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A review process for administrators

Latest comment: 17 years ago55 comments14 people in discussion

I am making this proposal because I believe the indefinite tenure of administratorship is a long-term threat to the quality of Wikipedia. Before anything else I think I should make clear that I am not arguing for a time limit for administrators. Thus I am not arguing that valuable administrators should simply be forced to renounce their powers after a defined period of time. Rather, I am arguing that there should be an automatic review process for all administrators every so often (every year? every couple of years? something like that).

We should not forget that Wikipedia is still only a few years old, and problems which appear minor today may become major in ten or twenty years. It is often stated that there are a small number of administrators when compared to the number of overall users. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with an increasing number of administrators, regardless of the ratio to users. These risks include: that gangs of likeminded administrators may form and act in a concerted way to achieve counterproductive goals; that the longer administrators hold on to their powers, the longer they have to forget how to be a good Wikipedian, but the more entrenched their "status" may become; that when a certain threshold of poor administrators is reached, it will become virtually impossible, with the processes presently in place, to remove them.

If one day there are several thousand active administrators, which seems eminently possible, it will only take a very small percentage of these to be poor administrators for Wikipedia to have a very large problem. It might be thought that administrators will drop off at more or less the same rate they join Wikipedia, however I do not believe this to be the case. Those who gain administrative status enjoy its rewards, and it does not appear that they drop out of Wikipedia very quickly. There is no reason to doubt that a great many present administrators will continue to be active in ten or more years.

If the rate of drop-out is slow, there is another factor contributing to the growth in the number of administrators. Processes as they currently stand make it far easier to gain the status of administrator than to lose it. It might be objected that gaining the status of administrator can only be the outcome of diligent editorial practice garnering the approval of fellow editors. I must make clear that I am not criticising the process of appointing administrators, nor am I claiming that the appointment process is too easy. But what I am saying is that it is very difficult to strip administrators of their powers. I am, in fact, saying that it is currently too difficult for administrators to lose their powers.

My proposal is thus that after a definite period of time administrators should be obliged to undergo a review process to determine whether they should retain their status as administrators. The process could be quite similar to the RfA process, where retention of administrator status requires a consensus (75% or thereabouts) of support. Such a review process would provide a readily-accessible forum for discussing poor administrative practice. Furthermore, rather than having to initiate a long process with no certainty of outcome, those aggrieved by administrative practice will have a definite place and a definite time-period in which to present their views. Finally, if a review determines that an administrator should retain their status, others would then know that this administrator will retain their powers until it was time for the next review. Administrators who lose their status after a review may be able to initiate a new RfA for themselves, perhaps after a certain period of time has elapsed (a year, say).

There are very few positions of responsibility in the world where it is possible to avoid a review process for years on end. Wikipedians may have a tendency to assume good faith, not only about the behaviour of users, but about the Wikipedia project as a whole. This good faith is well-founded, but it should not substitute for an effective review process. That it is presently such a difficult and protracted process to strip administrators of their powers does not only mean that poor administrators can continue to edit, but that groups of poor administrators who feel justified in their poor practice may arise. When one administrator sees another administrator get away with bad behaviour, there is the potential for a culture of poor administration to develop. Acting against poor administrators will then become progressively more difficult over time.

I suspect that this proposal may encounter resistance from some current administrators, who, having achieved their status for an indefinite period, are reluctant to submit to such a review process. This reluctance would not necessarily stem from a wish to conceal their own administrative record, but could simply be a wish to avoid unpleasurable bureaucratic procedures. As such, this resistance is entirely understandable. I think it is important, however, for current administrators not to think in these personal terms, and I certainly do not believe current administrators need to feel defensive about this proposal. This proposal is definitely not intended as an attack on current administrators, the vast majority of whom behave very responsibly. I have no doubt that the great bulk of good administrators would have no trouble passing any review process. I am therefore hopeful that current administrators will be able simply to reflect on what problems there currently are, and consider the question of how these problems may develop in the coming years, and what can be done about them.

The fact is (or, at least, my opinion is) that some administrators are far superior to others. This may be because the wrong person was chosen to be an administrator in the first place, or because, having achieved the status of administrator, they enjoy the benefits of this status a little too much. It is sometimes said that the powers of Wikipedia administrators are quite small. Nevertheless, it should not be imagined that Wikipedia is immune from the fact that "power corrupts."

There will always be poor administrators on Wikipedia. My reason for making this proposal is not that I imagine it is possible to stamp out the evil-doers. But those who care for the Wikipedia project should nevertheless ask what will decrease the chances that poor administrators will be able to persist for years on end as a negative influence. I believe this is a potentially serious long-term problem for Wikipedia, but I also believe that changes such as the one I am proposing will substantially ameliorate these concerns. FNMF 08:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

  1. Oppose, blocked me once for 3RR. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Since apparently the above is confusing-obviously, FNMF never blocked me for 3RR, but I think we'd see that type of thing in such a "re-election" system. The most valuable admins, the ones willing to dive into the tough cases and deal with disruption that's not being caused by a blatant vandal-only account, would be the first to go under such a system. ArbCom is perfectly capable of desysopping genuinely bad admins. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
In addition, a big problem would be the sheer number of admins that need to be approved. We have about 1,160 admins as I write this, and the number increases every day. To approve this number in one year would require 3 to be approved per day, placing an enormous strain on the RfA system. Of course in future we would have even more admins, leading to even more RfAs. The exercise would turn into a huge waste of time. This has been rejected before, at Wikipedia:Adminship renewal. Hut 8.5 10:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

perennial proposal --Kim Bruning 10:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC) Where did that page go, and is this on it already?

I did look on the perennial proposals page, but could not see it there. I must admit, I will be disappointed if this proposal is rejected on grounds that amount to either: (1) its been suggested before; or (2) its too hard. To me this would constitute a failure of imagination. FNMF 11:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Its a variation on WP:PEREN#Administrative, second item: the "expires" is usually combined with a "reconfirm" option when this is proposed. I suppose we could update WP:PEREN#Administrative to reflect that, if anyone cares enough. KillerChihuahua?!? 13:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Look, I'm talking now as an administrator. First, what about the Voting is evil concept? Then I agree with you about that a review process would be recommended. But - to take my example - in the past few weeks, I haven't been able to participate strongly in the deletion procedures (had a lot of works on the medical topics), so now I'm ineligible to keep the mop and the bucket? NCurse work 11:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too sure what question you're really asking. In relation to voting, if it is an acceptable procedure for RfA, I don't see how it could be evil if applied to Renewal of Adminship. If, in the second part of your comment, you are asking about whether this will increase your "workload," I just don't believe that a review process every couple of years will be so catastrophically burdensome. Not for administrators who value their status (as most do). The fundamental question is: are people happy with the accountability processes for administrators? If you think the answer to this question is yes, then no doubt you will oppose my proposal. But if you think there is a problem with administrator accountability, then the challenge is to find a mechanism for addressing this problem (and I reiterate, the issue is not just the scale of the problem today, but what the scale of the problem may be a long way into the future). I believe there is a developing problem with administrator accountability, I believe this proposal is implementable and workable, and I believe it will go some way to addressing the problem. A review process for administrators is just good sense. FNMF 12:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Still, I believe it raises conflict of interest questions. The people who would be voting (and let's not kid around, with percentage thresholds even in the proposal, we're talking about a vote), would be the same people the admin is evaluating 3RR reports on or possibly closing a contentious AfD that deletes their pet article. Further, I think we might see admins lose their adminship for making a couple of mistakes (and again, let's not kid around, even good admins make mistakes, just like even good editors occasionally make a crappy edit.) Again, this would hit the hardest against the ones that handle tough cases, rather than the ones that block blatant vandals and delete obvious garbage. That's not to say those who block blatant vandals and delete obvious garbage aren't valuable, that always needs doing! But we don't need to make admins skittish about making a tough call for fear it'll swing a few opposes in the next reelection. Only admins who have a pattern of abuse or carelessness, and are unwilling to address the problem, should be desysopped, and that's exactly what ArbCom is there to determine. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
To me, that argument comes across as an argument for the entrenchment of power. Because: the argument about conflict of interest applies just as much to ArbCom as it does to the "user public." Whoever is making decisions will inevitably be a party involved in some way. The implication seems to be that ArbCom will protect administrators from the consequences of their own mistakes better than general editors. To which I have to make two comments: (1) is it really so bad if administrators are encouraged to reflect upon the potential consequences of their actions (this would seem to be a fundamental element of the Wiki ethos)?; and (2) is it really so clear that we should not have faith in general users to make good decisions, given that this is the very process for appointing administrators in the first place? FNMF 12:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm really not sure what this "power" bit is, regarding admins. A single admin really does not have a significant amount of power-if you think people are afraid to disagree with an admin, try doing it for a day or two. :) If you do something stupid, you will be asked nicely to reconsider; if you're unwilling, you'll be helped along to change your mind. Do it enough times, and you'll find yourself explaining it to ArbCom-and if anything, they hold admins to a higher standard than other editors. And probably, they should. I just don't see that the current system is broken. What leads you to believe it is? Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid things don't always work the way you're suggesting. And I'm afraid ArbCom doesn't always hold administrators to a higher standard. It would be nice if things always worked the way you suggest, but I don't believe that the future of Wikipedia is best assured by presupposing that this is how things work and how they will work. The question is not whether things often work well. The question is how effective the processes are when things don't work well. In my opinion the processes for dealing with poor administrators are ineffective and insufficient. I believe poor administrators get away with improper and abusive behaviour, precisely because the process of bringing them to account is so arduous and fickle. I am not a doomsayer, but ineffective accountability for those in administrative positions will in the end deform the project. The problem is fixable (but there may come a time when it is no longer fixable). The question is whether there is the will to fix it. FNMF 13:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
A good admin is rarely a popular one. This is suggested often, but is not going to happen. ArbCom is doing a fine job, do you have any specific examples of when they have let an admin run amuck? HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 13:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
About the saying, oft-quoted: "A good admin is rarely a popular one." It may well be true that a good administrator may be unpopular with those who bear grudges against him or her. But I think the notion that this means they are unpopular is fairly un-wiki. I believe good administrators are in fact very popular, because the general community is capable of discerning their goodness. I believe there are good grounds for faith in the ability of the general community to recognise good administrators, just as the general community usually make good choices with RfA. Distrusting the community to come to the correct conclusions about administrator performance is in my opinion revealing. On your second point, the problem is not only whether ArbCom makes good decisions or bad decisions. What must also be asked is: how many times do administrators get away with abusing their powers because the victim of the abuse simply cannot face the Everest climb required to do anything about it? Bad administrators count on the fact that nobody will bring them to account. Because to have the will to do so would mean really really wanting to see an adminstrator punished. That said, I do believe the ArbCom has made bad decisions, but I don't think this is the forum to discuss that. FNMF 14:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Let me also add: it is common for people to describe achieving the status of administrator as no big deal. By the same logic, the loss of that status should be no big deal either. In fact, the Wikipedia systems should be structured so that the loss of that status is no big deal. As I said initially, losing admin status does not mean one cannot apply for it later. Perhaps it might even be a healthy thing for admins to go back to their editing roots for a while. FNMF 14:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
The implication being that admins don't edit? I do both, and I think many other admins do too. -- Necrothesp 14:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
No that's not the implication. FNMF 14:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
So what do you mean by "it might even be a healthy thing for admins to go back to their editing roots for a while"? That sounds to me that you're saying that people stop editing as soon as they become admins. -- Necrothesp 12:39, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
FNMF I disagree, if you have been admin for even a year, you have a whole long list of people who you have blocked rightly, who would just love to oppose you because you have enforced policy. Admins are just regular users give the charge of a few tools. If one misuses them we have a process. I don't see the whole point in this, we don't have a large problem with admin abuse. What we have is lots of perceived admin abuse where people claim there is admin abuse, but there is not. At least that is what I get from reading WP:ANI. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 14:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Well you may be right that abuse by administrators is not that great a problem. You may be right that there is a process for dealing with administrators who abuse their "tools." In my opinion, however, it is not uncommon that abuse by administrators goes unaddressed. And in my opinion a crucial reason for this is the arduousness of the process. I will be honest with you: I consider the responses (all by administrators) to be disappointing. It is clearly the case that any position of responsibility, in any organisation, ought to have an effective review process attached to it. The process we have is very difficult, open to manipulation, and arbitrary. What I am proposing will be far easier, more transparent, more organised, more efficient, and show greater faith in the editing community. The only thing that protects the Wikipedia project is the effectiveness of its systems. The question is whether administrators—who, however you want to cut it, have a vested interest—are able to show the good sense and judgment to really analyse whether those systems are adequate, or whether they can be improved. I don't see that analysis going on in this discussion. FNMF 14:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Leaving aside the perennial proposal for now, since others have dealt with that fairly succinctly, I think the problem you perceive of "gangs of administrators enforcing their will" is actually best counteracted by having MORE administrators. The more users that have the additional tools, the less special it will be, the more oversight there will be on bad actions, and the less chance there is of a hegemon/groupmind. Just my opinion. -- nae'blis 14:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
That may be. My proposal, of course, has nothing to do with creating more or less administrators. It is to do with the quality of the adminstrators there are, however many or few they may be. FNMF 14:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Your proposal has everything to do with how many administrators there are, because any barriers to adminship will reduce the number of applicants; any admin who pisses off enough people will not be reconfirmed; and any imposed review will cause a certain percentage of administrators to resign. I'm proposing a different way to achieve your goal of oversight. Would you like me to nominate you? -- nae'blis 15:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
And you forget that the existing admins already have a life-time appointment, so this would only effect new admins. Which would create two classes of admins, which is a bad thing. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 15:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
To HighInBC: I don't believe that a change couldn't affect existing administrators. A mechanism would need to be introduced to stagger the review processes, presumably from oldest to newest, which would obviously take some time, but I don't see any major obstacle there. Its important to think long-term rather than short-term about major changes such as the one I am proposing, so a little inconvenience now will be coped with a lot better than being forced to deal with a much worse situation in the future. Like global warming! To Nae'blis: I don't believe there is any shortage of applicants for adminship, and I don't believe my proposal will seriously dent that number. I don't believe a fairly-conducted review process will lead to any and every disgruntled user forcing out every good administrator. This objection has been raised before, but in my opinion it forgets the support that good administrators receive from good users and from each other. I think the objection is out of proportion to the likely reality. As for your very kind offer, it is flattering, however at this time I do not wish to pursue adminship. But thanks. FNMF 18:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Punish the bad, don't make the good jump through hoops. That's like asking a citizen to go before a court every two years and prove they shouldn't be thrown in jail. ^demon[omg plz] 19:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(clarification, section edit)

