Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 1

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Article space templates

I've been wondering, why are all the "page might not be neutral", "page needs cleanup", "page might be compromised by weasel words", "page lacks sufficient cowbell" templates in article space? They're horribly obtrusive, in many cases convey the opinion of the editor who has deigned to "drive-by tag" the article more than any measure to which they reflect consensus and are next to useless for the reader. That information on Wikipedia ought to be cross-referenced and taken with a grain of salt (much like any other source) is a fact unknown to virtually no regular browser of the site, and at any rate is a notion that would be much better conveyed with a small universal disclaimer rather than with humongous, descending, colorful, graphic-laden monstrosities of a template, equivalent in all respects to the much-deprecated "Under contruction!!" notice notoriously plaguing novice websites.

In what is in no way an invocation of Argumentum ad Jimbonem, I must note that the assertion "[Wikipedia is] like a sausage: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made" applies to exactly this sort of case. I suggest that Templates like these should be relocated to their respective discussion pages, and anticipating that this might very probably have already been suggested and rejected, would at least like a link to the obligatory behemoth discussion that took place so I can understand the rationale behind things being the way they are now. --AceMyth 17:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this has been discussed, but I know that I am against such a measure. There are two reasons why these templates should remain in article space: first, we like to encourage new editors, so it serves us well to give new editors a place to start, and second, it is important that a reader knows that what they are reading is not the best of Wikipedia. Someone might be very turned off from Wikipedia if the first article they read is full of grammatical mistakes and POV and they don't know that we realize that fact and want to fix it. —METS501 (talk) 17:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I use wikipedia far more than I make changes. I'd like to see a compromise between the above two viewpoints where the "cleanup" templates are made quieter: smaller, no box, no color, no icon. With only a little exposure I can know that wikipedia is a work in progress and that some pages are better than others, and that I can edit nearly every page. The only time I care about the box is if I happen to be editing the page anyway and it suggests something I can actually do. Quirkie 18:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur with this and add that a clear separator plus a healthy amount of space between the templates and the article would also be a good idea, both aesthetically and functionally. i.e. something like this, which still has a box etc. but I think would be a step in the right direction (cf. this quasi-current version of the same article, which begins with the equivalent of putting the reader through a powerpoint presentation). --AceMyth 00:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Whether as user or editor, I find the whole lot of "IN YOUR FACE" templates to be obnoxious and in poor taste—and worse, unprofessional. To me, they are self-inflicted wounds that could be replaced by a modest 2 line tall notice. I don't buy the idea that such tags encourage someone to become an editor. An "editor mentality" will spot and error and fix the typo or grammar without a tag. There are a lot of reasons to quiet them down and make an understated message, not least that they half blast me off the chair when viewing said page. {{underconstruction}} is probably the worst of the lot, and the least needful to be a big box. A simple statement that the page is a work in progress is sufficient. // FrankB 17:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly true that many of these "cleanup categories" have fairly dedicated "locals", for whom it wouldn't matter at all if there were no (visible) template at all, as they'll be "consumed" by those editors regardless (a minority do work this way: see Category:Uncategorised albums, say). The argument the other way is that high-visibility templates act as reminders to editors visiting the pages for other reasons, and perhaps even induce someone without the "editor mentality" to become an editor. (I suspect a lot of that's supposition rather than anything backed up with in-depth research or cognitive insight, but I don't doubt it's deeply felt in good faith.) I suspect {{underconstruction}} is trying to out-shout other templates, and feels it "needs" to be so visible because of its history as a supposedly short-term "am editing this Right Now, please avoid edit conflicts", but it's since had some wording drift, and of course tends to persist longer on articles than makes any sense. The last point could be dealt with fairly easily by automated removal, though it doesn't look like a large-scale problem at this instant. Alai 08:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I know I started regularly editing 2+ years ago because of a {{wikify}} tag somewhere. I thought "I can do that", and did. Prior to that I'd only added a couple of external links to a few pages. Soon after, I received a {{welcome-anon}}, and started a named account. --Quiddity 16:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I also meant to add: even if there's no real "passers-by" effect (and evidently, there is at least some), it's certainly fairly likely to spur regular contributors to that article into taking some sort of action, if the template is sufficiently conspicuous as to make them actively want to remove it. (Of course, sometimes removing it is literally all they then do, but one lives in hope.) Alai 16:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Certainly I started editing because of BJAODN. But I don't really care if it was deleted: I was that much younger and sillier then. This does not mean that BJ... should've been retained because then another user would not have been attracted or such. Of course, we're building an encyclopedia. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 22:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Stop the practise of edit comments within main article

