Wikipedia:Village pump (all)
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This is the Village pump (all) page which lists all topics for easy viewing. Go to the village pump to view a list of the Village Pump divisions, or click the edit link above the section you'd like to comment in. To view a list of all recent revisions to this page, click the history link above and follow the on-screen directions.Click here to purge the server cache of this page (to see recent changes on Village pump subpages)
| Welcome to the Village Pump. This set of pages is used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia, and is divided into five village pump sections. Please use the table below to find the most appropriate section to post in, or post in the miscellaneous section. You can view all village pump sections at once here. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar). Note that this page is not for discussions; Use the "Village pump sections" part below to navigate. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Policy
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As this seems to be a recurring phenomenon, I believe we need to create a separate, distinguished criteria for passing notability for restaurants. I would like this to go before a large audience and eventually have a proper vote on it. I stand on a more conservative side of this issue, leaning towards excluding restaurants that may meet general notability guidelines. I think that this is what has caused such a large divergence in opinion, simply because no specific set of rules exist for restaurants. It is my opinion that by following current rules for notability, we are allowing the insertion of unencyclopedic restaurants to pass through, and adherents to the general rules have something to lean on during a debate for deletion.A large supporting source is the New York Times, an obviously reputable source, which constantly reviews restaurants in its dining section. What this gives writers is a safe source for maintaining notability; one could potentially write an article for a restaurant on a weekly basis citing this source. There are certainly other highly used sources which weekly feature restaurants which can be used. It is my opinion that even though these are used countless times (by myself in many articles I've written), they do not give notability. Every restaurant has a history, and some may be certainly very interesting, but that does not make it remarkable. To quote myself from a related discussion:
"I worked at a restaurant as a cook for 8 years that was featured every year by the local news (nj news12) and the owner has gotten a ton of good reviews for it simply because he has connections and wanted the exposure. It is utterly unremarkable and does not belong in an encyclopedia, but if this is a trend, maybe I will someday write a fluffy article about the hardships he faced climbing up the ladder, sacrificing whatever it was he did."'
That is an empty threat, but my point is that if the owner had any interest in Wikipedia (yet he luckily doesn't even have an interest in the internet), he could probably meet general notability guidelines and have a very well referenced article. I do not wish for this to happen.
I have a general set of rules which I would like to propose to determine eligibility for notability for restaurants which I will list.
"A restaurant may be notable if it is independently sourced for something other than the fact that it's a restaurant that got good reviews, and has some sort of history."
- The owner is notable.
- The workers are notable, like a notable chef.
- Notable regulars, like if a celebrity frequents and supports the restaurant.
- Historical significance, like an old restaurant or site which has been or is currently a restaurant (a fictional example being... George Washington's house has been converted into a diner).
- If something notable happened there, maybe even one time event as the host article.
- Extraordinarily remarkable cuisine, like serving extremely exotic or unique food which no other, at least regionally, restaurants serve which is well sourced and noted just for that.
- Social significance for the community.
- As someone who isn't familiar with restaurant reviews as a journalistic practice, could you explain why reviews of a restaurant in multiple reliable sources shouldn't satisfy general notability requirements? Not every restaurant that exists will get reviewed, so how is it different from a film or a book getting reviewed? If it's purely just a matter of how localized the coverage is, I'm sure there are ways to distinguish between a review in The Cowtown Enquirer and The New York Times without resorting to an insistence on the restaurant's significance. postdlf (talk) 22:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think this is necessary. What makes such restaurants "unencyclopedic"? If there are multiple independent sources, then there should be enough to write a neutral, verifiable article on the subject. Note that per Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), purely local coverage is generally not enough to meet notability standards. Many of the proposed guidelines are also looser than the normal notability rules, in particular, several run afoul of "notability is not inherited". Mr.Z-man 22:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- Theornamentalist, can you explain why you think that the usual rules for businesses (which are slightly stricter than Wikipedia:GNG's "presumed notable" level) aren't normally good enough?
- Also, I agree with Mr. Z-man that many of your suggested criteria are actually banned under current rules, for being far too loose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- to Postdlf - The New York Times writes reviews all the time because they have to, not because it's news or notable. Therefore, it seems that a restaurant in the tri-state area will likely get a review simply because that's typically the extant of the NYT's coverage.
- to Z-man - My main concern is that businesses can pay for this type of coverage, the fact that a restaurant serves food and it's cited to a reliable source, should not make it notable. I know some of these conflict with inheritance issues right now, but I would like to revise them (with the help of those who agree and even those who do not fully); I am trying to come up with a way to orderly separate an unremarkable restaurant from one with some actual encyclopedic value. - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- to WhatamIdoing - Simply put, they allow for articles like this to exist, which I oppose. - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- My goal is to avoid lengthy discussions like this, it seems like there are definitely issues with a given restaurants' notability, and instead of going through the motions every time, I think it would be good if both sides could agree on a set of rules. - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- This subsection of WP:N seems relevant: "The evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition, and that this was not a mere "flash in the pan", nor a result of promotional activity or indiscriminate publicity, nor is the topic unsuitable for any other reason. Sources of evidence include recognized peer reviewed publications, credible and authoritative books, reputable media sources, and other reliable sources generally." I don't think that a single restaurant review, even in The New York Times, is generally going to be enough to meet the bar. I don't think the problem is that we don't have a guideline, it's that it's not being followed in all cases. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- to Beeblebrox - Then maybe instead of rewriting policy, an official guideline regarding Restaurants needs to be created (pending further input for support..); something like Wikipedia:HAMMER, to name one regularly in use and subject specific. - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Teaneck Kebab House, I've argued for keep on the grounds that, while only one restaurant review in a major newspaper's dining section isn't enough to establish a restaurant's notability, this particular restaurant has had two such reviews in two different major newspapers. In an area like New York City where restaurants exist by the tens of thousands, this is no small feat, even when one of the reviews is bad. The reason why Wikipedia:GNG calls for multiple reliable sources is that we don't want a subject to be considered notable on the basis of just one lucky break with the media. If there are at least two, from mutually independent sources, that would indicate that the subject is at least interesting enough to get these two sources involved.
- However, I have just one caveat with regarding multiple restaurant reviews as being enough to establish notability: the Montreal Gazette has stated time and again in its dining section that its restaurant reviewing team does not accept invitations from a restaurant's owner. That should be the case for every review used to establish a restaurant's notability. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 01:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Good point, but for some reason there tends to be disputes about restaurants, I support your opinion, but I was hoping to crack this egg first, not the whole basket.. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:48, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- I also have to concur that reviews should not constitute reliable sources for anything other than verifying a restaurant's (or other product's) existence, which is not enough to establish notability. One counter-intuitive problem with allowing reviews to establish notability is that it necessarily means that restaurants in smaller cities will be more likely to be notable, on the grounds that a local newspaper has fewer restaurants to cover, and thus any given restaurant is more likely to be reviewed, compared to a restaurant of similar size, stature, income, etc., in a larger city.
- Another way to tackle this is to deal with the issue in Wikipedia:COMPANY, which requires that "Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary." The key here that needs to be resolved, of course, is papers like the New York Times, which serve a dual national/local purpose. One of the big issues at a recent high profile AfD was that some editors (including myself) believed that while the NYT is a national paper, the restaurant reviews are a part of their local coverage (found in what I believe is called the Metro Section), and thus don't qualify. If a restaurant were featured in the Business section, that would be notable coverage, but the reviews by themselves are not. Others, however, argue that such an analysis is a type of POV/OR on our part, and there's no way to clearly state that the reviews are only intended for a local audience. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- *sigh* Yes, it's obvious the Metro section of the NYT is regional coverage, sometimes people take policy a little too literally. whose AFD
- Personally, I am less interested in whether the coverage is regional or national versus whether the review documents an extraordinary claim. For example, Sunset (magazine) has articles every month reviewing "5 Crab Shacks on the Maryland Coast" which are great food porn, but say nothing indicating the five crab shacks are extraordinary other than the travel writer decided to stop in that town. For the broader product category, national coverage is a given, again, in national magazines on every magazine rack. Again, the review needs to document an extraordinary claim beyond mere existence. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
- I think one option is to expand Wikipedia:ORG to introduce a "new" criteria: Notable businesses have normally received noticeably more media attention than similar businesses.
- My primary concern is that while I think some editors are thinking this at AfDs, nobody seems to actually come right out and say it, and ORG has a general goal of reflecting the actual practice as seen at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Organizations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose Please see Mzoli's - an article of this sort whose AFD was well-attended by the community and which was kept. The proposition is that restaurants, as a general class, are not notable, even though it is agreed that they commonly attract independent detailed coverage in reliable sources. Because this class of topics passes our general notability guide, this proposition rests upon the personal opinion of the nay-sayers. It is their POV or judgement that such topics should not be covered here. By objecting to such coverage, they wish to censor the project contrary to core policy. The nay-sayers do not seem to have any special status which would set them above other editors, the founder of this project nor the independent professional editors and publishers who decide that such topics do merit notice. Having worked themself in a restaurant does not qualify an editor for a special, expert opinion as such work is commonly menial labour and familiarity breeds contempt. Colonel Warden (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- I wish you'd stop Mzoling us: that article is of little help for a number of reasons, namely:
- 1 - Mzoli is not a restaurant, but a sort of wholesale butchery, around which a number of restaurants opened; in other words, if anything, it is a restaurant cluster
- 2 - The concept described in point 1 is rather unique; most restaurants that would be affected by this proposal are something like, uh, a run-of-the-mill kebab house in Albany.
- 3 - The majority for keeping Mzoli was not clear-cut, and the article was written by Jimbo Wales; many of those who voted to keep the article explicitly did so out of respect for such a venerable editor.
- 4 - The whole AfD discussion for Mzoli, which is far too personal and acrimonious to be a template for how things ought to be discussed on wikipedia, was obscured. Editors with a certain expertise can still dig it out, but the fact that it is, at least in the intention, hidden from view is, in my opinion, a clear sign that wikipedia doesn't wish for it to be a precedent.
- And, incidentally, deletionism (which I do not myself support, until ridicolously irrelevant things like prize dogs' sleeping habits start popping up on DYK) is a legitimate and widespread point of view on wikipedia. Calling its supporters menial, censoring nay-sayers is not particularly mature, and doesn't really help the mood of the discussion. Complainer (talk) 10:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Just as a comment, what tends to happen with restaurants, local businesses, local bands, local sports teams, etc. is that while there are multiple secondary sources to cover these, they tend to be from local sources that question their independence to some degree. No, this is not to say that a newspaper has a vested interest in the well-being of a restaurant, but instead they do have one to the local community. The smaller the community the source servers, the less independent that work becomes, and thus begs the question of notability of anything strictly sourced to these types of works. Note that a source normally considered to be a work on a large scale (like the NYTimes) often will still have a local section, and while all the rest of the newspaper will generally be independent, this part will not be.
- In other words, it is not that we need a new guideline for restaurants - they should already be covered by WP:CORP if not the GNG. Instead, it is recognizing that local sources cannot be considered independent of the restaurant, and while usable as general sources, do not do a good job to establish the restaurant notability. --MASEM (t) 06:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- @Colonel Warden--I just want to say that it's not me being POV, at least not in the sense that you mean. It's my POV that interpreting either Wikipedia:GNG or Wikipedia:COMPANY to imply that reviews establish notability is an improper interpretation that is counter to the goal of the encyclopedia. I'm also not saying that restaurants are, as a class, non-notable--that would be unacceptable POV. I'm saying very specifically that specific restaurants to not meet Wikipedia:GNG, which states that there must be "significant coverage," and that a review does not meet the definition of significant; and also that it must be "independent of the subject", and not all reviews meet that criteria, either. I don't mind you disagreeing with my/our position, but you are wrong to claim that we're POV pushing in a way counter to core policy. Rather, we simply have differing interpretations of what core policy means. Yes, interpretation of policy is a point of view (just like being an eventualist or an immediatist is a point of view), but neither of them is a POV in the sense of Wikipedia:NPOV.Qwyrxian (talk) 06:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:N helpfully defines what is meant by significant coverage: "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Detailed reviews therefore satisfy this requirement. Furthermore, reviews in journals such as the NYT are commonly thought to be satisfactory for other topics such as plays or other attractions which may be of interest to their readership. Your ideas about significance seem constructed in an ad hoc or ex post facto way to produce the result that you desire - the elimination of articles about restaurants. There seems to be no objective reason to discriminate against restaurants and so doing so would be an overt bias or prejudice which would be contrary to core policy and other policies such as Wikipedia:CENSOR. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Shouldn't we be more interested in building an encyclopedia with articles of encyclopedic value, not blindly obeying core policy? We make the rules... - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:59, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- An encyclopedia, by definition, includes everything worthy of note. Different people have different ideas as to what is worthy of note. We have no special status which entitles us to use our own POV for this purpose, as if we were the snooty maitre d' of an exclusive establishment. Instead, we rely upon the independent judgement of the professionals who write upon such things. For example, consider your first contribution to Wikipedia - Dance for the Sun. This seems to be a collection of children's music which some might think trivial and unworthy. In evaluating this, we look to see what independent authors have said about it. This doesn't seem to be much but I shan't be leading the charge to delete your work as it seems to have some possible value and good sources may yet be found. It is our explicit policy to be tolerant of such weak contributions in the expectation that they will mature and improve over the years. This is our essential method as we are not paid for our work and so cannot be held to deadlines or specific demands. Our volunteer nature requires tolerance and patience and it is our explicit policy that we are not here to make rules which do not assist us. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:42, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- I am not questioning whether or not we are in a position to decide what is noteworthy and encyclopedic, I am questioning our ability to discern advertisements under the guise of news articles. Common sense tells me that the Kebab House does not belong in an encyclopedia, just as it generally does so in keeping Schmuckythecat's muffler from having its own article.
- And for the record, I am slightly embarrassed by that being my first article.. :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 14:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Your more recent work seems more embarrassing. :) Colonel Warden (talk) 15:56, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Ha, I reverted to a version that still had vandalism by the same IP, I need rollback. - Theornamentalist (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think for purposes of AGF, unless the article specifically says "paid advertisement" we cannot presume a restaurant review was made purposely as a commercial advertisement. I still argue that one can apply the concept of local coverage of local events losing independence as a reason to avoid such reviews however. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- We also need to put Wikipedia:SPAM into the mix. I'm just putting out a hypothetical situation, but one could "bribe" local reviewers and whatnot into giving a restaurant rave reviews, and via this, "create" a legitimate article according to the rule and regulations of Wikipedia.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 07:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- This is definitely a possibility. Although, as noted above, there are newspapers that boast that they won't do that, we can't be sure that it is the case. Ironically, should that happen to be the case, the restaurant that bribed the newspaper reviewer into being reviewed (regardless of whether the review itself says) and the deception is uncovered, the restaurant becomes notable for another reason when the newspaper's competition jump all over the bribed reviewer. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 14:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, Wikipedia:GNG and Wikipedia:ORG should be sufficient. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:27, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Support, at least something along these lines, or some amendment to GNG and CORP to tighten them up. At the moment it's simply too easy for people to say "cited in NYT, must be notable, per guidelines." However, restaurants - and hotels and shops among other things - surely need some substantive notability above and beyond being featured once or twice in the lifestyle, travel or regional supplements, even of major newspapers. There is a massive difference between those sections and the main news section. It's not about reliability as such, but about the nature and the purpose of the coverage. There are hundreds of thousands of papers around the world, and among them, hundreds of what might be termed top flight, national or semi-national ones. Most have at least one restaurant critic, who is invited to or sent to at least one restaurant on a weekly basis, usually in the city where that newspaper has its offices, to tell their readers what the food is like there. Similarly, travel journalists will be packed off to hotels and resorts (often as part of a PR jolly, which I don't think is quite such a problem when it comes to local restaurant reviewing), to provide readers with guidance/ideas as to which holiday they might wish to buy. Those visits will usually result in quite a detailed review or even fuller feature. Are we saying that every restaurant featured here, here or here gets a WP page, at least if we can find a corroborating cite in a second publication? What function would that serve other than to provide a directory that tells the reader "you can get a meal in this place, and here's what a couple of reviewers thought of it, to help you along"? N-HH talk/edits 17:47, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Vote
At this point, with a fair amount of variety in opinions and suggestions, a formal vote is in order. Please note that this is intentionally non-definitive in either support or opposition of the inclusion or exclusion of specific ideas, just a chance to define what we will accept in the future to avoid lengthy arguments which involve referring to contrasting rules, essays, guidelines, policies, laws, or examples.I would like to see a clarification in the rules or a new guideline regarding the legitimacy of any restaurants' notability.
Support
- - Theornamentalist (talk) 03:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- - N-HH talk/edits 13:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC) Definitely need at least clarification of existing general guidelines - "trivial" coverage should be explicitly taken to include simply featuring in regular review spots or columns, even in major newspapers. The problem is, as noted, that there is enough wiggle room there currently to allow articles on every two-bit local restaurant - whether created as spam or in good faith - to survive AfD, just because a couple of papers did their weekly review spot on the place. Two editors cite that interpretation of policy, and suddenly there's no consensus to delete.
- Herostratus (talk) Some comments: 1) There is a restaurant wiki here, and that is where most of these articles belong. We have transwikied vast numbers of articles to wikia.com sites and we could do it again. 2) While it might be OK if we had neutral articles on every restaurant (although see point 1), it's practically impossible to have balanced coverage because 2A) it's a crapshoot which restaurants will be in and which not, and 2B) most of these articles are basically puff pieces. If there was a Wikiproject:Restaurant Neutrality dedicated to ensuring that restaurant articles gave fair place to negative information and removing puffery, then maybe that would be OK instead.