I feel I need to make clearer what I consider the danger to Wikipedia to be. The problem with an ineffective review process for administrators is not that a rogue administrator will get away with misbehaviour. The real threat is that groups of misbehaving administrators will coalesce, act in concert, and defend each other. No doubt these groups will believe themselves to be good and effective administrators. But that doesn't mean they are. And without an effective means of bringing them to account, they will act with increasing impunity. Admin powers are greatly intensified when administrators can act in concert. Thus, for example: if an administrator is blocked by another administrator for misbehaviour, a third administrator, friendly to the first, may immediately unblock. If the first administrator can count on this support in advance, then on this basis they may grant themselves license to act in whatever way takes their fancy. Now, you might say: but then action can be taken against both the misbehaving administrators. But what if the group is three, or four, or five, or ten? Under the current oversight processes, it is almost impossible to address this situation. And, if this situation does not occur that often at the moment, the question is how it may develop, and how it will then affect Wikipedia as a whole. It is my belief that such situations poison the atmosphere of Wikipedia, and are unconducive to good editing and good administration. The growth of a poor administrative culture will drive away far more good editors and administrators than will any effective oversight process, as many organisations have learned too late. A workable but effective review process is not simply an exercise in making administrators jump through hoops. Most of the "work" will be done by others, those who support or oppose the retention of adminship, and they will be happy to do it. What a workable and effective review process will do is make Wikipedia a healthier and more attractive place to be, and produce a better encyclopaedia. FNMF 20:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
The situation you describe has come up before, and we have a term for it...it's called "Wheel Warring." It's highly HIGHLY frowned upon and has lead to several different arbitration cases. ^demon[omg plz] 20:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
The greatest long-term threat to Wikipedia is the development of a poor administrative culture. A culture of poor administration may develop in any organisation. How much more likely is it to develop on Wikipedia, an organisation disconnected in a significant way from the real lives of its contributors, and thus disconnected in a significant way from consequences? The only protection against the development of poor administrative culture is an effective review process. Administrators have a natural inclination to resist the introduction of review processes. But in most organisations these review processes are implemented from above. What Wikipedia administrators need to reflect on is that it is largely up to them to determine the processes of their own review. This is an added burden of responsibility borne by Wikipedia administrators and by the Wikipedia community as a whole, and it is one that requires a leap of imagination beyond the natural inclination against review processes. This discussion has shown this inclination in spades. My proposal is not an attack on administrators, but rather constitutes a defence of good administrators. The question is not what conduct is frowned on and what conduct is approved. The question is what processes are in place to encourage good conduct and discourage poor conduct. The question is whether these processes are adequate. The question is what kind of administrative culture will develop in the long-term if ineffective review processes remain in place. And the question is whether administrators are capable of the leap of imagination required to implement more effective oversight processes. If your answers to these questions are different from mine, you will be happy with the status quo. My belief is that this threat exists, and that signs of poor administrative culture are showing. Naturally these signs are frequently contained within the fine grain details of administrative practice, and may at present be nearly invisible to those who do not apply a magnifying glass to the particular situations of poor administration. But as I said in my initial comment: Wikipedia is still only a few years old, and what seem minor problems today may become major problems tomorrow. Only an effort of thought, will, and imagination will have a chance at addressing these problems, but such an effort can, I believe, address them, if it does not arrive too late. FNMF 20:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah great. Time for the misnomer to bite us. Of course, the "admin bit" is actually supposed to be more akin to a drivers license. Just like drivers licenses, people with admin bits aren't one hair better or worse than people without one. But people try to keep ascribing magical properties to this admin bit thing. If we could drop that, the role of admins would be much clearer.

The way culture is at the moment though, is that admins are actually locked up in a gilded cage, and people get to randomly poke them with sticks. Most unpleasant. (That's why I'm a big proponent of people being allowed to leave adminship honorably, after a year of having "served their time".)

Of course, if by some event everyone suddenly realizes it's just a "drivers license" (but for wikis), then it would also be clear why "admins" should be allowed to keep the dang thing indefinitely. :-)

--Kim Bruning 21:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That is, unless they go senile and start running over cats or driving 40 miles an hour on the highway. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 21:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe my argument presumes administrators are better or worse than anybody else. Nor do I believe I am ascribing magical properties to them. FNMF 21:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
What I meant to say was that the administrators do not form the administration. It's a misnomer. :-) On the other hand, I am extremely interested in hearing about what kinds of small-scale issues might be popping up, and extremely interested in the long view. Tell us more? --Kim Bruning 22:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I seriouly don't think that this should work. The high number of admins makes it simply a lot more work to do. If admins are behaving in a bad way, it is not too difficult to un-admin them. So many do such great work and we need more, not less, to work on backlog and vandal blocking. With more admins, it is easier to check up on others. IMHO, the RfA process should be even easier than it is now. Reywas92Talk 23:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps at some point we'll need to implement a "reconfirmation" system for adminship, but as it stands right now, we have neither the need nor the manpower to do so. ^demon[omg plz] 00:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree. As to the bit above (admins unblocking one another, etc.), I wouldn't unblock anyone, admin or otherwise, without first contacting the administrator who placed the block and getting their rationale, and if they stood behind it, I would be much more likely to take it to ANI than unilaterally override them. That's what's expected, it's not just my thing. In a technical sense, admins can unblock themselves. In a realistic sense, that's about the quickest way to getting desysopped there is. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
(Addendum I meant to put earlier) As to losing adminship-yes, it's a big deal. If anyone doesn't believe that, I'll go block them right now.
What????!!!!
(I did not mean that, and I certainly don't intend to block anyone for saying that, no one crucify me!) However, it illustrates how "adminship is no big deal" does not necessarily correspond to "losing adminship is no big deal". Editing is no big deal. Every last person in the world can come around here and do that. But taking away someone's editing privileges is a big deal. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I really don't see how what you do as an administrator, or what administrators are expected to do, or for that matter what 95% of administrators do 95% of the time, is relevant to the question. Furthermore, the attitude that anybody can come and edit, whereas only some people are administrators, is one reason that administrators are reluctant to consider proposals such as mine. What I am arguing is that administrators need to think further into the issue than simply asserting that they are good administrators and that losing administrator status is a big deal. You can argue that there is not a problem with administrator behaviour if you like, and you can argue that the existing processes will always be sufficient for dealing with administrator abuse, however I am unpersuaded by these arguments in the form they have been put thus far. FNMF 00:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, the fact that there do exist certain standards that would discourage or prevent the hypothetical scenario you put forth is somewhat relevant, I think. What we're trying to ascertain here, is whether what you're proposing is a solution in search of a problem, or whether there is an existing problem that isn't adequately addressed by what's already in place. If there is change needed, we should make it, but that should generally be because problems do exist, not because they might someday. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I believe I have engaged in a considerable amount of argumentation about the very issues you raise. If you don't wish to address those arguments substantively, that's ok. FNMF 00:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I see that you have, and there's been a considerable amount back. What I'm asking now is, are there specific situations that exist right now that this is intended to solve, or is it based on hypothetical future scenarios? Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Both. FNMF 00:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
That's kind of a nonanswer. I guess I'm very reluctant on accusations of "cabalism", given my own experience. Not too long ago, I found myself in a pretty contentious dispute over content. Three people on the "opposite side" were admins, one was also at the time an arbitrator. I wasn't an admin at the time, neither was anyone else arguing the other way. If there would be any case I should have seen "admin abuse" used against me, that would be it. And yet, what actually happened was that everyone agreed to mediation, and it was worked out just fine. At no point did anyone try to "pull rank" or do anything inappropriate whatsoever. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Let's just say that FNMF has been peevish since I blocked him over his method of participation at Christopher Michael Langan (a block I and a good number of other admins stand by), that's why. He's been on this campaign at Jimbo's and Fred Bauder's talk pages to get me desysopped or otherwise waylaid, and failing there, to set up a process to hamstring admins with mob rule "make admins more accountable." FeloniousMonk 04:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I feel obliged to point out that the above assertions by FeloniousMonk are untrue and an unfortunate misuse of this forum. I am happy to discuss this further with anybody who may be interested. FNMF 05:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad your experience turned out well. But as I say, that things work well most of the time is not really the question. You are of course free to suspect that I have interpreted situations within my own experience incorrectly. But I feel I have to point out that I am not making any "accusations" here: I just answered your question. FNMF 01:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, I don't really understand why you described my answer as a "nonanswer." FNMF 01:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Just "Both"? Well, what problem exists now then? What's the current situation that's gotten you to make this proposal? Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Not that I would necessarily support such a proposal, but why not create some process for review that would provide a more accessible way to withdraw community support for an adminship than the arbitration committee? Perhaps if 15 (the number is just for example) or more users (who have not been the subject of punishment from the sysop in question, or have more than 300 edits, or some other combination of standards) post a request on something like Wikipedia:Petitions for Administrator Review, they could compel a renomination of the sysop similar to current RfA's. Perhaps a separate committee could even be formed (composed in such a way to make tasks manageable). Such a system would permit the community to withdraw support for a sysop without going all the way to arbcom, and not hassle administrators who have not taken actions to aggrevate the community. --YbborTalkSurvey! 01:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Other mechanisms for dealing with these problems should certainly be considered as well. FNMF 01:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Seraphimblade above: I don't believe this is the proper forum to discuss specific cases of administrator misbehaviour. I am happy to do so elsewhere. Nor does the argument stand or fall with whatever my own experience has been. If you do not believe there is a problem, and do not believe a problem is likely to develop, then anecdotal evidence about a problem here or there is not likely to persuade you. If you do believe there is a problem, or that a problem is likely to develop, then, if you care enough about the problem, you should address yourself to the question of what can be done about it. This is what I am doing. FNMF 03:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
If 95% of administrators are acting well 95% of the time (your hypothetical numbers, above), then why make 100% of them go through a review process every X years? That's one of the things people don't understand about your proposal, I believe. Do we need to strengthen our ways to deal with problematic administrator behavior? I believe so. But making everyone go through a process designed to weed out the bad eggs is not good policy. I'm dealing with this practically every day in my real-life job, or I wouldn't make such an assertion (even though I'm an administrator I have the sysop bit). And your proposal is subject to the same "cabalism" in the form of administrator cliques defending each other when they come up for review, isn't it? I'm going to assume here that you're familiar with the contents of Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship, before I retread any more ground. Also, I have broken this into a subsection, as this section of the Village Pump was 36k long. -- nae'blis 16:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I am certainly open to the idea of review-on-demand rather than an automatic review after a designated time period. I believe there are pros and cons to both suggestions. The pros of review-on-demand are, as you say, that it saves administrators whose work is not questioned from having to go through a review process; and, secondly, that an aggrieved editor would not need to wait for the scheduled review time to come around. But I do believe there are arguments the other way as well: I believe there are benefits to the idea that all administrators will know they face a review process. I do not believe administrators will be cowed by knowing this, but I believe it may mean they think about their actions in a slightly different way. As I feel I have to always add, this is not a criticism of the bulk of administrative practice, but rather a question of whether it is possible to improve the overall administrative culture. And I also believe there are benefits to the notion that any administrator at any time may find themselves back on the street, so to speak, spending a year as an editor like everybody else. I believe that the idea that this will upset administrators so much that they will leave Wikipedia is exaggerated. And I believe the idea that a review process will be unduly onerous is exaggerated. And, finally, I believe the idea that a few disgruntled editors will easily be able to have an administrator de-administrated is also exaggerated. The RfA process works well, contributors behave in a thoughtful way, and if editors weigh in with attacks they can't back up, neutral participants are unlikely to be persuaded. I believe the same would happen at a review process. The problem today is that it is just far too difficult to have an administrator's record effectively reviewed. It is a solvable problem that the Wikipedia community should make the effort to solve. As for the 95% issue, that was just off-the-top-of-my-head made-up figures: the real question is whether people believe the problem of poor administration may grow, and if so, whether it will be more difficult to solve later on. I believe both of those things. As for how to determine the best method of improving the situation, I think it would be a pity if a review process was put into place, but a watered-down or weak version. Unless the process is accessible and robust, it will turn out to be a waste of time for everybody. But if current administrators can put aside their anxieties about the consequences of such a review process, a real improvement to the long-term outlook for Wikipedia can be achieved. FNMF 01:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Bad idea, will never fly; too easily gamed by those looking to settle old scores. Any admin worth their salt will have a long list of disgruntled nogoodniks looking for retribution, and the community already provides two methods, RFC and RFAR, for admins who are so far out of step that they need correcting. FeloniousMonk 04:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Making Wikipedia a reliable source: while still retaining free speech.

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion

A long while ago (many many months ago) I posted an idea to protect the validity of Wikipedia articles which many of you took as a communist like approach to the problem. Looking back on it, I kind of agree.

Anyway, I have a much better idea that will still allow everyone to use Wikipedia just as it is being used now, but will make it become a reliable source. (I know, it sounds too good to be true)

My idea, is that Wikipedia initiates a quality and sound article system. It works similarly to the way quality articles are put up for nomination for the CD version of Wikipedia.

Nominations Anyone can nominate an article as quality and sound. There could be a button or something to that effect as well as an option for the person to put some comments on why they think it has quality and is sound.

Then, a staff or board of some sort that is well qualified (possibly the Wikipedia staff), or even just people who have proven themselves to be people who improve Wikipedia's quality; will judge the article and do any other minor clean up.

Putting an article into place

If they approve, then that version of the article will be saved as the qualified and sound version of the article. But this is not permanent.

Firstly, I suggest Wikipedia adds a new tab between the main tab and the discussion tab that is labeled 'Complete' or something to that effect. This tab allows the user to access the unaffected version of the article that was nominated and judged as a sound article with quality. This version, without going through the process of nomination and judging again, cannot be changed - making that version a reliable source.

Everything else will stay the same, everyone can still edit articles, view them, and access the most recent version as they are now. Though I do also suggest there be an option that allows users to open the 'complete' articles on default, just to make it a little smoother.

Updating the 'complete' version

Information changes over time, and new findings can make old information invalid. Thus, an article that already has a quality and sound version can be renominated when the normal version is edited and updated. If the new version is judged to be better and have more information, the 'complete' version is simply changed to that one. Its as simple as that.