Articles have talk pages for suggesting improvement or the removal of errors IF it is not possible for the critic to simply make the changes themselves. While done in good faith, I find the litter of commnets often pasted on pages in parenthesis rather bad preentation for wikipeida, not to mention ugly and unnecessary (her is one example [[1]] at the time of posting. I certainly don't remember such text insertions being as common in the past. I suggest what is picked up on is Edited or discussed in the relevant arenas instead Dainamo 07:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary. Can you quote what you mean? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I would guess the reference is to the weasel-word and citation-needed stuff. SamBC(talk) 10:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Don't see what the problem is. The alternative is just to delete the tagged comments, with the tags it can act as a prompt to whoever posted the information to provide credible citations to back up their claims and as a warning to other users to treat with caution. Yorkshiresky 16:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Download version history as RCS file

This is a request for a new feature in the MediaWiki software. On the article history page like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pedophilia&action=history I have to click a thousand times if I want to download all versions so I can grep them. Of course, I could write a shell script to do the job but that would burden the server and only help those who have the script. I think it would be better, if the version history page contained a prominent link to download the entire version history as Pedophilia,v in RCS format as created by multiple

ci -d$DATE -w$USER -l $ARTICLE

commands. Any volunteer implementors reading here? Roman Czyborra 11:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Can't you just use Special:Export? It allows downloading about 100 revisions each time, and there is an offset parameter so (I believe) you can work your way through a thousand history pages if you want to.

You also don't mention why you want to do this. If you're searching for specific text, for example, then Wikiblame or User:AmiDaniel/WhodunitQuery may be better options. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 11:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointers to tools I hadn't known before. Special:Export is already helpful, but it is wasteful of bandwidth as it does not apply RCS diff compression, and it is limited to the 100 last revisions while I need a complete revision history. The WhodunitQuery is nice but limited to Microsoft Windows. So I still recommend my initial proposal be implemented. Roman Czyborra 08:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured list proposal reboot

I have rebooted and rewritten the old proposal to allow for Wikipedia:Featured Lists to be placed on the main page. The prior proposal, which was losing ground and had no consensus, although well meaning, called for a complicated selection process for prospective Featured Lists on the Main Page. This proposal assumes the simplest possible selection process (chronological, similar to Today's Featured Picture), and asks not how a Featured List should appear on the main page, but whether or not Featured Lists should be on the main page in the first place. Please visit Wikipedia:Today's featured list and leave feedback at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured list. Thanks. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

writress

If a female actor is an actress, and a female waiter is a waitress, shouldn't a female writer be a writress?

Cizzam18 16:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems like you are asking a general knowledge question, in which case it is probably more appropriate at the reference desk.--VectorPotential^Talk 16:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Should a female footballer be called a footballeress or a female swimmer, a swimmeress etc? I think Wikipedia:Manual of Style has it covered. Yorkshiresky 16:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Replying in talk page section headers

Why can't we put a "reply" link on talk page section headers? That would make it easier to reply, instead of having to section edit. Jonathan letters to the editor — things I've written 17:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Gp75motorsports/Wikipedia Users' Alliance

There is a proposal to create a new group, either separately or under the umbrella of the WP:CVU, with the express purpose of creating a "mass discussion of vandalism and what to do about it" and the further suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:Counter-Vandalism_Unit#Help.21 that the group may also "also reorganize messy articles and re-classify wrongly-classified articles". Please contribute to the discussions at Wikipedia_talk:Counter-Vandalism_Unit#Help.21 and User talk:Gp75motorsports/Wikipedia Users' Alliance/CVU-WUA debate. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't this group already exist? Isn't called "wikipedia"??? SamBC(talk) 18:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Please, join us at one of the linked discussions. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

And I've just discovered there's a third location, at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Wikipedia_Users.27_Alliance. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Biographies of science writers = scientist?

I've noticed that the biographies of science writers (e.g. Dava Sobel) are put into the category of scientist (or in the scientist stub category). I find this odd, since many of the best science writers, while scientifically educated, are not scientists. Should there not be a category for science writers instead? I don't know the reasoning for this, hence my question. --Michael Daly 16:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

So fix it. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If it was one or two pages, I'd assume an error and correct it. However, it appears to be an across-the-board "standard", hence my question. I don't know if a community decision was made on this or it just happened. Michael Daly 13:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

There is such a category -- which I know from Category:American science writers already being deployed on said Dava Sobel article! You're right about the stub type, though; there's an additional "[[WP:STUB#numerosity|]]" consideration for those (keeping stub categories above a certain "critical mass" (as well as trying to keep them below "ZOMFG" levels)), but it seems a good idea to me, and unlikely to go too far wrong on those grounds; you could bring that up at WP:WSS/P. Alai 07:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• I suggest you bring this up with the WikiProject Biography. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Link from Special:Blockip to list of warning/blocking templates?