- I support this, in the context that all products, services, and companies should disregard routine reviews as evidence of notability. I note that most, or at least many of those that have commented so far, in the oppose camp seem to agree with this broader scope and seem to be opposing a specific guideline for restaurants and the Wikipedia:GNG should be enough. To them I say, well, the GNG isn't working, so let's modify the GNG. Maybe the next discussion needs to be on the WP:N talk page. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
- Largely for the reasons the above two users have given, but partially because restaurants are something of a unique category unto themselves that don't really fit anywhere else. Each one is unique, and most newspapers have sections reviewing them. It's not the same as something like law firms, because there are daily reviews of different ones; with law firms, only the notable ones get any attention, and the non-notable ones struggle in obscurity. Quite frankly, I think this same issue exists with books, but I don't want to go there now. With the exception of huge chains and places like Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, which are undeniably notable on multiple levels, it's difficult to determine what constitutes enough variety in sources to establish notability, leading to discussions about obscure, ordinary kebab houses in the boondocks out in Albany. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:12, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Support. I am late to the discussion, but what is missing is any consideration of published restaurant guides. Many of these - for example the Zagat guides in the United States - deal with regions or cities but are national, indeed international publications: they are for tourists. And many of them are published by reputable publishers. It is a slam dunk that they pass WP criteria as reliable sources offering national coverage. But, whatever the editorial content, many of these guides are basically directories, listing as many restaurants as they practically can, the good, the bad, the fly-by-night. Inclusion even in a national guide from a respectable publish does not mean that a restaurant is notable; it means that the guide is trying to be a fairly comprehensive directory of restaurants which simply exist. Now look back at the newspaper reviews on which these discussions are always focused. As Theornamentalist cogently argues, these mandatory weekly and bi-weekly reviews have similar status; their function is to sell papers and ad space. WP:RS is simply too blunt a tool to deal with absolutely every type of content we have to evaluate. The point is not to exclude some restaurants or to include more or less all restaurants, but to make up our minds which it is. That restaurant guides and newspaper reviews can be left to do the job is out-of-touch with reality, because by their very nature - they don't care about notability - they try to cover just about everything. My perspective is that of a restaurant critic and author of a dining guide (and no of course that doesn't make me an authority here).KD Tries Again (talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again
Neutral
- The arguments have some merit, in that restaurants are a hotbed of irrelevant articles--the source of this very proposal is some incredibly irrelevant kebab house in Albany that I proposed for deletion. However, Wikipedia has already so many policies that nobody can remember them all and all too often the one that's forgotten first is the one about common sense. As a matter of fact, I was a fierce opponent of special policies for BLP, and derided the ones for notable pets; supporting special ones for restaurants would be inconsistent. I just wish Wikipedia:MILL were made into an official policy, which might make this proposal redundant. Complainer (talk) 10:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see any reason to treat restaurants in a different fashion from other organizations that are commonly written about. The problems that exist with restaurants apply with equal or greater force to schools, television stations, radio stations, small newspapers, and so forth. There are ways to make Wikipedia:ORG better, but a special, restaurants-only rule probably isn't it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- I say, let each article be judged on it's own merits on a case by case basis, but with a caveat. It's pretty hard as it is to control Wikipedia's rapid growth as of late, where anyone or anything with a few verifiable blurbs can automatically have an article. I can also point to several specific subjects (certain TV shows for example and there myriad of articles about each of their episodes) where it seems that no matter what policies you can point out, people will vehemently support the articles in a Afd queue from being deleted. Yes, we do need some reining in of redundant and nonsense articles, but when do we implement a/or start to actively tackle them? We can't even agree with the current policies!! There is a problem, but it's not at the point where we need a massive overhaul of the rules. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 10:38, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
- Unnecessary, likely requires refinement of selection of sources at WP:N than a new highly-specalized guideline. --MASEM (t) 05:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:CREEP: I don't think that there is any problem here serious enough to require a new guideline. --Arxiloxos (talk) 05:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- We already require that coverage must be nontrivial. Routine reviews, local paper blurbs, etc., are trivial coverage. We don't need more subguidelines, we just need to follow the rules we've already got. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- A systemic bias against restaurants would be contrary to core policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:ORG is good enough. No need for a new one. Alzarian16 (talk) 10:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:GNG and Wikipedia:ORG should be sufficient. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:14, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- General notability guideline is fine. Davewild (talk) 18:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- The existing rules seem to cover the main issues here. If they aren't being enforced fully, new rules won't help. Mr.Z-man 23:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- There is enough in the existing guidelines laid out at Wikipedia:CORP that can be applied to restaurants just as well as to any other business or product. Reviews in major publications is certainly not something exclusive to restaurants. -- Blanchardb -Me•MyEars•MyMouth- timed 05:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose this entire process as nothing specific is even being proposed. We're having a vote to decide whether we should even try to write a policy? No thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Another stillborn attempt to regulate ... one of the least contentious area on wikipedia. No firm proposal indeed (the first criterion, that of being owned by a notable person is a deal-breaker: no inherited notability). Use general guideline. East of Borschov 08:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Although I do somewhat sympathize with the proposal, this is instruction creep aimed at a specific type of commercial establishment, and does nothing to address similar dubiously notable subjects as local music bands, buildings, local businesses and charities, and other factors. Maintaining the current policies, and in time perhaps merging some of the smaller, less developed articles into another article, is an idea which can still be used. John Carter (talk) 18:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose I echo the sympathy, but we've got far too many specific guidelines already. GNG is the cover-all; 'keep it simple'. Chzz ► 06:23, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nasty comment if special guidelines e.g. Wikipedia:ORG are used to prohibit things allowed by Wikipedia:GNG, then we should stuff like wikipedia:Notability (Pokemon characters) to squeeze out even lower-importance categories of articles. But I think that deleting one another's types of articles as unimportant rapidly turns into a library-shredding competition. Any article about any subject should always be notable if it meets the basic WP:GNG criterion. And I don't see anything obvious in WP:ORG to contradict that. Wnt (talk) 22:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Unnecessary instruction creep; existing rules sufficient. --Cybercobra (talk) 18:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- If the establishment meets general notability with in depth coverage in multiple reliable sources I think its inclusion in wikipedia is appropriate. Solid State Survivor (talk) 23:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Per above, I don't see a need for this. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Question: Is a listing in a restaurant guide "in depth coverage"?KD Tries Again (talk) 21:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again
FA Pending Revisions proposal
My new proposal is this (credits to Golbez (talk)): to put all featured content as Pending Revisions.Us441(talk) (contribs) 19:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)Support
- Yes, but only while it is on the front page. Once it is replaced the next day it should go back to normal. -kslays (talk • contribs) 23:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- In practice, a lot of featured articles are closely monitored. Anonymous editors are especially reverted. We would save a lot of time and may even increase the chances of productive revisions if we forced users to log in to edit a FA. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:32, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Featured Articles are community-chosen examples of our very best work. They have also attained a good level of completeness and polish, per the FA standards at the time of promotion and the level of participation in the FAC process. Thus 1) there is less of a need to edit the articles in the first place, 2) any random edit has a greater chance of bringing down the quality of the article than a random edit to an average or below average quality article and 3) we should avoid showing our best work to readers while it is vandalized. Therefore, edits to FAs by un-established editors should go through some level of review before going live to readers. There will still be many hundreds of thousands of average to below average articles that will be wide open. --mav (reviews needed) 12:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- If pending revs have any meaning behind them (apart from being a PR campaign), then their scope must expand. East of Borschov 08:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- All those people who say "FAs are usually heavily watchlisted" need to realize this is far from the case. On most of mine (and not just random video games, but things like Bone Wars), I'm the only major contributor still active or on Wikipedia enough to watch for vandalism. If pending revs is accepted by the community, I'm applying it to the FAs I've worked on regardless of whatever people say here. Its utility has far outweighed any "but poor anon who wants to add poop jokes can't" complaints. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 13:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, the trial run is showing clearly that this feature brings desirable stability to articles. The time delay factor is actually minimal: just enough to make scribbling unrewarding.--Wetman (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
- Because a. I don't like pending changes in general, and neither does a large portion of the community, so adding more pages for no real reason isn't effective, and b. why does it matter? if there's heavy vandalism, it'll need semi protection anyway. Otherwise, it can be easily reverted. Oh, and c. Protection is not a preventative measure, so just protecting all the FAs isn't helping, just slowing things down, especially as pending changes is really slow. —fetch·comms 23:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- The point is that since featured articles are reviewed anyway, the FA review process, that has caused so much comment in the pending changes trial, can incorporate pending changes review. Uncle G (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- But there's no need to have an extra slow layer of relatively ineffective "protection" for articles that are already monitored. Half of our FAs are rather obscure topics that are not vandalism targets; the other ones can be semi'd when needed. I'm not opposed to using PC for a TfA (today's featured article) when needed over semi-protection for that day, but not for all FAs without need. —fetch·comms 19:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Seconded. SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:46, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- The point is that since featured articles are reviewed anyway, the FA review process, that has caused so much comment in the pending changes trial, can incorporate pending changes review. Uncle G (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Per Fetchcomms. — Tanvir 05:35, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose because it violates the basic spirit of Wikipedia, and is unnecessary because FAs are typically heavily watchlisted. Thparkth (talk) 12:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Per Fetchcomms; the idea of pending changes seems antagonistic to a founding principal of wikis in general. We should especially encourage editing of FAs, since they're our most prominent works (of course we ensure that they're not vandalised, but that can be done with careful use of watchlists), and telling those whose edits aren't automatically accepted that their edits aren't yet visible really doesn't seem a way to encourage the understanding that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Nyttend (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- per above (esp. Nyttend). Hobit (talk) 11:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Dreadful idea. Almost all of the people doing the reviewing will have no idea about the subject, and many of those who do will have to have their edits accepted, and perhaps lost in the confused muddle that is pending changes. Malleus Fatuorum 14:10, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. Pending changes only hides things from people not logged in; it makes no difference to the tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) who are, so it introduces complexity for little benefit. And reviewers are anyway supposed to accept anything that isn't obvious vandalism or similar, but those edits can be kept out without this additional layer of bureaucracy. SlimVirgin talk |contribs 14:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. We should use our best content to encourage editing, not discourage it. Powers T 12:18, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose. Pending changes protection works best for articles with a low edit frequency on a small number of watchlists. This proposal could easily tie things in knots. That said, some articles may end up not being watched by many people before or after their time in the limelight, so maybe it could be used selectively for featured content not on the main page. Yaris678 (talk) 07:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- This is a very bad idea. For FAs that don't get a lot of edits anyway, this just fixes what isn't broken. For FAs that get a lot of anon IP vandalism, this confuses anons and new editors. It gives them some sense that poorly worded and uncited changes are somehow legitimate, it makes editors who watch these FAs work harder to overturn poorly written passages cited to unreliable sources, and worst of all, pending changes on main page day FAs makes it very difficult to revert vandalism. Not all FAs should be partially protected, but some very certainly should be. Assuming all FAs automatically deserve pending changes does not help anon IPs and it does not help the articles. --Moni3 (talk) 00:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose We deal with featured content vandalism just fine, and in doing so, we demonstrate a) how open Wikipedia is, b) how 'on the ball' we are. PC adds complexity; also, it is not yet ready, and likely to be removed in the near future. Chzz ► 06:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose that this be blanket-applied to all FAs. Many of the ones I maintain don't get a lot of edits; those that receive a lot of vandalism are already semi-protected. A lot of people know a little bit about many of my article subjects (the Texas Revolution, particularly), but what they "know" usually doesn't reflect recent research - I have seen people revert changes because they think its vandalism when it's really factual information. I'd rather keep these articles off the pending changes list and let editors who know the subject take a look. Karanacs (talk) 17:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- That doesn't quite make sense. Anyone registered can still made edits to semi-protected articles no matter how knowledgeable they are. Having FCs won't change a thing in that respect. Saying "keep it off the list so only experts will see it" smacks of anti-Wikiism or something. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- What I'm trying to say is that most FA-class articles deal with fairly specialized material, and it's likely there are only a handful of editors here who know the sources well enough to identify whether some changes are vandalism or good-faith misinformation or valid information. Adding pending changes to these articles means we'll be duplicating effort - a PC reviewer may be the first one to look at a change and make a decision, then a content expert will need to look at the same change and figure out whether it's valid or not. Why add the extra step, burdening another reviewer? I'm not speaking for all FAs, but there are a large number that are adequately watchlisted and/or experience little or no problem with vandalism, so why add complexity? Karanacs (talk) 17:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- That doesn't quite make sense. Anyone registered can still made edits to semi-protected articles no matter how knowledgeable they are. Having FCs won't change a thing in that respect. Saying "keep it off the list so only experts will see it" smacks of anti-Wikiism or something. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Neutral
Comments
Why not allow Wikipedia editors to share in revenue for their efforts?
The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that a prominent user-content-generated website was planning on implementing a method of paying its contributors a share of its advertising revenues. Weber, "YouTubers to get ad money share." (BBC). I posit that Wikipedia, also a prominent user-content-generated website, should explore implementing the same policy. Of course, some revenue stream has to be tapped to make it worthwhile. More importantly however, if wikipedia users could share in the revenue generated by the website, more individuals would contribute higher-quality content, as opposed to now where editing wikipedia is akin to giving to charity. What's stopping us from implementing this? Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 15:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)- A complete ban on advertising on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:PERENNIAL#Advertising. postdlf (talk) 15:20, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- The point is, once users look at advertising not in the abstract, but as a way the users themselves can directly monetarily benefit, perhaps advertising will be seen as more beneficial. Anyway, I didn't know there was a "complete ban" on advertising. Where is that written? Furthermore, I'm not proposing anything old-hat, what I'd like to discuss is the revenue-sharing idea that other websites are advocating. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 15:24, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Among the many other problems with this... how do you determine who gets the money? The people with the most edits? The people with the best edits? Only people credited with creating a featured work? --Golbez (talk) 15:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- I say the people with the most edits. ;-) Seriously, though, Wikipedia has no "revenue" to share. bd2412 T 15:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed. Plus, would such a move potentially jeopardize the Foundation's 501(c)(3) status? SchuminWeb (Talk) 05:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- There'd be no way to filter out vandals and non-constructive edits. Bots would be among the highest paid if it were just by number of edits, and if it were by kb added, then people who contribute by pruning crap out of articles would get nothing, and people who revert blanking vandalism would get a lot. postdlf (talk) 16:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- I say the people with the most edits. ;-) Seriously, though, Wikipedia has no "revenue" to share. bd2412 T 15:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I dont know if there would be "no way" to organize this in order to be fair to all editors. That's why I brought it up here . . . so that we can hash out the guidelines for paying editors dividends like other user-content websites. Perhaps we should allow advertising for the purposes of having revenue to share. Just a thought huh. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Just a thought, but I think in order to make revenue-sharing fair we'd actually have to have a real-life human being (or a panel) actually reviewing user's edit histories. I dont think payment would be automatic -- a user probably would have to apply for remuneration and be evaluated for such. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- And then there would be disputes - why did the panel only award me x? And then an appeals process. And then litigation. And increasing greed for more advertising to earn more money. And then some becoming professional Wikipedians... And then we will have lost the original spirit behind Wikipedia. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Followed by "And after I spent six weeks' insisting that I deserve 16% of revenue from this obscure article rather than 14%, I discovered that the total revenue from the entire article was only twenty cents, and they never pay less than US $10 at a time, because of the cost of bookkeeping involved."
- In short, it's not worth it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- And then there would be disputes - why did the panel only award me x? And then an appeals process. And then litigation. And increasing greed for more advertising to earn more money. And then some becoming professional Wikipedians... And then we will have lost the original spirit behind Wikipedia. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Just a thought, but I think in order to make revenue-sharing fair we'd actually have to have a real-life human being (or a panel) actually reviewing user's edit histories. I dont think payment would be automatic -- a user probably would have to apply for remuneration and be evaluated for such. Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 21:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Among the many other problems with this... how do you determine who gets the money? The people with the most edits? The people with the best edits? Only people credited with creating a featured work? --Golbez (talk) 15:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- NOOOOOOOO Wikipedia is not supposed to be based on financial gain, this proposal runs against the very core ideas of what it is we are doing here. There should never be a profit motive involved, I can only imagine the terrible mess this would make of this entire project. Wikipedia is not even remotely the same thing as YouTube, thankfully. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:32, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think the core ideas have anything against making money per se. Jimbo's a fan of Ayn Rand, who was always in favor of making an honest dollar. But not when it compromises the integrity of the project. And it's hard to think of any way of keeping that from happening (even if there were any revenue to share, which of course there's not). --Trovatore (talk) 02:09, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- "Why not?" Because there's no money; there's no process for allocating the money; there's no system for dispensing the money; and a lot of people would object to the philosophy. I cannot believe you meant this as a serious query. Propaniac (talk) 20:38, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I did mean it as a serious query. Sorry if I offended you sir. Please AGF and all that . . . Donald Schroeder JWH018 (talk) 02:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not based on financial gain. It is a free encyclopaedia in every sense of the word - speech as well as beer.
- Advertising is something that has been repeatedly discussed and repeatedly thrown out due to the inherent problems of having advertising.
- Suggesting that people would look at the debate differently once they know they could benefit from ads is tantamount to bribery. It implies that Wikipedia users are easily-swayed imbeciles who will change their stance on a principle because they have some gain out of it.
- Linked to the above point, nobody here got in it for cash.
- It would be impossible to determine who gets money for what; do we say that only content writers get money? what about anti-vandalism? should it be by raw editcount? what about people making bad edits? So on, so forth.
- None of us got in it for cash, and the principles behind refusing to allow ads are not likely to change because there's money in it for us. Wikipedia does not need advertising or to pay its users to stay afloat.
- We currently have a complete ban on paid editing; I'd love to see how this idea would interplay with that. Ironholds (talk) 14:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- We do not have a complete ban on paid editing. See Wikipedia:PAID for links to the two (currently unapproved) proposals, both of which would permit some kinds of paid editing. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project for one example of paid editors that the community is—far from "completely banning them"—grateful to have helping us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I think that rewarding editors can be done, but it must be done cautiously. An example of an incautious reward would be that a certain computer game manufacturer looks over the edits about its articles, picks out some key fans, and sends them generous care packages of games and computer equipment (or at least, tickets to claim them sent via Wikipedia e-mail). Note that the lack of transparency and clear strain on WP:NPOV are what make this objectionable.