Conclusion

This still allows Wikipedia to be "The Free Encyclopedia" while making it a reliable source for academic citation, reference, and research. I can't imagine it would be very difficult to add this feature into the system, and it would certainly be a worthwhile function. 23:46, 30 March 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.84.119 (talk • contribs)

I just read through this page and realized a similar idea was posted... This one is a bit different, but I wanted to be the first to say it. Teehehe 23:46, 30 March 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.84.119 (talk • contribs)
It's kind of hard to take seriously someone who doesn't even know enough to sign his/her talk page postings, and says Teehehe. In any case, saying, as you did, Then, a staff or board of some sort that is well qualified (possibly the Wikipedia staff), or even just people who have proven themselves to be people who improve Wikipedia's quality; will judge the article and do any other minor clean up is pretty much conclusive proof that you are clueless about much of how Wikipedia works.
Please feel free to post again here when you (a) understand what is absolutely wrong with suggesting that a major function be done by the Wikipedia staff and (b) why you can suggest a reasonably practical system for identifying and flagging people who have proven themselves to be people who improve Wikipedia's quality. And don't worry about taking your time - we'll still be here, working away. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
My ignorance as to the etiquette related to signing my name has no effect on the value of the content of my suggestion. I know enough about Wikipedia, programming, and computer science to understand that adding a new tab to the system will require work, but is not as complicated as the prior system I suggested. (A complex security system involving the validation of users through a warning, reporting, and appraisal system; restricting what they can edit and how much they are able to edit) I admit that I do not fully comprehend the mechanics of Wikipedia, but that doesn't make my comments invalid.
In response to (a). I am not sure what you mean by 'absolutely wrong with suggesting that a major function be done by the wikipedia staff '. Unless I am mistaken, the village pump is a board for suggesting such things. I note that you do not cite any of the other sections in the village pump for the same ' transgression ' and many of the sections suggest things vastly more complicated than simply adding a tab that links to a specific version of the article as well as a few other programming and functionality adjustments which are not absurdly difficult. (Note that there are already similar functions enacted)
In response to (b). I have previously suggested such a thing, and the system was more or less a communist-esque system that was vastly complicated. But that minor is irrelevant to my point, it really doesn't matter who looks over the nominations as long as they are qualified - I was merely offering up some possibilities for people to consider. Since you seem keen on this point, however, I will offer up a simplified version of that suggestion. Wikipedia keeps track of user contributions, yes? Every time a user posts, points are added to that contributor's validity score. Whenever a contribution is cited as vandalism or invalid, points are subtracted. Whenever a user's contributions are noted as especially useful or well written, the validity score would increase by a substantial amount of points. In order to keep people from abusing this system, various checks and balances could be put into play that limit the number of times a person could vote, and would limit people from voting for a certain person in multiplicity. There would then be a page that would deal with the nominations of articles that users, that meet a benchmark set by Wikipedia, could go to evaluate the nominated articles. Either way, it really does not matter who and it is not detrimental that I point out specifically who it should be. All that matters is that they are knowledgeable qualified, and accredited individuals.
Whether or not this suggestion was completely thought through, has the proper statistics to back it up, or even whether I know the source code of Wikipedia does not make my suggestion a bad one. The idea behind my suggestion is extremely simple and effective. It does not reduce the abilities of the user, (unlike my prior suggestion), and it makes Wikipedia a reliable source. (as I have already stated). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Red revell infusion (talk • contribs) 19:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC).
One last note, I forgot to defend my teehee. I have a sense of humor, I apologize if that offends you. Red revell infusion 19:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem here isn't with the complexity of the software changes needed. it is the size of the change in how Wikipedia operates. The first key point is Wikipedia has no staff. None, nada, noone. All editors are unpaid volunteers. The second key point is that there is no easy way to tell who is who. (See Essjay controversy.) The third key point is that few enough editors here can be reliably identified as "people who have proven themselves to be people who improve Wikipedia's quality". Running the featured article system is a major task -- your proposal would be orders of magnitude larger. Various proposals for stable versions have been made in the past -- all have floundered over these sorts of issues. DES (talk) 20:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Last time I checked, Wikipedia had next to no staff. John Broughton is probably in contravention of WP:BITE. Last time I checked, there was, supposedly, a system to mark "verified" or "quality and whatever-you-said" articles (I suggested a similar idea a while ago)... here is a pertinent reply that I received:
Reviewed article version and Article validation feature give some overview, although there isn't a lot of ongoing discussion at the moment. It's a MediaWiki feature currently in development, and the plan last I heard was to test it out on the German Wikipedia once it was ready to go live. If you're interested in this and other "behind-the-scenes" things, a good thing to do would be to join the mailing lists, where a lot of such discussion takes place. You'll probably also find more discussion if you dredge through the archives of some of the major lists, such as foundation-l, wikipedia-l, and wikiEN-l. --Slowking Man 20:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Hope this is of use. :) --Seans Potato Business 23:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing that up, I didn't realize that. However, the basic idea behind this still seems applicable. Wikipedia managed to put together a cd, yes? I know it was distribute and funded by another foundation, but it was still done. I am just saying that it is possible. 71.213.88.31 21:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Stub categories still don't "count"; this needs to be official

Latest comment: 17 years ago11 comments5 people in discussion

Right now, a page with no categories except stub categories is automatically tagged by Alaibot (and perhaps other bots as well) for being uncategorized. Based on the point made at this talkpage, I have raised the question of whether this is how things should be done, most recently on the Stub types talkpage.

The mixed responses to this question have tended towards the feeling that yes, a stub category is still not sufficient categorization, largely because when the stub template is removed, the page will have no categories left. So, for example, it's not only an OK but a necessary redundancy for a basketball player stub to have both Category:Basketball biography stubs and Category:Basketball players. (Yeah, I know that such articles are technically organized by team and nationality, etc, but this is for argument's sake.)

Therefore, my proposal is to make this notion "official" by having it stated overtly on all relevant project pages, including Category:Uncategorized (and subcats), Template:Uncategorized, Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting, and its stub types subpage, in addition to any other pages people feel make sense for this.   Lenoxus " * " 05:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

  • This seems to be based on an incorrect assumption about what Alaibot is doing, which I've already attempted to clarify elsewhere, which see for further details. But very briefly:
    • No, that not what it's doing;
    • It is generally agreed that a stub category is not "full categorisation" as such;
    • In the past, when at least one bot was tagging topic-sorted stubs with "uncat", there were disagreements -- and indeed complaints -- about this, as a result of which that bot stopped doing so, and Category:Uncategorized stubs was created.
  • I would strongly suggest care be taken when adding "overt statements" that we not get into a mass recapitulation of previous to-ings and fro-ings on this (e.g. people being led to believe that adding {{uncat}} to the 60,000+ articles with only a stub category is a great idea). Alai 16:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • General practice at WP:WikiProject Stub sorting is to add a permanent category to any otherwise uncategorised stubs sorted. The important word is "permanent". The main categorisation scheme is permanent for the benefit of readers. The stub categorisation of any article for the benefit of editors is temporary and will be removed once an article is expanded beyond stub size. The simple removal of a stub tag by an editor will return an article to an uncategorised state unless it is also marked with a permcat. As such, it makes sense that stub categories "don't count" as far as categorisation is concerned, in exactly the same way as other cleanup categories do not count for the purposes of article categorisation. Having said all that, I'd also advise caution for exactly the reasons Alai notes. Grutness...wha? 23:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
    • This all depends on what problem it is we're trying to solve. (Or cause? I've lost track.) If anyone is removing Category:Xs from articles on the basis that it's redundant with it having a {{X-stub}}, which categorises into Category:X stubs, then the logic of this should be explained to them. If this happens on a somewhat frequent basis, then it should be made (more) explicit someplace. Iterate as necessary. (I'm personally not aware of it happening at all, but please enlighten me.) There's already regular complaints about how large and crufty WP:STUB is, so I'd hesitate to add it there. (Some sort of general refactoring of that material is probably called for at some point.) If the point is to suggest that we should be mass-adding {{uncat}} to articles with a sorted stub type (and bear in mind that Category:Stubs is relatively empty for most of the time), then I'd urge we avoid this, for the reasons already alluded to. Come to that, even mass-tagging with {{uncatstub}}, while it would probably be fairly uncontroversial, would in the short-to-medium term be fairly ineffective, given the size of the existing categorisation backlog. Indeed, might be less than great for morale...
    • Perhaps this would be a good time to mention those people plugging away at Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories/uncategorized, chipping away at a backlog of 11,000+ articles... Alai 05:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow, this has grown a lot faster than I would expect, insane. Is it just because I linked it from my page...? Anyway, good points all, to which I have nothing to say at the moment...   Lenoxus " * " 15:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, OK, for starters: WikiProject Uncategorized is precisely why I started this proposal: because I would love to just dive right into it, but it appears that a near-majority of the tagged articles are in stub categories, and not knowing which way to go about it is driving me insane. We don't want redundant categories, right? (Like, say, the same article being in Writers and Finnish writers). So is having same-meaning stubcats and permanant cats "bad" or "okay"? The real conondrum is that it's not even clear what should be the "default" in the case of no consensus -- some sort of decision needs to be reached one way or the other. Maybe I should have rephrased the proposal, and if this conversation gets big enough, I will start a new one on a blank slate.   Lenoxus " * " 15:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
      • It seems to me we've already had at least one do-over too many, as I answered this in detail when you raised it at WSS -- which, incidentally, would be my guess as to why the decision has now moved (or been recapitulated) here, it seems to me. (And I've addressed it again, above.) A Finnish writer stub should be in Category:Finnish writer stubs and Category:Finnish writers (or some more specific sub-category, as will often be the cases), as well as whatever other cats apply (most obviously DoB and DoD/living people cats). Each of those follow from the corresponding guidelines (stubs and categorisation), and nothing exists to suggest any conflict between the two. It strikes me as not a good idea to try to write guidelines in such a way as to anticipate every possible interaction with other guidelines: we'd end up with massive bloat of same. If there's some actual need to document this non-conflict, let's do so with as light a touch as possible, and not on dozens of projectspace pages. Perhaps add something to WP:OVERCAT, to the effect of "a permcat and a stubcat with the same effect aren't overcategorisation". (Or to whichever (one) policy or guideline people feel it is that suggests such a conflict, if people really do feel that, and can identify exactly what guideline or that is.)
      • If it's only in Category:Finnish writer stubs, it shouldn't be tagged with {{uncat}}, however. (Likewise {{uncat}} isn't applied in the case of partially categorised articles, with some (permanent) categories, but missing some others it should also have.) This is a matter of allowing a reasonable amount of prioritisation, so as to make the whole process manageable: category triage, if you will. (In my opinion, detailed work on categories with some missing categories is much better done in a more "distributed" manner, say at WikiProject level, but very few subjects seem to be on top of that in any systematic manner.)
      • As to this "near-majority of the tagged articles are in stub categories": once again, this isn't my bot's doing (unless it's developed unexpected behaviour that hasn't been brought to my attention). If people are adding stub tags after the articles have been identified as uncategorised (without permcats also having been added), I'll be able to get an accurate idea of how common this after the next db dump. If this really is very large, I can split those off with the parallel {{uncatstub}} tag, as was done previously. Mainly that would seem like an indication that the threshold for what's an "(uncategorised) stub" vs. just an "uncategorised article" is currently too low, though, which is a topic I've already raised at WSS. Alai 05:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • While in principle, I don't think there's any reason for a non-robot user to tag something as uncategorized instead of finding the appropriate category, I suppose I understand why this might happen anyway. Therefore, perhaps what's really needed is an "insufficient categorization" template explaining that while the article in question has at least one category, it needs at least one more, either an appropriate stub category or (more likely) an appropriate specific category (e.g., Finnish writers). Would that make any sense?   Lenoxus " * " 18:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

New protection templates, take 2

Latest comment: 17 years ago38 comments14 people in discussion

Have made a set of protection templates now. I think they are the only one needed, and are in line with the protection policy. →AzaToth 00:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Types
Type Full Semi
Dispute {{pp-dispute}} —
Vandalism {{pp-vandalism}} {{pp-semi-vandalism}}
High visible templates {{pp-template}} {{pp-semi-template}}
User talk of blocked user {{pp-usertalk}} {{pp-semi-usertalk}}
Spambot target — {{pp-semi-spambot}}
Generic (other protection) {{pp-protected}} {{pp-semi-protected}}
Office {{pp-office}} —
Move protection
{{pp-move}}
Examples
{{pp-dispute}}
{{pp-vandalism}}
{{pp-semi-vandalism}}
{{pp-template}} {{pp-template}}
{{pp-semi-template}} {{pp-semi-template}}
{{pp-usertalk}}
{{pp-semi-usertalk}}
{{pp-semi-spambot}}
{{pp-protected}}
{{pp-semi-protected}}
{{pp-move}}
{{pp-office}} {{pp-office|category=none}}

Discussion about templates

Protection only matters to editors, though. Shouldn't most of these have icon-only versions? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

They all have, by specifying the parameter small=yes →AzaToth 03:07, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, do we ever semi-protect talk pages of blocked users? I thought the whole point was full protection so they can't edit it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Semiprotecting anons' talk pages makes sense. MaxSem 07:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
(To Night Gyr): Lots of people semi anon's talk pages in case of unblock abuse or page blanking. – Riana ঋ 07:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I changed the colors of the protected padlock to skyblue, available padlocks is as follow:

  • Standard padlocks
  •  
    Ol' standard padlock
  • Colored padlocks
  •  
    Green
  •  
    Red
  •  
    Blue
  •  
    Silver
  •  
    Turquoise
  •  
    Violet
  •  
    Olive
  •  
    Gold
  •  
    Pink
  •  
    Purple
  •  
    Orange
  •  
    Skyblue
  •  
    Lightolive
  •  
    Light-silver
  •  
    Silver (light)
  •  
    Silver (medium)

→AzaToth 15:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Since semi move protection is possible, shouldn't there be a template for that too? -Amarkov moo! 16:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    Semi-move-protection is possible but utterly pointless, because anons and non-autoconfirmed users can't move pages anyway. --ais523 17:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
This looks fine to me; I fully support it (and as quickly as possible, because the protection templates are a mess right now) – Qxz 19:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I support this proposal as well. Consistency is good for a variety of reasons. For example, it's easier to memorize. It makes the reason more important. It's easier to code regexes to recognize them... GracenotesT § 19:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
One other (rather important) suggestion: Could each of these templates place pages into an appropriate category specific to that template, not just "Category:Protected" and "Category:semi-protected"? We really need a better categorization system than the incomplete and ambiguous one we currently have. For example, the {{pp-template}} needs to populate Category:Protected templates, {{pp-semi-spambot}} needs to populate Category:Protected against spambots, and I would like to see the introduction of new categories where no equivalent category currently exists – at the moment, for example, all semi-protected pages seem to get lumped together – Qxz 21:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Of course, if we did that, we'd have to place them into two categories: the general Category:Protected, and the specific reason category. For convenience. GracenotesT § 01:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, one of the two categories Category:Protected and Category:Semi-protected and a more specific category. Right now the templates distinguish the two types of protection but that's all they do – Qxz 02:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Nice idea, ugly colors. :) How about generic silver and gold? I don't mind the pink for move protected, but the blue, and especially the green are just... Prodego talk 19:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed on the ugly colours. If they must be colour-coded at all, can we have the normal old Image:Padlock.svg for full and a normal metal looking version (like the silver, only less black) for semi and move-only protection? --tjstrf talk 19:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

At a glance, here is the color... erm, matrix:

Type Full Semi
Dispute {{pp-dispute}}   —
Vandalism {{pp-vandalism}}   {{pp-semi-vandalism}}  
High visible templates {{pp-template}}   {{pp-semi-template}}  
User talk of blocked user {{pp-usertalk}}   {{pp-semi-usertalk}}  
Spambot target — {{pp-semi-spambot}}  
Generic (other protection) {{pp-protected}}   {{pp-semi-protected}}  
Move protection
{{pp-move}}  

