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Village pump (proposals) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals).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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Reduce the size limit for sigs?

I keep running into huge sigs that take up four lines in the edit box and drown out the user's actual comment in a mess of formatting. Would it be reasonable to cut the size limit for sigs in half? Unless someone has a (blockably) huge username, that should still be enough for a userpage link, a talk page link, contribs, and a reasonable amount of formatting. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to see that. I agree with you that sometimes you can't read the other person's comments in the edit box because of the markup from their sig. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to get rid of custom user names entirely. They aren't necessary and just waste space. --Tango 21:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I would only go for that if the current sig replacement technology allowed to a link to the User's Talk page as well as their User page. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, yes and yes, to all above. Reduce and restrict, for clarity and simplicity in talkpages and talkpage wikicode. Please! —Quiddity 21:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I support the prohibition of signature elements that serve purely decorative purposes. Extra links (talk page, contribution history, et cetera) are fine, but it is annoying to deal with several lines of HTML that merely add fancy colors and fonts. —David Levy 21:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I remember finding someone with a 1k (yes, I don't lie) signature. He used to transclude it, so you would not notice how long it was. Or force users to write at least 2x the amount of characters in their signature everytime they write in a talk page. That would make some people realize how awful a long signature is for us "common" people ;-) -- ReyBrujo 04:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This is getting perilously close to a perennial proposal: See Wikipedia_talk:Sign_your_posts_on_talk_pages#Propose_banning_non-standard_.2F_raw_signatures. from just a couple of weeks ago. -- nae'blis 05:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not asking for a total ban, just a cap on the length, like two lines in an edit box long. This will cut down on overformatting simply by not allowing space for it, and cut down on the mess they make in edit view. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll support anything that cuts down on the bloat. I recently had to struggle to find the actual post of someone with nine lines of sig markup. Fortunately he had included edit comment text to mark out its beginning and end... - BanyanTree 20:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

(Is my sig okay? --> Yuser31415 04:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC) <-- :)) Anyway, I believe per WP:SIG there is a limit on 200 characters in a signature, and, since the edit box is by default 80 characters wide, I make that 2.5 lines allowed in a sig. Is that what you would like? (If not, stating the specific number of characters you would like to be the maximum for a sig could help.) Cheers! Yuser31415 04:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely fine! Optimal even. Short and useful.

It's 16 line long monstrosities like this fellow's sig that are the worst offenders; anything more than 2 lines of raw text (which is 200 characters at my resolution/settings) is probably unnecessary, and more than 3 lines begins to get annoying fast. I don't know if there is a hard limit, but I'd like to see a 200 character limit implemented, or even less (150? 100?), or the suggestion from Zoe above. —Quiddity 02:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Giving leeway to userspace type things like sigs is a good idea, but if it gets to the point that it inconveniences other editors, we have a problem. Suggest that it should be under two lines. —Dgies^t c 05:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I second the two line limit. Sounds like a good compromise, leaving enough personal freedom while keeping annoyance to a bearable level. This is not MySpace after all, and the hugest sigs tend to be just font/color HTML anyways. --Dschwen 08:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

How about making the sig a template in userspace? Then we could just put our sig in preference, and ~~~~ would translate to {{User:Username}} where our sig will be. It would cut the clutter down as we won't see them when editing anymore and we can update all instances of our sig just by changing the template. --antilived ^{T | C | G} 09:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

See #Transclusion of templates for why we can't. —Quiddity 09:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I've seen it but I don't think it's entirely valid. How many times are you going to change your sig in a year? IMHO not many people will chnage their sig very often and thus they shouldn't consume too much resource to re-cache. And simply protect the sig so only the user him/herself and maybe admin/sysops can edit should clear the vandalism problem is well. --antilived ^{T | C | G} 09:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

{{User:Username}} would transclude the userpage, and like that there would be no way to permanently store the date, which is an important part of the sig. Also having a template defies the purpose of a sig as a permanent unchangable mark. Right now any sig manipulation shows up on the history page, with a template much more sneaky things could go on.--Dschwen 13:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget the 5 tildes that produce the timestamp only. It could be {{User:Username}}~~~~~. NikoSilver 12:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That's just some random user space link I used to illustrate the point, not that I intend to embed the whole user page onto talk pages.:) And also I meant 3 tildes not four so the date would still be in the page itself, only the sig is changeable. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Lol, I guess I'll be the first here with a "long" signature.... you should get Why1991 to defend himself here. I really don't feel strongly either way, but I do understand that going though lines of code due to a long signature is pretty annoying. I propose a 5 line (in the edit window) cap for signatures.S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 20:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Since most of my opinion has already been said, I'll just say that I agree with the above statements. I like Yuser31415's idea of 200 characters. I don't like the idea of userspace transclusions. I don't think there should be a total removal of custom signatures, as they are one of the few ways to make yourself unique. And now I sign. --Tewy 23:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought, but what about implementing this in steps (500 character limit, 300, 250, etc.). I'm just not sure how else the users with long signatures would be warned (is there a bot that could locate them all?) I'm a little worried that there will be this angry mass of users who all just found out their signatures no longer work. With a gradual system, it wouldn't affect all of them at once. --Tewy 23:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

There's now a bug for this; go vote your support. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice signature. -- ReyBrujo 01:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. That's to the point where I'd edit his sig down myself if he posted it on my page. --tjstrf talk 12:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Lucky for you then I've changed my signature now so its far shorter :) RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 12:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think a 250 chars limit would filter out most monstrosities, leaving the 'grey' area sigs for case-by-case evaluation. I also liked proposal above for transcluded userspace sigs that can be edited by the user themselves and admins only. NikoSilver 12:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer just name and talk link per Zoe. A max one line sig would be good, but no more than two. Tyrenius 16:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

My sig's about 180 characters in the preference box (update: I actually counted, it's 193), but shorter on the edit screen (because I type {{subst:CURRENTMINUTE}}, etc, to mess around with the date/time string). Mine's pretty short, and so I'd support the limit being something like 250 characters (or possibly 200, but I prefer 250 (three lines)). --ais523 16:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Your sig is the most perceptive sig I've ever seen, which is one more reason why our brain activity should not be limited by irrational WP:CREEP-like authoritative extreme measures. I stand by my 250 chars proposal, as the optimum solution that filters out most monstrosities, while it allows people to not feel like members of the Outer Party (and therefore inspires them to produce more)! NikoSilver 23:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Exact same discussion being held at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 131#Signature length.

I proposed that templated sigs at {{User:Username/sig}} be allowed, but treated specially to avoid the server load problems, but at least one developer doesn't like this idea. — Omegatron 15:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But to get to an agreement we need to decide what will be used as criteria for the limit. Here are some diferent options:

1. bytes (ex: the limit would be xx bytes)
2. lines taken up in a screen of a chosen size (ex: x lines in a screen of xx by xx pixels)
3. content (ex: maximum x links and x different colours)
4. a combo of 2 or 3 of these options

Once we have chosen one (two, or three) criteria, we will be able to choose the actual limits. Chris5897 (T@£k) 13:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

1 and 2 technically amount to the same, and are what the bug request is currently aimed at. 150-250bytes has been suggested by many, and will likely be re-raised once it becomes a technical option/implemented.

3 is more easily addressed by the guideline WP:SIG, unless something specific like "all html" is disabled technically, in addition to the byte limit. I'd like that, but it seems unlikely to gain consensus. --Quiddity 08:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

See a Gallery of the most extreme signatures. Making it almost competitive to have the most eye-catching (and hence annoying) sigs possible. --Quiddity 18:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree to just about all caps on signatures. The arguments have been presented. I prefer stricter caps, but also prefer any cap to no cap. -Pgan002 01:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The limit has to be in terms of the number of characters, not number of lines, because both the display and the edit area can vary in width. -Pgan002 01:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we absolutely should limit the length of signature to no more than about 200 chars. I'd really like to see background colors eliminated also as these are quite garish and distracting. —Doug Bell ^talk 22:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

What many people find difficult to read are characters of dark backgrounds. They should really be disallowed simply because of usability considerations. WP should start paying more consideration to such factors.DGG 03:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for default monobook.css for nowrap span.texhtml

Hi,
I've noticed when using math in <math></math> mode that when rendered to HTML, the white-spaces are "breakable" (as opposed to non-breaking spaces). As a suggestion, I'm proposing to update the default monobook.css to include:

span.texhtml {
        white-space: nowrap;
        font-family: serif;
}

I've done this in my personal monobook.css, and it works great in Firefox (although I'm certain there are browsers where this will have no impact). This idea was hinted to me here.

To demonstrate this, observe these equations, and adjust the width of your window. Try it with and without this set in your monobook.css: "$a^{2}+b^{2}=c^{2}$" and "$3+5=8$" and "$P_{0}=\max(p(t))$" and "$x^{3}+200x=20x^{2}+2000$" and "$\sin ^{2}A+\cos ^{2}A=1$" etc.

These equations should not "break" in between the quotation marks if you have configured your monobook.css properly and you have a good browser. One caveat I've noticed in Firefox is that sometimes longer equations continue on towards the right (where you would then have to scroll right), and other times they wrap normally to a new line (is there better CSS to fix this? i.e., behave like an inline picture). IE 6/7 does not have this problem, and actually renders it slightly better than Firefox (!).

In all, I think this is an improvement, as equations should not be broken up like this (similar to the PNG versions of equations). +mwtoews 00:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Game-cover Merge again

Some may recall 2 months ago when I posted something about a merge proposal for game-related fair use templates. After waiting a while with no objections I performed the merge. It has now been reverted by someone who thinks I did not make enough of an effort to contact interested persons to obtain concensus. So here we go again. ANYONE INTERESTED IN Template:Game-cover, Template:Boardgamecover, OR Template:RPG-artwork IS INVITED TO JOIN A DISCUSSION AT Template_talk:Game-cover#Merge ABOUT MERGING THESE THREE TEMPLATES. I'm cross-posting this to all the Village pumps. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia should come out with an annual readable version of itself

I may be reading Wikipedia in its entirety in the future; by this I mean that I go from page to page (in ABC order) reading or skimming, like you'd read a book. But in order to do this, I have to have to keep going back to the pages that list all the pages on Wikipeida in ABC order, so I can click on the next page I want to see.

So I thought 'it'd be cool if Wikipedia had a forward and backward button at the top of each page, so you could go to the pages before and after the one you're reading (ABC order).' But of course, this would only benefit the rare geek like me who wants to look at all the Wikipedia pages in ABC order.

But maybe Wikipedia could come out w/ a CD that contains all of the pages in wikipedia (at the time the CD was made) in a readable format, with the forward and backward buttons I mentioned. It would allow the reader to view pages in ABC order, or in order of how many people have looked at the page, or in order of how long an article is, etc. etc. You could come out with this CD program at the end of this year; then, each year after that (2008, 2009, so on), you could come out w/ another CD of the same type but that contains only the pages made on Wikipedia that given year.

That'd be cool, and you might make some money off of it. I mean, companies put out new encyclopedias each year, so why not put out a new CD each year like I suggested?Andrewdt85

• Check out Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. >Radiant< 10:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
• You want Special:Allpages Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• It only exists in German: de:Wikipedia:DVD. Kusma (討論) 17:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Using WikiPoints as a way to reward participants in answering and questioning any topics and articles on Wikipedia.

Using WikiPoints as a way to reward participants in answering and questioning any topics and articles on Wikipedia. Enough Wikipoints buys you a rank, rank is used within the WikiKingdom. A rank of King can even be achieved. A rank of Queen. A rank of knight. A rank of bishop, etc... Or any type of ranking system. For example, major, secretary, colonel, president, etc... Or whatever.

Lordhaddy19 01:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia... not a game. The only rank that I would accept is: "Editor". Blueboar 02:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You're joking, right, Blueboar? Wikipedia is an MMORPG, duh. /me ducks into a secret area Gracenotes^T § 02:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You want Wikipedia:WikiRPG Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for new table class in .css

I propose adding a class to the CSS to support formatting of tables used for layout to give them the same background as the content body. Currently, the default background of a table is while, while for example the monobook.css content background is a light green/blue (color #F8FCFF). This means that when a table is used for layout purposes (as opposed to creating a table for presentation purposes where class="wikitable" might be used), that the "invisible" table changes the background color.

So for example this markup:

 {|
 |-
 |[[Image:Chemistrylogo.svg]]
 |Laying out some images using a table
 |[[Image:Gnome-system.png]]
 |-
 ! colspan=3|looks like this (notice the table background)
 |}

produces this:

	Laying out some images using a table
looks like this (notice the table background)

If the following is added to WikiMedia:Monobook.css:

table.layouttable {
  background: #F8FCFF;
}

then this markup:

 {| class="layouttable"
 |-
 |[[Image:Chemistrylogo.svg]]
 |Laying out some images using a table
 |[[Image:Gnome-system.png]]
 |-
 ! colspan=3|looks like this (notice the table background)
 |}

produces this:

	Laying out some images using a table
looks like this (notice the table background)

I'm not sure what changes might be required to the other CSS skins, or if there is a general way to add this to WikiMedia:Common.css, but I'd obviously like to fix this in a way that works for all skins. —Doug Bell ^talk 11:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hm, sounds interesting... why don't we just do "background-color:transparent;", though? Same effect, but it also works for tables in the mainspace, so that people doing copy-and-paste table code won't run into some foreign blue background, and why hardcode when the alternative works just as easily?

Using this code on two backgrounds...

{|style="background-color:transparent;"
|-
|I'm a table.<br />I won't [[WP:BITE|bite]] :)
|[[Image:Gnome-system.png]]
|-
! colspan="2"|look at meeeee!
|}

...yields...

I'm a table. I won't bite :) look at meeeee!

I'm a table. I won't bite :) look at meeeee!

Wikipedia's namespace coloring is mostly useful, though... and the French have taken it much farther than we have; if they needed to implement a similar table thing, they would definitely use transparency. Finally, I'm not positive that a class is needed for this (no specific usage, and easy to copy and paste), but I'm merely pointing out that this option would work also. Gracenotes^T § 03:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The transparent fix works fine. I swear I tried this and was getting white. Sigh, there must have been a typo in it or something. I was thinking that there had to be a better way to do this. Thanks, —Doug Bell ^talk 04:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe all tables, by default, could be made transparent, rather than having an optional class for it. Gracenotes^T § 01:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Foreign language titles

WP:CAPS does not currently address the issue of foreign language titles adequately, and there are many pages that use naming conventions for English or for the native language. I've made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Proposal for foreign language titles to address the issue. ShadowHalo 21:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Volunteer artists.

I was wondering if there existed a place in Wikipedia, or its sisters, where artistically inclined Wikipedians can volunteer their services to other Wikipedians with regards to public-domain image creation for articles? If not, I think perhaps a WikiProject regarding this might be a good idea? The basic points would be:

• Artists list their specialty, which may be 3D graphics, hand-drawn images, photography, etc...
• They also list their current workload (ie: how much time they can spare).
• Users could either directly request assistance from the individual they feel is best suited or perhaps make an announcement in a dedicated area which can be picked up by a volunteer who wants to participate.

I would also like to see a special "geographical" photography section, where volunteers can list their geographical area and, on request, take photographs of a particular notable monument, structure, or whatever the article calls for.

If this resource exists, it isn't easy to find, so it needs to be promoted more! If it doesn't exist, would I have support in starting it?