But a different philanthropist might set up another way to reward Wikipedia editors. All editors are put through a primary screen for number of edits and byte count. Text that is new versus old is marked, and an effort is made to create easy links to contemporaneous discussion pages. A statistically guided "random" set of 50 edits is chosen from these and sent to a group of volunteers. Each volunteer runs through 50-100 edits from 50 different people, rating the quality on a few characteristics. (Volunteering might also be required for people to have a chance to win? A handful of standard edits, especially those meant to sense certain biases in judgment, might also be used to discount some ratings) By summing up the quality ratings, and multiplying by the number of edits per each person, a group of winners can be generated in nearly neutral fashion. The winners would then receive a modest sum - not really enough to be worth the time on an occupational level, at least not at first - and the recognition of having been selected as a quality editor. Wnt (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Given the vast success of Wikipedia as a purely volunteer project, it doesn't look like financial incentives are necessary or even desirable. If you don't want to edit without getting paid, don't edit. SDY (talk) 21:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I gladly volunteer time for this project because it is a beneficial, worthwhile project. It is also a non-profit project—no one makes money from running Wikipedia, not even WMF or Jimbo Wales. I'd much rather see money go toward paying for servers, hosting, and the few paid staff we do need in terms of WMF and developers. If we should ever have a surplus of cash, I would really like to see that going toward purchasing the rights to different types of media and releasing them under a free license.
- If this were a for-profit product, you bet I'd demand a share of the profits (or, more likely, I would never have worked on it at all). But it's not, so there is no profit to share. For WMF to attempt to retain profits for personal enrichment would be a gross violation of federal law. That's what 501(c)(3) means. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Not only are you wrong, but you quoted it wrong. Read your Bible. --Golbez (talk) 20:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- With all the cultural pull to be dishonest already coming from outside Wikipedia, adding financial temptations for skewing text and spewing credible scribble, for minute pay, seems to miss the Zen of Wikipedia, which is that you do get no credit, do receive no reward. --Wetman (talk) 18:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Capitalization of common names of species
I think the rules of the English language state that a common name is a proper name, and thus should be capitalized.Conventions for capitalization of species' common names seem to differ.
There are massive inconsistencies between article names, between the article name compared to its content, as well as mention of the common name within a given article.
Some examples:
- Black Rhinoceros: All upper case article name, and all upper case occurences within article
- Brown Bear: All upper case article name, and almost all lower case occurences within article
- Kangaroo rat: Second word lower case in article name, and all lower case within article
I think this problem has arisen because the policy is likey wrong. Editors don't know which to pick, and the outcome is split. There are constant page moves from one convention to another, and back again. If this gets sorted out either way, MOST animalia articles will be flawed or inconsistent. This is a serious problem, and a very visible blight upon Wikipedia. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_Animals is probably a better place to raise this issue. LadyofShalott 03:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- This has been brought up multiple times: Talk:Platypus#Capitalization, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mammals/Archive_6#Common_names, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mammals/Archive_7#Capitalization_debate (one I brought up), Talk:Platypus#Edit-protected.3F (the first part of the previous). There doesn't seem to be any stong consensus on the capitalization of vernacular names, however I strongly feel they should remain lower case. —Mikemoral♪♫ 05:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Flora
A worse problem is the naming of plants, where the project seems to have flown in the face of Wikipedia convention by adopting (mainly) Latin names, whereas all the books I have ever seen sources use the common name as the primary title, unless there is none, when the Latin name must be used. --Bermicourt (talk) 05:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)- I see what you mean. I don't have too much of an issue with naming articles by species or common name. I have done both. But the capitalization issue is nuts. If one article name is different from another, it's not the end of the world. But when the name is different from the content, that's a problem. Even worse is when the case keeps changing several times within the article. That should be resolved at once. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I have posted at WikiProject Animals. (Thank you LadyofShalott for that suggestion). Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Am I The Only One Who Finds This Questionable?
One of the lead Did You Know's on August 29th (30th UTC, I suppose) is based on a highly speculative statement (Did you know that that Lou Gehrig (pictured) may not have died of Lou Gehrig's disease after all, but may instead have succumbed to Chronic traumatic encephalopathy?). Even the source concedes the possibility is wholly synthesized (Although the paper does not discuss Gehrig specifically, its authors in interviews acknowledged the clear implication).I'm not advocating removal of the material from the article, I mean, it is sourced, but it's one claim flying in the face of 75 years of accepted medical conclusion and it seems we may be jumping the gun in giving the possibility so much weight. Lou Gehrig's Disease is a very well understood condition whose presentation is well documented (even in Gehrig's case). While CTE may be similar with regard to a couple symptoms, lending credence to such specious claims on the main page seems intellectually irresponsible.
--K10wnsta (talk) 02:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't know. I think the hook does exactly what it's meant to do: hook the reader into reading the article. It's an interesting "what if"? that's relevant to the DYK article. — Coren (talk) 02:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that it works as a hook, but analogously, so would something like Did you know the World Trade Center may not have been destroyed by planes alone, but may also have been blown up by controlled demolition? Sure, it's going to grab a readers attention, but do the ends justify the means?
--K10wnsta (talk) 02:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)- It is not just the NY Times that has reported this very interesting speculation, which I would say is more than speculation; I do believe it was either Scientific American or Discover (or both) that recently had quite an article on the new findings. Verifiable, not truth I do believe is the motto? If doctors/scientists/professionals who are published in reliable third-party peer-reviewed journals and newspapers say something who are we to say it isnt good enough for us? As far as the WTC hypothetical hook- find a professional with some sort of relevant background giving him/her an authority on the subject and who is published in a reliable third party peer-reviewed journal who has that hypothesis and then sure it could be a hook. Good luck. And that is the difference.Camelbinky (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- The point is the NYT piece is known to have gotten it wrong. See also the discussion at wt:WikiProject Medicine#ALS and NYT and Talk:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis#Misdiagnosis_of_some_traumatic_brain_injury_as_ALS. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Verifiable not truth. Dont care to read Wikipedian's views and discussions regarding NYT or any of the multitude of other magazines, newspapers, etc that have covered this (including I believe National Geographic) because Wikipedian's views arent relevant. Give me medical peer reviewed journals that state for a fact that this is not legitimate research and speculation and then it is fine. Otherwise we have a conflict of sources and we present both. This thread isnt about the facts, it is about whether it was appropriate to put the "fact" as a DYK hook. The answer to that question is unquestionably YES, it was in fact appropriate. This is NOT the place to discuss whether NYT got it wrong.Camelbinky (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, that's the rub, there's no medical, peer-reviewed article (or journal) stating that Lou Gehrig died of anything other than Lou Gehrig's Disease. We have medical researchers who have impressed upon the similarities between a disease they researched and Lou Gehrig's Disease, which is certainly verifiable and, as I stated before, worthy of mention in the article. I just wonder if we should be trumpeting specious possibilities in an effort to call attention to an article.
--K10wnsta (talk) 20:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)- Importantly, "no peer-reviewed article" includes the article that the NYT is supposedly basing this claim on. The actual article doesn't mention Lou Gehrig or baseball anywhere in it. It talks about the potential for misdiagnosis only in the context of players of American football and hockey (both sports with dramatically higher rates of head injuries than baseball). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, that's the rub, there's no medical, peer-reviewed article (or journal) stating that Lou Gehrig died of anything other than Lou Gehrig's Disease. We have medical researchers who have impressed upon the similarities between a disease they researched and Lou Gehrig's Disease, which is certainly verifiable and, as I stated before, worthy of mention in the article. I just wonder if we should be trumpeting specious possibilities in an effort to call attention to an article.
- Verifiable not truth. Dont care to read Wikipedian's views and discussions regarding NYT or any of the multitude of other magazines, newspapers, etc that have covered this (including I believe National Geographic) because Wikipedian's views arent relevant. Give me medical peer reviewed journals that state for a fact that this is not legitimate research and speculation and then it is fine. Otherwise we have a conflict of sources and we present both. This thread isnt about the facts, it is about whether it was appropriate to put the "fact" as a DYK hook. The answer to that question is unquestionably YES, it was in fact appropriate. This is NOT the place to discuss whether NYT got it wrong.Camelbinky (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- The point is the NYT piece is known to have gotten it wrong. See also the discussion at wt:WikiProject Medicine#ALS and NYT and Talk:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis#Misdiagnosis_of_some_traumatic_brain_injury_as_ALS. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- It is not just the NY Times that has reported this very interesting speculation, which I would say is more than speculation; I do believe it was either Scientific American or Discover (or both) that recently had quite an article on the new findings. Verifiable, not truth I do believe is the motto? If doctors/scientists/professionals who are published in reliable third-party peer-reviewed journals and newspapers say something who are we to say it isnt good enough for us? As far as the WTC hypothetical hook- find a professional with some sort of relevant background giving him/her an authority on the subject and who is published in a reliable third party peer-reviewed journal who has that hypothesis and then sure it could be a hook. Good luck. And that is the difference.Camelbinky (talk) 18:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that it works as a hook, but analogously, so would something like Did you know the World Trade Center may not have been destroyed by planes alone, but may also have been blown up by controlled demolition? Sure, it's going to grab a readers attention, but do the ends justify the means?
- I objected at TDYK but it moved on... Anyway, Gehrig doesn't care. ALS is a kind of shit that forces people to seek any possible clues - why? why me? Look at it from the other side - no one can help them. But simply reproducing a hypothesis wouldn't hurt either. False hopes? Yes. But maybe ten minutes of hope, even if false, mean a lot to a dying human. East of Borschov 21:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Proposed change to RfA pass/fail percentages
I am intending to propose a small but significant change to the wording at Wikipedia:RFA. In the "About RfA" section, in the "Decision process" subsection, the current wording of the first paragraph is- Any user may nominate another user with an account. Nominations remain posted for seven days from the time the nomination is posted on this page, during which time users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments. This discussion process is not a vote (it is sometimes referred to as a !vote, using the computer science negation symbol). At the end of that period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion. This is sometimes difficult to ascertain and is not a numerical measurement, but as a general descriptive rule of thumb most of those above ~80% approval pass; most of those below ~70% fail, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion.
- Any user may nominate another user with an account. Nominations remain posted for seven days from the time the nomination is posted on this page, during which time users give their opinions, ask questions, and make comments. This discussion process is not a vote (it is sometimes referred to as a !vote, using the computer science negation symbol). At the end of that period, a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion. This is sometimes difficult to ascertain and is not a numerical measurement, but as a general descriptive rule of thumb most of those above ~70% approval should pass; most of those below ~60% should fail, and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion. (Historically, the likely-pass level was ~80% and the likely-fail level was ~70%, but these were lowered in the fall of 2010.)'
I see this as the simplest way to address the problem that not enough admins are being created, partly because too many are failing, and presumably others thus despair of trying. I think this is because of some commentors applying too-high standards ("Oppose, would make a great admin, but does not meet my criteria of 25 GAs and 25 DYKs") or are too niggly ("Oppose, would make a great admin, but his userpage shows awful design skills"). We could go round-and-round with other solutions but just changing the percentage is far simpler and should do the job of reducing the weight of these kinds of comments.
I'm not asking so much for discussion on the merits of this proposal here, as a large forum is needed for this (see question 3), although maybe I'm missing something. But I have three questions:
- Has this been discussed recently anywhere?
- Any suggestions on changes to the wording? In my opinion, simpler is better, and less change is better.
- Would it be OK to offer this as a stand-alone proposal, that is, as a stand-alone article with the "Proposed Policy" template at the top? I know its not usual to do this when just proposing to change the text of a page (and Wikipedia:RfA is not even labeled as a policy), but this is a pretty radical change, I guess, and an RfC won't do, I don't think. Or would there be a better way? Thanks, Herostratus (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- The classical argument against that is that people will just increase their personal standards when the pass percentage is lowered. I doubt that is true; I think people in general simply ask "Can I trust this person to be a good admin?", and will continue to do so with a lowered percentage. Ucucha 23:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- If the reason really is people opposing for stupid reasons, why not just remind everyone that RfA is not a vote and the percentages are a rough guideline for onlookers? This is already stated in Wikipedia:RFA#Decision process, but could be made somewhat clearer by removing "and the area between is subject to bureaucratic discretion" to remove the implication that the area not between is not subject to discretion. Anomie⚔ 00:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that could be done instead. It would give more discretion to bureacrats, and to a certain extent take it away from the regular editors. This could be controversial, and RfA has been considered closer to being a vote than anything else here. Note that the support/oppose/neutral numbers are given when the result it posted, and "votes" are not mixed in with general discussion as happens in other venues. I think this would be difficult to get adopted. Herostratus (talk) 00:46, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Here's an experimental AFD style RFA from 2007. Interesting concept but considering how long RFAs become, closing something like this would be one hell of a headache for the crats. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting. It would be a lot of work unless the 'crat basically ignored the numbers and focused on the cogency of arguments. Which means someone could pass with minority support (or fail if there was one truly damning argument against). You could do this if you replaced the reference to "consensus" with something like "best judgment of the bureaucrat". I don't have an opinion on that, but it might be a good thing. But I don't want to propose it because I don't want to go that far, and it would probably never fly anyway. Herostratus (talk) 02:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Here's an experimental AFD style RFA from 2007. Interesting concept but considering how long RFAs become, closing something like this would be one hell of a headache for the crats. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that could be done instead. It would give more discretion to bureacrats, and to a certain extent take it away from the regular editors. This could be controversial, and RfA has been considered closer to being a vote than anything else here. Note that the support/oppose/neutral numbers are given when the result it posted, and "votes" are not mixed in with general discussion as happens in other venues. I think this would be difficult to get adopted. Herostratus (talk) 00:46, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Venus Car
Hello, and thank you for your patience with me. I hope I am posting to the correct place; my apologies if I am not.My question deals with an entry that has already been made by someone else, and the subject is about an old car made in 1953. My father was the one who designed the car, and quite frankly, there is NO ONE more qualified to write about the history of this car than I am. I tried writing something about the Venus Car a year or so ago, however, was booted off as being opportunistic, or someone who had something to gain by writing about this car, which I guess falls within the "conflict of interest" policy.
But I assure you, my only goal is to have the history of this interesting car available on Wiki, even if I have to hire a 2nd person write it for me.
You I guess my question is why can't I write this story? The current entry about the Venus Car is totally wrong and inaccurate.
Thank you Patrick McLoad —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcload (talk • contribs) 03:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Could you expand on this a little more? The article Venus Automobile seems to be pretty much in the same shape as you left it. There is some stuff about Wikipedia:COI to worry about, but I don't see why you can't make this a much better article.
- And please, start by uploading some pictures! Wnt (talk) 04:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Unrealized ideas
I seem to recall some policy or guideline or essay or something in the Wikipedia: namespace about not including in a biographical article the things that a person is thinking about doing or would like to do, because those are just unrealized ideas. However, I can't find that now. Does anyone know what page this might be? Thanks. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)- Wikipedia:CRYSTAL? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 18:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
TV episode plot summaries
I'm pretty sure this is not the way it's supposed to be done.For those who accuse me of asking about one article, I'm saying this may be an example of what Wikipedia is not.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- It definitely fails notability, but ignoring that, its plot fails Wikipedia:WAF and Wikipedia:NOT#PLOT and overuses NFC images. --MASEM (t) 20:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- This is something of a recurring problem. We have over 3,000 articles in Category:Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention, with the oldest dating back to January 2007 as I write this. Perhaps we should target them next when we've finally sorted the unreferenced BLPs! Alzarian16 (talk) 21:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Eeeehhh, unreferenced BLP actually have a potential legal hazard to Wikipedia; bad plot summaries (or articles on fiction without sources) aren't an issue that needs expediency. That said, I certainly see a possible task force to help get appropriate WProjects involved to understand what articles are tagged, suggest other articles for merger (possibly deletion) due to lack of notability, and so forth, but without the gusto of the BLP one. --MASEM (t) 21:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think we should be deleting plot summaries because that is all there is, instead it needs expanding to add the context, refs etc. We could expand the notability criteria to say that an episode of a notable series is also notable. Wikipedia typically has great coverage on TV shows. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Do we really want every episode of a notable series being declared notable and therefore have every single episode of Bonanza or Law & Order or the Simpsons? Those three series alone would cause for so many episodes that it becomes ridiculously unmanageable to make sure all episode articles are taken care of in a decent amount of time. We should limit articles to tv episodes to actually notable tv episodes that were reported about in third-party sources. Just because it exists and people are fans doesnt mean we need every single episode as a stand-alone article. The episode where the Fonz jumps a shark waterskiing would be a notable episode since it led to the phrase Jumping the shark. Unless an episode is relevant such as that, then why keep it? Because we are an indiscriminate collection of knowledge? Oh wait, we arent...Camelbinky (talk) 22:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I been trying to wrangle WP:FICT long enough to know that there is no precedent or consensus to assert every TV episode notable; each episode needs to meet the GNG like any other topic. Which is why I suggest that if we wanted to make a task force to handle these plots, we would be informing projects about it, giving them time to work it out and expand if possible, and at worst merging as a redirect to a list-of-episodes articles. Do also note that not every entry on the list noted above is a TV episode. --MASEM (t) 22:39, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'd echo what Graeme Bartlett said: this is an area in which Wikipedia generally has excellent coverage, and this should be appreciated and enhanced, not diminished.--Arxiloxos (talk) 04:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- While that may be, a lot of that enhancement has been in consolidation. We don't, generally speaking, need a full article for one more episode of any given show. Now, of course, some episodes (the jumping the shark episode was mentioned above) are notable on their own merits, and most certainly should have a separate article. But most are not, and are notable only in context of the show they're part of. Given that, the proper presentation is also to keep them with the show they're part of (or as a list of episodes emphasizing the whole), not as a standalone article that largely consists of an over-detailed plot summary and perhaps some trivia. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- It's been well established that tv episode articles that lack any coverage outside of being a TV episode are generally merged and not kept. This is consistent with established policy (specifically Wikipedia:V regarding lack of 3rd party sources, and Wikipedia:NOT#PLOT on articles comprised mostly about plot, in addition to Wikipedia:WAF and Wikipedia:N. That said, I would certainly not want to delete/merge existing articles on TV episodes without editors being given the reasonable chance to expand plot-only articles to include things like reception. If they can't be expanded, they can always be merged into a larger episode list with a shortened summary. --MASEM (t) 04:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Do we really want every episode of a notable series being declared notable and therefore have every single episode of Bonanza or Law & Order or the Simpsons? Those three series alone would cause for so many episodes that it becomes ridiculously unmanageable to make sure all episode articles are taken care of in a decent amount of time. We should limit articles to tv episodes to actually notable tv episodes that were reported about in third-party sources. Just because it exists and people are fans doesnt mean we need every single episode as a stand-alone article. The episode where the Fonz jumps a shark waterskiing would be a notable episode since it led to the phrase Jumping the shark. Unless an episode is relevant such as that, then why keep it? Because we are an indiscriminate collection of knowledge? Oh wait, we arent...Camelbinky (talk) 22:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- This is something of a recurring problem. We have over 3,000 articles in Category:Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention, with the oldest dating back to January 2007 as I write this. Perhaps we should target them next when we've finally sorted the unreferenced BLPs! Alzarian16 (talk) 21:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Plot summaries and "reception" (viewership? or do you mean something more?) is not enough! You need actual third-party (not TV guide!) coverage that shows the EPISODE was in fact somehow notable in its own right for some reason. Just because you can write an article about something does not make it notable. Please, if an episode exists with nothing more than a plot summary and some numbers on viewership and nothing substantial that shows it is notable for some sort of cultural reason then DELETE DELETE DELETE and let it be part of a list of episodes on the tv show's article page or some sort of spin off page but it does not deserve its own article. It makes a mockery of Wikipedia and makes us something we are not. I am sorry there are lots of editors who love to make these types of articles because they love the show and are a fan. We are not a fan site. There are other places for your hard work, just not here. Yes, you are large in numbers, but this isnt a democracy, those articles simply factually do not meet our standards at all.Camelbinky (talk) 23:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I haven't found anything yet, but with the show's 50th anniversary there will surely be mention of the show's most popular episodes, and I have heard or read that this is one of those. If I find this information I'll certainly add it to (hopefully) establish notability. I was really surprised Opie the Birdman doesn't have an article, because it is often listed as a fan favorite.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:47, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia and public domain for upcoming edits.