The heading says it all, really - could someone add a link from Special:Blockip to the list of templates that need to be placed on user talk pages of blocked users, say in the "see also" list at the "...&action=success" stage? It would be a very helpful link to admins with poor memories :) Grutness...wha? 00:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The link can easily be added by editing MediaWiki:Blockiptext. I would do it, only I don't know where the link should lead. --ais523 08:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace would probably be the most useful. It gives all the warning and block templates. Grutness...wha? 23:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added a link to that page (jumping to the block-message section, but of course the page can be scrolled to see other sections) to the block message, on the same line as the link to the autoblock tool. --ais523 16:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

"Operation Improve"?

Would it be practical to maintain a long-term operation with the duration of about a year? The idea is that we create a robot to which any editors can sign up to to receive the title of an article they can improve, fix, and maintain. After four days or after the user signified that they were finished, the robot would give them another page to improve, and mark the old one off its list if the editor had worked on it.

If, say, 20,000 editors participated, and worked on just one article per four days, all of Wikipedia's articles could be at a very high standard after about a year.

Does this idea sound worth it (if it started early in 2008)? — Thomas H. Larsen 03:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

There aren't 20,000 editors that are that active. There are maybe an order of magnitude less than that (2000 is probably a good number for the most active group of editors). Also, the "Random Article" button and the categories like Category:Cleanup by month and the like serve this purpose quite well. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on something like that to deal with the cleanup backlog right now. --Carnildo 05:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

An interesting premise, and my initial reaction was "cool, sign me up." However, as Jayron32 pointed out, it seems like if editors wanted to do that on their own, they already could be so would there really be any interest? How often do editors use the Random Article and clean up categories to work on articles?

Another issue I can see, is dealing with the issues of what is an improvement and which editors should participate. Lord knows, I have several articles I'm trying to improve and when dealing with rabid fans, it can be a very long drawn out battle when trying to actually improve an articles quality versus letting the fans do what they want. Going a year long with an increasing number of battles over such issues would be a good way to burn out some great editors. And, of course, how to ensure the editors that participate have any clue about how to improve an article? Collectonian 05:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

What about SuggestBot? This is a similar idea. Nihiltres^(t.l) 18:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

SuggestBot is very useful, but in some respects it does not serve a very wide range of editors; only a small number of users know about it. Also of concern is the fact that it doesn't list extremely obscure articles since they simply don't rank high enough. My idea is to ensure that every article gets worked on. — Thomas H. Larsen 03:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I does not seem that the pages you listed are actively worked on heavily by a wide variety of users; my proposal would be a kind of article-on-editor principle. There's no hurry, though, and I would be happy to bring this issue up later on a page of its own. Cheers. — Thomas H. Larsen 03:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Colors

	object’s name
	caption

Wikipedia:Infobox colours is an historical page. Reserving colors is not practical. This infobox, for example, allows a system of coloration: Wikipedia:List of infoboxes/Proposed/Infobox window covering. --Chuck Marean 19:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: Daily Email Updates - Group Subjects so that emails relate based on some theme

The daily email updates, while interesting, have topics that vary widely and appear to have no theme or perspective. I think you could get more mileage out of the knowledge sharing by relating subjects. I also think this would make for more traffic to the site because of interest generated by the themes. "Knowledge News" is a good example of this type of format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.235.218.10 (talk) 17:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured lists on the Main Page

For those who are unaware there is currently a discussion underway about a voting system involving a today's featured list. While it appears that the proposal for the voting system is destined for the land of the rejected, the idea of incorporated featured lists onto the main page seems to have some support at the above page. I, and others, thought that the discussion should be split, as that discussion would be completely contingent upon community support (especially from outside the featured lists project) for featured lists on the Main Page at all. So the question here is posed: What does the community think of incorporating featured lists onto the main page in some, yet-to-be determined way? IvoShandor 03:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: This isn't a poll, in case you were wondering, the idea was to discuss but do as ye shall please. IvoShandor 09:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

If we're supposed to pseudo-vote here, then...