Pretty predictable, no? So we have three flavors: protected, semi-protected, and move-protected. I suggest these respective images:  ,  ,  , if the currents ones are disliked. By the way, great job converting the images to svg, AzaToth. My only suggestion is to set vertical-align:middle for the table cell in which the image is located. GracenotesT § 02:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No, if we're going to choose colours, I agree with tjstrf: the current colour for full protection, and a lighter veresion of the silver one for semi-protection. I don't really understand why a move-protected page needs a padlock icon in the corner at all... surely the lack of a "move" tab speaks for itself? – Qxz 02:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Here is Image:Padlock-light-silver.svg.   A lighter and less shiny version of the silver for you. I recommend   for semi-protection, and   for full protection. I don't think we need a move protection lock. Prodego talk 03:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Have made a lighter version of the silver now: Image:Padlock-silver-light.svg.   →AzaToth 05:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't that equalize to that the edit tab is missing/replaced with a "source" tab for non-privileged users? →AzaToth 05:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but as an established user, I have no way of distinguishing a semi-protected article from an unprotected one just by looking at it. I can, however, distinguish full-protected from not protected and move-protected from not protected – Qxz 05:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of colored locks. However, I think blue green pink might be too "pastel". I think more aggressive colors (an deeper shade of blue and green maybe, and a red?) might be nicer. That's just my two cents of course :) -- lucasbfr talk 09:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Eww, pastels :) I would prefer Ye Olde Padlocke myself. >Radiant< 12:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with the comments for using   for full protection and   for semi (I don't really like the pastel colours, they aren't really padlock colours (if you get what I mean)). For move protected, maybe use a different border, move the padlock to the right of the template, or use a slightly different image (if someone can make an image of a moving padlock?). mattbr 14:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I also have an idea to add this code {{#ifexpr:{{#if:{{{expiry|}}}|1|0}} and {{#time:U|{{expriy|}}}}} > {{#time:U|today}}|[[Cetegory:Protected pages expiry expired|{{PAGENAME}}}} →AzaToth 16:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Like users above, I agree that standard padlock colors should be used for full and semi, and maybe a more funky color for move would be fine with me. Category:Proposed for deletion for over five days has a PF #time:U cache problem, and this would too... GracenotesT § 17:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
The category was more as a help to remove tags from pages that has expired, if it's some days after, it's not that much of a deal. →AzaToth 19:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's very pretty. The King of Rocking 03:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

But wait! There is more

I have now added {{pp-office}} and added the code for the expiry category. Following is a mapping of old templates to the new ones.

From To From To From To
{{protected}} {{pp-dispute}} {{vprotected}} {{pp-vandalism}} {{P-protected}} {{pp-semi-vandalism}}
{{protected template}} {{pp-template}} data-sort-value="" style="background: var(--background-color-interactive, #ececec); color: var(--color-base, #2C2C2C); vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="table-na" | — {{pp-semi-template}} {{usertalk-vprotect}} {{pp-usertalk}}
{{usertalk-sprotect}} {{pp-semi-usertalk}} {{IPtalkblanking}} {{pp-semi-usertalk}} {{unblockabuse}} {{pp-usertalk}}
{{sprotected}} {{pp-semi-protected}} data-sort-value="" style="background: var(--background-color-interactive, #ececec); color: var(--color-base, #2C2C2C); vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="table-na" | — {{pp-protected}} {{privacy protection}} —
{{moveprotected}} {{pp-move}} {{Spambot}} {{pp-semi-spambot}} {{Uprotected}} {{pp-usertalk}}
{{Tprotected}} — {{Mprotected}} TfD {{C-uploaded}} TfD
{{M-cropped}} TfD {{protected2}} {{pp-dispute|small=yes}} {{sprotected2}} {{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}
{{SprotectedTalk}} {{pp-semi-vandalism}} {{Sprotect-banneduser}} {{pp-semi-vandalism}} {{protected image}} {{pp-vandalism}}
{{Protected-blocked}} {{pp-usertalk}}

I think we could now move on to replacing the old templates. →AzaToth 15:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Have updated the template {{Protection templates}}, I will not deprecate the old protection templates unless you object to that. →AzaToth 18:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Four complaints have I:

  1. Don't includeonly the templates. That's rather annoying. Have the template, then an hr ----, then {{pp-template}}, then the documentation.
      Done →AzaToth 20:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  2. User talk pages are often fully protected or semiprotected so that IPs, or even autoconfirmed users, won't vandalize the page, rather than the person that owns the page.
    If that's just normal vandalism then the normal vandalism protection template could be used, pp-usertalk is more for the event when the userpage's user vandalises the page, for example unblockabuse etc... (I have merged five usertalk templates into two) →AzaToth 20:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
  3. For those pp-(semi-)usertalk templates, then, have a parameter that displays the information that the user has been blocked, and also a link to the block log next to the protection log.
    could you give an example for naming of the parameters and how they should look like? →AzaToth 20:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
    To this and above: it may be useful to have a block log link, if applicable. I'll work on a proposed draft for the two. GracenotesT § 02:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  4. Add a space after "(protection log)" to {{pp-template}}.
      Done →AzaToth 20:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

GracenotesT § 19:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

How about allocating a 24 bit unique code, compatible with many 24 bit colour cards, for each different type of lock, so then no mortal could possibly remember what each one means.

GregInCanada 02:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Pinhead

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

I would like to see a page Wikipedia:Pinhead. That way, when someone is being overtly obstinate, and recalcitrant in the face of reason, you can ask them to stop being a pinhead. -Just call me zippy 03:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That's somewhat uncivil, and in any case there's already Don't be dense. —dgiestc 04:13, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Except as a politically correct alternative to Wikipedia:Don't be a dick, this would be pretty useless. WP:PIN is already taken anyway. --tjstrf talk 04:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:DICK does cover this quite well... plus it also covers the fact that calling someone a DICK, or refering them to the WP:DICK page is "something of a dick-move in itself" and thus, is nicely and somewhat ironically a self-defeating proposition. Seriously, if someone is disruptive, there are ways to deal with it. If they are just annoying, but not causing any damage or disruption, ignore them. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Referring a person to Wikipedia:Don't Be a(n) X in reference in reference to their present behaviour amounts to saying “You are a(n) X right now.” Given that X is something such as dick or pinhead, this is simply a personal attract thinly disguised as a reference to quasi-policy. The only legitimate use of WP:DICK — on any Wikipedia page — is in contexts where no identifiable editor is being thereby described. Given that Wikipedia:Pinhead is proposed as a way of slapping “someone [who] is being overtly obstinate, and recalcitrant in the face of reason”, I'd say that it should be seen as fruit of a very poisoned tree. —SlamDiego 18:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

wiki Weather

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

I was thinking for some pages on wikipedia could we have a way to show the Weather for that location using the Governments Weather reports that are free [1] it also provides Warnings & Forecasts stuff about the Air Quality (good to know if you live in CA). the weather information could be automaticly updated every hour or some thing like that, This may need some complex wkik language code, but I would not know Many pages have there location all ready in place making it easy in my mind to enter the information and get the weather for that location, this would be helpful for pages about Air ports or sports stadiums, I was just thinking it would make Wikipedia a little bit larger in the knowlege it holds, this is not very encyclopedia like, but I like to know what others think about this idea (Sorry for the bad spelling a am dyslexic), Max 06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Weather is not encyclopedic, as it changes frequently and no one is interested in old weather reports. Climate is encyclopedic. Many geographical entries already have climate information.-gadfium 06:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with gadfium in that it might be impractical to display updated weather. However, a LINK to a live-time weather site would be a nice idea for each locale. But just one link per page. Links lists for some cities are too long as they exist now, no need to further burden them. --Valley2city₪‽ 17:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
If an individual needs a link for their own city, they should have that in their own bookmarks and only need once to find such a weather info website. Once they have such a link they can probably use it to check weather in other cities, and the current weather for a city is not very encyclopedic. The question becomes whether Wikipedia should have a collection of links to weather information web sites. (SEWilco 17:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC))

Word hunt game

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hey,

I’d like to suggest an idea. I know it may sound a bit “odd” at the first glance, but believe me if implemented properly it’s an entertaining stuff that involves rapid reading, rapid thinking, general knowledge and fast mouse movement. It’s something me and my friends do at home every now and then. Simply put, it’s a word hunting game mainly based on wikipedia interface. I randomly choose two totally different and unrelated words in mind (for instance, Presbyterianism and sonar) and try to jump from the first word (Presbyterianism ) to the target word (sonar) within the shortest period of time, just by clicking only on the shortcuts on the page. With a little bit modification (a chronometer, nickname of other participants or contesters), it'll attract other user’s interest and will also help people improve their general knowledge (both a contest and a source of knowledge on any topic). Users may be given a rest period at the end of each stage to look at what those words actually mean (Transcendental Idealism?? :)))

Well, I hope it will attract your interest.

Thank you

Gunhan Pikdoken, 30, Turkey e-mail removed

See Wikipedia:Wikirace and related games. –Pomte 15:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Search Spell Check

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Why doesn't Wikipedia have a feature that would allow search suggestions to come up for misspelled words? Almost all search engines have it, so wy doesn't wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.101.30.99 (talk) 11:43, 7 April 2007

Because Wikipedia's search sucks :-) In all honesty, Wikipedia needs a better search engine, but I don't think it'll happen anytime soon. I would recommend using an external search engine such as Google. —METS501 (talk) 20:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(perennial_proposals)#Better_search_feature.-gadfium 22:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Proper order of the main wikipedias

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

Recently the Spanish wikipedia has surpassed the swedish one, so maybe the order of these two should be changed in the logo page Zidane tribal 18:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about {{Wikipedialang}}? If so, those are in alphabetical order. x42bn6 Talk 18:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I believe he's talking about http://www.wikipedia.org/ (note that those article counts are incorrect). I don't think the English Wikipedia is the place to discuss this though.--YbborTalkSurvey! 18:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm in fact talking about http://www.wikipedia.org/, i would apreciate if anyone could tell me the proper place to discuss it Zidane tribal 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, probably. I was going to ask on Meta (it's a nightmare to navigate there) but eswiki has only 300+ more articles than svwiki, and is it really necessary to update it with such a small difference, which could well sway drastically in a few months? x42bn6 Talk 01:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
But if you would like to ask, I guess it's m:Metapub on meta, which coordinates all the Wikipedia projects. x42bn6 Talk 14:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Is true that it can change even in a couple of weeks but i`ll try anyway. Thanks Zidane tribal 19:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Separating out maintenance categories

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This proposal relates to the list of Categories at the bottom of articles. Maintenance categories like those attached to maintenance or stub tags tend to be wordy, and because of the position of the tag at the top of the article, these categories show first on the list. This distracts from the actual subject categories which the article is in. Would it be possible to separate these two types of categories, so that the subject categories show up first, followed by a second list of maintenance categories, that non-wikipedians can simply ignore? Thanks. ::Supergolden:: 11:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It couldn't be done without changing the software, and this change would be quite complicated to program, I think. You can make software feature requests on mediazilla: (you'd have to request something like a second Category namespace that showed up separately from the first, I think). --ais523 11:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Save administrator time - make complaining users go through procedures

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Lots of admins are bothered by little incidents, bickerings and disputes. A complaining user might cry "mommy" and bother the admins. This happens a lot and it makes Wikipedia suffer because Admins spend their time on solving these little disputes, when they could be spending time on more important tasks. I propose that if any user bothers an admin about a small issue, they should be replied with a template that basically asks them to go through the DR and RfC - the usual method. And if they have done that already, only then they should bother the admin. This will save admins a lot of time. Yes its nice to have admins freely available to talk to but that doesnt mean they should spend their time resolving disputes that should have been resolved themselves by going through DR and RfC. Stop people from bothering admins over little issues and let admins spend their time on more important matters. This is equivalent to having an organization where the top level managers spend a lot of time resolving small cubicle disputes, rather than tend to more important company issues.--Matt57 16:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Admins are normal users with a wiki-drivers license. They are there to deal with the little incidents. --Kim Bruning 16:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Generally, when someone starts up with "Go block this guy that disagrees with me right now!" we're smart enough to say "Nope, take it to mediation." On the other hand, sometimes users bring our attention to situations where things really are getting out of hand, and some intervention is needed. There's nothing wrong with people asking more experienced users for help or advice, be that from admins or just editors that've been around for a while. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
WP:AGF, please. It's disrespectful to characterize a set of people as juvenile. It takes a bit of experience to understand how this site works and some editors just don't know which venue is appropriate for their situation. It only takes a moment to point those users in the right direction. I've seen the pendulum swing both ways: disputes have gone into arbitration that just might have been nipped in the bud if someone had contacted a sysop with Somebody posted my real world name on Wikipedia. That upsets me. Could you help out? Other complaints aren't juvenile at all: they're political moves initiated by a primary aggressor. A significant proportion of the userblocks I issue and the long term vandals I uncover are people who brought themselves to my attention. So I'm kind of grateful for frivolous complaints. DurovaCharge! 17:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Userbox discussion page

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

We need like a Userbox discussion page similar to WP:UCFD. - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 15:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

There was an attempt at this a while ago: see [2]. It didn't seem to attract much discussion. --ais523 15:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
There aren't so many nominated that TfD can't handle them. –Pomte 15:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

List of resources

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

To help with referencing articles, perhaps we should construct a list of sources (i.e. books and magazines) that editors have access to. I know some WikiProjects (such as the Alternative music WikiProject - here) do this already, so such a list would link to WikiProject-specific lists. It would help immensely with referencing articles and encourage the use of more written sources. What do you think? CloudNine 17:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Newspapers and magazines request service, Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange, and Wikipedia:Public domain resources. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I've just added a suggestion to Merge some of those, at Template talk:Article resources. Those pages could be a lot more active/useful with a little streamlining and interlinking. --Quiddity 05:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Or you could just create another list! Wikipedia:List of sources. These all need to be merged, me thinks. --Quiddity 18:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

article not found

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I'm trying to request a page be made that is dedicated the the Anthony Wayne Suspension Bridge in Toledo, OH. I'm sure that people would like to know more about it however I am no good at making a page for it. I don't understand HTML and the whole process of making a page. Someone please help me out with this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caesar2286 (talk • contribs) 18:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for changing the WP:EA shortcut