| Not going to happen, and if it were to happen it would have to be discussed at Meta (not here) and have a foundation resolution and a community-wide vote like we did for the Licensing update. Let's move along now. |
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| Sir, I am Rishikeshan. I like Wikipedia. Will you please convert Wikipedia to public domain? Please do it, sir. I know you can't convert wikipedia completely to public domain, but you can make upcoming edits of Wikipedia and other projects under public domain The reasons why release in public domain are: 1.In public domain Authors can get use of it and it will be the most open content. This helps book writers, Other writers of digital method and they can adopt according to their needs. PLEASE! HELP AUTHORS AND PROPRIETARY CONTENT WRITERS. COPY-LEFT IS USEFUL TO SOFTWARES BUT CONTENT MUST NOT BE IN COPY-LEFT. PROPRIETARY IS NEEDED TO THE WORLD. Eg:- Linux grow because of competition with Microsoft and BSD. 2.No one can be competitor of Wikipedia, even if you make Wikipedia public domain, because Wikipedia is the largest and the most trusted. 3.Please remember no one is going to write derivatives of Wikipedia because it is too large. But, authors are going to make derivatives of pages of Wikipedia. 4.Even If you make new content of Wikipedia under public domain, Wikipedia will not loose People's trust. 5.Please understand no one can compete Wikipedia even if Wikipedia is not copy-left. Wikipedia can live MORE USEFULLY if it is under public domain. Please remember BSD as an example. BSD criticizes GPL and GNU but it is favorite OS of many users. Google chrome and chromium project live--better than copy-left-ed Mozilla Firefox and the server giants APACHE and ISC BIND live better than others. Please make new edits under public domain. Let's make Wikipedia more useful. I asked info-en of Wikipedia about this. They said to start a village pump thread. I hope you will accept upcoming edits under Public Domain. Please change 'You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL.' to 'You accept to give this edit and your previous edits under Public Domain'. If you are unsure, Please make a poll with describing these reasons. Rishikeshan (talk) 03:50, 2 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan
DON'T REPLY HERE WITHOUT READING ABOVE THREAD (MAINLY REASONS PART). PLEASE READ THE THREAD COMPLETELY BEFORE WRITING A REPLY. --Rishikeshan (talk) 09:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)Rishikeshan Can we close this thread? Rishikeshan is clearly trolling now. —Farix (t | c) 11:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
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Rationality
Atheism is one of the condition for rationality and moral science. Can you make Wikipedia rationalist (inclusively atheist) ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iohana4 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 2 September 2010 (UTC)- No, Wikipedia tends to respect all viewpoints, religious orientations and personal beliefs. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- If anything Wikipedia is Agnostic. The very fact that we are not chauvenistic (the real meaning, not to be mistaken with male chauvinism) and we are not overtly religious is why Conservapedia hates Wikipedia so much. We dont put the US first, we dont put the Christian religion first, we dont put ANYTHING first other than our collective belief on creating an accurate encyclopedia of knowledge.Camelbinky (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I would also challenge the idea that being "rationalist" and or "scientific" is somehow better than our current point of view--essentially (in my opinion), that we attempt to match up our writing to the properly weighted and attributed points of view of people writing on the topic in the "real world. What do we gain by moving to a point of view that favors a certain group of voices over others? Wouldn't this also push our systemic bias even farther towards the western, privileged classes? Qwyrxian (talk) 00:26, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- If anything Wikipedia is Agnostic. The very fact that we are not chauvenistic (the real meaning, not to be mistaken with male chauvinism) and we are not overtly religious is why Conservapedia hates Wikipedia so much. We dont put the US first, we dont put the Christian religion first, we dont put ANYTHING first other than our collective belief on creating an accurate encyclopedia of knowledge.Camelbinky (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is entirely rational. It speaks facts on all matters; in religion, a figure is X; Religion Y is the belief of Z; etc. etc... I know no instance on Wikipedia where a purely religious aspect is described as objective fact. So your request comes across as odd, without making any statement on where Wikipedia lacks rationalism. --Golbez (talk) 15:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Technical
Secure links padlock too close
Consider this link: https://www.wikipedia.org. Notice how the padlock (
) is clinging to the link, due to padding-right being 13px, which was fine for the original yellow padlock (which was statically linked). - I just found it being declared in Vector.css (and Monobook.css). I'm going to try something in my own CSS. — Edokter • Talk • 19:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Simply adding padding-right 16px; solves the problem. Making the change. — Edokter • Talk • 19:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Surely the distance should be specified in ems, so that it scales with the text? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- No. The padlock image has a fixed size (16x13), and the default padding is 13px. (Edit:) Besides: IE8 seems to scale the image and padding according to the browser's font size (zoom) anyway. — Edokter • Talk • 22:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- And so does Safari. BTW. it is the yellow padlock that has changed in size (at least for Vector, not sure of other skins). Why the change in size was made, i'm not entirely sure, but probably has something to do with lineheight/font-size. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Over here in MonoBook it's a blue one that has a couple more pixels on the right than the left. (And if you're changing the style of the lock, then it would be
padding-leftyou're after). OrangeDog (τ • ε) 23:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)- The space to the right of the padlock is whitespace in the image itself; not much can bo done about that (unless you start playing with negative margins). Also, padding-right applies to the link span as a whole (not the image) in order to create space for the image, which is actually a right-alligned background image for the link; so it is the correct attribute. — Edokter • Talk • 12:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Over here in MonoBook it's a blue one that has a couple more pixels on the right than the left. (And if you're changing the style of the lock, then it would be
- And so does Safari. BTW. it is the yellow padlock that has changed in size (at least for Vector, not sure of other skins). Why the change in size was made, i'm not entirely sure, but probably has something to do with lineheight/font-size. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- No. The padlock image has a fixed size (16x13), and the default padding is 13px. (Edit:) Besides: IE8 seems to scale the image and padding according to the browser's font size (zoom) anyway. — Edokter • Talk • 22:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Surely the distance should be specified in ems, so that it scales with the text? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Simply adding padding-right 16px; solves the problem. Making the change. — Edokter • Talk • 19:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Emoticon behaving strange
Resolved Here I started a talk about an emoticon
{{:)|devil}}, that put the whole article Bracket into the Talkpage, thereby putting a Userpage in Category. It is solved, but not understood yet. -DePiep (talk) 13:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC) - That code says to transclude the ) article (passing the parameter "devil" as 1=, which will be unused by the transcluded object), which redirects to Bracket. There is no such template named ":)", it is a bad title. Template:=) is probably what they were going for. –xenotalk 14:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Interface translations for rollback vs. undo
Where are interface translations set? When language is set to Serbian (and probably others, though problem does not occur for "fr") the "rollback" and "undo" button use the same word sometimes leading to issues (see [1]). –xenotalk 15:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)- Special:AllMessages when it is wiki specific and on http://translatewiki.net for the software as a whole. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Revision History Search
Resolved I want to be able to search the revision history of an article for a text string. My objective is to find out when the text string was FIRST introduced into the article. I used the "Revision history search" link on the revision history page, which in turn uses WikiBlame, but, honestly, I simply couldn't understand the results. I even looked at the manual and was still in the dark. I posted a message to User:Flominator's Talk page, but I didn't get a response. Does anyone understand how this works? Can I achieve what I want?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, WikiBlame does what you want. You might need to enable the "force searching raw text" option and may need to check more than the default 50 revisions. Rjwilmsi 16:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, it may do what I want, but I'm unable to use the results. So, I'll break it down. I use the history of the Stephen Breyer article. I click on the search link. I get a WikiBlame form. I use the string "world justice project", which I enter in the Search for text box WITH quotation marks. I change the date to August 1, 2006, because I want to see the first time the string appears. I change the radio button selection to oldest first. There is no "force search raw text" option, only a "force searching for wikitext" option, and I don't know what that means. For the moment, I'm leaving it alone. I've doubled the versions to check from 50 to 100. I click on Start. Here are the results:
- The version history of Stephen_Breyer is being searched for "world justice project" as plain text
- 100 versions found
- Comparing differences in 14:08, 11 April 2006 between 50 and 51 while coming from 99:XX [Search from here]
- Comparing differences in 02:12, 13 May 2006 between 25 and 26 while coming from 50:XX [Search from here]
- Comparing differences in 02:23, 16 June 2006 between 12 and 13 while coming from 25:XX [Search from here]
- Comparing differences in 13:59, 21 July 2006 between 5 and 6 while coming from 12:XX [Search from here]
- Comparing differences in 14:49, 25 July 2006 between 1 and 2 while coming from 5:XX [Search from here]
- What am I supposed to do with these results to see where the string first appeared? I haven't a clue.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:52, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- The quotation marks are not necessary, and I guess they may be actually harmful (unless they literally appear on the page).
- Leave the start date as today's date, you are searching from that date backwards. (If you want to search before another starting date, you have to make sure that the string actually appears in the revision you search from, otherwise it will probably fail.)
- The number of revisions of the article (since you want to search the entire history) is much more than 100, so let's raise the number of versions to check to 1000.
- You get:
- Well, it may do what I want, but I'm unable to use the results. So, I'll break it down. I use the history of the Stephen Breyer article. I click on the search link. I get a WikiBlame form. I use the string "world justice project", which I enter in the Search for text box WITH quotation marks. I change the date to August 1, 2006, because I want to see the first time the string appears. I change the radio button selection to oldest first. There is no "force search raw text" option, only a "force searching for wikitext" option, and I don't know what that means. For the moment, I'm leaving it alone. I've doubled the versions to check from 50 to 100. I click on Start. Here are the results:
The version history of Stephen_Breyer is being searched for world justice project as plain text 809 versions found Comparing differences in 18:01, 8 February 2007 between 404 and 405 while coming from 808:XX [Search from here] Comparing differences in 09:54, 28 June 2008 between 202 and 203 while coming from 404:XX [Search from here] Comparing differences in 18:22, 11 March 2009 between 101 and 102 while coming from 202:XX [Search from here] Comparing differences in 13:45, 12 January 2010 between 50 and 51 while coming from 101:XX [Search from here] Comparing differences in 23:25, 19 June 2010 between 24 and 25 while coming from 50:OO [Search from here] Comparing differences in 12:54, 25 March 2010 between 37 and 38 while coming from 24:OO [Search from here] Comparing differences in 15:08, 17 February 2010 between 43 and 44 while coming from 37:XX [Search from here] Comparing differences in 22:50, 23 February 2010 between 40 and 41 while coming from 43:X 0 Insertion found between 17:16, 18 February 2010 and 22:50, 23 February 2010
- You can make some sense of the progress messages if you imagine how the Binary search algorithm works, but the only relevant information you need is the last line, which tells you that the string was introduced in this edit.—Emil J. 17:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- And to clarify one thing: the diff found by this method is an edit that introduced the string into the article, but it is not necessarily the first such edit, in principle the string may have been introduced and deleted several times. It is not possible to find the first edit without sequentially checking every single revision of the article until a match is found; you can force this kind of search by checking "Search method: linear" and "Order: oldest first", but you should avoid this unless really necessary as it is a drain on resources and takes a lot of time.—Emil J. 17:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The #replace function
It looks like the MediaWiki parser function #replace function does not work on Wikipedia. Is it not installed? Are there any alternatives? I really need this function to create some templatesAny help is greatly appreciated --کاشف عقیل (talk) 18:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- All of the StringFunctions (everything on the page you linked) are not installed due to the performance burden they would add. Prodego talk 19:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think citing performance in this context is a red herring. Though they could have performance implications, the last serious discussion on the topic I am aware of basically boiled down to: "Template syntax sucks, and we don't want to add anything more to that until we have an alternative." Dragons flight (talk) 19:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflictTemplate:Safesubst:) According to the developers string functions are not enabled because they would prefer to embed a real programming language, such as Lua. But they are also not interested in working on embedding a real programming language right now, and any embedded programming language must be able to run securely without PHP extensions or external programs so people running MediaWiki on really crappy webhosting can still copy our templates. This old thread has a humorous summary of the years-long discussion regarding StringFunctions. Anomie⚔ 19:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks everyone for your responses. I had also posted the question at Help talk:Template and someone suggested {{Str rep}} there which solves my problem. --کاشف عقیل (talk) 00:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Solution against the broken external links: archive external links
Since two years, http://wikiwix.com prevents the links on the French Wikipedia from being broken (Error 404). A script add a link to an archived version ([Archive]) of external links next to URLs. Here is the script that need to be added to MediaWiki:Common.js. These days they're proposing to extend their archive free service to us, and it's working on the French Wiktionary. Could we please get a consensus to install it here? JackPotte (talk) 21:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)- It might help if you showed an example of the system in action. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Sure thing. For example, after every link in Parc national Olympique#Notes et références there is an [archive] link. These links are all added with JavaScript.
- Every link on the french Wikipedia is archived in the Wikiwix archive. By default, we chose to display the archive only in the references section because that's where we need them. It was also done to improve performance. The rest of the links can be displayed using a gadget. Dodoïste (talk) 16:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Jack, I think that's a brilliant idea. t would solve some of the huge problems where pages , especially on government sites, are removed because the webmasters beleive they are no longer of interest. We lose a lot of valuable Wikipedia:RS this way, and articles then suffer from dead links. Please consider starting a project page to discuss this. I would imagine it would not be to hard to obtain a consensus.--Kudpung (talk) 03:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Also see Wikipedia:Using WebCite, another web archiving service. Fences&Windows 15:00, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Is there a way to search a particular namespace for a specific string?
Is there a way to search a particular namespace for a specific string?For instance, using the search function to look for two words seems to return results for "word1" OR "word 2". What if you want to search for "word1" AND "word 2" or "word1 word2" ? pablo 22:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hmmm ... Try +Using +Pluses for additives and "quotes for phrases". –xenotalk 22:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- It does AND by default. You can verify this by looking at the total number of results returned for initial words, and for words together. You can use AND/OR special words with - for NOT. e.g. Special:Search/word1 OR word2 -word3 which will return all documents with word1 or word2, but not word3. --rainman (talk) 12:50, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Watched pages becoming unwatched
Fairly regularly, I find that a page I'm watching has disappeared from my watchlist. When I realize, I have to view the page and add it again, but by then I may have missed talk/article developments I should have been aware of. Is this a known issue? PL290 (talk) 08:31, 1 September 2010 (UTC)- I don't believe it has ever happened to me, but I usually have about 5-700 pages on my watchlist. How large is your watchlist? NW (Talk) 11:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- About the same (just over 700 currently).PL290 (talk) 12:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- 5,387 right now. I wouldn't know if it ever happens. :-) Dougweller (talk) 12:38, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- About the same (just over 700 currently).PL290 (talk) 12:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Good thought, but no: I have AWB set to "leave watchlist unchanged", and it appears to abide by that—and I can think of at least one page I've never AWB'd that suffered from the problem just recently. PL290 (talk) 17:48, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Character set used on zh.wikipedia
I know this Village Pump pertains to en.wikipedia, but my Chinese is too nonexistent to ask at the zh.wikipedia equivalent page: can anyone tell me which character set (i.e. traditional, simplified, or something else) is used on the Chinese Wikipedia at zh.wikipedia.org? Many thanks. Gonzonoir (talk) 11:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)- That's a user setting, with automatic translation between the different versions. See Chinese Wikipedia. The best places to ask such questions in English are probably Talk:Chinese Wikipedia and Project talk:Guestbook for non-Chinese speakers. Hans Adler 11:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I see-- cheers for the advice. Gonzonoir (talk) 11:42, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- The Chinese Wikipedia uses a tab at the top-left corner of the page that switches the text between Taiwan Traditional (two forms, apparently), Mainland Simplified, and less well-known varieties. The actual content of the articles is the same in any character set. Intelligentsium 00:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Is there a way to make MediaWiki:Longpagewarning appear for every edit?