-- Qarnos 10:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There's Wikipedia:Graphic Lab. But we also have something that takes the opposite approach, Category:Wikipedia requested images. There pictures are requested and people who can make or take the pictures can sjop the list, if you like. Steve block Talk 12:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You also might want to try Commons, they might have something like that. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 15:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested pictures too :) (which I've just suggested should be partially merged with Graphic lab) --Quiddity 04:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Project idea

Hello Wikimedia/Wikipedia?

Hello Board of Trustees, my name is Justin Hadcock, recent graduate of State University of Oswego, NY. I received a BA in Public Relations and Communications. I've been evaluating the wiki projects and have had great interest in the whole program. I believe in free knowledge. I believe it is worth more than real currency. However, I'm kind of confused what the parent name of the project is, is it wikipedia? or wikimedia? Also, from experience out of my degree and basic expertise into marketing and mass communications I have been thinking lately about some serious improvements to your wonderful project. Well I mean an extension and adding of another major project(s). The project I had in mind was a geographic information system (GIS). It would be kind of like Google Earth, but it would be free. I think it is unfair that to get geographical knowledge of Earth you have to pay for it. I mean yes you could get information on every country in the world using "list of countries on earth" through wikipedia search, but I mean wouldn't it be cool to actually have a GIS system linked to wikipedia. Maybe call it WikiEarth or WikiGIS. Maybe even buy out google Earth. Maybe through setting up another fund raising program. Buy it out and take the "proprietary" claim off from it. However, Google probably would not sell it and if they did they would try to make a huge profit out of it by overselling for like a billion dollars and I'm sure fund rasing for that much is out of the question. However, google does not have the only claim to satellite images, NASA might be of good assistance in collecting maps of Earth and putting them together to make a GIS system. Also another system I had in mind that could really cool and very interactive with the very much needed users of this project would be a WikiReward and WikiDeduct program. Where people who are wrong or misusing the system can be tracked through IP or user name and penalized by adding or subtracting WikiPoints through the WikiAdd or WikiSubtract. Wiki points are points users get when they are doing good deeds on any of the Wiki projects. You guys said something like 1,000 dedicated wiki users keep the system really up to date with information. Well by offering a reward program more users will get involved. Turning that 1,000 number to 1,000,000 in a very short time. I know that such a interactive program would work because I have a bachelors degree in PR, and I know the psychology of marketing mass media. A rewarding system is a win-win situation. It can be easy to work with. Giving users a sense of comfort. Yahoo Answers! uses a simple reward program also. In their program, the more questions and the more answers you do, the more points a user gets. However, WikiPoints can also be earned through revising faulty articles. So you have a constant loop feedback system. People are encouraged to write new articles and people are encouraged to fix and revise new and old articles. It keeps the system going and advancing. It also significantly improves the articles information accuracy. You could also use instead: Wikidollars and/or WikiCoins instead of a WikiPoint system.

Furthermore, regardless if you used Wikipoints or Wikicurrency, you will or should at least expand on the users account information, you might want to get a more detailed "my account" section for your records and for the users records. People would be tempted to create bot profiles to collect the vast Wikimoney. Because Wikimoney can buy you Wikicredits, which is the credibility program that this whole wiki project runs on, can get the wrong results. A strong account system is needed if you want people to get involved in the new reward system. People could complain syaing there points are missing or gone or whatever. Without credibility nothing on this site is valid. People could get the wrong information and do something stupid. There are tons and tons of ideas you can do to make a more efficient WikiKingdom. You can create Wikigames, Wikicontests, wiki anything that gets people involved. You could also make another huge wiki project called Wikiworks, which is kind of like howstuffworks.com works. It tells all and everything how things are made and work. You could get a huge demographics if you get creative. Just get people (computer programmers/volunteers) involved in a prototype Wikipoint Wikireward system, extend your servers capacity for new projects system.

As in regards to the WikiRanking System. When editors edit articles there user names will be posted at the bottom or top of the article they edited.

For example, it will say edited by "JohnnyBeGood21" at 14:31:36 United States Eastern Time. It will also post his/her amount of Wikipoints, or Wikimoney, or overall WikiCredibility ranking through the number of obtained stars out of total stars. This tells the reader that this article they are reading might be very reliable when this "JohnnyBeGood21" has 9 out of 10 stars attached to his profile. Which will be the truth because "JohnnyBeGood21" has spent much time writing, revising, editing, rating, articles. Its absolutely endless. And you just need some creative computer programmers and open minds. Please don't disregard my information I am giving away free advice which would otherwise be worth at least 55 dollars an hour.

I have tons and tons of more ideas if you want to hear them. Don't even need to pay me. I just want people to be smart. I could be poor for the rest of my life and be happy that people around me are not dumb and they are smart. And if I had anything to do with that then I would love it.

My name is Justin Hadcock. I graduated from the State University of Oswego, NY with a BA in Public Relations. I did a similar marketing program at Fair Haven Beach State Park in NY during my summer internship, administrators at the park asked me to put together a creative PR campaign on campers needs and wants. Through my research I found out that many of the campers just wanted to be included in the parks programming and operations. Basically the campers wanted to be regarded more than a camper they wanted to be felt like they were family. They felt apart of the family through various programs we let them create. The park became one of the best visited parks in the United States. Thanks one again. Please email me or call my business phone 315-806-4580 anytime. Thanks once again. I praise your project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lordhaddy19 (talk • contribs)

However, I'm kind of confused what the parent name of the project is, is it wikipedia? or wikimedia? The parent organization of Wikipedia and numerous other collaborative projects is the Wikimedia Foundation.

Maybe even buy out google Earth. The foundation has less than 10 full time people, an annual budget on the order of $2 million, and is funded through donations. I don't see buying out any part of Google (market capitalization of what, $100 billion?) anytime in the near future.

Where people who are wrong or misusing the system can be tracked through IP or user name and penalized by adding or subtracting WikiPoints. Ignoring for the moment the issue of who decides that one user is "right" and one user is "wrong" when there is a content disagreement, we here at Wikipedia have a more straightforward approach to those misusing the system - we explain what they are doing wrong, and if they don't stop, we block them.

In closing, may I suggest that if you are interested in improving Wikipedia, you take some time to actually understand it (editing articles for at least a month would be a good way to start), and that you follow the norms here. For example, you'll probably notice that there are no other users posting long messages with multiple suggestions that mention their name and qualifications in both the first and last paragraphs; rather, each idea gets its own section, and ideas stand or fall on their own, not on their owner's credentials. You might want to read Wikipedia:How to create policy for starters, for example. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 18:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There is of course a free alternative to Google Earth: NASA World Wind.--Pharos 08:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Photography contest

I was interested in setting up a contest for the best pictures personally taken by wikipedia members that had been released into the public domain and added to important pages (such as core topics or featured articles) within a period of time (such as 2007). The winner would be selected by a panel of wikipedia individuals (perhaps administrators) that had some expertise in photography. The winner would be awarded a barnstar and given some amount of money (like $100 which I would put up). I was wondering if anybody had done anything like this and what the community thought about it. Remember 12:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea, but I don't think you need to offer money: If you see the heraclean efforts that some editors put into getting their articles to FA status, just bragging rights alone should be enough impetus. --Slashme 13:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

True, but I think a nominal money award lets the entrants know that it is a legitimate contest with some heft and not some guy and his friends just handing out barnstars to people. Hopefully, if we get the right reviewers involved it will be considered as prestigious as winning other photo contests. Remember 13:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you aware of Wikipedia:Featured pictures? --ais523 13:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and I think featured pictures is a wonderful policy. But featured pictures doesn't encourage people to contribute to core articles, doesn't rank the pictures in order in terms of the best picture for a certain time period and doesn't actually have to be taken by the person who submits it. That's why I proposed this contest. Remember 13:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

In addition, prizes seem to encourage better participation and more innovation. See NY Times article on prizes to reward innovation Remember 14:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not just make a post on the Bounty board or Reward board? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I could do that. But the idea is to set up a repeating award, not a one-time payment in return for a specific task. Remember 14:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the incentive of ones work becoming a "featured photo" is enough. But I think some people upload and nominate their own good photos which don't contribute much to article. Nice photo, but I didn't learn anything. --Indolences 17:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

A similar competition is running on Commons at the moment. Have a look at Commons:Picture of the Year 2006 --MichaelMaggs 22:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Could we change search options?

When I search for something, I (most of the time) go straight to one article. Could we have it where a search page comes up and gives a list of related articles?

Jeremyp1988 18:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)Jeremyp1988

I don't know if this is what you mean, but if you click on 'Go' or press return, it jumps straight to an article if there's one with that name, or if there's a redirect in place from that name (people add the redirects to help out the search engine, among other reasons), and if you click on 'Search', you'll always get the list of search results. --ais523 18:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Add a "reverting vandalism" checkbox to the editor screen

Currently, getting administrator attention for cases of vandalism is a somewhat time-consuming process, which includes a need to place notices on the page of the culprit, etc. My suggestion is to add a checkbox to the editor screen to explicitly flag certain edits or sets of edits as vandalism when cleaning it up. The idea is that when this checkbox is used, it will result in a notice being created and posted to special page that can be watched by sysops and/or a warning placed on the user page of the editor.

I am hoping that this will make vandalism reporting and tracking easier, and will also result in more timely blocks of the culprits. "The burned hand teaches best". Often a vandal will be around for 10 minutes or so hitting as mamy pages as they can before getting off. Sometimes a notice is all that is needed. Other times an admin needs to get involved. However, while one is setting up the message or sending a cry for help to WP:VANDAL, the vandalism continues. by speeding up the process, those editors who can be stopped by a simple notice will get the word sooner, and those who cannot be stopped that way will get blocked sooner. Both will make Wikipedia much less fun for the vandals.

The one problem that I can see with this is that vandals and edit warriers may latch onto this feature and start flagging legitimate edits as "vandalism". So a page is needed to track complaints in that regard, as well as a policy for deaing with it. My suggestion is to consider obviously malicious use of the vandalism flag to be serious violation of WP:POINT and the offending editor blocked for at least a week. (A confirmation page with a warning that the use of the vandalism flag can result in the reporter being sanctioned if its use is not appropriate is a related idea. That way, such reporting is discourages and the reporter cannot easily argue that their report was an accident.)

I also call for the imposition of the blocks to be done manually, albeit with appropriate tools to streamline to process as much as possible. It seems to me that any blocks need to be based on a competent administrator having looked over the issue determining if it is true vandalism, an attempt to subvert the flag, or being just plain mistaken on the part of the initiating editor. Also, it means that there is someone who can be held accountable for the block if it should turn out to be inappropriate. --EMS | Talk 16:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

getting administrator attention for cases of vandalism is a somewhat time-consuming process - actually, posting at WP:AIV is among the easiest things to do at Wikipedia. I also call for the imposition of the blocks to be done manually - well, they are done manually now, and no one is proposing that this be changed, so that's a rather moot point.

As for the "click and post" approach to vandalism, the problem is the one size doesn't fit all - sometimes it's appropriate to start with a level 3 or 4 warning, sometimes level 1; it really depends on what kind of vandalism is involved. Similarly, if the user has done some constructive edits, some leniency might be shown in the escalation of warnings. Anonymous IP editors need different handling than registered users (for example, for school IP addresses). And there already are automated tools that make vandal-fighting easier - see Category:Wikipedia counter-vandalism tools and Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 18:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that you are missing the point here. Most of the time I just revert and move on. Sometimes I will track down the vandal and leave a message. On still fewer occasions I will check the vandals contributions and do a revert campaign, and if the person remains active I will post a notice. Still, those things take time. For a generated message, it should be short, sweet, and fatual; and should probably include a link to a page where one can make a case for the edit not being vandalism. Alternatively, no message would be generated, or a screen present to the reporter making a set of related tools available to him or her. (The screen could include selections to see the vandal's history, see the vandal's talk page, post one of the several warning templates, and even report to WP:AIV.) Remember, the goal is to make vandalism reporting and handling easier and more efficient. --EMS | Talk 17:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

An RVV checkbox would have some advantages over the present ad hoc reversions. People use various phrasing to indicate vandalism, and the checkbox could add a default phrase to the edit summary (perhaps if the default message is not changed). A checkbox would also allow automatic marking of an RVV, perhaps for uses such as a Pages recently vandalized report. (SEWilco 20:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC))

I think that'd be an excellent flag to add, but it should have a check to make sure that the page is actually being restored to a previous version's exact state, to ensure people don't use it to hide sneaky changes. A filter on histories to remove reversions would also make it simpler to read some heavily vandalized pages. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

That semms reasonable to me. Indeed, the flag's applicability should be limited to reverts of one or more edits by the same user or IP as well as where no edits are being done on the text being reverted to. The former restriction permits automated tracking of the editors involved in this activity, thereby enabing the possibility of early admin intervention. --EMS | Talk 17:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I too have no objection to a checkbox/flag. But no one else has commented on this: The idea is that when this checkbox is used, it will result in a notice being created and posted to special page that can be watched by sysops and/or a warning placed on the user page of the editor. What EMS seems to be proposing is to use the checkbox as an alternative to this: Sometimes I will track down the vandal and leave a message. On still fewer occasions I will check the vandals contributions and do a revert campaign, and if the person remains active I will post a notice. Still, those things take time. In fact, the listed actions: (a) leaving an appropriate message (except for hit-and-run editors), (b) reviewing other editor contributions and reverting other vandalizing edits that haven't been reverted; and (c) posting a notice (at WP:AIV, I assume) if this is a case of repeated vandalism (level 4 warning already in place) or a vandal-only account - are exactly what should be done in all situations. Yes, they do take time.

In short, any "hit a checkbox and move on" approach simply can't determine the appropriate level of warning, won't revert other vandal edits, and leaves someone else (who?) determining when to make a request to WP:AIV for blocking. I don't think that is a good approach. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 15:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If there is too much work involved, nothing will get done. That is the long and the short of it. We have volunteers who are willing to be on vandal/cruft duty. Let's find the best way to make the best use of that resource and the time resourcee of the regular users. I have also put forth later in this thread to option of immadiately presenting the user flagging the vandalism with a set of tools for tracking down other vandalism by the user, sending messages to the talk page, and sending the case to WP:AIV. Perhaps that is the way to go, but if you disagree at the least please present an alternative that will help to achieve the goal rather than complaining about people moving on. --EMS | Talk 21:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Setting up a talk page for a future but not yet created article

I'd been in the habit of using a template Template:Future article talk page, to start a talk page before an article is created. After applying the template to the talk page, I'd use the talk pages to post what source links I had, why I thought an article should exist here, it's notability, etc.. It seemed that wiki policy at the time served created talk pages before the article was created, if the talk page served to help create a notable article.

Either I misunderstood wiki policy of the time, or it has changed since. The template got deleted, etc. The primary reason for the deletion was the possibility of abuse I think. I still don't see that as likely. By applying a template and categorizing future article talk pages it was easy to track them, and delete them if abuse became an issue. I'd been using said template for months, I didn't see a significant amount of abuse happen.

Anyway I'd like to reexamine wikipedia's policy on talk pages that are for articles that do not exist yet, or were deleted, for each of the possible methods of deletion.

I have tried to discuss this area of wiki policy on a lot of different pages, before I got directed here :) The list of those places is here Template_talk:Future_article_talk_page.

