back 'round to WP:AGF again: so, CB, are you basically saying Malleus is a liar with "I'm sorry I cant believe that"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

To prove your point? Memory's a funny old thing and events can get distorted with distance. Nev1 (talk) 13:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• And of course this has devolved into exactly what I figured- gang up and make it about Camelbinky instead of the actual problems on Wikipedia. Yea, great. I love the idea that if someone is being bullied they should walk away from Wikipedia. You know what? Wish it was the way where if someone walked away they could take their contributions with them and then we'd see what the attitude was about individuals being driven away when huge numbers of articles would have to be deleted every time someone left. Encouraging those being bullied to go and just leave is itself a bullying tactic. This is ridiculous. And no it isnt recent things that have brought this up. I had a wiki-stalker awhile ago following me to articles and taking an opposite position every time, tagging and questioning sourced material and other things until finally others pointed out how flagrant it had become.

Thank you MuZemike and D'oh for keeping to topic and trying to have a real discussion on this. I think it is important. Unfortunately others have the attitude of attack and bully even in a discussion about bullying. Personally anyone who acts stupid in this discussion and thinks its ok to say things that are obviously attempts to embarress, discredit, or bully away any other editor in this discussion should get a 24 hour block for just doing that. This is the worst place to show the same disregard, contempt, and asshole attitude that we are talking about.Camelbinky (talk) 13:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So you'd like to block people that disagree with your proposals? People who point out, for the benefit of others, that you're not averse to a bit of "contempt...and asshole attitude" yourself? That's nice, isn't it. Parrot of Doom 14:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This is the Village Pump for Proposals. What exactly are you proposing? Note that we already have Wikipedia:Harassment policy. Rd232 ^talk 13:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And WP:CIVIL, and WP:NPA, and WP:AGF. I suggest that if CB thinks those have been breached, he take this to WP:DR to get a better view on just who did the breaching. We don't need yet another unenforcable policy. Also, I note that "feel free to add funny ones you see at noticeboards, article and user talk pages" is still on CB's user page, so he's got a tough row to hoe to demonstrate harassment, while he has clearly breached AGF several times (and indicates above that he is unapologetic). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• There's a saying that goes, roughly, "There is a mark at every poker table. If you can't see one, it's you." Something similar seems to apply here. → ROUX ₪ 14:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(Actual quote: ""If you've been in the game for 30 minutes and you don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy." - Warren Buffett.) --John Nagle (talk) 04:46, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

My proposal is that we stop giving each other a hard time and work together to ridicule the Missouri legislature for passing such a stupid bill. The bill fails to recognize that a group of people have the right to tell someone who is not welcome to go away, and to continue to tell the unwelcome person to go away until the person is actually gone. (By the way, my definition of a stupid bill is one which contains one or more stupid provisions, even if it also contains other provisions that have merit.) Jc3s5h (talk) 14:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is far more proactive in dealing with harassment, uncivil behavior, and related annoyances than almost any other large scale multi-user system I can think of. Editors are blocked or banned frequently for incivility. Read the traffic on WP:ANI. What, exactly, is the problem? --John Nagle (talk) 04:46, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Renaming the accountcreator group