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments7 people in discussion

The shortcut WP:EA currently redirects to the inactive Esperanza main page. I realise that changing a commonly-used and established WP shortcut is likely to be very controversial (which is why I'm posting it here, rather than just doing it), but I think the shortcut should redirect to Wikipedia:Editor assistance. Surely an active project (albeit a very new one) merits a shortcut more than an inactive one does? Walton Vivat Regina! 19:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that there are a few thousand pages that link to Esperanza using that shortcut. Changing the shortcut would disrupt all of these links. Even though the project is currently dead, that's where all of those links are supposed to go to. WP:ASSIST can use other abbreviations; there's nothing wrong with WP:EDA or something like that. Koweja 19:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I was just about to bring that up...that would be a lot of work to change all the old links to Esperanza, and it would probably confuse people that're used to WP:EA going there. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
What about putting {{redirect1|WP:EA|the former Wikipedian organization|[[Wikipedia:Esperanza]]}} at the top? ^demon[omg plz] 19:41, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Because it would still create potential confusion in cases where the context could have referred to either. --tjstrf talk 22:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Esperanza was deactivated four months ago and already there are phalanxes of new users who have never heard of it. It does not seem right that a dead organisation should supplant a new and active one. SatyrTN has calculated the links and is happy to use his bot to change all current EA links to Esperanza ones so we can change the redirect. Is that ok with everyone? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

We should remove all of the false new messages links from pages. You know, the ones that go to pages that say "Fooled You!", etc. - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 12:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

For what reason would you delete them, other than they're a pain in the proverbial? Problem is they're in the user pages and I can't think of any ligitimate reasoning you would use to nuke them. This comes up continually 1, 2 for just a couple, and even though it's one of the oldest and now unfunniest jokes on Wikipedia, it doesn't do any harm. It should be in the perennial questions section, I might do a bit of ground work for all the times it's been raised and add it there. Cheers Khukri 14:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
The current compromise is that WP:USER asks that editors avoid them, but if editors ignore this then the fake messages shouldn't be removed unless they are particularly fraudulent, or link to external sites, etc. CMummert · talk 14:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I have just read WP:USER but these are nonsense. - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 14:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I'm all for conditioning people not to trust that which is untrustworthy. In previous discussion, someone attempting to argue against these links noted that spoofing the user interface could perhaps be done in ways that collected passwords and so forth. What needs to be recognized, however, is that the user interface will not be made safe by banning this joke, and the joke serves to educate users that the interface can be spoofed. (I've not thought long nor experimented to discern whether the the password-collection scenario — or something like it — can in fact be effected.) —SlamDiego 14:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm quite confident it could be; it's no different than any other password-collecting fake webpage hack. I don't encourage experimenting with it, however. CMummert · talk 14:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I often add the word fake to the message box. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 19:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

End of anon edits

Latest comment: 17 years ago44 comments30 people in discussion

I think it's time to throw in the towel and admit defeat about allowing anonymous users to edit wiki articles. Far too much valuable time is taken up undoing acts of vandalism done by anon edits, especially with the number of articles growing at such a rate as they do. It's far too easy and tempting, and on rarely trafficked entries the changes can sit for months before being noticed. Every time the subject of an article becomes newsworthy the number of vandals skyrockets until the page gets protected. It's a mystery why this is even a point to be debated: registered users are still more or less anonymous. RoyBatty42 00:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, even though a huge amount of vandalism comes through anon edits, a huge amount of constructive edits come out from it too. Even if anons are blocked from editing, the determined vandals (the ones that are hard to catch) will stay, while the petty schoolchildren with gay friends and easily reverted vandalism will not. I don't know...it seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. PTO 00:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, no matter, what, no matter how many people vote yes in a straw poll, no poll on Wikipedia will stop IP editing. At least, not yet. Here's why. Look at m:Foundation issues. You need to propose this on meta. mrholybrain's talk 01:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely PTO, there are many constructive edits from anons. Why just earlier I was checking my watchlist and saw one anon revert some vandalism inserted by a completely different anon. Just as there is drive-by vandalism, there are drive-by improvements. And remember that the drive-by stuff is almost always the easiest to fix because it's so blatant. It's sneaky vandals who cause the real problems, and they're not going to be stopped simply by having to register an account. --bainer (talk) 01:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe true, but from what I can tell the good edits are far outweighted by the random "Kyle is gay" edits.

Perpetual proposal. Try a different project? --Kim Bruning 01:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with RoyBatty42. I would not have started editing Wikipedia if I had not been able to do so without registering for an account. — Armed Blowfish (talk|mail) 01:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Per m:Foundation issues, this is one of the few things we cannot change. Nor would I change it, anons give us good and bad, we revert the bad and keep the good. They benefit us, they often become users later, I too started as an anon for several weeks before making an account. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 01:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I know it's spinning wheels to challenge a foundation issue and a perennial proposal, but I'm in support of requiring registration. Creating a username and logging in is so painless, it takes less than a minute. Sometimes I don't want to bother logging in, and I have mada anonymous edits many times (that's how I got started, like many people did), but it's not such a deterrent to constructive contribution. The concept of username and password in online communities is all over the place: the login screen hasn't chased away that many people from MySpace and FaceBook, last I checked. Wikipedia is more than an online community, but it is not less than that. If you're going to participate in our joint effort, we want to know who you are - and that you are responsible for your edits. This might put an end to the awkward situation where an anonymous IP gets blocked and doesn't know why, because someone else on his IP vandalized. This way, while technically IP blocking will work the same way, fundamentally it will be understood that what really matters is your online identity. YechielMan 02:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
That nice happy edit this page link at the top is an invitation. Requiring registration would deter users. Requiring user registration removes no anonymity; you're more anonymous under a user name as it doesn't "stick with you". Users can register a user name, rack up a couple uw-vandalism templates, and move on to a new one. It wouldn't help anything. Users would still be blocked for having the same IP as a vandal, since that's what autoblock is supposed to do. What does it actually fix? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
One of the problems is that for IPs the clock resets quickly. The kids know this. They can come back every day in their 5th-period class and take their warnings up to the wire. Ongoing low-level vandalism is tolerated from IPs but not from named users (see the "uw-longterm" template). Raymond Arritt 03:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Again, user vandals can simply register new username. Autoblocks last, what, 24 hours? That's even less than a lot of IP blocks. On the other hand, school blocks often go around a month or more. If there was no IP editing, we'd never catch those. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
People have demonstrated repeatedly that some good comes from allowing anonymous edits. Nobody has demonstrated that banning anon edits will not just cause people to take the 5 seconds to create a vandal account instead. Thus, there is no point in banning it. -Amarkov moo! 02:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The appropriate place for this thread is Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). DurovaCharge! 03:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Great idea, but it'll never happen. Even if the community got behind it, the bottom line is that Jimbo doesn't want it. Raymond Arritt 03:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The community won't get behind it, though. This has been discussed ad nauseam, and there is no indication that anonymous vandalism is more prevalent than anonymous improvement. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Interesting point. Has the issue ever been systematically studied, e.g., X percent of anon edits are vandalism, as opposed to Y percent of edits from registered users being vandalism? Raymond Arritt 04:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I think there was a 30% vandalism thrown the village pump once. However, without something like revision review enabled, it is not that easy. We can get some random estimates, but nothing serious. -- ReyBrujo 04:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If no one justifies why this thread is here I will be bold and move it where it belongs. DurovaCharge! 05:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It was already being discussed at Village Pump anyway. I'll say the same thing as I did there-anyone who thinks registration somehow prevents people from writing garbage should have a look at Special:Newpages, which is 100% registered users. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I dislike anons as much as most others, but egads no I would not want to eliminate them. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 11:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

People who edit from a static IP are in some ways easier to track than those who hide behind pseudonyms. Editors with throwaway accounts are a lot more "anonymous" than those who make their IP address public. Kusma (talk) 12:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

People keep claiming that anons don't do that much vandalism. Here is proff that this is not so. I just evaluated the last 100 anonymous edit to theory of relativity going back over four months (into mid-November). Of those 100 edits, 67 were vandalism (included 5 self-reverts), 16 were reverted as inappropriate (misunderstanding, POV, etc), and 17 were retained. Note that TWO-THIRDS OF THE ANONYMOUS EDITS WERE VANDALISM in this case. Two-thirds! I really think that it is time for people to stop sticking their heads in the sand and start realizing that this is actually a serious problem. BTW - Also do note that only 1/6 of the anonymous edits "stuck".
I have suggested having anons confirm their edits through an e-mail interaction. Yes that burdens people, but I suspect that most sincere anonymous editors will be willing to live with it as long as it works efficiently. It is the casual vandals who will be discouraged, and that is the bulk of the problem. If you all don't want to stop anonymous edits, then the least that you can do is put in place something to stop the it from being an open invitation to immature people trying to feel powerful. --EMS | Talk 13:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • That's a statistical fallacy based on overgeneralization of insufficient data. It's not "proff" of anything. >Radiant< 15:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
    I have just gone to the trouble of characterizing 100 edits for a page going back over four months! Can this automatically be generalized for the whole of Wikipedia? Of course not. However, the way to refute this is to get samples of numerous other unprotected pages, and show that principle of relativity is an anomaly. I repeat: Two-thirds of all anonymous edits were vandalism, and five-sixths of them were unacceptable. It may well be that a braoder survey involving more pages and a longer time span will produce better numbers, but I first want to see someone actually do such a survey. All that you are doing is chucking my data because you don't like it, and to me that is totally unacceptable, along with the vandalism rate for anonymous editors on that page. --EMS | Talk 16:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
    • But how many of those edits were by the same IP? How many edits by registered users were vandalism. Also, the page picked seems to be to distort the facts. I would guess the majority of anon vandalism comes from schoolkids. Theory of relativity is the kind of thing they would have to look up for school. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 03:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with the sumitter, I do a little vandle patrol now and again and I just end up checking anon edits. Its a nightmare. Also, much of the vandlism is kids at schools saying x, y, and z is gay. Since we dont want to go around banning school networks, and contact the school in question is too time consuming, if we could just ban user accounts 9 times out of 10 we wouldnt have to consider blocking 200 pupils from wikipedia for six months. Renski 16:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello folks, this is not our decision: m:Foundation issues. This is not a matter of consensus or discussion, this is imposed on us by the foundation. And it is a dam good thing too, this is one of the good foundation issues. HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 16:45, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Item two reads:
Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering
Even taking this as an immutable given, it does not mean that we cannot take action to discourage vandals and/or limit their impact. The two means to do that I have floated here are:
  • reguiring e-mail confirmation for an anonymous edit (so that the editor leaves a personal trail behind) and
  • suspend anonymous and new user edits pending approval by an established registered user.
Both admitedly leave an anonymous editor not seeing their edit go "live" immediately, and I have received resistance for that reason. However, the foundation issue only demands that editors not be forced to register. Other solutions such as these are not prohibited by it.
We have a real problem here, and it needs to be dealt with. I for one do not consider the ability of anonymous editos to vandalize Wikipedia with near-impunity to be a "dam[n] good thing". --EMS | Talk 17:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Stable versioning would be a considerably better way than blocking anons to try to cut down vandalism, in my opinion; many anon edits are good-faith (some anons even join because they notice and revert vandalism, I suspect, although this clearly isn't a reason to encourage vandalism!), and I suspect many productive contributors would never have joined without the ability to edit as an anon. Most people contributing here have usernames already, and are aware of how simple obtaining a username is; most anons probably aren't, and obtaining a username is a big step on many websites (there are websites which require registration which I don't use, and might possibly use if they allowed anon viewing, even though the registration is free; Wikipedia, where anons couldn't edit if this proposal was met, might end up the same way with respect to editing). Anons are also somewhat good at noticing some of the most severe problems (things like BLP violations reported to the Help Desk happen as often as not from anons in my experience, although the anons don't normally know to call it that). (By the way, most of the vandalism to the Help Desk is from registered users.) --ais523 17:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The easiest way to counter IP vandalism, is to semi-protect articles that have reached a certain maturity. All changes to those articles consist almost exclusively of vandalism. A harsher application of semi-protection (even if for l week) substantially lowers all vandalism to that article. JoJan 17:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
An idea that I have been meaning to put forward to is show as the "stable" version the most recent one whose text has been present for a majority of time over a 3-day period in the last 10 days. Otherwise there is no stable version, and the current version is shown. (This is an automated solution and so will remove the editor intervention need that makes most statble versioning ideas awkward.) Even in this case, I am not sure of how well it would discourage vandalism, but realizing that your edit will not be seem except by those who watch and/or care to edit the article would diminish the problem somewhat. I figure that having to either leave your e-mail address behind (where an admin can get to it in case of vandalism) or needing some stranger's approval will be much more effective in discouraging vandals. Even so, I very much appreciate your also wanting to deal with this important issue. --EMS | Talk 17:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
You might want to see http://stablepedia.org to see what Wikipedia would look like if that change were made to the software. --ais523 17:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

So in other words, this is just a pointless discussion seeing that the Wiki foundation and Jimbo Wales both oppose it. RoyBatty42 18:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggesting banning anon edits outright is pointless, as the developers will never make that change unless the Foundation change their mind. (See bugzilla:9340 for an example where a wiki had internal consensus, but where the developers refused to prevent anons creating pages without Foundation approval.) --ais523 18:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup. See also Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#What will it take to ban unregistered editors? for statistics and more discussion. --Quiddity 20:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Statistical breakdown

Purely in the interest of statistics, I've gone through recent changes and looked at the 15 IP edits to see if they were vandalism or good faith. My results:

  1. Nonsensical statement about "moomoomagee". Probably vandalism.
  2. changing album sales from 144,000 to 151,000. Possibly misinformation, but otherwise good faith.
  3. copyedit. Good faith.
  4. More genres, albeit badly formatted. Good faith.
  5. Wikification. Good faith.
  6. Removed a sentence. Probably good faith.
  7. BLP-violating slander. Vandalism.
  8. Clearly bad faith. Vandalism.
  9. moving a section for better readability. Good faith.
  10. Removing a test wikitable. Good faith.
  11. Nonsensical statement about "spirits". Vandalism.
  12. Updating elementary school count. Good faith.
  13. Racist remarks. Vandalism.
  14. Guy coming out of the closet. This needs to go to Friends of gays should not be allowed to edit articles. Who says that gays never proclaim their orientation to the world?
  15. Good song, bad faith. Vandalism.

Keep in mind that these are only 15 edits, and they will NOT reflect the whole of IP editing. It would be impractical to do a large scale observation unassisted.