Is there a change I can make in my vector.css that will cause the notice to always appear? Or in a different similar file? Thanks, meshach (talk) 21:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)- Just a note about the question heading. Of course I am meaning MediaWiki:Longpagewarning not the corresponding talk page. I fixed the question heading. meshach (talk) 01:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- In other words: the OP wants the page size to be listed at the top of every page when editing it, even if smaller than 32kb. –xenotalk 17:52, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Won't Jump
Please look at That '70s Show#Running_gags. Note that there are many links to episodes. Each link jumps to the spot on the page where the episode is EXCEPT Street Fighting Man, which just displays the page normally (starting at the top). I don't see anything I've done wrong in how I link to that episode. I've even tried to compare the underlying table code for the season 7 article (Street Fighting Man) with, for example, season 1 (Stolen Car), and I don't see any obvious difference that might make season 7 misbehave. I'm sure it's something very silly I've missed, but I'm tired of staring at it.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)- Fixed. Some of the episode templates had non-breaking spaces before the pipe characters, so the link identifiers included the non-breaking space after the episode number. I replaced these with ordinary spaces which get stripped when the page is rendered. — Richardguk (talk) 00:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm very glad I stopped staring at it. What is a non-breaking space? How could I have seen it?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- A Non-breaking space (or a hard space) is a character that prevents two adjacent words' being separated should they happen to lie at the end of a line. This is useful for keeping quantities and units together but can be a problem in cases like this because they are interpreted differently from normal spaces. WikEd or another tool might highlight these, but often you just have to recognize the 'symptoms' of the problem you are having. Intelligentsium 01:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed. I would add that this is not a common problem on Wikipedia, because most non-breaking spaces are encoded in the wikitext as the corresponding HTML Character entity reference
<syntaxhighlight lang=text enclose=none> </syntaxhighlight>. - To help you fix the same problem in any related articles, notice the lines in the wikitext which are marked as having changed with my edit. In each case, there is a character that looks like a space immediately before the wikitext
<syntaxhighlight lang=text enclose=none>|EpisodeNumber2</syntaxhighlight>but previously the character in this position was in fact a non-breaking space. - Ironically, though the character was impossible to see, my web browser seemed to convert it to a space when it displayed the edit box, so I only had to copy and paste the entire text back in and save it again. Or at least, I think that's what fixed it!
- — Richardguk (talk) 03:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed. I would add that this is not a common problem on Wikipedia, because most non-breaking spaces are encoded in the wikitext as the corresponding HTML Character entity reference
- A Non-breaking space (or a hard space) is a character that prevents two adjacent words' being separated should they happen to lie at the end of a line. This is useful for keeping quantities and units together but can be a problem in cases like this because they are interpreted differently from normal spaces. WikEd or another tool might highlight these, but often you just have to recognize the 'symptoms' of the problem you are having. Intelligentsium 01:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm very glad I stopped staring at it. What is a non-breaking space? How could I have seen it?--Bbb23 (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Question: What sorts of edits result in such drastic increases in page views?
To understand my question, first look at http://stats.grok.se/en/201005/Sony_Dash (page view statistics). So on May 21st I edited and moved Sony Dash from Dash (personal internet viewer). I found pictures on Flickr and added an infobox. Out of curiosity I checked the pageview stats, and was surprised to see that starting that day the page views went up drastically. The previous month had a total number of 230 views, the following month 2231. Now I understand that adding content and a picture make it show up on more search engines, and I can assume that some of those page views on that day are from me and maybe some Commons people checking out a new image, but what about all the days after? I see my edits to this article as relatively lazy, and the majority of the text I added were bare facts in the infobox. I'm certain that the WP search takes days if not longer to register changes, and I changed nothing on the Sony template which is where most of the inbound links come from, so I'm curious if anyone knows what edits in particular could create almost instant results like this. Where do all these new views come form and how, while still being lazy, can these results be reproduced? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 07:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)- Check stats for "Dash_(personal_internet_viewer)" - the view total remained about the same, it's just that before the move readers ended up at Dash (personal internet viewer) while now they end up at Sony Dash. Skäpperöd (talk) 07:53, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yep, was going to say the same thing. ~DC Let's Vent 07:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I should sleep more before editing. I thought I had cracked the code! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 08:23, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yep, was going to say the same thing. ~DC Let's Vent 07:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Style for headings
I'm looking for the CSS which will produce the headings like we use on Wikipedia. I want to hardcode rather than using == or because I do not want it to appear in the table of contents. For background, this is for the Template:Invitation to edit initiative which will inivite readers to edit certain articles and produce a collapsed mini tutorial. It's these headings which I don't want to interfere with the article itself. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC) - Does
show in a ToC? - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 20:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- It depends on the skin, but my developer toolbar tells me the following (for Vector):
.h2 {
color: black;
font-size: 150%;
font-family: sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.6em;
padding: 0.5em 0 0.17em;
border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;
width: auto;
}
.h3 {
color: black;
font-size: 132%;
font-family: sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.3em;
padding: 0.5em 0 0.17em;
border-bottom: none;
width: auto;
}
- — Edokter • Talk • 20:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Monobook uses http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/main.css. Check the page source for main.css. Be aware that using the header tags will add the header to the TOC. I think there is a template that emulates a header without adding it to the TOC, but I can't remember it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 20:33, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
show in a ToC? - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 20:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
.h2 {
color: black;
font-size: 150%;
font-family: sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.6em;
padding: 0.5em 0 0.17em;
border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;
width: auto;
}
.h3 {
color: black;
font-size: 132%;
font-family: sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 1.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.3em;
padding: 0.5em 0 0.17em;
border-bottom: none;
width: auto;
}
- Monobook uses http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/main.css. Check the page source for main.css. Be aware that using the header tags will add the header to the TOC. I think there is a template that emulates a header without adding it to the TOC, but I can't remember it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 20:33, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Old Wikipedia logo has disappeared in Monobook
Maybe it's just me, but the Wikipedia logo has disappeared from the upper left corner of the page in Monobook. Clicking the empty space still takes me to the Main Page, but the logo is blank. Logged out I can see the new logo in Vector. Any idea what happened? –Grondemar 05:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)- Unable to reproduce, even after clearing my browser cache. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- still there for me – not sure if there's a choice of image flavours though, and if so, it's the right one for you! Always use Monobook. Trev M ~ 12:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- It's because http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/b/bc/20100513062230!Wiki.png is returning a 404 error. –xenotalk 17:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Use http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Wikipedia-logo-en.png instead. –xenotalk 17:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Anyone else screaming because of unnecessary case sensitivity in templates?
I was just trying to assign an article a wikiproject class. I have done this several times and would have thought it could be a fairly intuitive exercise, having read the criteria for assigning articles. But to get the 4 permutations of upper and lower cases of "Class" and the letter signifying the value right took me... yees, you guesssed it, 4 goes. And then there was getting the order of the quality and importance right to please the templates.I presume there's a master template for the plethora of minor wikiproject categorization templates (many unfilled, perhaps not helped by this tediousness). Wouldn't some template wiz feel great about disposing of unnecessary case (and order) sensitivities to help move this along a bit smoother? Trev M ~ 12:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Suggest this at Template talk:WPBannerMeta. –xenotalk 17:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Revdel usernames in user list
Is it possible to revdel a username so that it will not be visible in Special:ListUsers? -- Ϫ 14:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)- Hm. Perhaps through the user creation log? I'm not sure, but that's what sprang to mind. Killiondude (talk) 17:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- 'HideUser' does this. –xenotalk 17:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Do admins have access to 'HideUser'? I'm not sure what that is. If you're referring to the "Delete editor's username/IP" option in RevDel, that still doesn't hide the name from the Special:ListUsers listing, I don't think. -- Ϫ 02:16, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- No, only oversighters have access to HideUser, which makes it possible to hide a username from Special:Listusers. Graham87 07:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Do admins have access to 'HideUser'? I'm not sure what that is. If you're referring to the "Delete editor's username/IP" option in RevDel, that still doesn't hide the name from the Special:ListUsers listing, I don't think. -- Ϫ 02:16, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
fullurl and external data
I want to use the in fullurl: like this: [3] however, as you can see, it does not seem to work. Is there any other way to make this work?--Hengsheng120 (talk) 20:31, 3 September 2010 (UTC)- It does seem to work, as you say but maybe didn't mean. It gives the result I would expect when it's transcluded with a parameter called name. For example, the code {{Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)|name=example}} currently makes your above code produce a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Abcexample&action=edit for me (who is at http://en.wikipedia.org). Did you mean it does not seem to work? In that case, what exactly do you want to happen when exactly which code is used? Or if you don't know which code to use then which effect do you want to achieve? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflictTemplate:Safesubst:) Is
<syntaxhighlight lang=text enclose=none>{{{name}}}</syntaxhighlight>the parameter in a template? If so, which one? Or do you mean<syntaxhighlight lang=text enclose=none>{{PAGENAME}}</syntaxhighlight>? (Note two not three braces for PAGENAME: see Help:Magic words for more info.) — Richardguk (talk) 21:10, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Old IP-addresses with "xxx" at the end
Hi! I've noticed that with some old IP-addresses which edited uninlogged like the same year as Wikipedia was formed, not the whole IP-address (e.g. not all the numbers in the IP-address) are shown. Why is it like that with the oldest edits? Were the actual IP-addresses not identifyable at that time? /HeyMid (contributions) 22:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)- I think it was just a change of privacy policy. Masking the last 8-bits was probably judged to provide little additional privacy for many anonymous editors, and would have been confusing for editors or readers with a similar address to that of an editor who had received a user talk page message. — Richardguk (talk) 23:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- That would be true, except I have never encountered any evidence of someone trying to communicate with an anonymous user in those days. I thinkt the last octet of the IP address was masked with "xxx" to make it slightly more difficult to do WHOIS lookups. IIRC there was a time when admins could see the full IP address while other users could not. Also see Wikipedia:Phase II feature requests/Cookies, logins, and privacy, which was written when Wikipedia used UseModWiki. Graham87 07:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
has the server been acting up lately?
I have had a hard time getting the Wikipedia to load lately, I am wondering if its just me? Weaponbb7 (talk) 01:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)- Hello! Thank you for asking. Well, I am running the secure version, and I also had downloading issues yesterday. It took like 5–10 seconds to load a page, which is kinda slow, but it is a bit better today. So no, you weren't the only user who were experiencing slow-down issues yesterday, probably all users around the world were affected. /HeyMid (contributions) 07:39, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
allow non-registered users to choose the skin they like
Not everyone likes vector & not everyone wants to become a registered user. Therefore, it should be allowed to set a preferred skin (to be stored in a cookie). Likewise, not everyone's eyes are as good as they used to be. Therefore users should be allowed to set a preferred font-size as well. Hpvpp (talk) 06:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)- Looks like a good idea. --Extra 999 (Contact me + contribs) 06:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Using Ctrl + and Ctrl - should adjust the font size in your browser. Most browsers should automatically remember the setting. This has nothing to do with the skin or registration. Zunaid 06:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Special:Random
Can anybody tell me the pattern from which Special:Random finds and loads. --Extra 999 (Contact me + contribs) 06:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)- Wikipedia:Technical FAQ#Is the "random article" feature really random?. Killiondude (talk) 06:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
"intitle" and "lookfrom" Wikipedia search options for finding section titles ?
I find the "intitle" and "lookfrom" Wikipedia search options (as in intitle:"search phrase" and lookfrom:"search phrase") to be very useful to find articles relating to a subject of interest.However it would also be useful if i could look for section titles within articles using "intitle" and "lookfrom" rather than just article titles. I bet there are plenty of sections tucked away which would be of interest to me and i might llke to link to.
If it isnt possible with standard Wiki software, perhaps somebody could do a couple of searches for me on my behalf using specialist Wiki software.
I suppose one possibility would be the ability to search on the raw HTML version of Wikipedia and make use of the fact that section titles always start with a "=". --Penbat (talk) 10:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Proposals
"Report an error" feature
Hi. During Wikimania 2010, I learnt about a feature installed in Polish an Russian Wikipedias: a link on the left sidebar to report errors. I liked it, so we installed it in Spanish. You can see how it works in this article for example (look at the left sidebar "Notificar un error"). It opens a window where the user can explains the error. Then, the error is sent to a common page Wikipedia:Informes de error where wikipedians read and work on them. It would be nice add it in English. The code is here: MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js. We are receiving tons of reports per day. This is an amazing tool to involve casual readers (which don't know how to edit a talk page, more, they don't know the about talk pages) in Wikipedia community efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Regards. emijrp (talk) 09:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)- Yes, good idea! It could direct to the Wikipedia:Content noticeboard, perhaps? Many readers don't know that Wikipedia can be edited or know about talk pages, so this adds another opportunity for some of those many eyes to make our bugs shallow. How would we turn it on at en.wikipedia? Fences&Windows 17:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Seems like you just Create MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js, copy the whole thing into it (translated into English), put this into MediaWiki:Wikibugs.css, and put the line
importScript('MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js');into common.js. You could try that by copying it into your personal .js to see if it works, and see what wording you'd want in English. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 18:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)- Yes, also, you can create the messages MediaWiki:Bug in article (with the text "Report an error" or something like that) and MediaWiki:Bug in article-url (with the title "Wikipedia:Content noticeboard" as you suggested). Then, add it to MediaWiki:Sidebar. But first, we need more community opinions. emijrp (talk) 18:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Mmm, I see that they were created in 2005 (and Wikipedia:Report an error was deleted later). Why? emijrp (talk) 18:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Open an RfC? This probably needs good support to succeed, as it may flood the content noticeboard. Fences&Windows 22:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, also, you can create the messages MediaWiki:Bug in article (with the text "Report an error" or something like that) and MediaWiki:Bug in article-url (with the title "Wikipedia:Content noticeboard" as you suggested). Then, add it to MediaWiki:Sidebar. But first, we need more community opinions. emijrp (talk) 18:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- Seems like you just Create MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js, copy the whole thing into it (translated into English), put this into MediaWiki:Wikibugs.css, and put the line
- What sort of junk/false-positive rate does it get on the other Wikipedias? --Cybercobra (talk) 23:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
- I can say 50%/50%, but the script has filters to avoid empty reports, reports with texts with no spaces, ect. Also, we exclude the "Report an error" link in articles like "MSN", "Hotmail", ect, where many people click to say "MY HOTMAIL DOESN'T WORK, FIX IT PLIZ". I think that it can be tested here, and "invent" ways to reduce the noisy reports. emijrp (talk) 08:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
- We have all the messages in the same page. If a report is hard to reply and solve, it is moved to the article talk page. A lot of reports are about undetected vandalisms, so, flooding talk pages with vandalism reports is not very useful. emijrp (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
- Support Seems worth a try. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
- Support trial for maybe a month or two. If it gets flooded by abuse, get rid of it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
- Support opening an RfC on a trial run. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose The intentions are very good but I'm really not sure about this idea. One of the stated aims of the Foundation over the coming years is to improve participation in the projects. This means people learning how to edit Wikipedia in the main. This proposal presents the user with a kind of shortcut to get content changed. Shouldn't we be pushing for our visitors to change the content themselves? I think I would much prefer to see such a "report an error" link take the user to a "You can edit!" page and give some very basic details as to how the user can make the change themselves. This proposal would set up a barrier between readers and editors; it encourages the notion that there are "some people, like staff" who edit Wikipedia when we should be encouraging the notion that readers are editors too. So I'm against this. --bodnotbod (talk) 10:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- That's a valid point, and it's good to be aware of it. But being aware of it, we can address it with eg a good editintro, pointing people (before posting) to the possibility of fixing things themselves, especially if it's simple. And of course make it clear if they do post that it's volunteers answering (Wikipedia:HELPDESK already does this I think). Good point, but not a blocking bug. Rd232 talk 10:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- We have zillions introduction tutorials and help pages. If a person doesn't want to learn or can't learn to edit, he won't do it. Also, the "Report an error" feature first screen shows some links to Wikipedia:Be bold and it encourages fix them. People can report errors or send pics via e-mail too, are you going to remove e-mail from the Internet? : ) emijrp (talk) 10:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- Have you poked around in the spanish wikipedia, where it is in place? When you click the button, there is a pop-up explaining how to be bold, etc: "Si has encontrado un error, por favor, intenta arreglarlo tú mismo, la tecnología wiki permite que cualquiera pueda editar artículos. No dudes en hacerlo, una de las reglas de Wikipedia dice «¡sé valiente editando páginas!». Si no puedes o no sabes arreglar el error, entonces infórmanos de él usando este formulario." -> "If you have found an error, please try and fix it yourself: wiki technology makes it so anyone can edit articles. Don't hesitate - one of Wikipedia's rules is "be bold!". If you can't or don't know how to fix the error, then let us know using this form." And then there are three buttons: edit the article yourself, report an error, or cancel. This actually might make people more rather than less likely to fix mistakes themselves. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- That sounds good. I would rather have a text like the above explaining to be bold, and fix it themselves, then a button to take them to the edit page, and even further down a pair of buttons to fill out an error form (which posts it on both a noticeboard and the talkpage? Or posts it on the talkpage, and puts a link on a noticeboard?), and a cancel button. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:41, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Bodnotbod -- Personally, I think that the more high quality article we have, the more likely people are to get interested in Wikipedia, and decide to contribute. So in my opinion, anything that provides a "shortcut" to improving the articles is a good thing, and will draw in more editors than forcing people to learn how to edit before they can contribute. Perhaps, to address your concern, we could include a link that says something equivalent to "Want to learn how to fix this sort of problem yourself?" which would take them to the edit page ... Anyhow, I don't see your issue as a very convincing reason to prevent this from being developed. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Strong support directly or via a trial. This is one of those "I can't BELIEVE we haven't thought of this before!" forehead-slapping features that should already have been in WP by now. Zunaid 18:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Strong support With an appropriate intro, this can only increase readership participation. Randomblue (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Support -- Excellent idea, which will enable an enormous number of currently uninvolved readers to contribute. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot Rd232. Some details:
- You forgot to translate this sentence:
Lee los <a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use" target="_blank">Terms of Use</a> y la <a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy" target="_blank">Privacy Policy</a>. It means "Read our Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy".
