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Wikipedia talk:Village pump/Archive 4

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Misleading summaries

Some of the summaries aren't exactly nonsensical, but are inaccurate or misleading instead, which is almost as bad. Link to the correct pages and/or sections, please. Otherwise you're just wasting time for yourself and for other people. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 05:48, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't see what the problem is here. Those were the titles of the sections with a link to where they had been moved to. In what way are they inaccurate or misleading? In the case of sections about someone advertising their latest proposal, a link to that proposal is all that is needed, hence links like "Wikipedia:Life cycle of the ideal article" in the summary section. "Front Page -> Talk:Main Page" quite clearly tells the reader that the discussion of the Front page has been moved to Talk:Main Page. What is wrong with such links? They are there to show where the section has moved to. Do you think that is not obvious enough? Suggesting that all discussions stay a week is completely ridiculous since the village pump very quickly reaches 200kb and users on slower connections will hardly be able to edit the page. Is there some other solution that just leaving discussions to accumulate for a week? Since few people are prepared to start their conversations in the right place and just link to them, which was what was suggested on this page before, sections will need to be regularly removed. I think it is unfair that you have removed the summary links since it means people now have no idea where their questions have gone to. Angela. 11:33, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

My point is, none of those link to the actual section on the page where they're being discussed. Illegal blocking by Guanaco doesn't even link to a real page. Front page and Hiding the "edit" link for sections are not actually being discussed on the linked pages. A template box for games? is discussed on the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer and Video Games. It's also suggested that __NOEDITSECTION__ affects individual sections (I checked at the help desk; it affects the whole page).
I'm not inconveniencing anyone any more than you have in the past. I haven't deleted any links; I've moved the dubious links to this page and clearly mentioned so in the page history. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 13:33, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The links show where the section has moved to. Would adding "The links show where the section has moved to" help people understand this fact? How else are they going to know where the sections have moved to if you don't have links to those? Do you really think just removing the sections with no mention of where they have gone is better? Angela. 17:09, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)
Jeronim has now added this explanation. I assume there are no objections now to this section being used to show where links have moved to? If someone has a better plan for dealing with this page other than these links, please suggest it. Until then, I will continue to remove sections and leave a link to the page it has moved to since I still do not understand what the objection to this was. Angela. 14:36, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Wiki Travelers guide

I suggest that a Wiki Travelers/tourist guide is established, where local hibitants or anyone could add tips about sights, landmarks, museums, shopping etc.

Like this? Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 08:46, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Holy Heresy

I don't know who to go to. ST. Patrick's cathedral banned this book years ago. It's coming out soon. Holy Heresy is written by Sandi Marchetti. It contains all the heresies of the church and even has interviews with 'scared' catholics and what the church did to them that played havoc on their lives. It consists of who started what (eating meat on friday) the irrational changes in the church and other things a Catholic shouldn't confuse themselves with. please post this book. Holy Heresy by Sandi Marchetti. thanks, Emily Passent

Um, the above IP may or may not be the banned user Mr. Treason. func(talk) 14:49, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Mr. Treason used a large AOL proxy block. There's bound to be a lot of other people on it as well. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:56, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I apologize.
Emily, you could start this article yourself, look here. You should bear in mind, however, that articles should be notable and written from a neutral point of view. I am not able to locate a book called "Holy Heresy". There does appear to be an author named "Sandi Marchetti", but she seems to write science fiction works, rather than exposes. And, um, how was the book "banned years ago" before it even came out? func(talk) 17:36, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Anon 217.194.129.100 has been adding links to game pages (e.g. Backgammon). The commercial intention is obvious, but I'm not sure there's anything bad in that. But these are not sites about the game per se, but themselves just lists of links. Is that linkspam or legit? Gadykozma 12:35, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Links to link farms are not permitted, so feel free to remove them. Incidentally, this question probably belongs on Wikipedia:Village pump and not its talk page. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 15:27, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Old history

As a result of the page move vandalism earlier, the old history for Village pump is now at Wikipedia:Village pump archive 2004-09-26. Admins, if you time it just wrong, you can get a chance to use rollback. Don't use it. It doesn't roll back the page move. Instead it creates a new article at the page which was moved and that page needs to be deleted before the move can be reversed. Jamesday 16:55, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Splitting up the village pump