That comes up with 40%-46% vandalism (depending on how you count the talk page edit of a guy saying he's gay) and 60%-54% good faith. Even if we did have the power to stop IP edits, we'd eliminate the petty vandals, but the crafty ones will remain with accounts. Besides, any edit that blanks the page and fills it with "omgloldongs" isn't exactly the end of the world for the encyclopedia, as the great RC people will come along in a second and get rid of it. PTO 20:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I am violating WP:BEANS here, but it is often a lot harder to block users then IPs. In my opinion 'positive anons' > 'vandal anons'. In fact I think 1 contruibutor (not 1 contribution!) is worth several vandals. Many people (though not myself) edit as an anon before registering. Prodego talk 21:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I would have to agree with PTO, as a RC patroller myself, I've noticed the majority of anon edits do seem to be good faith edits (though not always good edits). If we block anon editing, not only will it be seen as giving in to external pressure or "closing" Wikipedia. Also, the vandals we stop will be mainly "test edit" vandals and schools. The ones we really want to stop, the truly persistent "Wiki-hating" vandals, will just register, and then they can vandalize sprotected pages as well. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't recall out of the top of my head but some studies have shown that anonimous editors are significant contributors of valuable content to this project. Plus many editors first start as anons and than convert to registered. Strong oppose to this proposal. Anons should be allowed to edit at will.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, but not for wikipedia. It would be a good experiment to try settign up another wiki, with the same goals as wikipedia, that behaved thus. Mathiastck 15:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Already done. See Citizendium. PTO 18:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Citizendium has other important difference. It's also only a fork of code, not of content. Mathiastck 01:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
One problem with preventing anonymous IPs from editing is that this could potentially encourage more people to create new accounts just for vandalism. While registering an account would be an added obstacle for vandals, it's a pretty trivial obstacle. I'm concerned what effect this could have on the number of available user names. Perhaps I'm being silly about it, but it is something I wonder about. I'm not sure if indefinitely blocked usernames ever become available again for other people to use after some time. Just a thought. --Kyoko 20:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Please consider the causation vs correlation falacy. Just because you see vandalism by usernames that are IPs doesn't mean removing the ability to edit with an IP username will cause vandalism to go away. There's probably a large correlation between redlink usernames and vandalism, but that doesn't mean requiring all edits be made by bluelink usernames will make that set of vandalism go away. It'll just make it harder to identify it. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-25 02:09Z

Good point. And consider this: Even if we knew -- either based on sampling or based on the entire lot -- what percentage of edits by anons is vandalism, we don't know ANYTHING unless we also know what percentage of edits by logged-in users is vandalism. If I were doing an analysis, I would want to know the number of edits by anons and the number of their edits that were subsequently reverted. I would also want to know the number of edits by logged-in users and the number of their edits that were reverted. If we learn that both cohorts have a similar proportion of edits reverted, then we don't have a problem. If we find that 80 percent of the revereted edits are posted by 20 percent of the users, then we have a problem. -- Schnaz 19:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It sounds to me like a number of the above commentors might be interested in joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies. We are trying to develop studies to specifically explore the various levels of contributions, vandalism, and reverts by different types of edits. Feel free to stop by and aid us in our attempt to answer these important questions. Remember 21:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's triple crown

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
 
The standard triple crown.

I'm initiating a new personal user award called Wikipedia's triple crown for editors who achieve all of the following:

  1. Start a new article that gets highlighted at Template:Did you know.
  2. Be a major contributor to a good article.
  3. Be a major contributor to a piece of featured content (featured article, featured list, featured picture, featured portal, featured topic, or featured sound).

Two special edition triple crowns are also available: the imperial triple crown jewels for editors who qualify for multiple triple crowns and the valiant return triple crown for editors who satisfy all three triple crown requirements after an arbitration sanction or a lifted siteban. Editors who think they qualify are welcome to petition me at User talk:Durova and I'll keep an honor roll at User:Durova/Triple crown winner's circle. DurovaCharge! 01:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Hell no. Trophy cases are baaaad. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Pfff... trophy cases encourage good work, so I'll tolerate them. Besides, this award's requirements are high enough that it does signal some very good contributions. Nihiltres 15:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I am amazed that today's featured article (as of April 17 2007) - that on the U.S. Marine Corps - has been put in the category "Articles with unsourced statments". Should Wikipedians be less liberal, and declare that articles put in this category should not be allowed to become featured articles? ACEOREVIVED 18:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This would depend on a couple things. When was the statement tagged? How critical is the statement. If the statement was tagged 2 weeks ago, this could be a problem. If the statement was something like: "The US currently has X number of Marines," a fairly critical statement, it could be a problem. The point of the tag is so that editors know to find a source, and readers know that that statement may not be trustable. We shouldn't immediately delist an FA because of 1 unsourced statement. If you think it is a problem, find a source yourself. If a source doesn't exist, the statement fails WP:V and may be removable though you may want to bring it up on the talk page before removing things. Also, if the addition of a {{cn}} tag would delist an article, that is allowing the decision of 1 editor to override community consensus from the FAC. FAs are listed as such not only because they are well-cited, they must meet 4 criteria, subdivided into a total of 10 criteria. In this case, it is about one sentence tagged earlier today. If you think it is such a serious problem that the article should be de-featured, you may take it to WP:FAR, the process of delisting a FA through consensus. However, bringing the Today's Featured Article to FAR over one statement could be seen as a little POINT-y. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 22:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

English and American

Latest comment: 17 years ago13 comments9 people in discussion

I was wondering if anyone would oppose the creation of an English Wikipedia and an American Wikipedia, only it seems a little unfair and very misleading that the American language has taken over the English Wikipedia. Thanks! Whiskey in the Jar 10:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

British and American spellings can be used interchangeably. Typically we use the spelling the article was started in. --Kim Bruning 11:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Kim Bruning is right, and plus there is no "American language" it is called "American English". - PatricknoddyTALK (reply here)|HISTORY 11:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Whiskey in the Jar (t c) appears to be a single-purpose account; please take this into account. CMummert · talk 11:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I can accept that this may be construed as a single-purpose account, though i do intend to be of some other uses. And I'm not going to run off and change all the American spellings back to the Queen's English - unless I'm given permission - :-PWhiskey in the Jar 12:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The "American language" hasn't taken over English Wikipedia. Many articles are written in British English and the British editors (myself included) will continue to write in British English and revert any changes to American English in articles that are written in British English, as mandated by Wikipedia policy. Since we can read each other's versions of English perfectly well and since the editors and users of English Wikipedia aren't just British or American, but come from many different countries, some with English as their first language and some not, forking into two would be a pointless exercise. -- Necrothesp 14:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Try Conservapedia which can only be written in American English. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
And in a pro-Bush (N)POV... ^demon[omg plz] 00:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Ta matey! I was hoping to find something only written in the Queen's Enlgish! Thanksanyhow, I'll have a peek at somepoint! Whiskey in the Jar 07:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
How about a Pirate Wikipedia where all articles be written in Pirate. Arrrrr.  :) --JeffW 16:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Come on, there are enough languages out there allready! If the Brits want to conserve their language, they should make more contributions that their fellow Americans (that is if they actually care that much!!!!!). Why don't we take any other random language that is spoken by a large enough number of people to have slightly distingt dialects and then get two separate languages for basically the same language. I bet that the French from the north of France speak a much more different language from those in south fo France. American English and British English are basically the same languages woth a small difference in usage.

While you're at it, why not a City-of-London-English Wikipedia? —SlamDiego 14:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

All I know is, unless we open an Ancient Aztec wikinews soon, I'm quitting. ^demon[omg plz] 16:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I will mourn your departure, then. —SlamDiego 01:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Large print Wikipedia

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I would like to propose a Large print Wikipedia where the font size would be larger than the normal Wikipedia allowing the eldrly and those with poor eye-sight to read Wikipedia with ease. I have made it but it was deleted and requested that I propose it here. Thank You. P2me

Most Web browsers will have an option to increase their font size; people who require large writing are likely to have used such a setting on their browser already. --ais523 17:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Many people who have difficulty reading web text have found ways to adapt to it for their overall web-browsing, not just on a particular sight. If you or someone you know are having trouble reading the text size on Wikipedia the easiest way to increase the font size on internet explorer is to go to the title bar and click View --> Text Size --> Larger or Largest. This is more than adequate for users having trouble using standard typeface. No additional work on Wikipedia is necessary. --YbborTalkSurvey! 17:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the easiest way is to hold down the CONTROL key and scroll the wheel on your wheel mouse (if you have one). dr.ef.tymac 14:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikibibliography project?

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

We have an awful lot of "in popular culture" sections, and the comprehensiveness of some of these can be controversial. For example, does every cartoon that makes a passing reference to a piece of classic 19th century literature really deserve mention in the article? Perhaps we should develop a Wikibibliography project, similar to Wikiquote. This, probably more importantly, could also provide an NPOV guide to literature on a given subject, like an Open Directory Project for printed books. This isn't a formal proposal yet, just an idea. Thoughts?--Pharos 18:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Meta is the place to suggest new Wikimedia Foundation projects. I suggest a guideline on "in popular culture" sections be introduced, so that only notable references get mentioned. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm aware Meta would be the place for a formal proposal. I was just looking for some feedback here.--Pharos 19:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Examine m:Wikicite and m:WikiTextrose. (SEWilco 17:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC))

A Suggestion to improve Wikipedia and prevent vandalism

Latest comment: 17 years ago9 comments8 people in discussion

Recently, I sent an email to info-en@wikimedia.org of a suggestion to improve Wikipedia. I received the reply and according to the advice, I decided to post my suggstion here.

This is what I have written in my email:


I am STM. I would like to make a suggestion on Wikipedia because I'm quite upset about the fact that I cannot view certain pages. The reason is said to be because of my IP. I read the FAQs on the matter but I would like to make a suggestion to make Wikipedia a better site.

I suggest that Wikipedia articles, although edittable, it has to go through certain members of Wikipedia, preferrably one of the staff. If the article contains no spam, the staff would then allow it to be posted up. This is so that the edits made by the public are properly done and not filled with spam. Then, IP Bans would not be neccessary, because IP Bans would also annoy innocent users who need to research on important things with wikipedia.

I hope you would consider this suggestion and tell me what you think of it. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.8.10 (talk) 07:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

Unfortunately that would add a enormous level of bureaucracy and admin work to Wikipedia and would go against everything Wikipedia stands for. If you just continually click refresh on the recent changes page, you will get an idea of how many fruitful edits are made by anonymous IPs; and if each one of these were to be verified for spam or vandalism content it would bring the encyclopedia and those that work on it to it's knees. Fortunately I believe the positive edits currently far outweigh the negative edits. Have you created a login, read Wikipedia:Why create an account? gives a better explanation than I can, and should solve all your problems. Cheers Khukri 11:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
As an alternative suggestion: why not require that users EARN the right to post external links? Say no anonymous accounts can post external links, and only accounts with a preponderance of several hundred non-reverted edits gets to post external links. This would cut out 90% or more of the link spam. Vandalism is another problem that needs to be attacked with a better set of policies, but I'm not sure how yet. Dicklyon 01:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
That would make things more complicated: Way too much unneccessary work for admins. How can you prevent users from a certain type of edit, but not from others? Anyway, I don't find linkspam to be very prevalent at all, blatant vandalism is what really needs to be stopped. Reywas92Talk 02:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
You don't find link spam prevalent? You haven't been around long enough. It's completely possible for us to detect edits which add new external links to a page; the captcha extension does it. 86.136.31.149 23:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Limiting external links would put a strong kibosh on our ever-increasing requirement that assertions be sourced. Corvus cornix 21:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Why not adopt a user rating system similar to that of E-Bay? New accounts could be put on a probationary period for a set amount of time (e.g. 3 months) and can contribute to discussion pages only. After the probationary period, they would gain normal editing rights, but their account would then have a multi-star rating. People who maintain a good star rating could then vote to prop up other well-behaving members' ratings. Bad edits and vandalism would mean bad votes, and if a user's rating drops below a certain point, his or her account goes back on probation just as if it were a new account, either for a set time period or until the account owner behaves well enough to get his or her rating back up. Additionally, bad ratings could be tied to IP addresses so that people just don't spring up with new accounts to circumvent the system. E-Bay showed some real genius in devising this sort of system of mutually-based user policing as a means to keep people honest and from their administrators having the headache of policing all the users. Foofighter20x 12:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
That will work for about a day, until someone finds out that they can get a club of POV pushers and give everyone who disagrees with them bad votes so they can't edit articles anymore. -Amarkov moo! 14:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that could happen, but in all probability would happen only very rarely. Another way might be for only the Wikipedia server to give negative ratings. It could to this easily like so: if your page was the last edit, and the page then gets reverted to an older page, you get dinged with negative rating points. The positive of this is that you would only get dinged for 1 revert unless you go in and revert it back to your page again. How does that sound instead? :) Foofighter20x 12:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use images

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I am proposing a Wikipedia:Replaceable fair use image debates area - a place to move the informal deletion debates about replaceable fair use pictures. Currently, if people object, they create an image talk page, and it goes back and forth until the admin either decides to keep or delete. The remaining debates are either deleted by that said admin or are later getting speedied via G8 (despite the fact that they contain deletion discussion that hasn't been logged elsewhere). The new area will prevent this loss of deletion debates. Hbdragon88 04:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

There is currently no formalized process for debating the deletion of replaceable fair use images. There's no good basis for this, but it turns out that most contests take on a simple, ad-hoc nature and the vast majority of pleas are unsubstantiated and quickly get overruled by WP:FUC. Editors who contest deletion often add {{Replaceable fair use disputed}} without even including a reason or posting on the talk page, requiring all debates to be cataloged would create a largely blank listing of deletions. There are occasions where substantial back-and-forth discussions occur, and almost all such instances are preserved on the talk page. Perhaps an exclusion to G8 is in order, but it should be made clear that the proposed archive would exist only to preserve substantive debates, not as an alternative to WP:IFD or WP:PUI. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 04:22, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
There are GFDL concerns in copypasting content destined for deletion, aren't there? The correct solution seems obviously to be to NOT delete the talk page. If you find a situation where a talk page containing deletion discussion not logged elsewhere is deleted, undelete it (obviously you should talk to the deleting admin first, etc - i don't want to encourage wheel warring). --Random832 19:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
The reason why I came here was because I noticed that NawlinWiki had speedied Image talk:Robert Post.jpg as a G8. When I asked him, he said that he didn't like to leave orphaned pages around [3], which is why I came here to propose a new area. hbdragon88 02:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The GFDL concern is moot - Wikipedia was not created in order to publish tedious deletion discussions. Closing admins have varying preferences for talk page deletion, the proposed log would be an elegant procedural solution to an odd and inefficient situation. If preserving the revision history is that big of a concern, admin instructions for closing could include a suggestion to histmerge. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 17:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia desktop software

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Hi there. I'm always having to fire up my browser to search Wikipedia. Now, sure it doesn't sound like much effort, but how good would it be to have a small desktop app, maybe one that sits on top of my windows, with a small textbox that i can can just chuck queries in and hit enter to go straight to the relevant article? Has anyone considered creating this? Does anyone know of such software? I've searched SourceForge to no avail. Cheers, Papa.bear 22:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC) 12/4/07

See WP:TOOLS for a few, mostly third party applications. Nihiltres 23:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Especially Wikipedia:Tools/Alternative_browsing Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

A proposal to explcitly limit the use of fair use images in Featured Lists is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria#Fair Use images. Your input would be apreciated. Tompw (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Formating alteration: Justification of text?