- page.replace(/^http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/(.+)$/, "$1") is en.wikipedia.org
- You forgot to translate this sentence:
- Regards. emijrp (talk) 11:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I note that "contact Wikipedia" is already there, and goes to Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem. It might be worth thinking about how these two tie together, and at what point in "report an error" we need to gently push people into using email for sensitive material. Shimgray | talk | 12:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I like it, it's just that...doesn't it take away the point of tutorials, FAQs, etc? --When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 13:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Status report? 86.196.177.105 (talk) 01:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Random Article - filter out the ugliest ducklings
I've used Wikipedia for several years, as an encyclopedia, and only recently got into editing. Seems to me the Random Article button is, or ought to be, primarily for non-editors, ppl who simply want to browse wiki as an encyclopedia, and not an editor's playground. The Random Article button throws up everything, from the best to the atrociously worst, which probably inclines most casual visitors to view Wikipedia as a "work in progress" - i.e. not yet up to snuff and therefore unreliable. Unworked articles negate the promotional quality of the Featured Article to some extent.How easy would it be to rename it as Random Edit - and then create a new Random Article button - for ppl who just want to read reasonable content, that filters out unworked articles/orphans/stubs. Seems simple enuf - one button for encyclopedia users - another for editors
Hope this is of interest. Markdask (talk) 03:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that the random article link isn't my favourite feature. I hadn't thought about this before, but your comment makes me wonder whether it would be better - from the point of view of the more casual visitor, rather than devoted editors - to use some combination of random good article and random featured article, both of which links that I only discovered through a mailing list and are currently services provided by the tools server. I think it is well worth discussing whether we should provide these links as part of the main interface. Random article really has two main audiences; devoted editors and casual readers. I don't think the current set-up really caters for both. --bodnotbod (talk) 09:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you Bod - and those two links are inaccessible to the general public for whom, presumably, Wikipedia exists. I have also posted to village pump (technical) on the subject, cos they are the people who can implement such changes. I have also registered it as a bug on Bugzilla so hopefully someone will come up with a more enduser friendly form of randomisation on the main page.
- Thanks again - Markdask (talk) 18:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks Xeno - takes a while to gt the hang of it - Markdask (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- But Wikipedia really is a work in progress, and it really is to a large extent unreliable; if we allow our readers to forget that, they may use the information in our articles uncritically and without paying attention for possible misinformation, wilful or accidental. In any case, it often happens that a reader turns into an editor by finding a low-quality article on a subject they know about—indeed, that's how we've got most of our editors. The "random article" button, as much as links, facilitates this process and thus aids the improvement of Wikipedia. Waltham, The Duke of 11:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- A very good argument Waltham - that was precisely how I myself became interested in editing, but I wasn't suggesting an all or nothing - I only mean to suggest that filtering the least worked, tatty, "in need of rewriting" might lessen the likely negative impact to the impression formed by the casual visitor. I think there should be more emphasis on the end product - the finished meal - and less on the sometimes chaotic preparation thereof. I would hope others will give my suggestion some further thought.
- Thanks for your comment - Markdask (talk) 18:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- You are welcome, Markdask. I do appreciate proposals such as this, as they will have us discuss things we take for granted, and perhaps help us learn a few things along the way. However, I remain unconvinced in this case. The practical objection is that any filtering would be fairly arbitrary and ineffective. I can only think of two ways to do it: a plain character count or a system based on quality assessments. The former would exclude pages based on size rather than quality, on one hand excluding many brief but essentially sound articles waiting for someone to expand them, and on the other hand leaving in many long but rambling articles. Working with quality assessments might be more effective, but not all articles are assessed, and there is the added danger that, rather than giving editors an incentive to expand stubs, it will encourage them to fraudulently upgrade the assessment so that the stubs will not be excluded from the "random article" button. Granted, this may be a stretch, but the purpose of quality classes is to aid editors, and not to affect the readers' experience; I'd hate to see this change.
- All that said, I still believe that we ought to maintain the status quo even if we could somehow overcome these technical obstacles. I believe a visitor is most likely to arrive at Wikipedia through either the Main Page or an article found as a search result on Google. The Main Page showcases one of the best articles and images we have to offer every day, as well as new little gems ("Did you know"), articles which have received much attention due to their subjects' being in the news, and articles that may not be special but do not have any major problems, either ("On this day"). I fancy that any visitor who doesn't already know about Wikipedia (given that the management of first impressions seem to be the primary motive behind your proposal) would either arrive directly at the Main Page or choose to go there from any article they might have seen first (rather than click on "random article"). Apart from the fact that we don't hide what Wikipedia is like, I hope and believe that visitors are more likely to see the better side of the project before any samples of the abysmal depths to which we sometimes sink. Waltham, The Duke of 22:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- To extend my argument, there is a link to the Featured content portal just two lines above the "random article" link. I consider it a good counter-weight, and I imagine that readers looking for something interesting and informative to read might think of checking what is there. As an added bonus, the examples given in the portal are generated randomly. Waltham, The Duke of 22:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wow Waltham, a lot to digest in the above, and thank you for so considered a response. I need to refine my argument/proposal extensively and, if you can bear further comment from me on the matter I will get back. MarkDask 03:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hit me with what you have, Markdask; I cannot exclude the small possibility that I'll be pleasantly surprised by a revised proposal which I can support (I'm afraid I have no ideas of my own on the matter). But I can say with some certainty that it will count in your favour not to refer to me as a disambiguation page. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 16:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oops sry Waltham, I did not intentionally refer to you as a disam.page. I am rather green with the markup, didn't even realise double sq brackets did that. I was highlighting your name as a courtesy, just as, in my response to his comments, below, I reproduced Intelligentsium's name as he writes it. I assumed such highlighting redirected to your user page.
- As for the revision, I hope to pleasantly surprise you shortly :)
- As an aside - the three words anyone can edit on the main page are perhaps the first portal the aspiring editor should go to - and yet they are lost in a sentence beneath the large Welcome print above. Could not those words be accentuated more? MarkDask03:08, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hit me with what you have, Markdask; I cannot exclude the small possibility that I'll be pleasantly surprised by a revised proposal which I can support (I'm afraid I have no ideas of my own on the matter). But I can say with some certainty that it will count in your favour not to refer to me as a disambiguation page. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 16:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- I've merged in a reply from the same thread at Wikipedia:VPT. It's probably technically possible to redesign the Random article button, what is needed is consensus as to whether it should be done (so I believe it's best suited here, at proposals). –xenotalk 18:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- Whilst we editors are normally not supposed to worry about server performance, I think it is a valid issue here. Special:Random is visited about 10 million times per day. Even a slight increase in the server resources needed to generate the Random Page could be magnified many times. Although I don't know how large an effect this would have on overall performance (it might only increase random page load times), it has already been proposed before here and rejected. Another issue that has come up is that some users do use it to find overlooked articles in need of improvement, including a Random page patrol. (As an aside, your bug is probably a duplicate of the one I linked.) Intelligentsium 19:00, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- You raise three points here Intelligentsium. I'll treat each point as a seperate comment for ease of reading. Firstly, of course server performance is important - I aint unaware of the fact - which is why I addressed the proposal to the (technical) section, but there might be a great deal gained. What I propose involves virtually no change to the existing Random Artical button beyond replacing the word Article with Edit - so no server performance issue there. Then duplicate the top end of the script as a standalone search option, labeled Random Article as before, but with a tiny amount of script added in the search criteria that excludes articles with certain key admin words at the top, e.g "multiple issues", "stub" or "rewriting". The filter script would be written in, just before the search generates the random article number. The filter would create an excluded article numbers database that then governs the random article number eventually generated. I imagine the filter would add milliseconds to each search and any "slowing down" due to the filter would be impossible for the casual visitor to detect. Also, creating two seperate Random buttons aint gonna double actual user volume, simply seperate out casual visitors from "wee editors". In fact the volume of traffic would decrease as casual users would score more worthwhile hits and therefore need to search less. I hope that lot makes sense to the (technical) intelligentsia. Second point follows - Markdask (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Secondly Intelligentsium, Just because someone else has proposed a similar change before dont necessarily mean the issue ought never be reconsidered, therefore please recline from the urge to throw my baby out with someone else's bathwater lol. More specifically, the here link is not the same proposal, merely refers to the same issue. That proposal is to censor content in Random search, which was bound to fail, whereas my proposal is simply to seperate out that content already deemed to have met Wiki standards from that content which patently has not, both categories still directly accessible but under two different headings - Random Article and Random Editing, therefore my bug is not a duplicate of the one you linked. My purpose here is not to censor but to enhance. - (breathe) - Markdask (talk) 12:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thirdly, "some users - overlooked articles" - you mean editors looking for overlooked articles - I think that more or less makes my point - filter out the "overlooked articles" so casual visitors to wikipedia don't have to keep tripping over them, and then the existing Random Article button, renamed Random Edit, remains for "some users" to go hunting for overlooked articles. I like the term "overlooked articles" - they are precisely what need to be overlooked by a more enduser-friendly Random Article button. Thanks for your comments Intelligentsium - Markdask (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps Bodnotbod (above) has the right idea - just move the random good article button from the editorial tools section to the mainpage, for non editors to access, although "good article" implies there are bad articles; perhaps just rename it Random Article, then rename the existing as Random editing,either way 2 Random buttons on main page - one for casual users and the other for editors. Further comments much appreciated. Markdask (talk) 12:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- I am of the opinion that something needs to get done with the random article button, how many times does a one sentence French commune come up when you press it? :-). I think it should show the casual reader what we have to offer, maybe not just featured articles as maybe they would frighten a new user who might not be competent with our many rules and regulations. Mo ainm~Talk 16:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- This aint exactly an argument in favour Mo ainm - the chances of getting the same article twice - ever - are infinitismally low - and the French commune is of at least novelty interest. It would be a mistake to conflate the argument for a filter with the terrifying idea of limiting the scope of wikimagic. I am suggesting filtering the more editorially challenging articles from the "shop window" of Random Article to minimise two potentially adverse influences, those being (a) giving the casual wikiuser the impression that wikipedia is amateurish and (b) that editing on wikipedia is simply a waste of time, like tossing a coin into a bottomless pit of dross. But your sentiment is bang on the money. Please keep talking :) MarkDask
- (edit conflict) The way I'm seeing this, the basic principle (removing the worst articles from the Random button) is an attractive one. But the specifics are difficult. Excluding stubs or basing what to avoid on the quality assessment both have pitfalls which The Duke of Waltham has explained excellently, and using the Random Good Article button would reduce the number of targets to a tiny proportion of the total. So how about this: filter out any article with an {{unsourced}} or {{BLP unsourced}} template on it (including other variations of each, of course)? This would limit the selection to articles with sources, which immediately solves one problem, without removing the thousands of reasonable-but-not-yet-Good articles. I don't how technically possible this is (one for Wikipedia:VPT perhaps) but it could be worth looking in to. Alzarian16 (talk) 16:37, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- Your filtering criteria are better than anything I have been able to come up with, and you are also right about it being a matter of specifics, pretty much as Waltham suggested, and I would hope we can leave the technicalities to Intelligentsium in the technical department,and couldn't the admin department who, presumably, decide matters of BLP and Copyright integrity come up with like a tag that they write in - like a codeword applied to each article to be temporarily filtered? Thank you for contributing Alzarian16. MarkDask
- To clarify, I am not a programmer or developer and do not have the technical expertise to actually code any of the suggestions outlined; I was only pointing to and summarizing past concerns over this proposal. If server lag is not an issue and we could have a separate link for editors patrolling random pages, then I might be in support of such a proposal (though I suggest we change the name of the link for common readers from "Random article" to something that conveys the article should be of good quality and/or that would attract the interest of readers, such as "Read an article" or "Suggested reading"). (As an aside, it's not necessary to copy my signature; my plain text username "Intelligentsium" or a link to my userpage is sufficient to refer to me) Intelligentsium 23:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- Your filtering criteria are better than anything I have been able to come up with, and you are also right about it being a matter of specifics, pretty much as Waltham suggested, and I would hope we can leave the technicalities to Intelligentsium in the technical department,and couldn't the admin department who, presumably, decide matters of BLP and Copyright integrity come up with like a tag that they write in - like a codeword applied to each article to be temporarily filtered? Thank you for contributing Alzarian16. MarkDask
- Okay yes toolserver is a dedicated portal so not an option - so why involve Mediawiki - which is itself subject/forum specific. Can you elabourate please? MarkDask
- Mediawiki is the name of the software that runs Wikipedia. Dragons flight (talk) 08:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Okay yes toolserver is a dedicated portal so not an option - so why involve Mediawiki - which is itself subject/forum specific. Can you elabourate please? MarkDask
- I don't see a great use for "random article", but removing any feature from a user interface because you don't see the use for it is always a recipe for trouble. Add a button or even a pull-down mini-menu if you feel you must, but don't remove features. Wnt (talk) 12:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nobody that I'm aware of was suggesting removing the Random Article button - the word removal is no part of this discussion MarkDask
- Lots of editors use it to do "Random article patrolling", e.g. Wikipedia:Random page patrol. I've found quite a few articles to improve, fix, or delete by hitting "Random article", and it can while away some time finding what we've got hidden out there (even if stubs of places are overrepresented). Fences&Windows 00:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- So maybe you would agree to rename the Random Article button as Random Edit, and a new button for ppl who don't want to keep bumping into articles in need of life-saving levels of editing :) MarkDask
- I sympathise with these points and remain unconvinced that the "random article" button should be replaced. However, I like Alzarian's proposal about excluding articles with major problems, based on their amboxes, which would have the additional benefit that any articles with the same problems but undeclared (i.e., no amboxes) could be tagged as soon as identified. If we do proceed with this at some point, I support this exclusion criterion (at least in principle). Waltham, The Duke of 09:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- The dual button to "replace" the Random Article button was a suggestion, but the concept of a filter to the Random Article was the initial proposal. Do I understand you correctly, that you now support the idea, at least in principle, of a filter to the Random Article button? I must say I am pleasantly surprised. I agree it should be the admin bods who define the criteria for the filter since they apply the amboxes. I suggested earlier that the admin ppl might create a code word they could write into their contribs to simplify the job for the technical ppl. Would that make sense? Mark Dask
- I'd favor one minor tweak, which is to require that an article be at least two weeks old to come up as a random article. This will eliminate most articles that have drawn a quick prod or deletion discussion. Alternately, we could prevent articles that are actually nominated for deletion from coming up. Other than that, I see no problem with short articles or stubs coming up, as they are representative of our content. bd2412 T 13:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed - although the two weeks should be as long as the admin ppl reckon it takes for a new article to be assessed. Nominated for deletion is another good criterion, and yeah stubs should not be filtered as they aint necessarily flawed as articles in themselves. Thanks for contributing MarkDask
- I suppose I could have been clearer about this, but here it goes: I do not currently support changing anything, because I have not seen any full proposals that I consider acceptable, but if we were to change something, I might support adding a second "random article" button—so that one of the two would still fulfil the function of the present button—and I'd prefer the filtering criteria of the other button to be as outlined above. The "in principle" was intended to be interpreted as "broadly", because the details would still have to be hammered out regarding the precise filters. As you can see, I still need much persuading; I am a bit conservative with regards to interface changes.
- On bd2412's proposals, I don't see excluding articles nominated for deletion as a priority (there's a big red box at the top showing that the article may not be there after a few days), although if we were to be consistent we'd probably have to include this in the quality criteria. The two-week delay sounds like a good idea, though it adds an extra layer of complexity which makes me a bit uncomfortable.
- To be perfectly clear this time: I am trying to make constructive suggestions, but all this is still conjecture for me. Waltham, The Duke of 16:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Okay Waltham I'm going to invest 5 hours, (over 5 days, described below) objectively scanning Random pages and see what percentages of the various categories show up. Then I'll try and bring together the various suggestions on this page into a more structured proposal. I did some data analysis for a psychology degree so it will hopefully be of some worth. MarkDask
- FYI I pressed the random article button 5 times and these were the "gems" that appeared George Richardson (footballer born 1891), Ričardas Šileika, Poniki, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Stockaryd and Gheorghe Gruia now combined we are given 11 sentences, some filter to stop these kind of pages really needs to be approved. Mo ainm~Talk 18:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Just out of curiosity I continued to press the random article button till I got what could be described as an article and after another 14 presses I got this Gary Stevens, so 19 times I had to press to get something that resembled an article. Mo ainm~Talk 18:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Aah some first hand research. I think it might be worth my time spending one hour per day for 5 days random clicking. I'll name and list every page I find under certain headings like (a)Place, (b)town, (c)person,(d)science, (e)art, and the other categories listed on the Welcome banner. Then I'll grade them 1 - 10 based on their fitness as articles, based on admin comments or their absence. Then I'll upload the overall to my talkpage. I have some experience with data collection and analysis. On that basis it might be easier to suggest what is or is not worth filtering. Of course this would be a much more worthwhile exercise if someone were to replicate it. Would you be interested Mo ainm? I can draft the actual sheet with tickboxes etc and I can just email it to whoever wants to give it a go :) MarkDask
- I'm afraid I have no time to assist with this collection of data, but it certainly looks like an interesting experiment. The rating sounds a bit subjective, but it might be better than a list of maintenance templates found in the articles.