• Support I think it would be interesting to see a daily suggestion for an good list to look at. An abridged list for the main page, with a link to the rest, as is done for the featured article now.
  Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:09, 10/14/2007

To me, the best way to handle this is to have an additional "Featured content" box on the Main Page, within it, featured sound, list, topic, whatever. Perhaps, nothing more than a link to the content is required, but this would do the job of "getting the word out" about some of Wikipedia's other featured content, which I think should be highlighted more anyway. This system could be bureaucracy free, content could be automatically rotated in based upon the date it attained featured status on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, whatever is appropriate (for instance there are fewer featured topics so maybe monthly for those), which would require very little time/editors to monitor. My two cents have been tossed, thoughts? IvoShandor 04:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I should probably note I don't feel strongly one way or another about this, but I think the community should have a chance to decide. IvoShandor 04:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured lists has twice as many lists as there were featured articles when they began daily with their won dedicated space. They are also producing twice as many per month. I.e., There are over 400 lists and about 40 new ones per month. I see no reason why lists should share space with featured content. They should get 7 days a week for lists. Other content could vie for separate sections when they are ready, which they are not at this time.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 05:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The average FL promotion rate for 2007 to date is 24.1 lists per month.[2] APL 06:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Both August and September were over 40 and the queue for October would indicate it will exceed 30 as well.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 13:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

In contrast, the average FP promotion rate was 28.9/month for 2007 up until October. Still below quota, but we've got several years worth of FPs in reserve. MER-C 09:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support wholeheartedly. However, some of the FLs (esp. older ones) may need improvements as pointed out on the previous discussion at Talk:Main Page. Therefore, instead of merely scheduling and such, the TFL coordinator (if we'll do that setup), will review the TFL to see if it is really Wikipedia's best work. --Howard the Duck 05:40, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't think this is a good idea. I strongly believe that while high quality lists are an essential reference tool, they don't have the same general interest as an article. I would propose that very, very few readers would be interested in reading a list of the counties in the state of Kentucky unless they were actively trying to look something up on that topic. It would be wasteful to consume space on the already crowded main-page to attempt to summarize a list of county names, regardless of how well the list is written and sourced. And it would be sad if other main page content was reduced in size to accommodate such an attempt.

Furthermore, does it seem inappropriate to anyone else to start this discussion while the proposal is still pending? Much of the debate on that talk page seems to center around not implementation details, but whether a Feature List of the Day is fundamentally a good idea. APL 06:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impressions that the point of bringing the discussion here was to see if the community at large is in favor of it, since such a discussion on that talk page would garner attention from too focused a crowd.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 06:31, 10/14/2007

My intention wasn't to be "inappropriate," it seemed that consensus on a List of the day procedure is useless without actual community consensus on List inclusion on the Main Page, which has been brought up several times to no avail: (see, here,here, here and for a mock up here). The idea being, get consensus here for inclusion of lists, then go back there and say "okay we have consensus on this now how do we do it." Meh. Maybe twasn't a good idea, but seems to me that that proposal has no chance at any kind of consensus. IvoShandor 09:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Sorry. APL 16:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's a test: if you're looking for "Presidents of the United States", the most likely page you'll need is List of Presidents of the United States, not President of the United States.

As for using excerpts, we can use prose. Or graphs. We don't need to display only the first 3 rows of the lists. --Howard the Duck 07:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

What's it a test of? I don't think anyone would deny that lists are usefull reference tools. APL 16:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose and unsure why this is being done as if it were a poll Reading a list is less interesting than reading a list, but more importantly, including excerpts of lists on the Main Page would be unattractive and fill a disproportionately large amount of space. 17Drew 06:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I would think that depends on the size of the excerpt...
    Equazcion • argue/improves • 06:32, 10/14/2007
• I'm thinking, how does one decide on the length of the excerpt, and the items to be included in it, and where to draw the dividing line between important enough for an excerpt and slightly less important. There will always be discussions as to what to include, and why not include more. With the FA blurb it's probably usually simpler I think... and besides, what has already been pointed out - reading a list is not that exciting. I'm a weak oppose right now. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support I think that having a featured list on the main page is worthwhile. I agree that having excerpts of the list would be odd, as many have said, and world therefore endorse that only the introduction would be needed on the main page. It would look something like this:

Kevin Rudd The Leader of the Opposition in Australian Federal Politics is a Member of Parliament in the House of Representatives. The position is usually held by the leader of the party which has the most seats but is not part of the Government. The leader is elected by the Opposition Caucus. A new Opposition Leader may be elected when the incumbent dies, resigns or is challenged for the leadership. The Current Leader of the Opposition is Kevin Rudd of the Australian Labor Party. Previously Kim Beazley was Opposition Leader until he was defeated in a leadership ballot on 4 December 2006. To date there have been 29 Opposition Leaders, 15 of which have served terms as Prime Minister. (more...) Recently featured: ISS spacewalks - Counties in Rhode Island - Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States - Featured Lists

What are peoples thoughts .....Todd^#661 09:20, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There is this: Wikipedia_talk:Featured_lists#This_month.27s_featured_list

IvoShandor 09:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - puts Kevin Rudd's photo on the main page (only kidding).