As a solution to the village pump regularly being 200kb or more, I propose a trial of splitting the pump into different areas. The five proposed sections are at Wikipedia:Village pump sections. If people want to still post on the main village pump, they can, but they find it easier to find replies to their questions on a more focused page. Angela. 22:46, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Good idea! My only reservation is that it might create redundancies, namely:
Fuzzy lines are generally a bad thing — we have hundreds of pages in the Wikipedia namespace. New Wikipedians are daunted by such a large menu — I know I was. We should minimize the amount of "I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but...". However, I do agree that 200kb is sinfully large, so some type of split is necessary. Splitting it as you suggest is an excellent idea, though it has a few kinks right now. • Benc • 23:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This is a nice idea. --[[User:Eequor|η υωρ]] 23:29, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ditto regarding the help page. It seems redundant with both the help desk and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). --[[User:Eequor|η υωρ]] 23:32, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps proposals should be developed on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) until suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia:Policy thinktank? --[[User:Eequor|η υωρ]] 23:42, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sounds fine. I would argue that Wikipedia: Village Pump (help) could simply redirect to the Help Desk. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 23:43, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

I agree the Help one isn't needed. That leaves just four sections. Is that a good number? Or would further subdivision be useful? The Wikia:Forums are planned to have about 11 sections, as well as additional topic-related ones. Would this be too many for the village pump? Angela. 00:37, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
I am about to violate my own maxim that disagreeing with Angela probably means I'm wrong: I monitor Village Pump and Reference Desk trying to help people out. I'm not interested in monitoring half a dozen pages for this purpose. -- Jmabel 02:49, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
I see your point, but actually, couldn't this also make your job easier in a way? It allows you to filter out those people who don't need need help (e.g., proposals). You can just put whichever topics you want to monitor onto your watchlist, and leave the others off. • Benc • 03:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Maybe. I'm skeptical. -- Jmabel 03:33, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
Good idea - lets give it a trial and tweak as necessary in the light of experience Apwoolrich 07:24, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Personally, like Jmabel, I'm skeptical about the value of splitting the village pump. The Help page definitely is redundant and people should go to the Help Desk, that's why it's there. --Michael Snow 19:52, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I too think it sucks, so what if it's 200Kb? just scroll down a little longer, this is confusing, redundant and will just mean that there are fewer eyes looking at each question. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:58, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)
Why do we use wiki software for Village Pump at all, seems like something more along the lines of scoop or wordpress would be much more suited to what we're doing here. [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 05:54, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I like the idea. I particularly like the way these new pages can coexist alongside the existing Pump. Let's give them a go; If people like them they will prosper, if people don't like them, they'll just wither. Perhaps this particular split is not ideal, but that can be fine-tuned by creating further splits as they seem needed, and if a page is truly redundant, one of the two will wither and die. Very democratic, very Wiki. Andrewa 01:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For people who don't mind huge pages, and want to see the whole village pump on one page, there could be a page which included all the other ones via templates. See User:Angela/Sandbox for an example. Angela. 09:36, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't help with watchlisting, though. -- Jmabel 05:35, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)


Oh Angela, I had the exact same idea as you, except 12 hours later (see below). You brits always have a headstart on me. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 12:14, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I noticed that example had two tables of contents, since this page has a __TOC__. Since it was just where the TOC would be anyway I removed it. Goplat 15:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A new feature now lets you edit a page that is included in another one via section [edit] links. This means you can edit this section of this page directly from User:Angela/Sandbox, which makes inclusion of templates a lot more useful. I'm wondering now whether there is any reason not to split the village pump up since the subpages can all be included on one page, and people can edit those from that page. People who are only interested in one section can go straight there, and can watchlist that section, but those who want the whole pump still have that. Angela. 16:26, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

This page is now included on the main village pump, which hopefully is good for people who want the whole thing, and for people who only want to see sections. The next thing to do will be to move the "miscellaneous" section on the main village pump to a subpage, but I'll wait to see if there are objections to that first. Angela. 01:23, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I was going to start categorising "miscellaneous" discussions into the existing subsections, and cut and paste one or two when I realised that screws up the edit history. Does that matter? Could I continue to get rid of the existing miscellaneous mess?
Also, I don't think we should have a miscellaneous section. Having clear sections should cut down on discussions not appropriate for village pump. Perhaps renaming the "news" section to "notices" would be better though? Do we need any other subsections?
Comments? zoney ♣ talk 15:29, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think it's perfectly acceptable (and helpful) to summarily move discussions to appropriate VP sections. Don't worry about the edit history issues: as long as you leave a good edit summary ("moved discussion from Wikipedia:Village pump to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)") on both pages, future Wikiarcheologists will be able to track changes easily. (Although I doubt that they'll be lining up out the door to track changes to the VP, though. :-))
As for whether we need a "miscellaneous" section in the first place: I'm not sure. Do our sections cover absolutely everything that should be posted to the VP? Even if they do, I'd wait another week or so to remove the misc section entirely. This would ease the transition into sections; people are still getting used to it. (Evidenced by the fact that we have so many posts still going into the misc section.)
If it turns out we do need a misc section, I agree with Angela that it should be made a subpage rather than be part of the main VP page. • Benc • 19:33, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The miscellaneous section is partly to stop those who don't like having to learn anything new from getting upset. This way, they can continue to post on one page without having to worry about which sections exist. I also think there are some sections that don't fit elsewhere. My recent request for a volunteer to be interviewed by the BBC, for example, didn't really fit anywhere else. Angela. 05:59, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest...