- PS: Your last few signatures seem to lack time-stamps, Markdask. This could be the result of your using three rather than four tildes; if not, then I have no idea what it is. Waltham, The Duke of 21:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hmmm, so I've been reading this discussion and I've come to realize, what about the Random Edit button, if we do make it, having two functions-----1) Random Stub-----2) Random Edit-----This way we can choose whether we WANT or DON'T WANT to see a stub, after all, half the point of editing is taking OUT those stubs, right?--When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 23:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- If the articles that the Random Article tool returns are somehow embarassing, the solution is to do something about the articles (improve them or remove them), not to simply hide them from the public by making the random article link not actually random. This is why {{NOINDEX}} doesn't work on articles. If we don't want people to see something in mainspace, it simply shouldn't be in mainspace. Mr.Z-man 04:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Embarrassing??? You misread me - or I failed dismally to make my point. Casual users aint necessarily interested in editing. My proposal has one focus only - to make the casual users' experience more fruitful. If I want to read a random article I want to read about that specific random subject - not be thrown headlong into the chop shop that is editing - nothing to hide - just seperate the chop shop of editing from actual content - informational content. AND THAT IS POSSIBLE. This does not mean that Random Article should be uneditable, just needing a little makeup as opposed to open heart surgery. I will elabourate when I have fully swallowed your misapprehension but for now, we should want for mainspace to show a body of work - not body parts okay? Two buttons - one for casual user and the 2nd for editors. MarkDask 00:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, to be fair, the whole concept of Wikipedia basically revolves around the casual reader seeing an edit he/she could make, and making it. Wikipedia is a work in progress, after all. But I agree that adding two random article features, one to find an article where one can read about an interesting and well-written topic, and one to find an actual random article that may or may not need substantial improvement, would be a good idea (assuming this does not slow the entire wiki down appreciably/there are no other technical concerns), as I noted in my response above. Intelligentsium 01:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you Intelligentsium for putting my proposal in clearer terms than I have been able to do thus far. I would want to add one refinement to your comments nonetheless. Where you say well-written topic- it should still be editable, in keeping with core Wiki principle. I am currently running a test sampling of Random Article, graciously being replicated by Mo ainm~Talk, on the basis of which I hope to establish criteria with which to address the tech ppl. But I thought you were a techy. Can you reccommend someone who might advise me on how my proposed 2nd button might stress the system? Much obliged MarkDask 11:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, to be fair, the whole concept of Wikipedia basically revolves around the casual reader seeing an edit he/she could make, and making it. Wikipedia is a work in progress, after all. But I agree that adding two random article features, one to find an article where one can read about an interesting and well-written topic, and one to find an actual random article that may or may not need substantial improvement, would be a good idea (assuming this does not slow the entire wiki down appreciably/there are no other technical concerns), as I noted in my response above. Intelligentsium 01:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Every article should be ready for the general public from the very first edit. This is why we have CSD, to quickly remove articles that don't meet basic standards. If short or low-quality articles aren't actual content then they shouldn't be in mainspace at all. Mr.Z-man 03:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Every loaf of bread should look like bread - and not dough - when you go to buy bread. - the average wiki user wants to read stuff - not repair stuff - thanks MarkDask 11:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Again, if an article is totally devoid of any useful content, it shouldn't be in mainspace. If it isn't, then a reader may actually want to see it. You may not be especially interested in French villages or Israeli football players, but that doesn't mean no one is. Mr.Z-man 15:42, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, at least I know I have someone on my side (Intelligensuim thank you), but yes, we should probably get the random button to crop out what we want first, like you said Mark, then see if the two options are possible without slowing down the wikipedia server, but I imagine it can't since, if we program the system correctly, the server can pre-determine which of the articles are stubs and which are not, hopefully causing no extra lag rather than trying to get it to determine it in real time.The only problem with that is that since stubs and non-stubs are made everyday, an admin would have to run a scan of Wikipedia every few days, but that's manageable I think. And if all the admins are (although I really don't think every one will do so at all) just too lazy to do it, then give the programming to me or another editor if you don't trust me, and I'll try to run the program through C++ (If that's possible, what DO you guys use anyway). And yes, before you SAY IT, I know how long it would probably take to scan Wikipedia. --When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 10:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I dont see why two buttons should slow the system significantly but I'm hoping to speak with a technician shortly to get an answer. As for admin ppl having to scan the system - that already happens automatically when new articles are labeled initially as being, e.g., needs expansion. I am saying that some of those comments should include a marker of some type that excludes the article number from the Random Article counter that runs automatically when u click the button. - It doesn't help to suggest that any admin is lazy. To get an idea of what these guys use as software - check out EncMstr's page MarkDask 19:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- ...Well, crap, there goes my chance at semi-admin abilities. I thought the admins did it themselves (they have the manpower to do it without an auto system anyway), but I guess that failed. Wikipedia has a bunch of stuff on it already, an extra button shouldn't slow down the server, so I have to take that back too >,>. However, as a side note, we should also consider unreferenced articles as stubs too, just putting that out there. Well, I'm gonna go and experiment with this programming system, see if I can get anywhere.--Mr. High School Student 01:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I dont see why two buttons should slow the system significantly but I'm hoping to speak with a technician shortly to get an answer. As for admin ppl having to scan the system - that already happens automatically when new articles are labeled initially as being, e.g., needs expansion. I am saying that some of those comments should include a marker of some type that excludes the article number from the Random Article counter that runs automatically when u click the button. - It doesn't help to suggest that any admin is lazy. To get an idea of what these guys use as software - check out EncMstr's page MarkDask 19:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Every loaf of bread should look like bread - and not dough - when you go to buy bread. - the average wiki user wants to read stuff - not repair stuff - thanks MarkDask 11:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm that Middle Eastern Junior at my school that is known as the greatest nerd in my grade (3rd overall), but is gladly pround of it, knows his science, math, programming, and is one of the last ones in the upper school that still games. And because I'm Pakistani I'm picked on DOUBLE than anybody like me. However, my real tragic flaw is English: I have all A's (plus they're all honors with 1 AP) except in English (77...I know, I'm trying to improve but I can't. It's kind of sad really, I'm getting this grade in CP English. So I think you wouldn't help, I'll get better eventually. Anyway, back to the TOPIC, what's your take on what I ACTUALLY SAID?--When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 13:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Embarrassing??? You misread me - or I failed dismally to make my point. Casual users aint necessarily interested in editing. My proposal has one focus only - to make the casual users' experience more fruitful. If I want to read a random article I want to read about that specific random subject - not be thrown headlong into the chop shop that is editing - nothing to hide - just seperate the chop shop of editing from actual content - informational content. AND THAT IS POSSIBLE. This does not mean that Random Article should be uneditable, just needing a little makeup as opposed to open heart surgery. I will elabourate when I have fully swallowed your misapprehension but for now, we should want for mainspace to show a body of work - not body parts okay? Two buttons - one for casual user and the 2nd for editors. MarkDask 00:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose changing the random article functionality. Support adding a "Random Good Article" button that chooses only from GA/FA. I like to use the random functionality to find articles to improve, so I definitely would not like it to be filtered. We want more people to see our ugly ducklings, not less. However a feature to give a sample of the best would be nice too. --Cyclopiatalk 11:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- If we are going to call it random article then that's what it should be. I quite like the idea of enabling readers to choose to hit a different button that picks random articles of at least a certain level of quality. But if we skew the random article button to tend to show our better articles we will eventually be castigated for trying to give a false impression of our article quality. Incidentally this is something that would really benefit from statistics, what proportion of those ten million random article hits are followed up by an edit to that article and how does that compare with our sucess at turning other casual readers into editors?ϢereSpielChequers 14:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- As Pontillist describes below - there are a percentage of articles that should be recognised as having died a natural death. When an article is plastered with multiple issues tags, by all means leave the corpse lying around to stink the place out but at least there should now be a tag that admins can apply that automatically excludes dead articles from the casual user experience. That aint likely to be interpreted as skewing the Random Article concept - thats just cleaning house. Random Article should be about articles with at least the ghost of a chance of surviving. The analysis you propose might be possible to work into what I proposed earlier by entering last edit date as one of the criteria. - I can do that but that level of number crunching would need better skills than I possess - and how would one quantify casual readers who opt to edit? MarkDask 00:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Quite the opposite. The "Random Article" feature can help give these articles visibility, and therefore a chance for improvement. Multiple issues tags mean exactly that the article has to be improved. If we really must skew the RA feature, I'd give priority to visualize more of the problematic articles. We are a work in progress, and we shouldn't be ashamed of that: we should encourage people to work on our problematic articles. --Cyclopiatalk 00:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for the quick response. So you think the casual user should be thrown in at the deep end. RA should remain editable of course, thus encouraging new editors, but would they not have more choice with a second - RE button for those who want to get straight into the tough stuff. We should not be ashamed of any article - but neither would it hurt to have two levels of editing available to the prospective editor. It takes time to learn the markup - daunting if you jump in with both feet. I note you are a member of AIW and I appreciate the principles.MarkDask 00:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Quite the opposite. The "Random Article" feature can help give these articles visibility, and therefore a chance for improvement. Multiple issues tags mean exactly that the article has to be improved. If we really must skew the RA feature, I'd give priority to visualize more of the problematic articles. We are a work in progress, and we shouldn't be ashamed of that: we should encourage people to work on our problematic articles. --Cyclopiatalk 00:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- As Pontillist describes below - there are a percentage of articles that should be recognised as having died a natural death. When an article is plastered with multiple issues tags, by all means leave the corpse lying around to stink the place out but at least there should now be a tag that admins can apply that automatically excludes dead articles from the casual user experience. That aint likely to be interpreted as skewing the Random Article concept - thats just cleaning house. Random Article should be about articles with at least the ghost of a chance of surviving. The analysis you propose might be possible to work into what I proposed earlier by entering last edit date as one of the criteria. - I can do that but that level of number crunching would need better skills than I possess - and how would one quantify casual readers who opt to edit? MarkDask 00:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Statistics like that are incredibly difficult to interpret, bearing in mind that edits from IP addresses include contributions from registered editors who aren't logged in. For logged-in editors, of course random article should be random because it's a good way to find areas for improvement or deletion. I just clicked it and found an unreferenced article where the last actual edit was May 2007 and everything since then has been a tag (Wikify @ Feb 2008, Prose and Unreferenced @ Nov 2008, Orphan @ April 2010). I can't see how that sort of stub is helpful to inexperienced readers, even if it is plastered with multiple issues tags, so I think that if you aren't logged in either (a) random article should point to known good stuff or (b) the button should be replaced with a "best of Wikipedia" link to a randomly selected FA or GA. - Pointillist (talk) 20:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- This sounds like we're getting off the point a bit - would it not be simpler to think in terms of any article with three tags is flagged for exclusion from the Random Article button, while Random Edit button is ALL inclusive, even the dead ducks. Perhaps this is too simplistic but it can hardly be that difficult for the techies to come up with a patch in the search process that simply skates over any article showing three tags. 2 buttons, Random Article and Random Edit, or one could choose Cyclopia's options of Random Article and Random Good Article. It should be for the admin ppl to elect the criteria for exclusion, and most of the above contributors seem to favour the concept in one form or another. MarkDask 00:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, that's my argument in a nutshell, except one thing. As you said we should have the Random Article button to take out stubs (and non-referenced) articles out of the picture, but the flaw I see, as I've ALSO said this earlier, making the Random Article button have a part of Wikipedia, while the Random Edit button have ALL of it. This would make it possible that you can get the same article result from both buttons, and that would take away some of the point of two separate buttons, no?--Mr. High School Student 01:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Some stubs and unreffed can be well-written so I dont support filtering them. What I think need filtering are the badly written articles with admin tags like multiple issues, but only the really bad, - as in the title of this proposal, the ugliest ducklings. As for same articles possible in both buttons, - the whole point here is to afford the casual user two levels of editing options - the first, RA, invites the casual user to edit on a relatively easy level, while the RE button is anything possible. I consider that the worst articles are off-putting to the prospective editor. MarkDask 02:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, that's my argument in a nutshell, except one thing. As you said we should have the Random Article button to take out stubs (and non-referenced) articles out of the picture, but the flaw I see, as I've ALSO said this earlier, making the Random Article button have a part of Wikipedia, while the Random Edit button have ALL of it. This would make it possible that you can get the same article result from both buttons, and that would take away some of the point of two separate buttons, no?--Mr. High School Student 01:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- This sounds like we're getting off the point a bit - would it not be simpler to think in terms of any article with three tags is flagged for exclusion from the Random Article button, while Random Edit button is ALL inclusive, even the dead ducks. Perhaps this is too simplistic but it can hardly be that difficult for the techies to come up with a patch in the search process that simply skates over any article showing three tags. 2 buttons, Random Article and Random Edit, or one could choose Cyclopia's options of Random Article and Random Good Article. It should be for the admin ppl to elect the criteria for exclusion, and most of the above contributors seem to favour the concept in one form or another. MarkDask 00:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I have never meant to suggest that (ALL) tagged articles should be filtered out – that would be plain daft. Most tags are constructive suggestions for further editing – most ducklings are kinda cute. Random Article should refer to articles which more or less meet wiki standards, whether or not they have one or two tags that offer guidance for improvement.
- Where an article has, say, three tags however, suggests that it does not much meet with Wikipedia standards and ought therefore be placed in a separate category – Random Edit – where all articles are randomly accessible, thereby offering the user two different levels for editing, and simultaneously tidying up casual user use. The term Filter out has censorial connotations and I regret using it. Better if I had initially used something like Split edit level by number of tags, but the argument still stands.
- As for your Random FA button, there is already a link to more FA beneath, which is duplicated by, identical to, the Featured Content button at top, and now you wanna randomize FA as well? I don’t think so. MarkDask 05:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Species bot
I would like get the community opinion on this bot approval request to create approx. 10,000 Gastropods species and genera articles based on data downloaded from the WoRMS database. The articles will be created after each family is approved by the Gastropods project. Alvania and Alvania angularis are two sample articles that the bot created. Thanks in advance for your feedback. — Ganeshk (talk) 02:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)- Awesome. bd2412 T 14:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Very, very cool, might want to get help from similar species projects and figure out a way to get that stuff on WikiSpecies, Sadads (talk) 14:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Not sure about the Description and Distribution sections in Alvania angularis, each flagged {{Empty section}}. The WoRMs record does actually contain distribution details: "European waters (ERMS scope)", with a popup reference and a link to the VLIZ Marine Gazetteer definition (here). Isn't there a way to bring across this rich distribution info automatically? - Pointillist (talk) 14:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Sweet! I say, go for it. --mav (reviews needed) 13:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- To me this sounds like a great idea, I was impressed with the sample article I looked at, and I don't think this question/concern should be taken as not supporting the idea. But one thought/concern: does the source data ever change (creation / updates / deletions)? If so, given that it appears there is a lot of it, how can those changes be detected and populated in the Wikipedia articles? It would seem at first glance that a large set of auto-generated articles like this might be very hard to maintain. I.e., once there are a few manual edits, automatic bot updates (if desired) could become much harder. David Hollman (Talk) 11:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- The bot may not be able to update the actual articles, but it can alert editors about the changes. For example this week, I did a compare of all the bot-created with WoRMS and created the Wikipedia:WikiProject Gastropods/Unaccepted page. The page lists all the species that have an unaccepted status at WoRMS (where the status has changed from accepted to unaccepted). Similar checks can be done on taxonomy and other fields. Humans can then update the articles to keep them in sync with WoRMS. — Ganeshk (talk) 11:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- If the bot updated the talk page periodically with any required diffs that could be a good method to keep track of things. Anyway sounds like if the differences are possible to identify you won't have any major problems knowing about changes. Sounds good to me (whatever that is worth). David Hollman (Talk) 19:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- The bot may not be able to update the actual articles, but it can alert editors about the changes. For example this week, I did a compare of all the bot-created with WoRMS and created the Wikipedia:WikiProject Gastropods/Unaccepted page. The page lists all the species that have an unaccepted status at WoRMS (where the status has changed from accepted to unaccepted). Similar checks can be done on taxonomy and other fields. Humans can then update the articles to keep them in sync with WoRMS. — Ganeshk (talk) 11:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Very impressive, we need more people like you on Wikipedia. There may be some flaws in the beginning with this I easily suspect, but hopefully those will get fixed.--When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 11:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I like the genus entry but I'm concerned about the individual species articles - when all's said and done, Alvania angularis merely states "this is a species of X, it is called Y, here is a link to database Z", all of which information is already present in the index at Alvania. I'd be opposed to creating a large number of individual species articles until we can add some definite content to them, more than simply restating the metadata. Perhaps run the bot only for genuses, and create redirects for species names for the time being? Shimgray | talk | 12:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Shimgray, The gastropods project team has been adding additional information to these individual species articles. They would add images and distribution information to start with. For example, there are more images of snails on Commons than there are articles for them on Wikipedia. Expanding all the stubs into full length articles will take years. Human editors on the gastropods project have been creating similar one-liner stubs for years. It is tedious and repetitive; they would like to spend time on expanding articles than starting them. — Ganeshk (talk) 14:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree entirely that having a "preformed" article to expand from is better than starting from scratch - the problem here is that in order to help the editor who eventually writes the article, we're creating an awful lot of pseudo-articles that really don't have significant independent content until that person gets around to it, and so aren't of much use to the readers. There are a few possibilities to get around this - would it be possible, for example, to create the blank entry as a hidden comment to a redirect? This would mean that the content is all there for the editor, but we don't leave ten thousand essentially unwritten articles lying around in the mainspace. Shimgray | talk | 18:57, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Shimgray, I like your idea. This could be our plan B. — Ganeshk (talk) 16:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't buy that stubiform entries aren't useful. They verify existence, give editors a non-redlink to link to, and include at least a modicum of information. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree entirely that having a "preformed" article to expand from is better than starting from scratch - the problem here is that in order to help the editor who eventually writes the article, we're creating an awful lot of pseudo-articles that really don't have significant independent content until that person gets around to it, and so aren't of much use to the readers. There are a few possibilities to get around this - would it be possible, for example, to create the blank entry as a hidden comment to a redirect? This would mean that the content is all there for the editor, but we don't leave ten thousand essentially unwritten articles lying around in the mainspace. Shimgray | talk | 18:57, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Shimgray, The gastropods project team has been adding additional information to these individual species articles. They would add images and distribution information to start with. For example, there are more images of snails on Commons than there are articles for them on Wikipedia. Expanding all the stubs into full length articles will take years. Human editors on the gastropods project have been creating similar one-liner stubs for years. It is tedious and repetitive; they would like to spend time on expanding articles than starting them. — Ganeshk (talk) 14:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Alternative versions of articles
Wikipedia articles need a tab named "Alternate Versions." When a user clicks on it, she accesses alternate articles on that topic.A cool feature would be the ability to look at alternate versions according to how its consensus self-identifies. For example, in reading the article on Jerusalem I might want to see the consensus Muslim version (i.e. what Muslim editors agreed upon as neutral, reliable, etc.). And, I might be very interested in comparing that to the consensus version among Jewish or Christian editors. Or I might want to compare versions of Jerusalem written by residents of the Middle East to that written by residents of North America. And, it would be interesting to compare those versions to the main consensus version. In order to this, self-identification would have to involve more than a User box. Accounts would need some sort of logged profile for Users (totally optional, of course), to correspond to how the alternate versions of articles are flagged.
It would reduce edit warring. Wikipedia is a battleground because everybody believes their version of reality is the right one. Nobody goes around thinking "I'm deluded." Yet, we all disagree about many things, sometimes in a way that suggests one of us must lack the grasp on reality that our happiness requires. Wikipedia allows limited outlet for everyone to be right. There is one version of a topic that is presented at any one time, and only one version. Allowing multiple versions would better reflect the uncertain and diverse nature of knowledge. It would relieve pressure that leads to edit-warring. Perhaps most importantly, it would interesting. It would be educational. It would provide readers with more information about what lies beneath the surface of any topic. It would be inclusive.