At the current promotion rate, you'll have enough featured lists for 64 months. Does that mean you'll need a featured list director - after all, isn't that the system we're most familiar with? The current proposal seems needlessly bureaucratic - why do you need to vote on such a thing? At WP:POTD, all we've got is somebody randomly pick a picture that hasn't been featured yet. Similarly at WP:TFA, articles are picked randomly but you can nominate articles to appear on a specific date. We don't have an article of the year yet either. As a result, I still oppose, though without prejudice to a less bureaucratic version. MER-C 10:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That's why this discussion is here, because the voting is unnecessary, and frankly detracts from determining whether or not consensus exists for lists to appear on the Main Page in any form.IvoShandor 10:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support in principle, though there is a problem of the 400 current FL's being very heavily weighted towards sports and political lists. That is only natural, given that these topics lend themselves quite well to lists. Ultimately, however, the point of the main page is to feature Wikipedia's best work. That is why we show a featured article and picture every day. The best new articles appear at DYK. Why not a Featured List section as well? Resolute 03:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• 'Support in principle as well. Would like to see a selection system free of bureaucracy however. - Shudde ^talk 23:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
• I oppose this, just putting the intro to the list defeats the purpose of the featured list - the focus is not on the prose as much as it is on the list. At the same time, putting an excerpt from the list is like trying to summarize a novel by reading a couple chapters - it just doesn't work right. This proposal should really be merged into the other active proposal for the same thing. its really confusing when you have very similar things being proposed in 2 places at the same time. Mr.Z-man 17:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

how about someone make a mockup of what the main page woulf look like, then we can vote in. The Placebo Effect 13:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is this discussion happening in two separate places? This seems unnecessary. There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured list which includes examples of what it could look like. Lara❤Love 19:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree how many places is this going to be discussed.Ridernyc 06:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

we now have this discussion going in 3 different places. JUst talking about this is turning into a bureaucratic nightmare. Ridernyc 14:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Well if they call enough 'votes' eventually everyone but the vocal minority with get distracted by bigger or better things, and one of the votes will finaly pass. They will call this a consensus. 69.95.50.15 16:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Change to Manual of Style on measurement systems

The section on choosing measurement systems has been changed from:

• In scientific articles, SI units are the main units of measure, unless there are compelling historical or pragmatic reasons not to use them (for example, Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s⁻¹)

Into:

• In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always. For example, natural units are often used: ångströms (or angstroms) are widely used in such fields as x-ray crystallography and structural chemistry, and Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s⁻¹.

Comments on this change are welcome at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Units_of_measurement. Thank you Tim Vickers 18:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Search box in help

I'd include a search box in the help summary, but it has been immediately reverted. My proposition is this version. What do think of this? Martial BACQUET 21:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I like the look of a search box; not that the search is a particularly great one, but still better than nothing, and the help pages are pretty difficult to find sometimes. Tom Sauce 00:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, we're discussing the changes to Help:Contents at Help talk:Contents#Icon and searchbox. I didn't realize he'd brought the matter here whilst I was replying there!

Anyway, the current question is, can we make the 3 checkboxes selected by default, instead of unselected? Fixed. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Ticker

I propose that the jerky donation message ticker that has recently started appearing on every single Wikipedia page be removed. Not only is it extremely distracting, it also has some weird effect on my cursor every time I try to edit a page. Most annoying. Suggest a static display instead. Matt 10:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC).

A static version's now been implemented and is the default, due to the large number of complaints about the scrolling version; you need to bypass your cache to update it to the latest version. --ais523 11:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Aha. Yes, I see it now. Thanks. Matt 13:10, 24 October 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.243.72 (talk)

Expansion of A7

I've started a discussion here on adding literary works and films to the list of items that can be deleted per WP:CSD#A7. SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 01:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Archiving this page

I just made a proposal about the archiving system we use here, but because it's a proposal about this page I made in in the talk section, here.