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Appearance and readability could be better if the text was justified to fill the whole lines in the same way as most books. 86.135.212.93 11:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It's unlikely that would increase either appearance or readability. Web browsers are generally quite awful at typesetting, and they never hyphenate, which is crucial for fully justified text. CMummert · talk 12:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
One of the benefits you get from getting a user account is the ability to set your preferences; one of the preferences allows you to view the text as justified. --ais523 12:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Gosh, we need (X)HTML->(La)TeX converters! TeX does a great job of hyphenating and formatting (even if it's a little slow). --Kim Bruning 14:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC) probably there's already such a converter on sourceforge, of course ;-)

Justified text looks much better. Thanks. 86.135.210.91 23:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I've heard a lot about the Wikipedia:Release Version, and I thought, why not release a CD containing all the featured articles? Or maybe a DVD with all the featured content? It could be released as a stand-alone version, or in a double-disk with the currently proposed release version?

Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Should we publish a compilation of featured articles? — Jack · talk · 18:47, Friday, 16 March 2007

We have Wikipedia 0.5 release on the CD [4] which has 1,964 articles. I'm sure most of them are featured articles. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 12:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
\o/ --Kim Bruning 13:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Interactive Comparison Pages

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Wikipedia has a lot of comparison pages that are very useful. In most a lot of products, ideas, topics etc are compared on a single page. The proposal is to make each of those pages more interactive. Some of the interactive tools would be:

  • The ability for the user to select only few of the items on the page to compare and everything else disappears
  • The ability for the user to select which compared attributes to display.
  • The ability for the user to merge all the compared tables into one for printable version.

--Tmarios 16:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This would require changes to the MediaWiki software. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 16:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

An idea to prevent CSD backlog

Latest comment: 17 years ago17 comments9 people in discussion

Instead of allowing newly registered users to create horrible new pages that will soon have a CSD tag on it and create backlog and work for admins, why not semi-protect article creation to four day-old users? 10 of the first 12 articles I found needing speedy deletion on Special:Newpages were created by users less than two days old. Making people wait four days before making a new article would greatly lessen creation vandalism. Semi-protecting creating new articles would easily cut CSD backlog by at least two-thirds, and also help reduce new articles from being badly made without markup, etc. by users who have not yet learned the tricks of the trade. AfD listings would also be reduced because users with good intentions may learn some notability guidelines, etc. before submitting an article. I absolutely hate repeatedly adding CSD tags to bad new articles, but unless something is done about it, someone has to. As an added bonus, the article count on the main page can be more realistic without these! Thanks!! Reywas92Talk 19:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggested this once before. The page still exists at WP:NU. You can try to revive discussion on it if you want. (Perhaps link to it from the "Centralized discussion" box) It got some support, but even more opposition. People tend to have very strong feelings on anything that restricts editing. But opinions may change. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 19:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Given that we already ask users to create an account before they create an article, now it's going to be "create an account AND wait four days"? I think we could stand to give more advice to new users on how to create articles that won't get deleted, but making them wait four days isn't going to make the articles they do create much better, it's just going to piss people off. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe four days is too long and two or even only one will suffice, but bad article creation has gone on for too long. The (unfortunately) failed policy Z-man suggested seems to have my idea down pretty well, and supporters of it gave some good arguements. I really don't see how we can make them read some advice before creating articles. What I want to stop is for the same reason as the four day rule for other semi-protected pages. We don't want all the crap articles made by some newbies. Rob has it right on the nose here (except the extra commas). If it deters potential authors from joining, that may be something we'll have to sacrifice. Thanks, Reywas92Talk 20:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The idea behind red links is that anyone who knows about the topic can come and create an article. If we make it difficult for people to help Wikipedia by creating these missing articles, they will not do it (incidentally, I don't know why article creation by IP editors was turned off -- it happened during the Seigenthaler controversy, but was clearly not related to any of the problems highlighted by that). I don't see how having to wait some time after account creation in order to be allowed to submit an article will make anybody read the instructions -- or in any case, more than Wikipedia:How to edit a page. I don't think I would have started editing here if I had been forced to wait four days in order to submit a missing article about a clearly encyclopedic topic. Kusma (talk) 20:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it was part of an effort to assure accountability for articles, not allowing anyone anonymous to come create one. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Instead, we allow editing by throwaway accounts and delete IP addresses of logged-in contributors after a certain time. The person responsible for the Seigenthaler incident was indentified thanks to him not logging in. I don't see how hiding people's IP address makes them in any way more accountable. Kusma (talk) 08:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

My personal suggestion to prevent CSD backlog is to triple or quadruple the number of admin promotions per week. Kusma (talk) 20:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think restricting article creation to non-new accounts is The Way Forward for en.wikipedia and will become necessary at some point. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen any time soon in the current climate. And that's a shame, because the time (and people put a lot of time into NP and CSD patrol) that's currently spent deleting someone's vanispamcruftisement could be put to much better use. – Steel 21:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Perennial proposal :-P --Kim Bruning 21:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, Kim. Which is why I'm just saying it would be a good idea, and not actually making a formal proposal of it myself. :) – Steel 22:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes, things are perenially proposed because they perenially make sense. And this one, I'm all for, especially if we could also restrict it to someone with, say, 50 edits. Presumably, someone that's stuck around 4 days, made 50 edits, and has not managed to get indef blocked is not an idiot or a vandal, and we can trust them to create articles. Everyone else can go through WP:AFC. The vast majority of pages created by new users is junk, and it's junk someone else has to clean up. New users' edits to existing articles, on the other hand, are often decent, so let's let them do that for a while before creating a page. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Concur. – Steel 22:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Ew, editcountitis. If AFC was really streamlined, speedy and easy to use, and we made sure to point everyone who couldn't create articles there in the kindest possible way, then I think we might be on to something. I'm a bit worried that AFC could get kind of arbitrary for new users, who feel like content is being regulated by unanswerable gatekeepers/censors who are keeping them out for no good reason. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Frankly my choice would be to go the other way -- return to allowing IP users to create articles. i don't see that the requirement to log in has reduced bad article creation at all. DES (talk) 22:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
How do you think they feel when they create an article with no notability (often in good faith), after seeing the "No page exists on this, but you can create it!" and immediately receive "This is going to get speedily deleted?" At least at AfC, someone is there to say "We can't accept this for this reason." When someone says "Declined, no sources are cited", or "Declined, please see our policy on notability, especially if they see that rationale being given to many articles, they see a rationale behind the rejection.
(edit conflict reply to DESeigel) Please have a look through WP:AFC, and tell me that then. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Emails

Latest comment: 17 years ago10 comments6 people in discussion

I am more than positive someone is going to shoot down this idea with an amazing response, but I really think it would be a good idea if users could have their own @wikipedia.org email addresses with their username before the @, so for instance Ryanpostlethwaite@wikipedia.org. I'm saying this because it's far more professional when emailing people outside wikipedia (or internally for that matter) with an organisational name as the email address. This is particularly true with the unblock mailing list, where people probably think they've been blocked by a bunch of amateurs. Maybe after gaining adminship people could gain their own email address? I don't know, but I would prefer to see all users given the chance to have their own Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 15:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure that this will be shot down on issues of bandwidth and server activity, but it would be interesting if applied as redirects only: for example, my domain (upon which I have yet to design and host my site) serves to give me my email address as a redirect, while the real mailbox to which my email is redirected is on Gmail. If applied similarly using email preferences, it would be a nice feature for contacting users easily externally from Wikipedia (which is an issue in itself, I won't go into that). Nihiltres 15:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
If we used "Google for you domain" then perhaps it could work. I already have an e-mail account. it could be made that when you make an account, you also get the gmail account also. I dont know how gmail for your domain works though. The Placebo Effect 16:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
So basically, use an outside server such as Gmail, with the wikipedia domain instead of gmail? Interesting. Do you know if it's costly? Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 16:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Here's a link but google probably wouldn't approve it and you'd have to talk to Wikimedia about getting this done. The Placebo Effect 16:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
If we get consensus here, I'll give the office an email and see what they say about it, doubt they'd be too happy if I just signed wikipedia up! Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 16:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
If you really want it to work, I suggest you ask office first and let them deal with it. This seems beyond the work of editors, admins, bureaucrats and arbitrators. The Placebo Effect 16:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Any suggestions for making clear whether example@wikipedia.org is speaking with authority from Wikipedia? What existing @wikipedia.org addresses are in use, such as by the current mail forwarder? Those would be at risk of impersonation. (SEWilco 17:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC))
This wouldn't help to build an encyclopedia, and Wikimedia cannot afford the manpower to handle email in addition to everything else. Inevitably there would be attempts to abuse the email servers for spamming, using the good name of Wikipedia to sell penis enlargements and whatnot, This is an idea that sounds nice on the surface, but doesn't have any concrete benefits for Wikipedia, and would create a minefield for the Foundation. --Tony Sidaway 10:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to agree with the comments describing the potential pitfalls of such a plan. The notion of adding a formal @wikipedia.org imprimatur to emails related to Wikipedia operation certainly might look more 'professional'. The problem is that adding a formal @wikipedia.org imprimatur also lends weight and credibility to really dumb things. It implies that the writer speaks with the authority of all of Wikipedia or (worse) of the Foundation—at least, until the world notices that anybody can get an @wikipedia.org email address. At that point, an @wikipedia.org address will carry the same weight as a Hotmail or Yahoo address. (Note the added annoyance that genuine officials and representatives of the Foundation or the encyclopedia – who, granted, have @wikimedia.org addresses – may find themselves taken less seriously in such a scenario.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

wiki Weather

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

I was thinking for some pages on wikipedia could we have a way to show the Weather for that location using the Governments Weather reports that are free [5] it also provides Warnings & Forecasts stuff about the Air Quality (good to know if you live in CA). the weather information could be automaticly updated every hour or some thing like that, This may need some complex wkik language code, but I would not know Many pages have there location all ready in place making it easy in my mind to enter the information and get the weather for that location, this would be helpful for pages about Air ports or sports stadiums, I was just thinking it would make Wikipedia a little bit larger in the knowlege it holds, this is not very encyclopedia like, but I like to know what others think about this idea (Sorry for the bad spelling a am dyslexic), Max 06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Weather is not encyclopedic, as it changes frequently and no one is interested in old weather reports. Climate is encyclopedic. Many geographical entries already have climate information.-gadfium 06:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with gadfium in that it might be impractical to display updated weather. However, a LINK to a live-time weather site would be a nice idea for each locale. But just one link per page. Links lists for some cities are too long as they exist now, no need to further burden them. --Valley2city₪‽ 17:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
If an individual needs a link for their own city, they should have that in their own bookmarks and only need once to find such a weather info website. Once they have such a link they can probably use it to check weather in other cities, and the current weather for a city is not very encyclopedic. The question becomes whether Wikipedia should have a collection of links to weather information web sites. (SEWilco 17:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC))

Move page -> Rename page

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Has anyone ever raised this proposal? Why don't we change the move button to rename button as it'd be more familiar for newbies. Some wikis have already done that change. NCurse work 08:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Support We should make the interface easier to use for newcomers. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 08:46, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Oppose Making it easier for newcomers to move pages before they understand the implications of such actions is probably not a good idea, despite it being generally good to make the interface easier. Accidental or other improper page moves are much more annoying than typical newbie errors, and many might have to be fixed by admins if one becomes cut-and-paste. Besides, "move" made total sense to me as a newbie - I don't see that "rename" is really substantially clearer. Nihiltres 11:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Oppose, mainly because of the database consequences, and browsing inconveniences implied by "renaming". That is, if you rename the name of a file in most operating systems, or change the title of a header in an OpenOffice.org (or Microsoft Word) document, there's no real history there. On the other hand, as the server job queue can possibly be increased much by a capricious change. There's also double-redirects. "Rename" does imply a greater degree of user-friendliness, but to a certain extent, perhaps it should be avoided. (If I may also note this, everything about moves, when actually looked at, seems to make the term "move" make semantic sense. On the surface, "rename" sounds correct.) GracenotesT § 03:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

New skins?

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Hi there. I have been using wikipedia under a user account for quite a while and i was wondering if there are any new skins being developed at the moment? My favourite is Monobook (default) because i find it very easy to use. I was thinking perhaps of a new slightly more colourful skin, as most of the current ones are quite plain? Please bullet point any answers or comments under this. Thanks --Matthewcl375 12:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know of any new skins being developed - the default Monobook skin seems to work well. What you can do if you know CSS, however, is create a personal user skin for yourself by overriding your personal CSS at User:Matthewcl375/monobook.css or I believe also User:Matthewcl375/default.css, not sure for the second one. I know I've changed mine to hide some annoying warnings which I don't need to see, since I know to heed them; and the byte changes in the watchlist, which I find disruptive: see at User:Nihiltres/monobook.css. Nihiltres 15:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

RE: Thanks for that information! Also, do you know how to change the background colour of your page? --Matthewcl375 16:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikielf

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I think we should create a wikielf. All the information about it can be seen at here. Wǐkǐɧérṃǐť(Talk) (Contributions) 20:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

The menagerie already has WikiGnomes and WikiFairies. There's nothing really new about the WikiElf, but hey, why not? Be bold and put it in the Wikipedia space with reciprocal links to the two articles I just mentioned. YechielMan 04:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Support Wikipedia is a Magical place. Max 18:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Levels of detail and Formats

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

1. Different versions that go much or not into detail. 

 > categorization (currently 'categories'. this is a mess)
   keywords (currently 'see also'. 'mind-'map it? timelines?)
   simplification (first sentence of each article is a try)
   interpretation.. (too big of a leap)

2. A multimedia scripting language that allows presentation and interaction. 

 > flash toolkit and conversion (low bandwidth)

sorry thats all (consider it trash). dont tell me this has been said before or is not of interest/value please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.218.158.120 (talk) 11:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

What do you mean? Where should the above be implemented, and more importantly, how? GracenotesT § 00:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Calculators/converters?

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I have found a lot of different calculators/converters (like one for windchill factors, converters between pressure, temperatur, speed etc.) I would be nice if there was a large collection in one place on the net. I think it would be pretty easy to make it in Wkipedia (wich I love to use). I don't know how to write codes myself, but there has to be some Wiki-fan who knows how to.

Here is a couple of links to some converters that i like to use:
http://danskbjergklub.dk/tools/meteo.html (Danish)
http://danskbjergklub.dk/tools/styrt.html (Danish) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.242.219.8 (talk) 10:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

  • ask Raul654 to write the codes he may know more about Wikipedia than any one else, I think he is also working world's fastest computer, so He will able to do this in his sleep. Max 18:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Disambiguation pages aren't articles

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have created a new proposal, hoping to garner support for the declassification of disambiguation pages from article status. Please contribute at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages aren't articles, thanks :) — Jack · talk · 16:50, Sunday, 15 April 2007

Wikiquette alerts retired - with undue haste?