I propose changing the name of the accountcreator usergroup to something like "account supercreator", since it's often confused with users who just have access to the ACC interface and who aren't necessarily part of the accountcreator group. As if to make it even more confusing, the bottom of the ACC interface main page displays "Account Creators currently online (past 5 minutes):". —  Waterfox  14:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• God, just kill the whole user group already. And kill tools:~acc as well. What a horrible waste of time and resources. An entire sub-culture devoted to account creation. It's simultaneously completely mind-boggling, while at the same completely predictable for the English Wikipedia. Impressively idiotic. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:18, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Do you have a solution for people who cannot read the CAPTCHA, or who want a username that is falsely detected as being too similar to an existing username or is hit by the title blacklist? Anomie⚔ 22:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Implement a proper extension into MediaWiki that allows admins to handle requests from users. Using the Toolserver presents a whole slew of issues that could have been and should have been completely avoided. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Feel free to go ahead. [stwalkerster|talk] 14:22, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) Go for it. See also T15782. Although unless the situation behind Wikipedia talk:Request an account/Archive 3#Increasing Limit and Wikipedia talk:Request an account/Archive 3#Discussion on giving accountcreators override-antispoof right has changed, admins-only may not work out so well. Anomie⚔ 14:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
        • You don't see a problem with people implementing an entirely different system in the same programming language? There's an external server dependency, leaked private data (like IP addresses), an entirely different user auth and permissions system, a different user interface, and more... for account creation. I was involved in the discussions about this project much, much earlier. I said it was a stupid project then and nothing has changed. I'll re-open that bug. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
          • It's more a problem of getting access to the svn repo, and writing to an API which many of the current developers are unfamiliar with, as well as getting updates code-reviewed and scapped when we need/want them. [stwalkerster|talk] 20:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
          • I see a problem with advocating deleting the entire thing without any concern for why it exists in the first place or how the legitimate functions it provides would be done in the future. Anomie⚔ 03:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I think you are confusing the necessity of the process with the subculture which has grown up around it. cf vandal fighting & huggle. → ROUX ₪ 22:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support Not commenting on the tangential issues raised above, the fact is that I agree in toto with Waterfox's pov. The account creator flag is essentially different from the right to use the ACC Tool Server interface - although I think the name accountsupercreator that Waterfox suggests might not be that appropriate. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 10:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

  Another possibility would be not to rename the group, but put all people who have ACC access in the accountcreator group. — Waterfox  13:03, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• No! Perhaps a better idea would be to allow the account creator flag to remain the way it is. Rather, we should completely change the terminology we use to address the ACC team. In other words, rather than addressing ACC team members as account creators, we should call them user name request handlers; and the same even on the tool server interface. That should solve this whole issue once and for all. Because of this very issue, I had to create a new userbox for showing the ACC Tool Server usage right. Waterfox, whenever you wish, open up an RfC on this issue. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 15:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Strong support per Wifione, we should call ACC team members ACC Tool users and account creators account creators. That will remove the confusion amongst most people. —Ғяіᴆaз'§Đøøм • Champagne? • 7:03pm • 08:03, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Support part of MZMcBride's solution -- get rid of ACC, install RequestAccount and allow account creators access to RequestAccount. CheckUsers should be able to see IPs. Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 18:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support - Per Wifione. Removing ACC altogether would serve no purpose. ACC is extremely effective at creating accounts. Many people can't read the CAPTCHA, assigning the tool that only administrators and checkusers can us would only cause it to become backlogged. --Alpha Quadrant ^talk 13:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• I don't care about renaming the user right, although anyone who has read the appropriate guide and documentation should understand the difference. But I support MzMcBride's idea in concept, although I'm not sure about the implementation. There have been many questions raised on the toolserver ACC interface, especially with non-identified users seeing IP addresses connected to usernames. The toolserver is not the most stable site, and is routinely down for maintenance, etc. An onwiki system would be much more effective, but I don't know how feasible it is right now, because ConfirmAccount would need modifications for efficiency and access. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Focus cursor in user-id field on log-in screen

Not just saving effort, but also better for my mouse-arm. Hpvpp (talk) 03:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Support: Simple but useful improvement... Rehman⁽⁺⁾ 07:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - this somehow (don't ask me) creates accessibility problems. You might like mw:Extension:AjaxLogin, though. THEMONO™ 19:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

For an interface screen that doesn't ever exceed one screen in length, and hence will never need scrolling, the accessibility problems are very minor - basically, tabbing to the search bar would be slightly out of order, but nothing more. I'm not supporting or opposing this, but it's a far more sensible proposal than giving focus to the search bar on lengthy article pages, which is the usual context for such requested changes. — Gavia immer (talk) 20:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I had forgotten about this, but was reminded by my aching arm. Can't you people give user comfort a bit more priority, please? Hpvpp (talk) 21:43, 11 January 2011 (UTC)