PS - if this is too earth-shattering a change please don't hate on me. My initial proposal was to immediately de-sysop all administrators, but in researching the matter I got sidetracked into a smaller-scale issue. Wikidemo 02:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Audio Pronunciation

I would like to propose the following to be added to the tutorial section. I have linked couple of pages from Wikipedia to their relative pronunciations from Merriam-Webster Online. See Methamphetamine Enclave and Tetrahydrocannabinol for examples.

Finding the relative pronunciation however could be a dunning task. Here is a idea if you use Google:

http://www.google.com/search?domains=m-w.com&sitesearch=m-w.com&q=intitle%3Apronunciation+inanchor%3A.wav+inurl%3Ayour_query_goes_here

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.52.63.158 (talk) 12:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster's pronunciations are great, but free alternatives would be preferred. Anyone can record a pronunciation of a word and add it to an article, so long as it's accurate. See commons:Category:Pronunciation for some existing ones. Verbal pronunciations are more meant for Wiktionary than Wikipedia, since dictionaries are all about words and their pronunciation/definitions, but there's no harm in linking to audio files in more difficult-to-pronounce articles, e.g. Schadenfreude. I'm more ambivalent about linking to MW's files, as I'm not sure if those are free. Furthermore, they are very easily replaceable, given a computer microphone and decent audio software. Gracenotes^T § 18:15, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

• We can't use their pronunciations because they're not free. I'd be happy to provide pronunciations for the chemical substances. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• What makes you think that they are not free? Am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.225.204 (talk) 12:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Round corners

Why can't we have rounded corners for the tabs, navigation, et cetera? However, this wouldn't work in IE7. :(. Jonathan letters to the editor—my work 03:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Answered your own question. Look at browser usage stats to see why any CSS3 declarations are a bit pointless for anything but user space content. Adrian M. H. 14:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You could put the following code (from User:GeorgeMoney/UsefulCSS) in your monobook.css for it to appear just for yourself:

#p-cactions ul li, #p-cactions ul li a {  
  -moz-border-radius-topleft: 1em;
  -moz-border-radius-topright: 1em;
}
#content { 
  -moz-border-radius-topleft: 1em; 
  -moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 1em;
}
div.pBody {
  -moz-border-radius-topright: 1em;
  -moz-border-radius-bottomright: 1em;
}

However, I'm using IE7 at the moment so I can't test the code. Tra (Talk) 15:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You could also add -webkit-border-top-left-radius and the like if you use Safari, and border-top-left-radius and the like if you have a future browser that supports CSS3. Anomie 16:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Note that webkit and moz use different names for the same corner properties in some cases, and has different syntax. I have implemented the milky skin with rounded corners for webkit. You can see what I needed for that in this diff --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Also see Wikipedia:Skins. It's certain to mention the vast of custom skins available. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, I just uploaded a screenshot (at right)

a screenshot

of exactly what those rounded corners look like, Tra. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 02:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Multiple references to the same source, different pages

Multiple references to the same source can be made in the same note (marked as a, b c…), but when you refer to different pages in the same source, it is not so convenient. One solution is to write “Ibid., No 1, p. 50.” The problem, however, is that if you add text with a footnote above the note referred to, the latter is no longer note No 1 and you have to change all such references. This requires careful attention and is quite inconvenient.

I don’t know whether there are better solutions available. If not, I would suggest that somebody with appropriate skills should produce a method of making multiple references to the same source and different pages. It could look like this: “1. Kirk, Russell: The Conservative Mind Chicago 1986, Regnery. a) p. 5. b) p. 114. c) p. 478.” --Jonund 19:52, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

See WP:CITE or WP:FOOT or their Talk pages. (SEWilco 20:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC))

Wikipedia:User categories for discussion reform

This page is getting a little out-of-hand. There's been just a select few editors who've been paying attention to this page and I don't think the community at large is being represented there at all. Categories are getting deleted by the truckload, some purely on the grounds of "precedent". Here's an example:

"Category:Users Who Are Anti-High School Musical

The result of the debate was Speedy Deleted per precedent of anti-XXX categories and userboxes."

I'm not saying I'm for the category being kept, but precedent is pretty weak reasoning, and CSD is its own criteria that weren't honored here. If a better cross-section of the community had been paying attention here -- say, the people actually in the category -- then maybe there would've been an actual process at work.

The reason no one shows up to these debates is because no one knows about them, save of course the people who are always paying attention at CfD. The people who are in the categories don't even know about them, because the template that announces the nomination is only visible when viewing the category page -- and what are the chances that the 5-day debate period is when these people are going to decide to look at any of their category's pages, let alone the particular one that's getting deleted?