Talk pages that exist without article pages seems like a controversial topic here. I'm betting wiki veterans have legitimate reasons for opposing the idea. I'd like to here them, because the idea worked fine for me for a few months :) Mathiastck 15:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Current style seems to support creating an article in userspace instead, or at least posting a stub as soon as you have enough content. PRocess around creation is pointless, might as well just be bold and go ahead and write the article already. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried the go bold approach first :) I do most of my wiki editing at work, and I can't justify spending enough time to create an article that can defend it's own notability. There is already process around creation, the requested articles process. I just really dislike that process, and I'm betting new users don't much like it either. Userspace pages are fine if you want to remove your efforts from the collobarative wiki process, but I would prefer a method that allowed collobaration on initial article creation, and preserved discussion on why or why not an article is notable. Mathiastck 16:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Defending notability is not hard, just write the most important facts in a few sentences. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Night Gyr. I really see no situations where it would not make sense to first write a very short stub and tag it with {{inprogress}} if need be. Pascal.Tesson 17:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I see no problem with writing a short stub, and a larger talk page filled with less verifiable information. Mathiastck 15:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

An idea?

What would other Wikipedians think of someone who started a business selling t-shirts? On the front of the t-shirts would be various of Wikipedia's featured images, along with the caption that appeared with them when they appeared on the Main Page. There would also be some with WikiWorld comics on the front. There would also be a line on the front of all of them that said, "Image courtesy of Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. www.wikipedia.org". On the back, in its entierty (yes I know it's a long document, but it would be in small font) would be the Text of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Perfectly legal under the GFDL, yes; but would this upset members of the community? What if, oh, say 10-20% of any profit were kicked back in the form of a donation to Wikimedia Foundation? Moreover, if this profit-seeking venture wouldn't upset you... would you want to buy such a t-shirt? Do you think such t-shirts would sell? Or would our hypothetical entrepenur be eating his or her losses? Just an idea I've come up with and thought I'd kick around. Anonymously. 70.239.89.111 01:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, if you used PD or CC images, you wouldn't need the GFDL. And, putting these images on T-shirts, posters, or anywhere else that they're being spread around and taking knowledge with them is within the mission of wikipedia. You can profit off them as much as you want; spreading the knowledge, even for profit, is the whole point of using licenses that allow commercial use. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I, personally, would love such a venture. We already have something at CafePress that sells Wikimedia-related items, and you may wish to see if they're interested. Donating back a percentage of the profits would be great! (Note that even if the image is PD or CC, I believe that the caption used for the picture of the day would still have to be GFDL. I might be wrong on this, though. It would be best to consult Brad Patrick, the Foundation's general counsel, or a private legal professional to make sure you have all of your bases covered.) Keep us updated and let us know if this becomes reality. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You could print the license on a peice of paper and ship it with the T-shirt. Im sure that would meet the requirements. You could staple it to the tag just to make it one product just to be on the safe side. The UPC has a smaller version for things like gum. Why not allow a short reference to the license for small items. --Gbleem 02:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia store at http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia is great. I wonder how management (Wikimedia foundation) feels about commercialization. I suppose there is a whole debate on whether going mainstream is a good idea. Too much growth all at once can be overwhelming. Growth inevitably requires change and that takes time. Maybe the policy is to let growth and mainstreaming happen at it's own pace. Of course, if money becomes an issue, someone will think of this. --Insect 21:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Notes Page to go along with discussion and edit and history pages.

The notes page would contain elements that have not yet been incorporated into the actual article, but which have relevance and should probably be incorporated into a later version. This would correspond with an encyclopedia's files related to an article without falling into content discussions and messy archiving.

Examples of where a notes page would be very useful.

pre-editing controversial subjects (keeping flamewars off the main page and allowing a stronger article element to be built and agreed upon in a temporary area where editors can access and refer to it easily)

adding elements in discussion in scientific journals without adding items of questionable but valid veracity to the main page

alternate elements that may not be appropriate for the main page but may come in handy for future edits. (i.e. pictures and stuff that'd be a pain in the butt to dig out of the talk archive.)

interviews/hearsay/relevant but non-encyclopediac data that isn't archived elsewhere on the web.

71.102.28.61 21:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

This is what talk pages are for already. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Except the fourth, which shouldn't be anywhere. -Amarkov moo! 22:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If the archives are a pain to dig through you can make a special talk subpage for a particular issue. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

change the format of this page

i dont understand why the format of this page is like this.

a new topic should always come first. if a new topic is listed at the bottom most people will never read it. why not make it the way it happens in most forums. there is a reason why it is like that in forums. a hotly debated topic will always remain on the top, while a subject in which nobody is interested anyway, will always go down. however every article has an equal chance of being visited by people. if it happens that people become so engrossed in discussing a few topics, they might easily miss any new proposals that come up.

Most people reading this page go to the bottom for the most recent comments. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 13:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

i fully understand that, it must be have become a habit for people who have been here longer. but for people who are new, this is the most logical and intuitive way, to have the most recent post at the top, not at the bottom of the page. and the community want new people doesn't it. it would help a lot in the early times.

other than that, do you like scrolling to the bottom of the page to see whats new?

Yes, I just hit the "End" button on my keyboard, and it goes right to the bottom. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 13:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In most forums new threads are defaulted to the top of the page (with most forums providing an option to change the default ordering in preferences to reverse this), but the thread itself, where the text appears, is in the format we read in, i.e. top down. The pages on Wikipedia are much closer in form to a forum thread itself than they are to a listing of threads.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

ok...i havent seen many forums in the way you are mentioning, i do know that there are options to reverse the ordering, but most people dont do that because, the default (i.e. the newest post first) is the most convenient. but maybe I am wrong...it would be good to know what other people think. the other thing is why have all the articles in expanded form in this page. why cant we have the topics in a single link, so that if you are interested you can always visit the particular post, but you dont have to unnecessarily browse through posts you are not interested in.

Well, no, to me (and I'm sure many others) the most logical and intuitive thing to do is to read the end of the page to see what's new. After all, we read from top to bottom, so logically the last topic comes last, not first. Anyway, haven't you noticed the table of contents, which means you don't have to browse through everything to get to the topic you want? -- Necrothesp 22:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

part of a spam solution

Articles currently under AFD should temporarily be added to robots.txt to stop them google from giving pigeonrank to their subjects, for the duration of the AFD. A lot of spam is caught quickly, before it is indexed by google, and this will mean that it won't get indexed at all, if it does get deleted. Less candy for spammers. If the article survives AFD, then it comes out of robots.txt and it gets treated normally. It would also be a good idea to temporarily remove the article from the default content-dump, so that answers.com and other mirrors don't grab it, or at least incorporate a flag that stops them from using the content automatically unless they specifically choose to disable such flags. That's getting a little esoteric for me but I trust that others reading this will get the gist of what I'm saying. This should all apply to other content besides articles too; I've seen spam inserted in templates in what appears to be an attempt to escape detection. This proposal would make up one part of a zero tolerance policy. — coelacan talk — 04:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

so what happens when good articles get frivolous AfDs to keep them off the ranking index and content feeds? Also, AfD is currently entirely human based; this would require implementing a significant software change. Further, Zero Tolerance is antithetical to wikipedia's principle of WP:AGF. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Good articles would merely not be indexed during the AFD. Unless I misunderstand robots.txt, doesn't it just stop google from making a new copy? So google would still have its older index. AFDs only last five days, google probably doesn't touch every article that often anyway. I don't think this would be a significant software change; I don't know but it doesn't seem like it would be a big deal. It would be invisible to humans anyway. We know for a fact that spammers are using Wikipedia to drive up their ranking, zero tolerance against them is not a violation of AGF. This will have no effect whatsoever on good new articles; anything that passes AFD gets removed from robots.txt and starts getting indexed. So at worst it only amounts to a five day delay before the first indexing, for new articles that are nominated for AFD promptly (this doesn't happen to most good new articles anyway). I see no negative side effects to this, but it would impede the results for spammers and thus reduce their incentive to spam here. — coelacan talk — 06:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Unique display format for Wikipedia

E-Book Systems Inc., would like to share with the Wikipedia community - a unique display format for Wikipedia purposes.

Founded in 1998, E-Book Systems’ patented Digital Flip® Technology provides a unique way to organize and view digital information. Our solutions bring life to digital content with its ability to integrate multimedia, and display it in a realistic 3D page flipping interface.

With Digital Flip® Technology, Wikipedia can provide its users a true encyclopedic experience. Users can browse through Wikipedia like they would a hard copy encyclopedia. They can flip individual pages, grab a few pages to flip, lift a page to compare with contents on the proceeding or preceding pages, flip through pages rapidly, zoom in or zoom out on a page, jump to a desired page, click on links to navigate to desired page, search content for a desired search term (where feature is available).

We would like to work with Wikipedia to create Wikipedia FlipBook. This Wikipedia FlipBook should adopt the same concept as the existing Wikipedia site. Please click on the following link to browse through the sample Wikipedia FlipBook created for the editors' evaluations : Sample Wikipedia FlipBook

Please note that the Wikipedia FlipBook is only for demonstration purposes. It contains only an extract of the contents in Wikipedia site. The links (in black underline) included in the demo Wikipedia FlipBook have not been enabled. However, please note that we do have the ability to enable the links and ensure that all links navigate to the relevant pages.

About E-Book Systems E-Book Systems is a private organization, with offices in the U.S, China, Japan, Korea, Europe, and Singapore. Investors in E-Book Systems include Creative Technology Ltd, and SOFTBANK Media & Marketing Corporation, a subsidiary of SOFTBANK Corp.

I'm not speaking officially here, but you're just as welcome as any other of the Mirrors and forks to copy the content under the GFDL and use your interface on it. I doubt it'd catch on here, because it requires downloading addition software, and doesn't sound like it adds enough to be worth it. We try to keep the technical requirements low here. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

We would like to work with Wikipedia to create Wikipedia FlipBook. The Wikimedia Foundation, which controls Wikipedia and a variety of other free-access projects, has a policy of not using commercial (aka "pay-for") software unless absolutely necessary. So if you are proposing some sort of business proposition whereby you would pay the Foundation for a specialized feed, for example, feel free to contact them; otherwise, you're probably wasting your time. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it'd catch on here, because it requires downloading addition software, and doesn't sound like it adds enough to be worth it. We try to keep the technical requirements low here. E-Book Systems also offers the FlipViewer® BV version which does not require any software download. Please click on the following link to browse through the FlipViewer® BV version of the sample Wikipedia FlipBook: Sample Wikipedia FlipBook - FlipViewer® BV version

a better portable wikipedia device

my name is nick church and I am aware of the tomb raider version of wikipedia, however I believe I have a better idea. I have seen many electronic dictionaries which are very popular over in japan. What about a device very similar to the electronic dictionary, yet with wikipedia on it. I realize that wikipedia as a site must take up quite a bit of space, but if you cut out all the user pages, and the talk pages, it could be made to fit on a 30g drive which would definitely fit in something the size of an electronic dictionary. along with this you could include a docking station which will update all the pages automatically, as well as charging it. You could also include basic functions such as a calendar, clock, etc. Also if possible you could consider hooking up with google maps/news to include area maps and news. perhaps an sd card reader would be a good idea so that one may use it to watch videos or play mp3s as well.

you could probably get a good deal on the manufacturing, sell it for about $300 a piece and use the profit for wikipedia expansion...or whatever you want.

Anyone can take a data dump and stick it on such a device. Quality control is an issue, not size. All the text for the current version is only a couple of gigabytes. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of the more expensive dictionaries I saw at the E-Mart also doubled as a book reader but I think they were around $350 US. My dictionary was on sale for about $89 but I can't change the contents. I would think one could make a cheap book reader for around $50 that could have just about anything you wanted on it. --Gbleem 03:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You could just browse it from a cell phone with an appropriate skin. If you want a local copy, you run into the trouble of downloading all that data every time you want to update. Unless the servers make up a custom set of diffs for you, you'll need a couple of gigs of data, and that's not going to be done in the time it takes to charge the battery. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

GFDL image tag depopulation

While stumbling around a few pages, I came upon this, which says that all instances of the (current) {{GFDL}} tag should be migrated to {{GFDL-with-disclaimers}}. Then after the tag is depopulated, the code from {{GFDL-no-disclaimers}} would be copied into the GFDL tag, and then the GFDL tag would be repopulated through transferring the instances of the no disclaimer tag to the new GFDL tag (or simply keep the transclusions in place, either works). I am planning to do this by adding another task to my bot, VixDaemon, but I want to make sure there are no concerns with this before I submit the task for approval. I have compared the current GFDL tag and GFDL-with-disclaimers, and the text matches down to the letter, so there would be no change of license with the migration.

Since Dragons flight who originally proposed this plan to standardize the usage of the GFDL tag between the projects has "basically abandoned" the plan, I am planning to pick up where he left off. Does anyone have any concerns with, or support for this? Kyra_~(talk) 23:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, I'd like to expand this to include the {{GFDL-self}} tag, as it has disclaimers too; those instances would be migrated to {{GFDL-self-with-disclaimers}}, and then it would subsequently be replaced with {{GFDL-self-no-disclaimers}}. A change to MediaWiki:Licenses would be advisable as it would prevent new instances from arising during the time when the templates would be migrated, as well as currently. Kyra_~(talk) 08:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

New paragraphs to the infoboxes.

I want to add these paragraphs:

• Based on: Link to original media. (Example: In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it is filled by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
• Related book(s): Novels, non-fiction books, factual books.
• Related comic(s): Comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, Webcomics, manga, light novels
• Related film(s): Feature-length films, short films, animated films, direct-to-videos, OVAs, V-cinemas.
• Related TV series: TV dramas, animated series, TV anime, TV comedies, sitcoms.
• Related video game(s): 2-D games, 3-D games, anime games, all computer and video games.

to:

• Comics infoboxes
  • {{Infobox Comic strip}}
  • {{Graphicnovelbox}}
  • {{Supercbbox}}
  • {{Infobox Webcomic}}
• Book infoboxes
  • {{Infobox Book}}
  • {{Book Series infobox}}
• TV and film infoboxes
  • {{Infobox Film}}
  • {{Infobox Television Film}}
  • {{Infobox Television}}
• and {{Infobox CVG}}

to inform related medias.--JSH-alive^{talk to me}_{see my works}^{mail to me} 15:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

These could be added to the infoboxes by putting in the following lines of wikicode into the correct positions:

{{#if:{{{based on|}}}|<tr style="vertical-align: top;"><td>'''Based on'''</td><td>{{{current}}}</td></tr>}}  
{{#if:{{{related book|}}}|<tr style="vertical-align: top;"><td>'''Related book(s)'''</td><td>{{{current}}}</td></tr>}}  
{{#if:{{{related comic|}}}|<tr style="vertical-align: top;"><td>'''Related comic(s)'''</td><td>{{{current}}}</td></tr>}}  
{{#if:{{{related film|}}}|<tr style="vertical-align: top;"><td>'''Related film(s)'''</td><td>{{{current}}}</td></tr>}}  
{{#if:{{{related TV series|}}}|<tr style="vertical-align: top;"><td>'''Related TV series'''</td><td>{{{current}}}</td></tr>}}  
{{#if:{{{related video game|}}}|<tr style="vertical-align: top;"><td>'''Related video game(s)'''</td><td>{{{current}}}</td></tr>}}  

They are all optional parameters so they won't break any existing articles with the infobox that have not added the parameters. To specify the values of each of these parameters, you could then add the following to where the infobox is referenced:

| based on =
| related book =
| related comic =
| related film =
| related TV series =
| related video game =