Let's make a 'Questions' section of the village pump. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be redundant with Wikipedia:Help desk? Maybe WP:HD the help desk be added to Template:Villagepumppages? And/or move the whole thing to Wikipedia:Village pump (questions)? • Benc • 00:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I say move it all to Village Pump (Questions) -- because I don't think anyone uses the HD, and the VP would be a more convenient place to do it. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:42, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Have you actually looked at Wikipedia:Help desk recently? It's huge! We do not want all that dropped in here as well! --Phil | Talk 10:59, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
Ilyanep, I can assure you that someone uses the Help Desk....a number of people, in fact. And the Village pump is so well-used that adding yet another function would be overwhelming. Help Desk was created to alleviate the problems here, as I recall. Jwrosenzweig 21:52, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Okay, then I am ignorant — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:36, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
See MediaZilla:192. I think this is the same as what you are asking for. It was also discussed at meta:footnotes. Angela. 03:49, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Archiving

Well, just spent 3-4 hours archiving entries on the humongous Villa Pump, but it really feels like a waste of time, we need something better for the VP, or just delete entries older than 10 days. -- Solitude 15:37, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Coloured titles and new introduction

Over the day I've added a new starting section (a table detailing each subsection) and coloured & slightly rearranged the divs at the start of each subpage. This makes it look a lot better when scrolling the combined VP, imo, and each one of the {villagepumppages} templates are now shown. What are people's opinions? I was thinking each subpage could have it's own colour but don't really think that's particularly necessary. violet/riga (t) 19:36, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Two proposals for shortening VP

  1. Many discussions would be better placed on an articles Talk: page. In this case, why not just have the discussion on the Talk: page and have a one line link to the Talk: page? use the VP as a list of pointers to discussion (where appropriate, discussions can still take place here of course)
  2. Use templates per discussion and edit using section editing links, like the VfD page does now.

-- Chuq 03:11, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The former should already by done when and where possible. I.E. make your announcement and direct people towards a relevant discussion page (if there isn't one there, start it with a duplicate of your VP notice). zoney ♣ talk 15:56, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gordon Cooper

I think it would be nice to link to Gordon Cooper on the front page, given that he died today, the same day that the Ansari X Prize was won - seems a pivotal moment in the history of space flight somehow. Graham 05:13, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Editing the main page for instructions on doing this. Angela.

Hiding the TOC has unexpected side-effect

Why does hiding the TOC also hide the explanatory table? I took a look at template:villagepump and could see nothing obvious. --Phil | Talk 10:50, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Updates

It appears that this format doesn't quite work. I don't see my post on one of the pages. How do you get it to update (maybe it's due to the server replication system)? Dori | Talk 20:16, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

You need to purge the page to update the templates using &action=purge. Raul654 removed it for some reason but I've re-added it. Angela. 07:03, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

No Response in the Pump :-(

The questions I asked in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) (1, 2 and 3) didn't get any replies for 8 days. What should one do in such cases? Ask the question again once they're archived? Ask after a cooling-off period so as not to bore others? Forget that I ever asked such questions? Anything else? -- Paddu 21:25, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Questions related to Wikimedia's Bugzilla are more related to the Wikimedia software than Wikipedia. Try their mailing list. Derrick Coetzee 21:28, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ahem. Wikimedia ≠ MediaWiki. But yeah, try the mailing list (wikitech-l). - IMSoP 21:59, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

POV and edit wars

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view

Deleteing vanity pages wrong are right

I think vanity pages should not be deleted.i mean why not just move it,are just ignore it.because vanity pages are just pages are not that harmful anyways.Namela 8:58 june 2, 2005

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