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Despite being used by a least 13 editors in the last week, and still being part of the official dispute resolution process, Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts has just been "retired", after a discussion on WP:ANI involving just four editors, lasting under 12 hours, and with, apparently, no consultation elsewhere. I'm concerned not only that the page should not have been retired; but mainly that due process was not followed. Andy Mabbett 19:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Unused Articles

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

There should be a system for notifying people of articles that have not been edited for a very long time but are still in need of editing or updating. There are many articles (stubs class or otherwise great need of updating) that have not been edited for years. I'm sure this has been said, but I don't think that such a system exists, or, at least, is comprehensive.--Dark Green 15:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Special:Oldest articles, in spite of its name, lists the articles that have not been edited for the longest time. Whether they are really in need of editing, that's quite hard to tell without human intervention. Tizio 16:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Now that I look at that page again, I noticed that it has been disabled. Tizio 16:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
It's been replaced by Special:Ancientpages. And the matter of old, old articles is the subject of Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Quote of the Day on the Main Page

Latest comment: 17 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

What do you think? Nothing starts my day off better than a clever, witty, humorous or cynical quote. Niubrad 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It think it's a good idea. I mean, some of the portals have quotes, but perhaps not daily. --fanturmandos 00:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I think there's too much risk of POV or other things not entirely appropriate for the Main Page. Nihiltres(t.c.s) 01:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
The thing about a quote, however, is that someone shares the same point of view. Really though, how is it any different than the featured article, what news is up, did you know, etc... All those things have to be selected; they are not randomly generated. Just thought it would be nice, and maybe offer a little inspiration. Niubrad 09:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's any space on the main page for anything new, what would you consider taking off? Also, there isn't a large body of quotes on Wikipedia. Wikiquote however, might be what your looking for. (Of course, you could say the same thing about Wikinews and ITN) LukeSurl 22:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It could simply be added to the did you know section. Exempla gratia: Did You Know... That Albert Einstein said "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Niubrad 04:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's fix the Category:Current events backlog once and for all

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

(cross-posted) This seems very simple. Already with page protection, they've managed to make the tag automatically time out after a certain period (e.g. here), after which, I presume, an adminBot comes along, deprotects, and rms the tag. Surely, we can have a one month timeout on current event tags too? I was working on the back log yestday but only got through Z,X,Y and half of W. -- Kendrick7talk 06:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC) plus, no one would have to feel like a mortician when removing someone from being "recently deceased."

Protection tags just reflect an expiration feature built into the software. There's not built in ezxpiration on current events, though we could always institute a bot to auto-date the tags and sort them so we know what's had it for a while, like we do for most maintenance tags. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not following you, what is the expiration feature? Just that the protection expires? But anyway, even your second suggestion would be useful. -- Kendrick7talk 02:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I thought the Protection tags would time out automatically. but looking at this example I can see that's not actually the case. I guess that makes sense since I suppose we don't want a bot running around with admin priviledges if it goes amok. But I still think this idea is good over all. -- Kendrick7talk 02:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC) of course, I'm more of an idea rat

Template messages on Edit page

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I think Wikipedia would be helped greatly if there was a way to include template messages that would only be displayed when the article or section was actually being edited. Currently, we put certain messages at the top of the article's Talk page, but this is often missed by editors, especially newbies. Occasionally this problem is worked around by putting notes inside HTML comments so the editor will see them during page editing. What I'd like to see is a special tag such as <editmode></editmode> which could be added anywhere in the page. Nothing inside the EditMode tags would be displayed on the main article page, but it would be displayed above the edit box when the page was edited. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 14:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This would be a big bug, and could easily be abused very badly. That being said, some situations might merit it, such as advising people not to add their new variation on "Newbie" or to not change the spelling variation for Orange (colour). I would support this if edit-templates for articles were protected by default. Nihiltres 15:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirections in search results

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, is there any way we could stop redirects showing up during searches? Take a look at this search for "bonner" — 90% of the first page are redirects! This may be because up to 50% of the words in each are "Bonner", fooling the software into thinking they're extremely reliavent. — Jack · talk · 21:31, Monday, 16 April 2007

It seems to me like redirects would likely help you find what you're looking for: A redirect has a direct correspondence to the article it links to, and often times a redirect will fit the search terms more closely than a single page would. --YbborTalkSurvey! 22:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
With a little bit of developer effort, those redirects could increase the search rank of the page they point to, instead of appearing as separate search results. This is how it works in Google. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking perhaps just a little button, link or checkbox to show/hide redirects. Like on Special:Recentchanges or Special:Watchlist. Another search result I've just come across (Wii) is particularly bad; Wii is the 6th link, despite having a dozen redirects listed on the first page, with one even coming 2nd — Jack · talk · 01:46, Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I am amazed that today's featured article (as of April 17 2007) - that on the U.S. Marine Corps - has been put in the category "Articles with unsourced statments". Should Wikipedians be less liberal, and declare that articles put in this category should not be allowed to become featured articles? ACEOREVIVED 18:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This would depend on a couple things. When was the statement tagged? How critical is the statement. If the statement was tagged 2 weeks ago, this could be a problem. If the statement was something like: "The US currently has X number of Marines," a fairly critical statement, it could be a problem. The point of the tag is so that editors know to find a source, and readers know that that statement may not be trustable. We shouldn't immediately delist an FA because of 1 unsourced statement. If you think it is a problem, find a source yourself. If a source doesn't exist, the statement fails WP:V and may be removable though you may want to bring it up on the talk page before removing things. Also, if the addition of a {{cn}} tag would delist an article, that is allowing the decision of 1 editor to override community consensus from the FAC. FAs are listed as such not only because they are well-cited, they must meet 4 criteria, subdivided into a total of 10 criteria. In this case, it is about one sentence tagged earlier today. If you think it is such a serious problem that the article should be de-featured, you may take it to WP:FAR, the process of delisting a FA through consensus. However, bringing the Today's Featured Article to FAR over one statement could be seen as a little POINT-y. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 22:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Enhancements to Special:Upload

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Every day, thousands of images are uploaded with incorrect or incomplete licensing information, or that don't meet Wikipedia's image use policy for one reason or another. There are around 10000 images in the various backlogs and at any given time, Category:Non-commercial use only images for speedy deletion has around 50 or so images. On top of all of this, there are over 110 thousand orphaned images and, other than a brief time when a bot was clearing out orphaned non-free images, that number has been steadily increasing.

One of the biggest complaints that I have found when I delete images is that many well-meaning users do not understand our image use policy. I noticed several days ago a page called Wikipedia:Fromowner that makes it very simple for a user to upload an image that he or she created. When they click on the link from Wikipedia:Fromowner, they are taken to a custom upload page [6] with very simple instructions for uploading a file.

I would like to propose that we expand on this concept. We can have as many custom upload pages as we would like. Each page can then give full instructions that are relevant to the user's situation. A page dealing with

I have created a prototype at User:BigDT/upload/Uploadtext. At the bottom is the current upload instruction page we use at Special:Upload. But at the top is a box that invites the user to click on one or more links that will take them to a content-specific form. Each content-specific form gives specific instructions for what the user is trying to upload. The goal here is that a well-meaning user will have instructions geared towards their need, as opposed to being presented with a large number of boxes.

I have no attachment to the particular pages displayed or the exact text on them. If you think there should be a special form for a different content type, that's fine. If you think that having a page for "some website" uploads is to beansy, that's fine too. This is a proof of concept - not something I'm planning on taking live tomorrow.

Please have a look at User:BigDT/upload/Uploadtext and the related pages and give your thoughts on User talk:BigDT/upload. I think that it is important that we do something to stem the tide of ever-increasing image backlogs and helping a novice user understand what kinds of things to upload is an important step.

Thank you. --BigDT 19:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  •  YSupport I like the idea, but what about the possibility of not allowing self-made work to be uploaded to Wikipedia, so that they must be on Commons, so that it can be used on all projects? If it must be allowed, I recommend a large, bold link telling users to upload their image there instead. Reywas92Talk 21:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed reversal of a redirect

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

At the moment, both premarital sex and pre-marital sex redirect to Fornication.

While fornication is a valid dictionary term, it is a loaded word that is often used in a derogative manner (specifically, to show disapproval or to imply that said act is wrong), and is now avoided in official documents and in education in favor of the premarital sex which is more neutral and more common.

I propose that we reverse the redirect. Sending Fornication to Premarital sex rather than vice versa.

perfectblue 11:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you could propose this at the talk page of Fornication. If you have consensus, it should be easy. (I fear that we're only doing this for the sake of political correctness, but oh well.) The only difference between "fornication" and "premarital sex" is, eh, that they're spelled differently, and the former is more historically prevalent. GracenotesT § 13:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Where I come from, there is quite a big difference because the fornication is judgmental and pre-marital is non judgmental. My honest first impression when I found out about this was that it was done in bad faith by somebody trying to make a statement. A bit extreme, I know, but an example would be having homosexual redirect to Faggot (epithet). The term is pejorative.
perfectblue 17:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal on how to cite "consensus" in articles

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This was prompted by the lack of a clear guideline on how to cite "consensus" in articles, as well as by the appearance of what could be considered "over-referencing" in the Jerusalem article.

See Wikipedia:Citing consensus and please comment. Thank you.--Pharos 01:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggest new criterion for speedy deletion

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have proposed to add a new rule for speedy deletion, which will cover all user and user talk pages which are devoted exclusively to communicating with other people about topics nothing to do with Wikipedia. It's hard to quantify that, but for something like "Hey Pikeyboy, Where R U? OMG WTF BBQ SOS" (which I tagged for deletion just now), I know it when I see it. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Suggest new criterion for chat pages. YechielMan 23:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Page counting in categories and what links here.

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

It can often be very useful to know how many pages populate a particular category. For example, Category:Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007 has hundreds, if not thousands of pages. It would be very helpful for it to say how many pages are actually in the category, other than just "There are 200 pages in this section of this category." The same goes for What Links Here pages and the File Links section of an image. No one wants to count all of them or click "Next 200" repeatedly. There must be some way the software can do this, and I am sure that everyone would find a counter helpful. Thanks! Reywas92Talk 20:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

What a coincidence: the same was just asked at the help desk here!

RFC at WP:FRINGE

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The status of the WP:FRINGE guideline has been questioned. It has been suggested that an RFC/straw poll could help determine if the guideline has community consensus or not. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories#RFC - Does this guideline have consensus?.Blueboar 12:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: Featured lists on the main page

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There are nothing like enough yet to have them daily so how about weekly. They could go right under the featured image. Buc 17:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Articles with unsourced statements by month - why is this necessary?

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

You could have a page that you're simply wanting to see the main namespace non self-referential categories for, with "Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007", "Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007" and "Articles with unsourced statements since April 2007" as well as "All articles with unsourced statements", "Articles lacking sources from March 2007" and "All articles lacking sources" clogging up the category section and making it difficult to read.

Surely the categories "Articles with unsourced statements" and "Articles lacking sources" will do? Why is it relevant to have the month in which someone added the tag? I really don't understand this.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 11:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I propose that we revert to our earlier, simpler system of not having articles needing attention tagged by month, unless someone can explain the exact reasons for this which are unclear to me.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 11:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It was created because there is a massive backlog of unsourced articles, as with articles needing cleanup, merging, and other sorts of maintenance. It's a way of seeing at a glance what's been a problem that hasn't been resolved yet, and especially so for articles without sources, because if an article remains unsourced for a long time it may indicate that deletion is in order. I'm not sure what pages are being clogged by this, and the categories are a major help, because there are tens of thousands of unsourced articles and this is a start to prioritizing the backlog (fix the oldest problems first). Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I have not worked on this specific backlog, but I do work at Catagorization and at Wikify, both of which also date their maintenance tags. I can tell you that the dating of the maintenance tags really helps prioritize the cleanup effort. The backlogs at these projects are so huge that finding a starting place if difficult. We would never get past the A or B articles at any of them if they were dumped into one big category. By differentiating the problem articles by tag date, it atleast gives us a way to prioritize the backlog, and lets us see progress in a tangible way, which are HUGE psychological advantages in working through this work.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

If an statement has been tagged for a few days, it is probably reasonable to wait a bit for sources to be added. If a statement has been tagged for a few months, it may be time to remove it altogether. Distinguishing between the two is therefore useful. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand why to have the 'since month 2007' part, but why does it also need the 'all articles' part? It seems to me to be quite redundant. I looked through each other and they aren't categories of each other, but it seems rather pointless to have an article included in two categoeries of the smae thing. Reywas92Talk 19:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

the software currently has no way to collate categories automatically, so it makes it simpler to check "is this one category on an article yes/no" than "is any one of these couple dozen categories on it" Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Quote of the Day on the Main Page

Latest comment: 17 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

What do you think? Nothing starts my day off better than a clever, witty, humorous or cynical quote. Niubrad 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It think it's a good idea. I mean, some of the portals have quotes, but perhaps not daily. --fanturmandos 00:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I think there's too much risk of POV or other things not entirely appropriate for the Main Page. Nihiltres(t.c.s) 01:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
The thing about a quote, however, is that someone shares the same point of view. Really though, how is it any different than the featured article, what news is up, did you know, etc... All those things have to be selected; they are not randomly generated. Just thought it would be nice, and maybe offer a little inspiration. Niubrad 09:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's any space on the main page for anything new, what would you consider taking off? Also, there isn't a large body of quotes on Wikipedia. Wikiquote however, might be what your looking for. (Of course, you could say the same thing about Wikinews and ITN) LukeSurl 22:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It could simply be added to the did you know section. Exempla gratia: Did You Know... That Albert Einstein said "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Niubrad 04:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Unreferenced

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

On March 1, {{Unreferenced}} was changed from

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!)

to

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!)

based on a discussion on Template talk:Unreferenced, which can be found at Template talk:Unreferenced#Partially unrefererenced. I'm not sure if it was discussed anywhere else (like the Villiage Pump) at the time or not, real life was (and is) keeping me pretty busy. Post change, opposition seems to have appeared (including me). There are other templates (like {{More sources}}) for articles which are referenced, but are not adequately referenced.

I would like to seek concensus to change it back - it should only be used where there are no references; {{more sources}} should be used for articles which have at least one reference which is inadequate. Join discussion at Template talk:Unreferenced#Suggestion - earlier change revisited. Thanks. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Support: The documentation for both templates should mention the other. (SEWilco 20:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC))

Agreed, but I want to keep the warning about such material being open to challenge and removal. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why this even needs two templates. The second version you showed is good for both cases. — Omegatron 23:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Unused Articles

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

There should be a system for notifying people of articles that have not been edited for a very long time but are still in need of editing or updating. There are many articles (stubs class or otherwise great need of updating) that have not been edited for years. I'm sure this has been said, but I don't think that such a system exists, or, at least, is comprehensive.--Dark Green 15:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Special:Oldest articles, in spite of its name, lists the articles that have not been edited for the longest time. Whether they are really in need of editing, that's quite hard to tell without human intervention. Tizio 16:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Now that I look at that page again, I noticed that it has been disabled. Tizio 16:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
It's been replaced by Special:Ancientpages. And the matter of old, old articles is the subject of Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
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