Tra (Talk) 16:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

This seems unnecessary; doesn't related content generally go at the bottom of the article, with the see also links, rather than at the top? The infoboxes are pretty big as it is. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The "Based on" line sounds good, but otherwise, what Night Gyr said. Infoboxes are meant to be concise summaries, and their size is a point of contention already. "Related" items do belong at the end of a subject's article. --Quiddity 01:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, frankly, I want to disable {{Infobox animanga}}. In my opinion, TV anime should use {{Infobox Television}}, manga should use comics infoboxes, OVA and film should use {{Infobox Film}} and video games should use {{Infobox CVG}}.--JSH-alive^{talk to me}_{see my works}^{mail to me} 02:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

two proposals: use of wikipedia materials as course material for universities or schools, listing of most visited(say 10) pages on the front page of wikipedia

it would be a good idea to advertise the use of material from wikipedia for schools or universities. I know that such an activity is active for school children, however i dont know of anything similar of higher education. a lot of colleges/university professors, write there own notes, which are then given out to university people, much like mit ocw. so you might have a project where you have various courses which are provided for in the universities. these course materials would be edited only by professors or people of good knowledge of their subject, so that it can be used for course work. it would be very useful for people from backward nations, where there are not enough educated professors, or good professors. also since most universities teaching the same level course have a similar syllabus, it would standardize the courses over the world, so that people in backward nations are at par with the information available to that available to better off countries.

a second proposal would be to have a list of the most accessed topics(say 10) on the front page of wikipedia. this would be mainly for information purposes to the casual visitor. i saw that a proposal for a similar thing might lead to vandalism. however since you are listing the most visited pages not the least visited pages, it shouldnt cause any problem

Most schools do not accept Wikipedia as a reliable source, and rightfully so, since anyone can edit and throw in misinformation. There are statistics listed at Special:Statistics, especially under "Other statistics" that you might find useful. I don't like the term "backward nations" either. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 13:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I cant understand why most wouldn't accept a possibly wrong information source, but what I proposed was a expert written text, not something which will be readily edited by every body. so you can have a list of ips of reknowned educational institutes, whose people would be allowed to edit topics. undoubtedly you can never prevent vandalism,(even if you some way to ensure that it is a professor who edits a particular article, his id can also be stolen) but it is definitly a good way to increase the accurate ness of articles which are most necessary for learning. as a student i have seen, almost all of my batchmates using wikipedia for information, it would really be helpful for a lot of people to have a better information source.

also if you look at the number of science or humanities topics that are being accessed by people you will realise that most of them would be from college going students

Yes, it is certainly a good place to start—to get an idea of a topic. However, textbooks and academic journals are more appropriate resources in an academic setting such as a university. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 13:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

what i am saying is to have a mit, ocw version of wikipedia, only that it would contain a much wider variety, of content but related to academics. OCW is a quite a good concept, and the purpose of that is very similar. But the problem is that various universities, (like a stanford ocw, a beijing university ocw etc) have there own versions of ocw, why cant there be a single repository of information. I am not talking of academic journals, anyway if you are doing research academic journals are the best way to go, they are peer reviewed, and you will definitely have a better source of information.

We already have Wikibooks to write textbooks and Wikiversity to do academic stuff like research and writing teaching materials. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Note that many of our "most visited" pages relate to sex. Listing that on the front page is not likely to fly well with schools. >Radiant< 12:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

English translation of Italian tv show Don Matteo

I'd like to suggest an English language translation of the Italian television show 'Don Matteo': http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Matteo

As it's just started a run on Australian tv (SBS) this might be of interest to readers. --Robert Fraser 06:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Robert. This request would probably be better placed at Wikipedia:Translation/*/Lang/it, specifically set up for translation requests of Italian Wikipedia articles into English.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

ddafd

thank you

Jeremyp1988 17:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)jeremyp1988

Salted pages

[moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard]

It's been proposed that we replace all of our "salted" articles (currently tagged with Template:Deletedpage) with redirects to a page in the project namespace containing similar text (thereby removing salted article pages from the random article pool and total article count). I believe that this would be an improvement, but the main disadvantage would be that users would no longer be able to view useful links unique to the individual pages.

Now that cascading protection has been enabled, it's finally possible to protect a nonexistent page (simply by transcluding it onto a page with cascading protection directly applied, thereby causing it to appear as a red link). I propose that we switch to a system in which a series of project pages (perhaps one for each month) is created and used for this purpose.

I've created a demonstration template and added a couple of transclusions to a demonstration page. The syntax is as follows: {{protected title|page title|optional reason}}
For non-articles, the namespace should be omitted from the page title and appended as the conditional "ns" parameter (ns=[namespace]). To omit the talk page link (handy if it's a likely vandalism target and there's no realistic legitimate use for the page name), append the following parameter: talk=no

I've tweaked some MediaWiki code to display a {{deletedpage}}-style notice (along with advice to check for additional information on the page to which cascading protection has been directly applied) when a non-sysop attempts to edit (or follows a red link to) a nonexistent page with cascading protection applied. If a non-sysop merely attempts to view such a page, he/she sees the standard "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name..." message (which could be modified to reference instances in which "view source" is displayed instead of "edit this page"). Clicking on "view source" displays the aforementioned {{deletedpage}}-style notice and accompanying link/advice.

A bot could be used to convert all of the salted pages to this format (automatically sorting the titles chronologically—likely based on the pre-existing list—and inserting the most recent edit summary as the reason).

Opinions? —David Levy 06:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a very intelligent solution--and certainly we've all agreed for some time that the holy grail would be some way to protect articles in a genuinely deleted state. The only problem I can see is that it will have the same effect if a non-existent page is (for whatever reason) transcluded on to some other page with cascading protection, but perhaps that doesn't matter (it seems like it would be rare). It would also require admins to change their behavior in a more drastic way, which is also always a challenge. :) Chick Bowen 06:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I've given this some thought, and I've been unable to come up with another situation in which we'd want to transclude a nonexistent page on a page with cascading protection enabled. —David Levy 17:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Typo on mainpage links? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah--it would be from a screwup of some sort. If a template were deleted and the admin forgot to check whatlinkshere, it might appear to another editor that it had been protected against creation. As I say, though, not a big deal. Chick Bowen 18:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I misunderstood your comment to mean that we might actually want to do this for some reason. —David Levy 18:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to make the "This page has been deleted and protected to prevent re-creation" message not show if the cascading protection is only semi-protection? That would make eliminate the likeliest circumstances. Chick Bowen 18:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised to learn that cascading semi-protection is possible, as this enables anyone with a non-new account to semi-protect pages. That's a far worse problem than the display of that message (which would require developer intervention to change) and I don't believe that cascading semi-protection should ever be applied for any reason. In my opinion, it should be formally prohibited via the protection policy. —David Levy 18:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for noting this. In fact, when semi-protection cascades it becomes full, so the problem is even worse. I've filed bugzilla:8796 about it. Superm401 - Talk 20:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yikes, I didn't realize that! I'm going to go ahead and add an explicit prohibition to the protection policy. —David Levy 22:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a really good idea. —Centrx→talk • 17:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not really against it. So, instead of adding the {{deletedpage}} or {{spambot}} templates to the pages, we would include the page in a list. Gives us better control than just a category for sure. -- ReyBrujo 17:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a great idea, but when someone attempts to edit a non-existing, cascading-protected page, I think as well as the message you added, there should also be an empty, disabled text box on there, to make it clear that they are on the edit tab, there is no text on the page and to keep with convention, e.g. with non-existent MediaWiki: pages. Also, the 'edit this page' tab should be replaced with 'view source'. Other than that, yes, this is a great idea. Tra (Talk) 19:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a "view source" tab instead of an "edit this page" tab. I don't believe that a disabled text box would be of any benefit, and I also see no means of adding one. (We're working within the confines of MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected.) —David Levy 19:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If you go to this page (from one of your examples), the title of the page says 'View source' but the tab at the top says 'edit this page'. However, yes, I can see now, you didn't edit any code, you just customised MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected so unless it allows raw HTML, I agree a text box wouldn't be possible. Tra (Talk) 22:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I'd only viewed the page while logged out (which results in a "view source" tab). —David Levy 22:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, wow. This is brilliant. -- Steel 19:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I really like this idea. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If this is what I think it is, Wikinews has been doing it for ages with noxiously recreated pages, see n:Wikinews:Protected deletions. 68.39.174.238 22:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

They're using protected redirects to a project page. (The pages aren't actually in a deleted state.) As noted above, this is something that we've considered doing. —David Levy 01:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I dislike that idea. It decouples the protection from the page, which means that, for instance, the protection will not be recorded in the page's history or logs. It would be a better solution to change the code to allow nonexistent pages to be protected (if it displays a special message in that case, we could simply change it to be identical to the current {{deletedpage}} template). --cesarb 21:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The page must be re-deleted before it can be protected. If the sysop includes a comment along the lines of "salting page," why would this (combined with a clear recording in the history of a specific project page) be insufficient?

Yes, a function created specifically for this purpose would be preferable, but that isn't available (and it isn't as though we haven't asked the developers to add it). Until it is, we have to choose one of the available methods. —David Levy 22:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That would, assuming the admins specifically say so when deleting (which I doubt; the delete reason is to write the reason for deleting, not what you are going to do next), only record when the page is protected, but not when it's unprotected.

I know it might not be easy to create a function like I described (in particular, it's quite probable that either the database layout would have to be changed or a "phantom" row would have to be used... which would be quite similar to what's currently done with {{deletedpage}}). But it's the right way to fix the real problem, which is that we have a page at the article namespace which should not be counted as an article (the same happens with things like the Main Page and redirects; in fact, something similar to what is done with redirects could be a reasonably elegant solution). --cesarb 23:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

1. The designated project page would contain a record of both the protection and the unprotection.

2. Again, the fact that it it may be possible to implement a better solution in the future doesn't change the fact that we need to implement something now. We currently have no perfect option, but I believe that the use of unorthodox bookkeeping is an exceedingly minor issue compared to the problems inherent in the available alternatives. —David Levy 23:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Pending the implementation of a feature to protect nonexistent pages, using cascading protection to create protected redlinks seems like a good idea to me. As for the 'this page has been deleted, and protected to prevent recreation' message, it would be possible to prevent confusion in any other cascaded-redlink case by changing it to something like 'this page has been protected against creation' (which is much the same thing, but slightly more general). --ais523 15:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The one time I landed on a delete-protected page via Special:Random is enough to make me love this proposal, barring future improvements to directly protect non-existent pages. Flyingtoaster1337 02:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent excellent idea. Take a look at Reality. (while logged out if you are an admin) to see this in action. Prodego ^talk 02:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

And the final step would be a bot run with admin rights that deletes {{deletedarticle}} and adds the article name transcluded to Wikipedia:Protected titles. Guy (Help!) 14:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I counted about 1200 transclusions. So next step is to start another bot RfA, say "no, it's not open source" and wait if Werdna comes up with a MediaWiki solution :-) (I'm just kidding, please forgive me). Other options would be to employ a horde of admins with AWB or just ignore the current transclusions and use the new system for new salted pages only. --Ligulem 16:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We should simply run the bot under the owner's sysop account. —David Levy 16:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

In that case one such bot comes to mind. Flyingtoaster1337 17:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Minor quibble... the deleted title message currently says, "Specific information may be found by... contacting the administrator who protected the page." Since the logs for the page itself may not list any protections, I suggest that "who protected the page" be changed to "who deleted the page". Flyingtoaster1337 16:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Good catch! Fixed.  :-) —David Levy 16:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought the above would be the last "minor quibble" I had but there's another... I notice you removed the link to Special:Undelete. However, if the page has ever been deleted even once there'll be no easy access to deleted versions. For that reason I think the link is worth retaining. (Perhaps change "view the page history and content" to "view any deleted page history and content" so the sentence is ambiguous on whether the page has been deleted before.) Flyingtoaster1337 17:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed that line because the message isn't visible to sysops (who are presented with such a link in the text that they see). —David Levy 17:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Activity log link is borked for pages with spaces in the titles but thta is a minor quibble :-) Guy (Help!) 17:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Minor indeed. The parameter that gets put into the link just needs to be {{urlencode}}d. Flyingtoaster1337 18:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this when I created the template (which is why I included a conditional parameter for the page title with underscores in lieu of spaces). I'm working on a better version now. —David Levy 18:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've reworked the template accordingly. The underscored title parameter has been eliminated and the optional reason parameter has been shifted to the second position (which is more intuitive). Thank you, Flyingtoaster1337! —David Levy 19:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Go vote for Bugzilla:2919. I left a pointer there to this discussion here and noted David's cascade protection trick. --Ligulem 17:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm in the planning stages a real delete-protect feature, possibly being smarter, and allowing a "title blacklist" that prevents non-admins from creating a page with titles matching a regex, or moving to illegal titles. I'll probably do this after per-page blocking. — Werdna talk 05:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Werdna, you are a god among men. Thanks. Philwelch 05:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Which should stop those spambots creating Talk:Foo/w/w/wiki/index.php/Asdf/index.php style pages once and for all. Yay! Flyingtoaster1337 09:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Are we ready to make the cascading protection-based deletedpages system official? It probably will make it easier to migrate to Werdna's system once that gets rolled out. Neither system needs any boilerplate text in place at the deleted title. IMO, if we delete the {{deletedpage}}s now there won't be any left when we switch to the blacklist system. Flyingtoaster1337 09:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'm putting new ones in there and when I find the salt on a vandal magnet deleted I'm adding that as well. Guy (Help!) 10:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
• They've been doing it on wiktionary, but it there a blacklist page on wikipedia and are page blacklisted permanantly or is there a process to get these page out if their if a legitimate editon is released? BuickCenturyDriver 11:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:DRV is the process to use if you want to have an article at any of the blacklisted titles. Tra (Talk) 15:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Taxobox - Authorisation

As far as I can see, there is no complete consensus here regarding the format of the taxonomist's name ("authorisation") in the template:taxobox. There are articles with Linnaeus's name abbreviated, whereas others state his full family name.

I think the taxonomist's name should appear in the abbreviated form, common in the scientific literature, and without parentheses, which should only include the year of description. The abbreviated format should link to the article regarding the specific taxonomist. Reasoning:

1. Such a format, together with the binomial name, gives the complete and exact scientific format, to designate a species. The template is the best place to expose the readers to this standard way of writing, common among all scientists and scientific literature. This way there is also a match between the format in the article and in scientific articles.
2. Readers who will be confused by the abbreviations, can clarify the matter immediately by clicking on the abbreviation and reaching the article regarding the taxonomist.

Parallel message posted on the template's discussion page.

Gidip 13:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Return To Ido Should Also Have, Return To Talk:Ido, Return To Articlehistory:Ido, And Return to Talkhistory:Ido

For example.100110100 08:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Instead of Articlehistory:Ido, shouldn't it just be History:Ido? —Doug Bell ^talk 10:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"Invert selection" option for watchlist

In Special:Recentchanges, there is an option to "invert" the selected namespace. I think this means it will show edits in all namespaces except the namespace selected, whereas it would normally show only the selected namespace.