At the very least, we need to give the people who we know would defend these categories a fighting chance to do so. We need to find another way of notifying them that a category to which they belong is being discussed for possible deletion. For TfD, we include the nomination notice right inside the transcluded template. That seems to work and bring people into the discussion. Is there a way we can include a small notice next to the actual category links at the bottoms of pages, so people can actually see that a category has been nominated?

If not that, something has to be done, because at present this system is flawed.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:55, 10/22/2007

I agree that the discussions are scant and the outcomes often dubious and inconsistent. I'm having my own issue with the deletion of Category:American entrepreneurs, which I've brought up for deletion review, and they're talking about deletion of self-identified sexual orientation categories for Wikipedians over on WP:AN/I. On the other hand I'm not sure how useful categories are in the first place on Wikipedia. They're not used often or consistently enough to be reliable, so I'm not sure you could gather a large enough audience to get a good discussion going on deletion. Wikidemo 20:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The point is that people need to be informed; people who might care that their category is up for deletion. If people don't want to participate that's fine, but right now no one is even informed that a debate is going on.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:47, 10/23/2007

That's why I started watchlisting categories I care about. Deletionists are all over CfD. Anomie 11:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, it's not "just a few select editors". The composition of UCFD participants varies over time, with many having come and gone. Second, there is nothing "select" about the group (see WP:TINC, please), since there is nothing preventing anyone (except maybe blocked and banned editors) from participating. Third, the number of deletions at UCFD is insignificant when taking in the context of the approximately 5000 deletions that take place every day. Fourth, deletion on the basis of precedent simply means deletion per arguments that were previously stated and discussed; it's no different than simply copy-pasting an argument from an old discussion. Fifth, while I agree that the speedy deletion of 'Category:Users Who Are Anti-High School Musical' was out-of-process (it was a WP:SNOW closure), that's something to raise with the deleting admin. One or two premature closures does not mean the process is flawed. Sixth, selectively reaching out to those who we suspect support a particular position ("give the people who we know would defend these categories a fighting chance") is canvassing. The idea of the small notice is worth considering, but it's something that the developers would have to do. Seventh, how is the system flawed? Aside from a few premature WP:SNOW closures, what problem needs fixing? – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe Equazcion is a political prisoner right now for speaking out against some admins, so I'll offer a quick response: 1) It is just a few editors, whether or not they are "select". Most people don't participate and don't even know it's happening. 2) The few editors, and even fewer administrators, who participate in CFD seem to be self-selected. As with many policy issues this leaves the decisions in the hand of the very few people who spend a lot of time on meta-issues, and they can be persnickety with a vengeance. It's a bit of tyranny of the wikignomes. 3) Agreed that CFD is esoteric and relatively trivial piece of Wikipedia. I'm not even sure categories are doing any good at all. Maybe it's the whole category system that needs reform, not CFD. Are categories (except those there for admin / maintenance purposes) really doing anyone any good? 4) Yes, precedent has an interesting role in deletion decisions. 5) no comment 6) Notifying people of a pending vote is okay in this sense, and is not a canvassing problem if done neutrally. People affected by a decision ought to know it's being made. That would tend to counteract the undue weight of the gnome overlords, who when they establish consensus tend disregard the fact that only 3-5 people may be voting on a proposal, yet 500+ may have voted with their "save page" button out in article space. Still, I'm not sure how such a notification system could work. 7) I've seen enough bad results to agree that there may be a problem. See the current AN/I discussion on category:furry Wikipedians (decision made to delete despite consensus to keep) and my recent deletion review on category:American entrepreneurs (unanimous but low participation vote to delete made by people who didn't seem to know the subject). Wikidemo 00:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I think UCfD is a total disaster, but I am not sure what can really be done about it, except for a general policy decision by the entire community about what the rules ought to be for what is acceptable. I do not myself use these categories, except to make sure I am on a few lists relevant to WP activities. But I havent the least objection to what other people do, as long as it isnt obnoxious or divisive. There seem to be a few people who do object, however, to such things as listing oneself in a category of a given religion or nationality or computer equipment user or game fan, and they are forcing their preferences upon the community by dominating an obscure process. the immediate remedy is to call attention to it like this, and for many more people to go there. The way to get them there is a bot notifying everyone in the category. But the people who hang out there have steadfastly opposed it and still continue to oppose this. Not involving user in questions about their own user page content is in my opinion very close to paternalism. I dont think these categories are used for unfair lobbying. those who seem to worry about must be basing their concerns over very exceptional examples. If a less aggressive attitude had been taken to removing what is important to others, w might not be having this discussion. Black Falcon & I have discussed this a few times--I am fully convinced that he means the best here, but we continue to disagree radically on the use of this process. DGG (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I myself don't particularly care to make an argument here about whether or not user categories are useful. That said, I agree with Wikidemo's assessment and wording. I don't always consider each of my words as completely as would be required in order to argue with Black Falcon. So I'll keep my wording relatively short here. My concern was only that no one is currently informed of deletion debates. As long as people are informed, then problem solved -- and informing people isn't canvassing. So back to the original proposal: next to the transcluded category links at the bottoms of people's user pages, there should be a notice/link that the category is up for deletion. Otherwise people just don't know that it's going on. And they need to know. If the developers need to implement it, then let's get them to implement it, however that's done.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 21:08, 10/30/2007