If this is correct, I think it would be useful (thought not imperative) to have this option available in our watchlists. Is there a more appropriate place to bring this up? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 11:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Any thoughts? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 06:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal / RfC: Donation appeal ideas

I'd like us to come up with a better text for the permanent donation appeal to unregistered users than the current one. You can contribute ideas at Wikipedia:Donation appeal ideas.--Eloquence* 04:48, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Attribution: Merger of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research

Wikipedia:Attribution, a proposal to subsume and replace Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, is ready to be implemented. Please review the document and discuss any problems on the talk page. —Centrx→talk • 23:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Places of local interest

There is discussion on its talk page as to whether or not this is a consensually-supported guideline. Comments are welcome. >Radiant< 17:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Criticism link on religion navigational boxes

This is a proposal that has been discussed a little on individual talk pages for certain templates found in Category:Religion navigational boxes. Currently, there are a number of pages dealing with criticisms of specific religions, such as Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of Mormonism, Criticism of Islam, Criticism of Judaism, Criticism of Hinduism and Scientology controversy. Over the past few months, some of these religion's navigational templates have included a link to the corresponding criticism page, and some have removed the link. There were proposals to include the link in religion A's template because it was found on other religions X, Y, and Z, and there were proposals to remove the link in religion B's template because it was not found in other religions W, V, and U. I think it is strange when one group of templates are using another set of templates for precedent, and vice versa. So I am proposing that we include a link to the top tier Criticism page in a religion's navigational box, if applicable. I believe that including a link such as this gives a more holistic view, falls within the NPOV policy (and because it is only one link, isn't giving undue weight). If someone is researching a religion, it can be helpful to read about common criticisms, and therefore I believe it is helpful to be included in the template. I am coming here because a respondent at Template talk:Hinduism small encouraged me. What do other people think about including a critical link in religion navigational infoboxes? Thanks for your consideration.-Andrew c 03:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. We're here to provide knowledge on all aspects of a subject, not just to promote a particular viewpoint desired by the subject itself. Tyrenius 03:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm the one who encouraged Andrew c to ask about this here - but what I was suggesting was that he enquire about putting criticism links on all WikiProject templates, not just Religions. I don't think it's a necessary or helpful idea. But if it's going to be a new policy, it should apply to all Projects, not just Religions—for example, Projects templates for Countries and Ethnic Groups (to point out a couple of examples that might be as controversial as Religions) should be included in this policy if it's going to be a new policy. ॐ Priyanath talk 03:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are some things that aren't going to have any sort of criticism article, but for the ones that do, we certainly should require a link to them. -Amarkov moo! 03:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Hello, law of unintended consequences. I suppose it's not overly important, as there will never be a policy regarding what one should or shouldn't put in one's infoboxes and nav templates. Opabinia regalis 05:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It's an arguably valid interpretation of WP:NPOV that you should be, and I don't see any unintended consequences. -Amarkov moo! 05:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

That I should be what?

I suspect the criticism links do belong in the religion navboxes. But the way to implement that is to figure it out with the religions projects and editors, not to try making a general policy on the specifics of navbox contents. Opabinia regalis 06:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It definitely sounds like they should go in. To not include them for some silly reason would be a whitewash. NPOV and all that ... Cyde Weys 06:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone so far for the comments. I apologize to Priyanath for not fully understanding the comment to me, and not making the proposal more broad. I do not believe that there is any policy that specifically restricts the use of critical links in infoboxes. Template:Abortion has links to pro-life and controversy/debate pages. I also do not see an abundence of criticism pages dealing with the vast majority of infoboxes (take template:Pokémon species, is there a "criticism of Pokénon species" article?) I think we should stick to discussing the religion navigational boxes (unless we have specific examples of other neglected criticism articles).--Andrew c 06:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Valid criticism articles should be included in any navigation structure about the topic, and sometimes in "See also" sections for articles that don't have nav templates. If the criticism page is bogus/unfair,. edit or have it deleted, don't sweep it under the rug. That's almost textbook POV editing. -- nae'blis 16:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think including criticism articles is probably required according to policy. Criticism article are already on questionable ground when it comes to content forking. If we kept criticism off the template, we would be permanently severing part of the complete article on each religion. Indeed, any topic with a "criticism" article must include it to maintain unity and avoid the worst problems associated with POV forks.

This is not an endorsement of criticism articles, but if we must have them, they should be well-linked to their subjects. Cool Hand Luke 22:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Revisions

Currently deleted edits are retrievable up to June 2004, it is time that we actually start cleaning out the deleted old mainspace page revisions for up to, say 2 years? I was reading up this, I do not believe that anyone would really want to look up for something on mainspace that was previously deleted for more than two years, and I'm sure there are costs for maintaining this database. Over half of what is created today is deleted everyday, and we know that several of them are spam/vanity/copyright violations. Do we really need to keep and retrieve them in five years' time, for example?

At the moment images are not undelete-able for up to June 2006, but in future it's going to take up a lot of space if we don't have a cut-off time. Let's be practical, do we really need to retain imagevios, CSD#I4s, CSD#I5s for more than a year that takes up gigs of space and maintenance costs? - Mailer Diablo 16:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Probably not, but it is my impression that most costs go to bandwidth and processor speed, rather than server storage. >Radiant< 17:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The deleted revisions are not a problem. If they were, the developers would already have pruned them. They have already warned they can purge all deleted revisions without any warning, and that we shouldn't depend on them being kept forever[1]. --cesarb 17:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

We need a {{let the developers worry about it}} for people worried about server load. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

We already have a Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance. --cesarb 01:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

google-like spell check

I have always loved Google's "spell-check" when searching for a term I do not know how to spell. I use this often before I search for the term on Wikipedia. It would be great if I could simply skip the copy-paste step and have the spell check on Wikipedia. Not being computer-saavy, I couldn't begin to suggest how to do this. Thanks!

This has come up quite a few times. Basically, spell checking has had to be disabled on Wikipedia search for performance reasons. I would suggest that you continue to use Google for spell checking. Tra (Talk) 04:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

If you're using Firefox, I find that the built-in spell check works very well, and it doesn't require any cut-and-paste operations. You can install a wide variety of different languages and switch between them quickly and easily. As an example, I default to Canadian English, but I can "right-click-select" to switch to British English or American English if the article requires it. (Apologies if this sounds like a promo for FF, but the feature does work quite well.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll back that up. I use the same feature for the same reasons. -- KirinX 16:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I find firefox built-in spellcheck?

For those not in the firefox cult, the Google Toolbar, which works in IE and many other browsers I believe, offers similar text-box spell checking. -Indolences 17:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

How about a built in spell checker when actually editing articles? RyanPostlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 21:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Firefox 2.0 does this out of the box. MER-C 11:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

And you can also do this with the Google Toolbar. Tra (Talk) 14:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The Google check is helpful (I used it before Firefox added spell checking) - but it unfortunately has a size limit wherein it will only do the first "x" errors in a large group of text. The Firefox one doesn't seem to have that issue. --Ckatz^chat_spy 20:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

What I've done with the Google spell checking for long pages is I either edited the article in sections or I copied and pasted part of the article into another text box and spell checked that. Tra (Talk) 20:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Performance reasons? Is there no way around this? I think it would greatly improve the performance to have a "did you mean..." or spellcheck option, like Google. Aceholiday 17:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

IP Userpages

I think IP userpages should get information known about the IP posted on them, this could prove useful for an admin when determaining how much a block may effect legit editors, ect. For example it could contain whois info, perhaps if it belongs to a lan, or specific computer if know, ect.--RyanB88 18:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

That information's added to the talk page at the moment, when known. There are a lot of IP userpages around at the moment as well (see Special:Prefixindex/User:68. (to take a common IP first number), for instance). --ais523 18:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

One can tag a given IP address talk page with info found by clicking the [IP Info] link and copy and pasting the info into the template Template:Ispinfo like so {{subst:Ispinfo|whois results}}. (→Netscott) 18:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps IP pages can automatically be generated and tagged? Koweja 18:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Main Page - "On This Day" Improvement Suggestion

Hi,

I use the Wikipedia main page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) as my home page. But because I live in New Zealand our timezone means that for more than half of any day (midnight until early afternoon) the "on this day" section is always a day behind NZ time and showing facts for yesterday. At the bottom of the section there are quick links for the last three days (ie "recent days"). What would be great is if you also had a quick link here for "tomorrow", being today for us in New Zealand. ie. currently I have to click "more anniversaries" and find the date from the full year calendar.

Thanks for considering my suggestion.

Regards, Matthew Blair Wellington New Zealand.

You can use Main Page/Tomorrow to see what tomorrow's main page will look like. However, if you are interested in adding a link to this page from the main page, you might want to ask at Talk:Main Page. Tra (Talk) 21:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be possible to refine the software to implement this through preferences, though I doubt it'd be a high priority for the developers. See Wikipedia:Bugzilla for how to file a request for a software improvement.--Pharos 02:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

TfD structure to match AfD

I would like to propose that the TfD process be restructured to match the AfD process. For example, discussion about an article's deletion is relegated to its own subpage of AfD. The discussion about a template is currently done within the TfD page itself. Therefore, monitoring a template discussion is more difficult than monitoring an article discussion, since Watching the page causes you to see a change made to any template deletion discussion. Making the two processes uniform and consistent will also aid editors who make submissions to both projects. There is some discussion from Jan 2006 and a little bit more recently. - grubber 17:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• The reason it's set up like this is because the mailflow on AFD is an order of magnitude larger than on TFD. >Radiant< 17:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  Agreed that the volume on AfD is larger. But, what do we lose by changing the process? I can think of plenty of advantages to the change, however. - grubber 17:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  • What we lose is that both nominating and closing become more complex and less efficient. Note that TFD is already "in line" with CFD, SFD, RFD and DRV, so bringing it "in line" with AFD for standardization is not such a useful argument. >Radiant< 17:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    Opening an AfD isn't that hard, or there wouldn't be a hundred of them every day. I don't know how difficult it is to close an AfD as opposed to a TfD, since I haven't ever done it. But in any case, assuming you're right: We would make two edits harder, but make the actual process of voting, watching, debating, and stating easier on all the other editors who participate. It seems like a useful tradeoff. Further, I would argue that making the whole XfD more uniform would be a good thing. Clearly, because of volume, we can't change AfD. Let's change the others to match it instead. We lose so little and gain so much. - grubber 18:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Given the volume of AfD over TfD, I think it makes sense that it behaves differently. That said, I have no real strong feelings about this one way or another... EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've done a couple of AfDs nominations over the past year, including one in the past week. I've always been struck by how many steps there are to the process, and how kludgy it feels, but it's definitely gotten better. Still, while I favor, in concept, changing the whole XfD to be consistent with AfD, I can see the reason to oppose the change until it's agreed that the AfD nomination process is as smooth and painless as possible. (XfD closing, on the other hand, tend to be done by those who do it a lot, I'd guess; an extra step or two for such closings wouldn't seem to me to be a big daal.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

(indent reset) My main issues are: (1) Using subpages (like on AfD) is useful to voters. (2) Making the XfD pages more uniform is a good thing (admins and users would need to know only one procedure to use for any XfD page). I don't have an opinion either way if AfD is the "best way we can think of". If not, let's design the "best way we can think of". Once we have a good method, then let's adopt the procedure to XfD as best as possible. - grubber 20:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason to change other XfD processes to match AfD at this time. Radiant has my opinions already outlined above. -- nae'blis 21:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

If uniformity of process is what you're after this matches most XfD types and AfD is the odd one. Separate pages for every nom make sense when there is a high volume and therefore a high likelihood of edit conflicts, or watchlisting the page is impractical because of so many changes. But separate pages impose a workload/complexity cost. They definitely make sense for AfD, but I don't think TfD needs them right now. —Dgies^t c 21:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you really believe the workload is that much higher? - grubber 15:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• The workload is an order of magnitude higher. Yesterday's AFD had 130 nominations, yesterday's TFD had nine. >Radiant< 16:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The attendance is so limited that any good means of attracting more users would help. Having a similar structure would increase useful cross-references to topics that might be of more general interest. And, how does the use of subpages add to the workload or complexity. It's just section editing.DGG 19:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

When I say "workload", I mean the effort required per entry. Higher volume is higher work, but my question is: Does using subpages increase the amount of effort significantly compared to the status quo? - grubber 20:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it does, yes. It requires at least three edits/nine pageloads to make an AFD (due to the three steps), and most other processes (TFD, RM, DRV, etc) can be done in two edits if you're careful. Also, keeping them on one page makes multiple nominations concomitantly easier to perform. -- nae'blis 20:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Don't think we need to migrate to the AfD procedure unless another Userbox War comes along. Even then, at its peak with the current procedure I could still close up to a hundred TfDs per day. - Mailer Diablo 20:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

  My concern is that TfD's are less editor-friendly. It may be more admin-friendly, but it appears to me that the difference is negligible. - grubber 20:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Don't think there's really a need for subpages on TfD, just increases workload, and it's just really not needed....only when the number of daily TfDs multiplies by about five, then consider. Doubt that'll ever happen , however. Alex43223 ^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 11:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

"Older"/"Newer" navigation for watchlist

Would it be possible to add navigation to the watchlist, similar to the "History" and "Contributions" pages? With large watchlists that feature very active pages, the "last x changes" setting in "Preferences" can often fall short of when you last logged in. That means going into the preferences, changing the size of the watchlist, and then either having to go back and reset it OR forgetting (and then facing the increased load time every time one calls the watchlist). Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have the option to collapse multiple changes to the same page turned on? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I did use that feature for a while, but found that I was able to do more with the non-collapsed version. (It often saves a lot of time in checking frequently updated pages, as you can see the context for edits rather than just the last one.) I would think that adding navigation shouldn't be all that difficult, given that the code already exists for the other pages. However, if there is some reason that it isn't doable, another option might be to add an "override" feature on the Watchlist page (much like the "Last 50"/"Last 100"/etc. choices on History pages. That way, you could choose a temporary increase in the number of edits, without having to adjust your default setting. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Umm, there is a manual override at the top of the watchlist page. It says "Show last 1 | 2 | 6 | 12 hours 1 | 3 | 7 days all". ;-) --Quiddity 01:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Tried that. It limits your watchlist, if the setting goes too far back for your liking. However, it doesn't extend it, which is what I would like. If, say, you're set for 500 changes, and that times out 18 hours back, adjusting the settings you mentioned still only goes back the same amount of time.

Ah, well that's probably more a WPtechnical question. Or try searching bugzilla. --Quiddity 19:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

A while ago [2], I suggested making the watchlist a regular page, made up entirely of links, so that checking it would be a "Related changes" thing for the watchlist page, and so that editing it would be like editing any other wiki page. Naturally, this would include the page having a history. Clicking "Watch" would add a link to the desired page at the bottom; clicking "Unwatch" would replace any link by an empty string. Users could freely edit their watchlist, e.g. to organize it by grouping the links under various headings.--Niels Ø (noe) 10:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Wiki-Lyric

I'm not sure if this is even the right place to suggest it, or whether I can even suggest it, but a sister project which encompasses lyrics to songs would be quite useful. Considering every single lyrics site on the net so far is riddled with pop-ups, it could be a valuable asset. Clockwork Apricot 00:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this probably couldn't be done as most song lyrics are copyrighted. Tra (Talk) 00:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There are already a couple. Linking them might not be kosher due to copyright, but just google for lyric wiki. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 00:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Or check out LyricWiki. -SpuriousQ (talk) 06:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject namespace

Hi, I'm sure this must have suggested before, but why don't we create a Wikiproject namespace? It's always bugged me how wiki appears twice in the title of projects (three times if you count the url). Wikiproject:Chemistry seems to make so much more sense than Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry, anyone else agree? - Jack · talk · 13:52, Saturday, 17 February 2007

This seems to me to be a good idea. But how would this be implemented? semper fictilis 17:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

In the code that keeps track of namespaces, you would add one more entry. This would definitely be a good idea, given the number of projects we have. Koweja 18:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Currently, its use is discouraged. There are pages that would be in that namespace, but they're all redirects: Wikiproject:Arab-Israeli conflict, Wikiproject:Artix Entertainment, Wikiproject:Artix Entertainment/to do, Wikiproject:Chemicals, Wikiproject:Cities, Wikiproject:Countering systemic bias, Wikiproject:Critical Theory, Wikiproject:Judaism, Wikiproject:Music standards, Wikiproject:Soviet Union, Wikiproject:Television, Wikiproject:Tree of life, Wikiproject:Firearms/to do, Wikiproject:Vietnam War, Wikiproject:WikiProject Painting, Wikiproject: Albums, Wikiproject: Sydney, WikiProject:British Crime/to do, WikiProject:Comics, WikiProject:Super Monkey Ball, WikiProject:Userbox migration, WikiProject:WikiProjects, and WikiProject: The Rolling Stones. Granted, this proposal would require a mass number of page moves. Looking over other Wikipedias, the German Wikipedia seem to use the Wikipedia namespace for it, while the French Wikipedia does have a namespace for WikiProjects (see w:fr:Projet:Accueil), as does the Italian and Polish Wikipedia. So Jrockley, you're not the first to suggest this :) --Gracenotes^T § 19:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

While it might seem a generally good idea, it unnecessarily creates a lot of work, for devs, admins, and active users, a cost that I don't think justifies a slight simplification. Besides, the "Wikipedia:" namespace is already considered the "project namespace" - it just does not subdivide inherently into a namespace for the projects. If we really wanted to remove excess "wiki"s, we should remove the "wiki" from "WikiProject". As a social change, I don't think that's likely to happen: names like "WikiProject Novels" sound a lot nicer than "Project Novels", even if you consider the double "wiki" in "Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels". Nihiltres 20:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly how many Wikiprojects are there? Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory, (among other places) seems to be the place that should provide this, yet it ain't there, and I'm not entirely sure it knows. I think this may be a quirk that would be very easy to find out, if only there was a Wikiproject namespace. By my count, there are even more redirects beginning with "Wikiproject" (44 in Wikiproject and 58 in WikiProject). I can see this would be a lot of work, but I'll be willing to do what I can, and I'm sure at least one member from each of the wikiprojects will be happy to make the switch for their project. I think simplicity is key to our ultimate goals as a project, and in the future it'll only gonna get harder to make this switch. On a side note, along my travels I found these two violations of policy (here and here) - Jack · talk · 00:37, Sunday, 18 February 2007

Regarding the two violations, on the first I've notified the user to move the page; on the second, I've posted a speedy delete since the user has in fact created a WikiProject and apparently missed this subpage when doing cleanup. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This issue came up on the mailing list a little while ago. There didn't seem to be any consensus for change. The namespace "Project:" can't be used as it is already some kind of meta-wiki name for the local Wikipedia space. For instance, going to Project:Village pump will end up at the same place as Wikipedia:Village pump. Trebor 16:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Redirects of BCE# to BC#

I propose making it so that when one searches a year using the BCE dating sytem it will automatically redirct to the year using the BC method. This is a temporary fix to the BCE/BC arguement and it would allow and pages that use a BCE year to not go to a dead end. This would most likely have to be done through a bot which I have no experince on how to make, seeing as there would have to be thousands of rederect pages made manually. An example would be automatically redirecting a page like 350BCE to 350BC. Comments/suggestions? NeilHynes 20:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not the other way around... if you search for BC it redirects to BCE? Seriously, I can understand that one system should be used consistently, and if the consensus is to use BC (or BCE for that matter) then having a redirect makes sense... but you will probably get some argument as to which to use. Blueboar 20:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Umm... isn't that already the case? 350 BCE redirects to 350 BC, no?-Andrew c 21:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think he's proposing using a bot or something similar to fill in the missing blanks, like 847 BCE → 847 BC. It's relatively harmless to do so in my worldview, and wouldn't require a consensus here unless someone started objecting. -- nae'blis 23:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I see. I did not realize that there were some pages that didn't have the redirect (but then again 847 BC itself is a redirect page). I think it doesn't really serve a purpose to create all these unused redirects. If it is possible, what might be useful is to have a bot that can find redlinked BCE years, and fix them. Preemptive change seems unnecessary.-Andrew c 23:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

One of the benefits of "unnecessary" redlinks is that they help prevent spurious changes from forming. If someone is writing an article and adds 847 BCE to it, then notices it's a redlink and goes to create the page, it could become an inadvertent content fork of 840s BC. By pre-emptively creating the redirects (in a reasonable manner, obviously I don't mean 50,358 BCE) it can help stave off some of that well-intentioned confusion caused by the BC/BCE thing. -- nae'blis 15:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• One of the benefits of not using these unnecessary redlinks is that they encourage people to diverge from the apparent standard of using BC, in effect reinvigorating the entire debate about that, once again. >Radiant< 15:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

That'd disingenuous and you know it, Radiant; the MOS specifically says that there is no "right" answer to the Common Era/Anno Domini question. In many articles it would be appropriate for the flow/npov of the article to use BCE, while still connecting to the proper article. -- nae'blis 15:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Not at all. Considering that the entire category tree of Category:1st millennium BC uses BC rather than BCE, that makes it an apparent standard, which is all that I meant. >Radiant< 13:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It could be equally well argued that all BC and AD links ought to be redirected to the standard non-religious form. Neither argument would hold-- As we will never settle what is the right form, there's no point in this. For the very few articles where it matters, redirects can be made of an individual basis. DGG 06:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

New Page form to fill before publication?

Sorry, this is User:Chris is me, and I just thought of this idea and am too lazy to log in (I'll verify the account later). What if, instead of restricting page creation to 4-day-old users (which allows a lot of junk), we have users check off a little forum under the "edit summary" button? The reason a form would work instead of the header nobody reads is because the page would not be created unless the boxes were checked. Here's some examples:

• I believe that the subject is notable (has been mentioned in multiple reliable sources)
• The subject of this article is not myself, my close friends/relatives, or otherwise someone I am acquainted with. The article is not vanity.
• The article above is not one of an organization or company I work for or am attempting to represent in a positive light. My article is NPOV written in a tone that favors no side.

_{add more}

How about it? Sure, some junk will still get through, but it'd be nice for those users editing in good faith to realize what Wikipedia is not. 69.19.14.35 21:39, 12 February 2007 (UTC) _{This post was made by -- Chris is me (user/review/talk) when he was unable to log in}

Two concerns: First, people who really are just trying to self-promote will just go and check all the boxes regardless. Second, new people will have no clue what "My article is NPOV." means. --tjstrf talk

...but.. wouldn't it cut some of the junk down from good-faith new editors? This way, we don't have to spend as much time assuming good faith (some time, but less) since a good faith editor would see that their article wasn't right for Wikipedia. -- Chris is me _(u/c/t) 05:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Only if after completing the form a set number of times you don't get hassled with it anymore. —Doug Bell ^talk 12:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, bad faith editors will ignore the boxes, but it does allow us to know they were already told. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:47, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In those relatively rare cases where someone has written an autobio in an objective way, or started one & then somebody unrelated rewrote it, the article has usually been kept, in spite of having gotten here illegitimately. I think we would lose some good articles this way. DGG 06:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit endmatter link?

The last heading with an [edit] link is often "See also", "External links", "References", or the like. However, in the source this heading is often followed by other end matter, and editing this end matter by clicking the [edit] link produced by the last heading results in a misleading edit summary. Examples of such end matter taken from a few random articles:

{{start box}}
...
{{end box}}
{{English Monarchs}}
{{Austria-bio-stub}}

[[:Category:English monarchs]]
[[:Category:Musicians who left Nazi Germany|Krips, Josef]]

[[es:Enrique VII de Inglaterra]]

Could we introduce a dummy heading, say ==Endmatter==, to be included in the source immediately following the stuff logically belonging under the last proper heading? It should be suppressed by the wiki software, appearing as an [edit] link, but not as a proper heading, and not in the table of contents. Maybe it should not appear as a heading in the source, but as some sort of internal link template, and perhaps it should appear not merely as [edit], but as [edit endmatter]. In any case, the edit link should open everything following it in the source for editing, and produce an edit summary like /* end matter */. One could also consider introducing a similar dummy heading or internal link template appearing as [edit lead section] or [edit top matter], opening everything down to the first heading for editing, and producing a corresponding edit summary.

If such internal link templates are created (or already exist - I don't really know), or if such wiki software modifications for suppressing dummy headings are introduced, it would be left to the editors (perhaps assisted by suitable bots) to introduce the required changes to the source of our 1645523 exitsting articles.-- 10:24, 18 February 2007 Noe

That sounds like a useful idea. Not sure how to make it though. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 17:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Submit it as an enhancement request in Bugzilla. (SEWilco 17:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC))

It's kind of in between a policy thing and a technical thing. I thought this might be the place for a short discussion about the relevancy of this idea, before possibly submitting it to the technicians. So I'd still be happy for more feedback here...--Niels Ø (noe) 19:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

User Statistics

Would it be possible for wikipedia to create a user statistics section. What i mean by this is a section on the toolbar that tells a registered user, which pages he has helped to edit, how many pages a user has read and from which topics, a history of pages the user has read, most viewed pages by the user.

For example it could look at very basic like this.

Section	Edits	Views
Medicine	25	260
Computer Games	60	4920

Viewcounts aren't kept due to performance reasons. Edit counting is not encouraged. However, there are tools to break down edit count by most edited pages, by namespace, etc. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Right, see Wikipedia:Tools#Edit counters and Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for adminship, this user hasn't made enough edits relating to the history of Ancient Persia. All admins should be familiar with that period in time and its nobility. >Radiant< 13:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The proper response to that would be This argument has been identified by one or more editors as constituting an arbitrary demand for a shrubbery. Please resolve this by clarifying the basis for the objection in canonical policy. Expanding the requirement to include chopping down the tallest tree in the forest WITH A HERRING may be met with additional mockery and scorn.. --Random832(tc) 13:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

    There's a good tool at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate that goes through a user's contributions and lists which pages in each namespace they have made the most edits to, which can often show up where their interests lie, so you can see whether they're interested in Ancient Persia or some other topic. Tra (Talk) 17:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Tagging articles without interwiki links

As you know interwiki linking is of a great importance here, there is also a number of articles that don't have interwiki links to other language wikipedias. so, to make it easier to identify these articles so that the contributors will have them in one central location(a category) thus making it easy for them to find them and add the interwiki links when available/possible. that is about the category, about the template(text-graphics), I suppose it will do the same work as stub templates do, encourging people(users) to contribute, but this time, contribute by finding and adding the interwiki links. example of the template to be added:

"This article don't have links to articles in other languages, please 
help wikipedia by introducing the appropriate interwiki links"

[[Category:Articles lacking interwiki links]]

By the way, this job is to be done using a bot(already have it), the source of uninterlinked articles is the output of Interwiki Robot(pywikipedia).--Alnokta 05:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a template is necessary, but I see nothing wrong with a category.--§hanel 06:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do you assume that every article ought to have interwiki links? As the largest Wikipedia, we certainly have much content that others don't currently. It is also quite possible we will have content that other wikis don't want (either because they decide not to include the content, e.g. local differences in notability, or because they divide their coverage up differently so that there is no directly analogous page). I don't like the idea of adding meta-categories (i.e. categories intended for editors rather than readers) when there is a likelihood that some of those categories will never be removed. Dragons flight 06:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

huh..Why do I assume? if an article is compatible in one wikipedia and not the other one, then I doubt if it really deserves to stay!! .. when an article is to be written in one encyclopedia the I'm fairly sure that it should be available in every language.. NO! it isn't quite possible that other language wikipedias won't want this article or that to be added to their language.. don't you understand..if an article deserves to be on the encyclopedia then it will be on it.. don't tell me about independence of each pedia and all that talk(that differences are in the administration of each wikipedia, I assume you know that).. so what if the template don't get removed after a year? what harm can do a one line at the end of the article?.. people don't agree these days for the sake of it, not for the subject!.. okay.. you said your opinion..where are the other opinions? I don't do a thing unless people agree upon it(not all of them ofc)..--Alnokta 23:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The largest other wikipedias have less than half as many articles. You're going to be tagging hundreds of thousands of articles for no good purpose. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This Category idea is really one of the best ever, at least until we get special:interwiki. --Tarawneh 04:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you compared the number of articles in the English WP and the other languages? See the bottom of the Main Page. (SEWilco 04:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC))

This idea makes absolutely no sense to me. In addition to the concerns expressed above, what about articles that are missing numerous interwiki links but do contain one (or a small number)? They wouldn't be tagged. —David Levy 04:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

All right, I won't do anything :)..but you have to admit that all your answers were quicky answers to not let leave a probability of the idea messing with the pedia..a kind of keeping it safe.:)--Alnokta 14:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Not really convinced by the tagging idea (the category idea sounds reasonable as expressed here so far) however I have noticed on occassion that IP editors (or otherwise) will sometimes inappropriately add native language links to a given English article (ie: links that don't offer anything that isn't already covered in the article or that don't provide essential info not found anywhere else except in the foreign language). It would be helpful if there could be a sort of red link for interwiki articles to thereby encourage article development say in the top 25 languages of the world. (→Netscott) 15:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we're talking about the links which appear in the left column, which are only intended to be links to corresponding articles in other languages. Those other articles are likely to have different quantities of material. Adding links within the article (such as in "See also") is a different situation. (SEWilco 17:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC))

Right, it would be good to provide a red link style indicator for missing interwiki links on the left hand side to indicate (obviously targetted to folks who communicate in those languages) the need for other language versions of the article. (→Netscott) 17:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I can tell whether there are links to languages which I speak without needing red links. (SEWilco 03:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC))

Your point being? This is not about you, but about other folks who might happen to communicate in another language coming to Wikipedia and being able to notice that a particular article available in English isn't available in that other languge they communicate in which would thereby encourage them to start one. (→Netscott) 03:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That'd be a major software change, because wikis don't talk to each other to check if link targets are valid. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That's true... I don't know how major it would be with BOTs keeping track of things a once daily sweep to check for newly created articles and change interwiki "red links" would be all that was needed. (→Netscott) 03:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Article evaluation

Recently we´ve been discussing the problam of the quality of the articles on cs and we´ve been talking also about article evaluation like a good tool to support wikipedia´s problem to meet the quality.

The article evaluation would help both readers and users. It can be done by implementation of a tools present in a browsers of a new generation which are based on the evaluation of sites by users. This can be done by transporting this know-how into wikimedia software or by (I am not sure if this is real) a robot which will copy the evaluation from the browser into the article.

But you can say, well the articles of the famous people will reach on top also if they will be in bad conditions because fans will like their design, etc. Thats why I see 3 groups of evaluators: readers, users and specialist. Than each article can be sorted by 3 points of wiev and/or 3 types of evaluations. How to show it in the article, or if to list it in category its another problem. You might say, "but how you will make the group of specialist?" "Will they work for free?". Well, I think lets go and ask: "Mr, Blah Blah, would you evaluate these 20 articles for wikipedia?, please".

Finally I dont know how those browser technically works, but I heard that our friends from wikipedia foundations are working on the new browser using this technollogy - so it might help.--Juan de Vojníkov 17:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing that your last paragraph refers to m:Wikicite, a future system for automated fact citation and checking. While that will certainly help, I'd guess it will take years before a it's in place and widely used.

More generally, Wikipedia has consistently rejected the idea of designating anyone as a "specialist" or giving any editor more power over an article than any other editor. In fact, there is a "fork" of Wikipedia - Citizendium - that is taking exactly the opposite approach to quality, a sort of top-down approach.

Citizendium is apparently no longer a fork of Wikipedia, in that, from what I understand, they have recently purged any articles which were originally created from Wikipedia articles. Corvus cornix 23:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

As for reader evaluation of articles (and somehow moving those evaluations to the Wikimedia software), I think Wikipedia prefers to encourage readers to fix articles rather than vote on their quality.