Authentic Video links to wikipedia

Hi I think, we should also figure out a way how best offer Videopedia to Wikipedia and how we can start allowing the contributors to add authentic video clips. Ofcourse it would be nice something like YouTube links to start with...

Cheers!!

:o)m

ombachu@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.239.104.60 (talk) 13:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Rollback for general editors

I think there is no reason that general editors cannot receive rollback access. If there's an issue about vandals being able to revert as fast as administrators, why? Just block 'em and move along. If there's an issue about vandals being able to revert as fast as general editors, why? They can do so already. Few vandals know how, or have the time, to revert vandal-fighters' efforts, and if rollback is simply a feature that becomes available to registered users four days after signing up, what's the hassle? Are there any other reasons that rollback is withheld from editors? For those who say that general editors can use Twinklefluff instead, it is much slower than rollback, and uses a lot more bandwidth loading the page (albeit behind the scenes). Even one-click undo would do, but please, show some respect for Wikipedia's hard-working vandal-fighters, instead of making them perform seven-click reverts (history, select, edit, save, back, back, back) when they could do them in two (rollback, back) ... — Thomas H. Larsen 03:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Except that rollback deletes the edits from history, which ALSO deletes the edits from the vandals contribs list. It would become impossible to detect long-term vandals if we lost their contributions. The same database is parsed for both the page history and user contributions pages, and if we lose the data from one we lose it from both. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

No it doesn't. Its a simple revert. There are tools out there to emulate the admin rollback function. Rollback isn't given to everyone because we don't want to disseminate the idea that reverting is usually a good idea. Viridae^Talk 05:15, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

To a certain extent, Wikipedia is a technocracy. Although rollback is, through Twinkle et cetera, available to all registered users, it's an obvious general pattern that only those who know a little bit about what they're doing will install it and use the extra power it provides. I think that that's the best way of restricting the rollback function: although it is not "really" restricted from people, only those who have been around long enough to know its ramifications will use the one-click ease. In the meantime, the undo functionality, which achieves effectively the same result for vandalism only one level deep (multiple levels of vandalism require a manual revert), is available to everyone. I think the system's fine as is. Nihiltres^(t.l) 18:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin rollback is actually faster than any other kind of rollback, but even so, I cannot see why non admins would want/need it. There's plenty of alternatives, but rollback should really be used sparingly - it's not like it always catches every bit of vandalism on the page, it isn't that great. Tom Sauce 14:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of making it easier for general editors to revert content. For some editors, most of their contributions are reverts of others' contributions. Making it easier to revert makes it easier for the revert warriors to operate.--Lester 17:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin rollback is only slightly faster than Twinkle rollback and does not have any of the options that Twinkle does. With Twinkle though, if people abuse it, it can be removed from their JS file by an admin. If regular users got admin rollback, the only way to stop abuse would be blocking. Mr.Z-man 18:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There's no enough space to complete Wikipedia

This is a geek complaint (<geek mode="on") about Wikipedia aim... Wikipedia will never finish because it has no space to do it !!!. As you can see logo has no space to complete... You should move a little down so there will be enough space to complete puzzle :)

I hope you read these lines with humour and, if you agree, move 5/10 pixels your logo down... :)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Wikinospacepv3.gif logo

Well yes, but Wikipedia will never be completed. It shall forever be work in progress, because as things change, and new topics emerge, there will always be something to write. Remember, our goal is an collection of all human knowledge. Wikipedia will never be complete, and that is a good thing.
Though I must admit I liked the picture. Puchiko (talk • contribs • email) 11:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL; It is actually vitally important that we prevent Wikipedia from obtaining space.. here's why.

EasyTarget 12:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I like this one better. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)