Well I have to study M:Wikicite firstly to be able to tell if I ment this. But I didn´t want to give some editors higher powers. I wanted to ask real scientists to evaluate articles of their speciality.--Juan de Vojníkov 15:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Finally, Wikipedia already has an assessment system. The real question is - after every article has been assessed, then what? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I know. This is just one of several possible ways.--Juan de Vojníkov 15:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Article Podcasts

Hi, I have a lot of snippets of time during the day in which I have free, quiet time. I typically play a podcast to learn a thing or two while I have no other preoccupation. I was listening to a Berkeley Physics for Future Presidents podcast and thought a 20 minute long podcast (similar to a radiocast on NPR) in which a narrator goes over a Wikipedia article of popular interest (or in observance of a current event relating to the article.) I thought perhaps the Wiki admins could maybe even have time to interview the headliners and people of considerate interest and information pertaining to the article. I think, with a streamlined format, relatively brief duration, and the added ease of listening to the article in lieu of reading it (which I'm not discouraging) Wikipedia article podcasts could summon an active interest in learning.

You may wish to look at the discussion here at the Wiki Project Radio on Podcasts. Podcasts fall under that project. Maybe the suggestion could be refined there and expanded here with their help. Ronbo76 04:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. [OrderlyRoom82] 13:26, 9 February 2007

With your permission, I think this should be called Digital Audio Articles, since "podcast" is a neologism, and it implies that only IPod is compatible. BuickCenturyDriver 11:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Spoken articles -Will Beback · † · 00:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The spoken Wikipedia project already have a podcast/webcast/audio RRS feed/wahatever. Just subscribe to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia/rss&action=raw&ctype=application/rss+xml Just note that you can't actualy use it on most portable players because they rarely support the OGG format, but programs like Winamp and what not can play it just fine. --Sherool (talk) 09:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Permit personal attacks...

...Against the subjects of articles, so long as said attacks:

• Are clearly made by specific users
• Are opinion, not slander
• Are made in user or article talk space.
• Are not intended as sly ways of attacking other wikipedians.

Your thoughts, ladies and gentlemen? Dave 21:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Why should we be a platform for hate? We're not a soapbox for positive or negative opinions. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPA seems to only refer to personal attacks against other Wikipedophiles. Am I missing something or is there policy against badmouthing (expressing negative opinions about) the subjects of the articles on user or talk pages? dreddnott 22:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that the above is merely an attempt to create faux Greek for "people who like Wikipedia" gone horribly wrong, but you may want to pay attention to possible alternate readings in the future. Kirill Lokshin 23:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP, WP:CIVIL, and just general consensus. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Are we talking about information criticizing, say, Hitler, or a living person who is controversial? I'm not really sure what you mean here, but it doesn't sound good. I've seen plenty of negative comments about George W. Bush on userpages (hell, we even have a userbox about it), but if you launched a string of complaints on Talk:George W. Bush, it would not be considered good form. GhostPirate 23:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have confused Wikipedia for a discussion forum. --Golbez 04:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines make it clear that talk pages are to be used only to discuss improving an article. We have enough problems accomplishing that with such a policy in place. Why in the world would we want to fill up talk pages with comments by anyone with a strong opinion about a subject, pro or con? We're here to write an encyclopedia, not conduct opinion polls or provide a soapbox (see WP:NOT). -- John Broughton (☎☎) 05:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not, of course, talking about giving ones opinion for the sake of giving an opinion. I'm simply talking about allowing normal speech patterns on Wikipedia talk pages. E.G. "Althogh I think that X is a horrible person, I have removed XYZ section from the article as it is not properly sourced". Dave 13:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Same reason we don't use profanity or slang in our article prose: it's unnecessary, distracting, and detrimental. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Weird - so this proposed change would allow, what - short attacks against someone, but not long ones? (Try writing that into a policy.) More importantly, a lot of figures are controversial, and a lot of editors are more than happy to attack someone expressing an opinion about a subject with which they disagree. I can just see admins trying to break up a fight by telling editors that one of them is allowed to say that X is a horrible person, but the others aren't allowed to defend X? In fact, the example you gave is a perfect one to illustrate the folly of this suggestion - remove the first nine words (the attack), and the sentence is improved. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 18:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Libel: It is Wikipedia policy to delete libellous material when it has been identified. -- ReyBrujo 18:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I cannot agree at all with any such abuse on Wikipeida. See my proposal of this date below. Fergananim 11:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I, too, cannot agree with this. semper fictilis 17:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we have some conflicting opinions on policy and arbitrarity at work because apparently this is already a de facto policy. How is this criteria not met by this incident? - WeniWidiWiki 08:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Medical Disclaimer Discussion

Copied from WP:RT Proposed Medical Disclaimer Template

I think that articles on medical conditions and treatments should bear a disclaimer. Particularly if it is deemed that people might use the information provided in lieu of seeking proper medical care. I made a template in my user space that I think addresses this concern: Jerry lavoie 01:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

{{User:JerryLavoie/Templates/med}}

Which looks like:

File:Bitag medical icon.gif

Medical Disclaimer

Wikipedia (including its related projects and mirrors) is Not Intended to Give Medical Advice. The contents of articles on medical conditions, treatments and devices, (including text, graphics, and other material) are for informational purposes only, and may not have been reviewed by competent Health Care Professionals. This article is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding any medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of Content found on Wikipedia. If you have a medical emergency, call your physician or Emergency Response System (eg. 911) immediately. Wikipedia does not recommend or endorse any specific third-party tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information found in its articles. Reliance on any information provided by Wikipedia, is solely at your own risk.

The replies I got at templates proposals were:

This is a bad idea. See WP:NDT, but in essence, the problem is that we already have a Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer, and tagging specific articles will cause problems with articles that are not tagged. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 01:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the rationale in WP:NDT for medical disclaimers is a bit weaker, but still applies. If out of "common sense" or whatever you think we should start adding medical disclaimers, gather some support at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and see if you can convince people. —Dgies^t c 07:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to generate a huge list of articles here, because I do not think that people would appreciate it. Suffice it to say that if you wikisearch for "treatment" "home remedy" "cure" "diet" "prevention" "drug" "non-prescription" etc, you will find numerous wikipedia articles that do tell people to do something at home without their doctor's consent to help with a medical condition. Some even suggest that people can diagnose themselves using other wikipedia article content.

IMHO This is dangerous, irresponsible, and threatens the project from a legal standpoint. Our General Disclaimers found through clicking on the single word disclaimers at the bottom of each article is in no way adequate enough to reasonably preclude people using our content in a manner that could cause them great harm.

Here is a snippet from Herbalism which I arrived at by entering Herbal remedy:

Mixing Herbs. To counteract the various complications and side-effects of an ailment, or to produce a more rounded taste, a number of herbs may be mixed, and formulas are the preferred method of giving herbs by professional herbalists. A well-known mixture used against a cold includes eucalyptus leaf, mint leaf (which contains Menthol) and juniper berry. Another is the age-old favourite "dandelion and burdock", from which the popular fizzy drink was derived.

Fresh or Dried? Many flower and leaf herbs lose volatile compounds within a few hours, as the juices and oils evaporate, the scent leaks away, and the chemicals change their form. Drying concentrates other compounds as water is removed. Most herbal traditions use dried material and the reported effects for each herb tend to be based upon dried herbs unless otherwise specified.

If you are using fresh herbs, you will need more of them, and the tea will have a somewhat different effect. Finely chop the leaf immediately before using it.

Does this article not tell people to treat themselves a certain way after self-diagnosis?

I think that my Medical Disclaimer template proposal should be considered seriously, and the fact that WP:NDT exists should not be used as the sole basis for the discussion. Jerry lavoie 14:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with you, per WP:NDT. The example you bring is no different than any article that may be improperly sourced or not neutral. If an article is properly sourced and neutral, i.e. follows WP:V and WP:NPOV, plus perhaps a modicum of notability (per WP:NN), we would cover all bases. The omnibus clause at Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer is already there, and should cover us, the same as no legal advice, no financial advice, no personal relations advice, etc. If we present things properly, no problem exists by definition, IMO. Crum375 14:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The fact that somebody considers this necessary is a sad statement on the litigious nature of our society. I propose that we include a template instead

General Disclaimer

If you are not competent to act within the bounds of common sense, and are likely to perform any action which a disclaimer template might be required to prevent, then you should leave this site.

perfectblue 14:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I would Support this (perfectblue's) disclaimer. Caknuck 07:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to me that much of an issue to have a small template at the top of some pages, one that wouldn't mar the reader's experience, but would be more direct than the tiny "disclaimer" at the bottom of the page that leads to the medical disclaimer only after passing through the general disclaimer. Something like this, perhaps:

This page contains information of a medical nature: see our medical disclaimer.

That said, while I hate to suggest that this discussion be moved again, if you want to change the policy at WP:NDT, the place to discuss that is really Wikipedia talk:No disclaimer templates. -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 15:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I will consider moving this discussion, but for now I feel it is getting good feedback here, so I'd like to leave it here for the moment. I will not comment on the sardonic reply from Perfectblue97. I agree that the template I proposed is perhaps too obtrusive, and I like the idea of a shortened version as sugested by John Broughton. Jerry lavoie 16:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and for the other comment that I did not mention: As far as citing the existence of existing policies in a discussion about the merits of said policies and proposed changes thereto; I find that a little too illogical to really participate. (I know that's a split infinitive.) To me, it's like saying "There should be a law against speeding, because under the law there is a speed limit". I do not understand this approach. Jerry lavoie 16:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be giving advice of any kind, let alone medical advce. We're WP:NOT a howto (treat yourself). Don't tag it with a disclaimer, remove it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Although that sounds nice, what do you do in this situation: medical condition X has symptoms Y, and a recommended treatment Z. All sources (let's say) unanimously agree on X, Y and Z. Many people could construe this unanimity as 'advice' of using treatment Z if you have symptoms Y for condition X. Do you suggest removing the article? under what grounds? Crum375 22:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say use attribution to make it clear where the treatment recommendation comes from. Medical articles need to be especially well-cited. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, we can attribute it from here till next year[1][2][3]...[1000], but you still end up with what could be seen as advice by some, especially if there is apparent consensus among the sources. Hence the main point raised is valid; the solution IMO is as I noted above to rely on the overall WP disclaimers, which as you noted would also apply to anything else that could be construed as advice in any topic. Crum375 22:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

My definition of advice, which I believe is his, is something which says "Do X", or any conjugation thereof. Wikipedia should not be saying "do X", although we can still say "People Y and Z say to do X". -Amark moo! 02:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the WP wording would be: "Medical condition A occurs when the body's ability to produce B is diminished[1]. Common symptoms are C and D[2]. The prefered treatment is E[3][4]." or some such. We would not normally use the words: "people do A for B". We try to make it sound encyclopedic when there is consensus we just say what it is and cite the sources. Crum375 03:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this discussion is going great. Lots of valid points out there. Let's see if we can get some other people involved (not to stack the vote either way, but to seek consensus from a broader group). I'd be surprised if this was the first time this has come up. Anyone know of any archived discussions we can review? Here are some questions for use to think about:

• What do we do to existing articles that seem to give advice or seem to 'promote' a particular product, device, therapy, or provider?
• How do we keep such content from getting back in?
• Should there be a category for articles with this potential so someone could easily browse them periodically?
• Of course the obvious: To have or not to have a disclaimer template.
• Is anyone interested in forming a wikipedia project to standardize and patrol articles for no medical advise
• Shoule we have a specific policy that addresses this? eg. WP:NMA
• Where do we go from here? Do we take the discussion somewhere else with a goal in mind?

Thanks, Jerry lavoie 03:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say that NMA would follow from the basic WP tenets. I personally have not seen any example that shows that any change or addition is needed - but I am open minded. Crum375 04:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

While I have no firm opinion either way about this topic, if it is decided that it is necessary the disclaimer should be much smaller then the one presented at the beginning of this discussion. Maybe two sentences. --The Way 07:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as a medically-qualified person, I feel that any article which gives medical advice should ideally, in theory, carry a disclaimer template of some kind. The debate on the exact form of the template pales into insignificance, it seems to me, in the face of the question as to who will apply templates and who will police articles to ensure their presence. But leaving that aside for the moment, and speaking in medico-legal terms, my understanding is that in the event of legal action being taken on the basis of an article contained in Wikipedia, the liability rests with the author and not with the encyclopedia. Am I wrong?--Anthony.bradbury 16:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Does EB carry a separate disclaimer template on each entry that relates to medicine? How about entries for legal issues? investment related? Flying? Diving? Skiing? Crum375 17:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Why don't add the warning in the WikiProject box? Oh, I remember when articles about hurricanes had a big disclaimer there. -- ReyBrujo 17:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the difference between taking medical advice and taking investment advice is that if the medical advice is wrong you might die. But skiing too, I guess. And diving. My point remains - if an article proffers advice the legal liability rests with the author, not with the encyclopedia. Possibly more people might turn to Wiki for medical advice than would for legal or investment advice, but I have no data.--Anthony.bradbury 17:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. "medico-legal terms"? What does that mean? Are you initiating an attorney-client/physician-patient relationship based on your post? If so with whom, everyone who reads it? Where's your disclaimer? Are you admitting malpractice by asking whether you are correct (didn't you research the matter yourself)? Are you authorized to practice both medicine and law in my jurisdiction? Are you going to compensate me if I detrimentally rely on your advice? (etc. etc. etc.) ...

Hopefully you see the point here. This is a slippery slope, you can't put infinite disclaimers on every molecule of thought that someone may unreasonably misinterpret. Besides, the matter is already addressed by the link that appears at the bottom of every WP article. dr.ef.tymac 17:42, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you are starting to see the picture: any encyclopedia is going to include a lot of information, some of which some people will construe as 'advice', no matter what you say. And risks exist in many areas: even bad investments can lead to suicides, and of course there are lots of risks out there in life in almost every area. I think it's clear that if we were to add a warning template for one topic (e.g. medicine), we would be remiss if we avoid it on other risk-related topics. And 'risk-related' would cover a large proportion of our articles. Again, use EB as a reference (no pun intended), they've been around for a while. Crum375 17:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

"the legal liability rests with the author, not with the encyclopedia" ... If you are offering this as legal advice, I hope you have your malpractice insurance paid up. If you are not, then you might want to check the validity of your statement; especially since the very definition of author is not a trivial question that laypersons can be expected to resolve while munching on a bagel at the internet cafe. dr.ef.tymac 17:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Since medical articles are prohibited from containing WP:OR, wouldn't it be the person who gave the advice in the first place (eg the WP:V sources from which any medical page is constructed) who are liable?

perfectblue 17:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

As I do not give medical advice in Wikipedia, my malpractice insurance is not an issue. Though it is paid up, and I thank you for your concern! My statement is based on legal advice received, but I am not legally qualified and do not really wish to get into an argument on this point. User:Perfectblue97 may be right, but I suspect that in his scenario it might depend on whether attribution was quoted.--Anthony.bradbury 18:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for making my point. You and I both recognize that your post was not intended as professional advice. Sure, perhaps *someone* might have, in which case all those questions would have been relevant, and a disclaimer would have been necessary. Fortunately, for the astoundingly credulous people out there, the disclaimer is already there. dr.ef.tymac 18:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• WP:NDT. >Radiant< 15:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What about putting the disclaimer on the article talk pages where medical advice seems to be given? It would be nice if this was a simple template shortcut format ie: WP:NMA. The template could have the "this template is misplaced" feature of other talkpage-only templates if it was inadvertantly placed on an article. Jerry lavoie 02:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's a simple question to answer: why do we use copyright disclaimers? The same rational to use them for using images/music files online applies to medical advice by non-professionals. The disclaimer is appropriate, and I give my humble approval - as the internet isn't a place to seek medical treatments, but info to discuss with your family MD/DO (as they're the only people qualified to practice medicine, by law and with actual knowledge). I know a lot about medicine, have even taught a MD a thing or too, but I will never claim to be a physician, nor offer any advice without disclaimers (because folks are indeed gulible and I won't play with shotguns in public). Hiding behind some porous law that claims that sites are free from liability, is the same in-your-face attitude that recently got at least 10 people fired from that radio station claiming, "they signed release forms" thinking that was enough protection. A young woman died, and things change quickly when the media exposes it in it's ugly light (have to be pretty crass to wave a disclaimer as the lady was saying her last words to the world). The law is fickle, and changes as quickly as the political winds blow. For those reasons, it's better to be safe than sorry, because "freedom of speech" isn't going to mean much when a company has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, in members in jail, or it's readers dead.FResearcher 21:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Additional disclaimer notices are an unnecessary complication and a special case. Wikipedia does not give professional advice in general, and this should be clear. The most I would support is ten-word general message to this effect at the bottom of every article, or a place that is equally non-distracting. -Pgan002 01:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimers are annoying to the extreme. It suggests that I'm better off ignorant, or that such articals are for some kind of entertainment, which is nonsense. I believe wikipedia forbids how-to's and advice, as opposed to information. That's enough. --Insect 20:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Boo to tags in general! There is already a disclaimer on every page, and that's enough!+mwtoews 01:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

'No to tags--In the USA t is illegal to give medical advice with a commercial transaction. Since Wiki is nonprofit, it is not illegal for us to give medical advice. But I would be happy is wikipedia was full of "how tos" :) Puddytang 02:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This discussion seems to be dead, but I'd like to add my support for a medical disclaimer like the one JerryLavoie proposed. WP:NDT isn't set into stone, as its disclaimer says... —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 13:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

A helpful suggestion

A helpful addition to Wikipedia would be a "Did you mean" response like Google has for misspelled words. Just a thought. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.93.149.135 (talk • contribs).

Regretfully, this suggestion is not possible to implement for performance reasons. It's probably best that you just use Google to search Wikipedia, not only for the spellcheck but because the Wikipedia search function is nowhere near as useful or thorough in what it picks up. --tjstrf talk 15:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunatly there are no great freeware search applications, and the Foundation can't afford to use Google's. However, if you add "wikipedia" as part of your search string, then it will almost always return the wikipedia page as the first result. Koweja 18:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Better yet, use site:en.wikipedia.org to only search the domain. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Even better - add Henrik's Google search (User:Henrik/sandbox/google-search) to your monobook.js file. Works great! --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Userbox migration request template

How about a template for proposing userboxes to move to the user sapce per the Userbox migration? - Patricknoddy 21:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedans by year categories

I have started a discussion at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion#Wikipedians born in (YEAR), as the existing actions have been inconsistent and ad-hoc, and recently prone to wheel-warring and POINT. I think the time has come to seek an overarching consensus on this issue. Crossposted to VPP. --Random832 16:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Posting again about summary style...

I have used Wikipedia for a very long time and recently started to contribute in a more addicted manner, the one thing that annoys me most is the large amount of inconsistencies and poor quality articles that result from splitting of articles into sub-articles on the English Wikipedia. In general, it is probably a Good Thing, but there are serious failings in maintaining this, I posted on the assistance page if there are any projects that deal with this, and nobody has responded. Am I the only one who thinks this is a pervasive problem, or would anybody be interested in doing something about it? --Merzul 15:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I found discussion about possible technical solutions at Wikipedia:Transclusion, and the many links to essays and discussion; so I have stuff to read, but is there any maintenance project that deal with these issues? --Merzul 16:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

An example of where it is done well, is the article on Charles Darwin. DGG 07:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, and {{main}} and {{detail}} are used as they were intended, that's refreshing ;) --Merzul 10:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure though what is the right use of {{main}}, but I'm watching WP:SS and that might be the right place to discuss this whole issue. Wikipedia talk:Summary style might need some attention for other reasons as well. --Merzul 10:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

magic wikipedia button.....

Programmers unite make a button which can be allowed to float on top of all text on any website when we read a word which we need clarification on we highlight the word and a wikipedia page appears with the definition/encyclopedia info. on that word especially useful in science

This isn't something that Wikipedia developers will use their time to create. Try finding some programmers to help you somewhere else - the coding can't be too hard. If you're on Mac OS X, I happen to know that there exists a Dashboard widget which calls up Wikipedia pages quickly without a browser. Try to find something like that. Nihiltres 23:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

firefox already has this feature. Highlight any piece of text, rightclick, and you can search for it in the engine of your choice, including wikipedia. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

If you use the conquery extension, you can search in multiple engines. I have mine set to display "google" "dictionary.com" and "wikipedia" in the normal right-click context menu. --Quiddity 21:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well there is that One click Answers.com Wikipedia edition thingy for Windows and Mac, that does almost exactly that, except you'll end up on Answer.com's mirror of the page rater than on Wikipedia proper. Personaly I just use a custum search in Opera, so any words I type into the location bar prefixed by "en" gets looked up in Wikipedia. --Sherool (talk) 07:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises should be official policy

This should be official policy. It should be self-evident. Let's talk about it. Dino 00:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I will have to look over it. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 00:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. It's written in a manner that's very similar to WP:BLP and, in fact, borrows certain elements from that policy. Notice also what I've said on the Talk page. Dino 00:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

But it is not about sensitive personal matters the way BLP is. Surely it would be better to have it as a guideline first, and see if it does remain widely accepted.DGG 06:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

BLP does cover sensitive personal matters, such as sexual orientation, rumors of drug abuse and relationship problems. All of this fits neatly under the umbrella of "negative material." Any negative material in an article about any entity capable of taking umbrage, whether a flesh-and-blood human being or a Fortune 500 corporation, must be handled with a consistent, high level of care and scrutiny. Perhaps the best way to achieve a consistent level of care would be to make them part of the same policy. Dino 21:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Current policy should be sufficient. semper fictilis 03:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I believe any person mentioned in an enterprise article is still covered by BLP, I see no need for this. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Random Recent

I think it'd be neat if there were a "Random Recent" link/function, which would show you a random article chosen from the pool of articles that have been changed recently. Perhaps if possible with a callout or second column showing the change, or perhaps changes highlighted. -:)Ozzyslovechild 03:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Why? You can just click on the "Recent changes" link on the left (in the navigation box) - the most recent 50 edits are about as random as one could want. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Return under new username

After a period of inactivity, I have come back to edit Wikipedia - I was formerly ACEO, and am now ACEOREVIVED 19:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC). Can I please copy the username page of ACEO, copy and paste it on to ACEOREVIVED 19:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC) and then delete the former page? Please do not accuse me of Wikipedia: Sock puppetry, because I am not really interested in being an administrator of voting - I just wanted to edit articles on psychology and allied fields. ACEOREVIVED 19:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think it would be best for you to continue editing under your old username. If you do not wish to do this, however, you could probably copy and paste the contents of your old userpage over (since you already have a new userpage) and make the old userpage into a redirect to the new userpage, or ask an admin to merge the page histories of the two pages. To avoid problems of sockpuppetry and impersonation, if you remember the password from your old account, you can log in under that account and state that you have moved to the new account. Tra (Talk) 22:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dynamic content

You guys should add a feature so that content can be marked as dynamic. For example, many numerical references in the encyclopedia are continuously becoming obsolete. If there were a sort of programmability to the pages, certain information could be collected from the internet every time the page is loaded. For example, a reference in a wikipedia entry on TUMORS to the # of hits returned by an online medical database with the search of TUMORS could be dynamically checked by the wiki page, and then the info is always up-to-date. wikipedia is amazing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.143.218.127 (talk • contribs).

I can't see how the specific example you gave would be of use (maybe it wasn't intended to be useful, and was just their for clarification) but the idea sounds good. The function should be able to retain the last available information in the event that the other website is compromised or something. There might be some technical problems. I would be worried about reliability of sites that WP has no control over but at the same time I like the idea... --Seans Potato Business 23:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Some devs are working on it, see meta:Wikidata and OmegaWiki. No ETA though. --Quiddity 01:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

There will be quite a lot of uses. Returning no. of hits isn't one, because normally you don't just want to look at the number but to view the results. I don't think there is presently any restriction on an external link that sends a search query, but in my experience such links need checking every few months. As Quiddity says, we will need to be careful in choosing the sources--and I think we'd need a new policy for live links. I would accept official government sources, and major associations. DGG 04:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar discussion

Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals is considering a new Barnstar to be given to people who make great combined contributions to Wikipedia articles and the Commons free-use image collection. Please come by and state your views. Thanks, Johntex\^talk 15:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

ebay

I dont know if its the right place for this proposition... but ebay should be added to the list of external links blocked. As most of these links are ads (like The Water Cup) -Sucrine ( ><> talk) 13:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

m:Talk:Spam Blacklist. --Random832 18:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the ebay and related articles? Would their external links be blocked? Seems inappropriate. --Seans Potato Business 01:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Watch Users

This is a feature request that will help vandal patrollers. Currently you can only watch changes made to an article. What I propose is to add the ability to ‘watch’ a user or ip. In this way, when you have spotted some vandalism you can add it to you watch list and keep an eye on it for a few days to see if the vandalism is recurrent.

Currently you could improvise this with some of the third-party tooling some of the patrollers use, but it would be nice to have integrated.

What do you think about this, would it be a helpful addition? Sander123 12:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The bot pkgbot on the IRC channel #vandalism-en-wp has the concept of "blacklisted users" (all their edits are immediately reported) and "greylisted users" (like blacklisted, except it's automatically maintained and consists of users who were recently reverted). You can read more here: WP:CUV/Bots#Lists_of_users. It might still be nice though to have your own user watchlists for watching edits of friends as well as vandals that you directly associate with, and if anyone's concerned about privacy, it wouldn't reveal anything not available already through contributions. Deco 21:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I've wanted something like this before; but the problem is that it would ease wikistalking. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 21:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The privelage of watching users could be limited to admins to prevent this. Watching users would mostly apply to admins anyways. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I would love this option, I see not need to limit this to admins, some of our best vandal fighters are not admins. Also, all the information is already available for those who wish to wikistalk, and this feature would make such stalking easier to detect and track. No new information is being made available, just in a more convenient manner. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 03:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

That works for me. I was just trying to get the good of the watching users but trying to limit wikistalking. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikistalking is a bit independent from this, I guess. If you want to follow any particular user you can just bookmark his contributions page. The problem is, I might want to follow 10 ip addresses that are vandal only, but without the inconvenience of having to check my bookmarks every day. Sander123 09:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject user script's script page has a script called 'user watchlist', which might do what you want. --ais523 09:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't work on many platforms. Won't work with anything but IE, and doesn't work on my W2K even with IE. — coelacan talk — 22:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bit buggy. I might also add that people living to the east of the Greenwich Meridian are likely to see less results than people living to the west, due to a bug in the way it deals with timezones. It also doesn't work very well if you use it very soon after midnight, for similar reasons. Tra (Talk) 22:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Suing Vandals

From the Computer Misuse Act 1990:

3(1) A person is guilty of an offence if a) he does any act which causes the unauthorized modification of the contents of any computer; and b) at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge.

3(2) for the purposes of subsection 3(1)b above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing a) to impair the operation of any computer; b) to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data.

3(3) the intent need not be directed at a) any particular computer; b) any particular program or data or a program or data of any particular kind; or c) any particular modification or a modification of any particular kind.

3(4) For the purpose of subsection 1b above, the requisite knowledge is knowledge that any modification he intends to cause is unauthorized. 3(5) it is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether an unauthorized modification or any intended effect of it of a kind mentioned in subsection (2) above is, or is intended to be, permanent or merely temporary.

Thus my question is, do the policies and guidelines regarding the production of Wikipedia content make deliberate vandalism unauthorised? If so, I believe that vandals operating from the UK are guilty of a crime under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. If not, I suggest the Wikimedia Foundation explicitly unauthorises deliberate vandalism. Perhaps suing the worst of these offenders, will cause most to stop (I doubt it would even get that far and they'd stop after being sent the first legal letter).

I also wonder what laws in America prevent computer misuse and how they might be applied. Constructive criticism and support of my idea welcome. Note before you reply, that I'm not suggesting we sue people as soon as they put one foot wrong or dscourage newbies from discovering Wikipedia. --Seans Potato Business 15:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Question. How do you intend on suing any vandals without blatantly disregarding our privacy policy and tracing people's IPs to obtain personal information? -Amarkov moo! 19:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Three simple letters: N.L.T. (→Netscott) 19:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that you are proposing to hit a fly with a sledge hammer. Only the most persistent and egregious cases are worthy of this type of action. Many of the lesser vandals are schoolchild pranksters who would be as chastenned by being called into the principal/headmaster's office as by being dragged into a court. Also, we first need to remove as much of the allure of vandalism from this site by somehow making it so that an act of vandalism is not immediately seen by the world at large. IMO, this failing on our part makes us an "attractive nuisance", and would weaken any case that we care to bring.

The above aside, I also have some responses to the other editors responding here. On "privacy": The right to anonymity is associated with good behavior on the part of the individual. We do not feel that murderers and other criminals have a right to have their identities hidden and kept from being connected to their crimes. I would extend the same reasoning to vandals here. As for NLT: I most certainly feel that legal threats should not be made on this site by anyone for any reason. However, that does not mean that an attorney working for the Wikimedia Foundation cannot send a letter to someone known to be a vandal seriously threatening to initiate legal action.

So I would personally keep the door to legal action open, but unless you can get a prosecutor to file charges against someone, you are looking at spending thousands of dollars on each lawsuit. I really thing that Wikimedia can spend its better elsewhere. --EMS | Talk 20:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, the privacy policy does not say that. It states that personally identifying information will not be released publicly, except under six specific conditions, none of which include suing vandals. And that aside, can you imagine the negative press if the Foundation did decide to sue a vandal? Even if they technically could, it won't happen. -Amarkov moo! 20:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the "negative" press that occured when that guy got upset about the JFK lie in his biography? That did Wikip a favour. --Seans Potato Business 18:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the statute you posted, there is no need to sue anyone, since the offence is a criminal matter. The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't even need to instigate the process; any Wikipedia user or editor could theoretically contact the police (in the jurisdiction where Wikipedia's servers reside and/or in the jursidiction of the vandal) as a private individual and ask them to conduct an investigation. Finally, note that in many cases this could be done without violating our privacy policy, as contributions from anonymous IPs are logged and published, and because some vandals freely post their own personal details or other identifying information.

Now, I'm not arguing that anyone should report vandalism to the police; I'm just addressing some of the misstatements and misinterpretations that others have made in this thread. —Psychonaut 19:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification Psychonaut. --Seans Potato Business 18:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Modified Proposal

I propose asking the Foundation to excplicitly forbid intentional vandalism, including an addition to the edit window, among the copyright, verifiable and GFDL notices. --Seans Potato Business 18:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Future Sound Options

I would like to shared an IDEA - this site is great, however if you could ADD some type of pronunciation like SOUND to words, it would help those that have problems pronouncing words. There are some Dictionary sites that have the option of sound of each word you are looking for . For example: "Encarta.MSN" uses (Adobe Flash Player). I hope to see the implementation in the near future thank you (Lili Dixon 20:48, 22 February 2007 (UTC))

Wiktionary is the proper place for this, and it does this as much as possible. For instance, most of the Word of the day seem to have pronunciations with them. --Interiot 21:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)