It would also help address Systemic bias. Noloop (talk) 17:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Bad idea. That's a can of worms that we don't have enough manpower to monitor, who determines what goes in the alternate "scholarly" view then? Sadads (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, and then we are no longer a encyclopedia or neutral, see Wikipedia:Five Pillars, Sadads (talk) 17:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- God no, goes against everything we stand for. We aren't here to pamper to every special interest group, we are here to provide a summary of subjects based on reliable sources. --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not Knol. We should thus not be adding technical features designed to encourage content forking. --Allen3 talk 17:15, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- Not a good idea at all. Completely against the spirit of Wikipedia:POV, and it would encourage Wikipedia:POVFORK-ing. A better suggestion might be to propose a new wiki where particularly POV issues can be written about in multiple ways, but I doubt it'll catch on. Alzarian16 (talk) 17:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- It's been brought up before, and unsurprisingly rejected. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- IMO NPOV is based on Scientific Method. Paleontology describes experimental and historical science. --Philcha (talk) 18:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- I like the motivation behind the proposal, but it would be a real can of worms. In the end, it would reduce to everyone having his pet version of the article, disgregating work completely. An alternative wiki could be an idea: good luck with that (sincerely). --Cyclopiatalk 18:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
- No Wikipedia:POVFORKs; full stop. Perhaps you would prefer Wikinfo. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:00, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- Agree w/ the above. Coming to some sort of agreement and arguing your points is one of the challenges of wikipedia, but also what keeps it alive. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- White supremacists (Metapedia) and the Christian right (Conservapedia) already have their own playgrounds masquerading as encyclopedias. I see no reason for Wikipedia to host more such monstrosities. Fences&Windows 00:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- It would be educational to go to Jerusalem and see how Muslims write such an article and how Jews write it. That's not a desire for a POV-fork, that's a desire for a kind of knowledge. Noloop (talk) 00:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- These "kinds" of knowledge are called POVs. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- POVs can possibly be documented in neutral articles, eg X's view of Y. That would be the Wikipedia way (assuming the topic is sourceable - Wikipedia:SYNTH would be a hazard). Rd232 talk 00:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- These "kinds" of knowledge are called POVs. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
- It would be educational to go to Jerusalem and see how Muslims write such an article and how Jews write it. That's not a desire for a POV-fork, that's a desire for a kind of knowledge. Noloop (talk) 00:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per all above especially Cybercobra. Kayau Voting IS evil C U NEXT YEAR 13:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikinfo has already been doing this, more or less, since 2003. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Where are the alternate versions on wikiinfo? I looked at their article on God [6], a logical candidate for an alternate views article.
- I don't agree that it would violate any neutral point of view guideline. There are already non-English wikipedias; by nature they will be somewhat culture specific and differ substantially from this one. Either they all may have a neutral POV, or none do. The consensus process tends to equate "average" with "neutral", which is a fallacy. Noloop (talk) 01:28, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikinfo is open to alternative views, but it needs actual people to put them in. So far there's been a shortage. Peter jackson (talk) 15:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- It would violate NPOV becasue the pages would be writen from a POV. Cultural bias is a problom, but having multiple pages oin one subject (bhow many by the way lets take Gaza Flotila. Jewish, Muslim, Chrisitan, British, Turkish, American, Passangers, IDF, NGO's amd uncle tom cobbly and all. It would be a mess. Also it would not really adress your real concearn. We would still need to have an offical page, which wouod still represent the POV coonsensus you are concearned about. The proper place for alternative POV is on the page in question.Slatersteven (talk) 15:11, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- "There are already non-English wikipedias; by nature they will be somewhat culture specific and differ substantially from this one." That might be true, but that doesn't mean we want that to be the case. We should fight against cultural and systemic bias, not accept it. The purpose of Wikipedia being in multiple languages is simply for comprehension, not to allow each country/culture to present their preferred version of reality. Wikinfo has "sympathetic POV", with opposing views put on another page. The end result is not appealing, and the site has been ignored by most people. Noloop, this idea is sunk: don't waste any more time arguing for it. Fences&Windows 01:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Arguing? Waste? What happened to "interesting discussion"? I don't really think the idea has been understood. It's not that there should be pages that push a POV. It's that different communities will have different versions of reality--and many can be right. An article on Jerusalem written by North Americans will differ from one written by Middle Easterners, and the knowledge of the difference is worth having. Such knowledge is currently lost. That doesn't mean such articles would push a POV. Think of it in terms of color. Having one consensus version of a topic is like presenting the world in black and white. Having multiple articles is presenting a spectrum. Noloop (talk) 03:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- No, one article should say that there N points of view. Otherwise we may end up with N forks. And if some of the POVs can't take the heat, they could stay out of the kitchen. --Philcha (talk) 03:45, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- I cant stand this idea that "everyone has the right to their opinion" and it is "neutral" if we present them all and not neutral if we exclude someone's beliefs. What's even worse is when people say this is a "liberal" belief. It isnt being liberal, its being ignorant. There are facts, the world is flat, gravity exists, and yes evolution is real (and no Obama is not a Muslim). We dont need to allow each and every fringe idea their own article to put forth their claim that the US did not go to the moon and that Iraq was indeed involved in 9/11 (and had weapons of mass destruction too!). "In Science, any compromise between a correct statement and a wrong statement is a wrong statement."- by User:Stephan Schulz, pulled from User talk:JzG. Instead of trying to end POV edit wars by giving everyone a compromise and a say we need to stand up and say "we are an encyclopedia based on reality and scientific understand of the world" just like every respectable encyclopedia out there.Camelbinky (talk) 03:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes. Good articles might indicate the "uncertain and diverse nature of knowledge" (if it is significant to the topic), and might even cover any significant alternative viewpoints, but only with regard to due weight. And some "alternative viewpoints" might be covered as topics in their own right (e.g., Moon landing conspiracy theories), but that does not justify adopting them. If different communities have different viewpoints, and they are significant enough (see Wikipedia:WEIGHT), then possibly the article should cover that ("color"). That does not warrant giving fringe theories the equal standing. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't propose anything about fringe theories. Noloop (talk) 01:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- The Japanese bow. Most of the world shakes hands. Do the Japanese therefore believe in the "fringe theory" that bowing is the proper greeting? Noloop (talk) 01:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- No becasue they are not theroies they are actual physical acts. The mayans bleived that tearing peoples hearts out would appease the Sun, is that a fringe theory?Should we have that as an alterantive page in the mechanics of the solor system?Slatersteven (talk) 11:55, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- The Japanese bow. Most of the world shakes hands. Do the Japanese therefore believe in the "fringe theory" that bowing is the proper greeting? Noloop (talk) 01:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't propose anything about fringe theories. Noloop (talk) 01:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes. Good articles might indicate the "uncertain and diverse nature of knowledge" (if it is significant to the topic), and might even cover any significant alternative viewpoints, but only with regard to due weight. And some "alternative viewpoints" might be covered as topics in their own right (e.g., Moon landing conspiracy theories), but that does not justify adopting them. If different communities have different viewpoints, and they are significant enough (see Wikipedia:WEIGHT), then possibly the article should cover that ("color"). That does not warrant giving fringe theories the equal standing. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:42, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I cant stand this idea that "everyone has the right to their opinion" and it is "neutral" if we present them all and not neutral if we exclude someone's beliefs. What's even worse is when people say this is a "liberal" belief. It isnt being liberal, its being ignorant. There are facts, the world is flat, gravity exists, and yes evolution is real (and no Obama is not a Muslim). We dont need to allow each and every fringe idea their own article to put forth their claim that the US did not go to the moon and that Iraq was indeed involved in 9/11 (and had weapons of mass destruction too!). "In Science, any compromise between a correct statement and a wrong statement is a wrong statement."- by User:Stephan Schulz, pulled from User talk:JzG. Instead of trying to end POV edit wars by giving everyone a compromise and a say we need to stand up and say "we are an encyclopedia based on reality and scientific understand of the world" just like every respectable encyclopedia out there.Camelbinky (talk) 03:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- No, one article should say that there N points of view. Otherwise we may end up with N forks. And if some of the POVs can't take the heat, they could stay out of the kitchen. --Philcha (talk) 03:45, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Arguing? Waste? What happened to "interesting discussion"? I don't really think the idea has been understood. It's not that there should be pages that push a POV. It's that different communities will have different versions of reality--and many can be right. An article on Jerusalem written by North Americans will differ from one written by Middle Easterners, and the knowledge of the difference is worth having. Such knowledge is currently lost. That doesn't mean such articles would push a POV. Think of it in terms of color. Having one consensus version of a topic is like presenting the world in black and white. Having multiple articles is presenting a spectrum. Noloop (talk) 03:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Change /r/ in English IPA transcriptions to /ɹ/
I bet this has been proposed before, but I think that Wikipedia should stop using /r/ (the symbol for the alveolar trill) in IPA transcriptions of English, and replace it with /ɹ/ (the symbol for the alveolar approximant). For example, I think that "Barack Obama" should be transcribed /bəˈɹɑːk oʊˈbɑːmə/, not /bəˈrɑːk oʊˈbɑːmə/. Here's my thinking:- It's accurate. The vast majority of (native) English speakers use /ɹ/, not /r/. Few dialects use the trill. Even if you're going for a broad transcription of English, it makes more sense to use /ɹ/.
- It keeps things specific. I don't think that /r/ should be able to stand for multiple sounds, depending on context. It goes against the point of the IPA, and it can be confusing. Using /ɹ/ isn't confusing.
- I don't see any reason not to use /ɹ/.
- Aaaah - I have loved the English language as a quintessential instrument of human expression from the year dot, ala (Milton), but I definitely don't know as much about it as you appear to. I'm sure we can both agree that language is organic, so here's my take on your proposal - an upside down r is an upside down r. I hope this helps :) MarkDask
- Looking at the articles on Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/ɹ/ and Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/r/ (disambiguate not to select the important option for the 4chan board name) and listening to their sounds, it seems like you are right. And yet when I look up your proposed ɚ, I am led to an article that synonymizes it with "vocalic /r/", and uses "/r/" extensively in the text. This throws a sour note into the arrangement - but if you can explain that issue, then maybe it's time to implement your idea. Wnt (talk) 23:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- I honestly think that the article on ɚ that synonymizes it with "vocalic /r/" is just another example of the way Wikipedia uses "Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/r/" to refer to the Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/ɹ/ sound. The r-colored vowels used in some dialects of English (mainly /ɚ/ and /ɝ/) are vocalic versions of /ɹ/, definitely not /r/. They have nothing to do with the trilled /r/, so whatever we end up doing, we shouldn't write them using "/r/." Writing these r-colored vowels as /ɚ/ and /ɝ/, /əɹ/ and /ɜɹ/, or even /ə/ and /ɜ/ (their typical pronunciation by non-rhotic speakers) is simply more accurate. And yes, Markdask, an upside down r is an upside down r. Skrodl 17:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- So does anyone take issue with the idea? Why don't we implement it? (Sorry if I'm being obnoxious; I'm just a bit impatient.) Skrodl (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think this is extremely annoying. You appear to be right, which is the most annoying thing of all. The reason that it's annoying is that 95% of readers will have no idea what the upside-down r signifies. Too bad IPA didn't make the approximant the one with the normal-looking letter. --Trovatore (talk) 00:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- And this is why we have respelling pronunciations. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think this is extremely annoying. You appear to be right, which is the most annoying thing of all. The reason that it's annoying is that 95% of readers will have no idea what the upside-down r signifies. Too bad IPA didn't make the approximant the one with the normal-looking letter. --Trovatore (talk) 00:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- So does anyone take issue with the idea? Why don't we implement it? (Sorry if I'm being obnoxious; I'm just a bit impatient.) Skrodl (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- I honestly think that the article on ɚ that synonymizes it with "vocalic /r/" is just another example of the way Wikipedia uses "Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/r/" to refer to the Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/ɹ/ sound. The r-colored vowels used in some dialects of English (mainly /ɚ/ and /ɝ/) are vocalic versions of /ɹ/, definitely not /r/. They have nothing to do with the trilled /r/, so whatever we end up doing, we shouldn't write them using "/r/." Writing these r-colored vowels as /ɚ/ and /ɝ/, /əɹ/ and /ɜɹ/, or even /ə/ and /ɜ/ (their typical pronunciation by non-rhotic speakers) is simply more accurate. And yes, Markdask, an upside down r is an upside down r. Skrodl 17:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- Looking at the articles on Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/ɹ/ and Wikipedia:Village pump (all)/r/ (disambiguate not to select the important option for the 4chan board name) and listening to their sounds, it seems like you are right. And yet when I look up your proposed ɚ, I am led to an article that synonymizes it with "vocalic /r/", and uses "/r/" extensively in the text. This throws a sour note into the arrangement - but if you can explain that issue, then maybe it's time to implement your idea. Wnt (talk) 23:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
- Aaaah - I have loved the English language as a quintessential instrument of human expression from the year dot, ala (Milton), but I definitely don't know as much about it as you appear to. I'm sure we can both agree that language is organic, so here's my take on your proposal - an upside down r is an upside down r. I hope this helps :) MarkDask
- Practically all books teaching English as a foreign language use the /r/, not /ɹ/ symbol. It's a long standing tradition in rendering English in IPA. True, [ɹ] is more frequently heard than [r], but it is never a phonemic distinction, so using /r/ is not incorrect. Technically /ɹ/ might have been a better choice, but it does not serve a purpose for WP to deviate from common practice. −Woodstone (talk) 15:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- This should be at WT:IPA for English, not here.
- In a broad transcription, it is common for Roman letters to be used where possible. See the IPA Handbook, p. 28.
- On Wikipedia, it is easier to enter Roman characters (which can be done directly from the keyboard) rather than IPA characters, which must be entered by a more convoluted method.
- Not everyone uses [ɹ] for /r/. Many rhotic accents use [ɻ]. In Southern England, it has become quite common to hear [ʋ]. Some accents have [ɾ] as an allophone.
- I don't think that /r/ should be able to stand for multiple sounds, depending on context. It goes against the point of the IPA, and it can be confusing. Not correct. Please review the notion of the Phoneme. A phoneme, by definition, can "stand for multiple sounds, depending on context". And the IPA explicitly allows use of the IPA for phonemic transcriptions, within slashes (//). See the IPA handbook reference I pointed to earlier. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- What you're saying is true. I guess I had the false impression that the current system that the IPA uses for English could lead to ambiguity, but now that I read what you're saying, I can see that's not true. I guess there's nothing wrong with using /r/ for English. (And sorry that I submitted this at the wrong place; I'm not an experienced Wikipedia editor.) Skrodl (talk) 23:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- It's just because it's English, english in general can be contradictory and confusing almost all the tim--When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 11:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
The phrase "an obvious reference"
I propose that you Wikipedia types run a search-and-replace on the entire wiki and change "an obvious reference" to "a reference." You should do this for two reasons:- "An obvious reference" means that the reference was obvious to the author, making it a clear case of OR.
- The phrase is incredibly obnoxious, as it essentially boils down to the author telling the rest of the world that he's proud of himself for getting the reference. This makes me want to punch him.
- That's one of dozens of poor wordings listed in Wikipedia:EDITORIAL. Editors are welcome to fix 'em when they find 'em, and I think there are some semi-automated tools (Wikipedia:AWB, etc.) that could help but that I have not used. I think around 200–500 pages are affected by this specific wording. I doubt this wording rises to the level of a "we'd better do a search-and-replace across the whole wiki right away!" urgency though. DMacks (talk) 16:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Doing with AWB, will find and replace ones that don't help the meaning of the sentence, Sadads (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Though, would it staying help make a better identifier for OR? Pausing AWB activity, to wait for input Sadads (talk) 16:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that the phrase is not encyclopedic and I'm fine with you removing "obvious". While removing, may want to tag with {{OR}} or try to find a reference, though I suspect the latter is unlikely since individual allusions aren't often reported upon. I venture to claim many of these are trivial homages, though some describe the reference to explain parts of plots. However, I don't actually think editors are always trying to boast that they understood the allusion, but rather genuinely believe that the reference is apparent for people familiar with the other work. —Ost (talk) 18:37, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- If there is no more input, I will commence in removing statement and adding {{OR}} to the pages in which the statement is made without a reference, Sadads (talk) 13:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- My only caution would be to take care that you don't change (or tag) any instances of the phrase that are part of quotations from a source. Otherwise I don't see why there would be a problem with updating this phrasing to something more appropriate wherever it appears. --RL0919 (talk) 13:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- If there is no more input, I will commence in removing statement and adding {{OR}} to the pages in which the statement is made without a reference, Sadads (talk) 13:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that the phrase is not encyclopedic and I'm fine with you removing "obvious". While removing, may want to tag with {{OR}} or try to find a reference, though I suspect the latter is unlikely since individual allusions aren't often reported upon. I venture to claim many of these are trivial homages, though some describe the reference to explain parts of plots. However, I don't actually think editors are always trying to boast that they understood the allusion, but rather genuinely believe that the reference is apparent for people familiar with the other work. —Ost (talk) 18:37, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Though, would it staying help make a better identifier for OR? Pausing AWB activity, to wait for input Sadads (talk) 16:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Doing with AWB, will find and replace ones that don't help the meaning of the sentence, Sadads (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Done I have taken care of this in mainspace, didn't touch anything archived or files or talk pages, Sadads (talk) 04:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree in principal that the term "a reference to...." is adequate and perhaps preferable to "an obvious reference to..."
- On the other hand, I want to comment on this comment:
- ....propose that you Wikipedia types run a search-and-replace on the entire wiki and change "an obvious reference" to "a reference." You should do this for two reasons:
- 1."An obvious reference" means that the reference was obvious to the author, making it a clear case of OR.
- 2.The phrase is incredibly obnoxious, as it essentially boils down to the author telling the rest of the world that he's proud of himself for getting the reference. This makes me want to punch him.
- I find this "incredibly obnoxious" and presumptuous. The term "an obvious reference to..." does not necessarily mean:
- That the statement is a clear case of OR.
- Neither does it necessarily mean author [is] telling the rest of the world that he's proud of himself for getting the reference.
- It can mean that the reference is, in fact, a very obvious reference that anyone who looks will see immediately for themselves. Amandajm (talk) 07:46, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- That image is not an "obvious" reference if you don't have a schooling in Western scientific and Artistic culture. We write for as many audiences as possible, not just our prime one (which happens to have at least a vague familiarity with the image which yours references to). "Obvious" is a not a NPOV word, and "Obvious reference" implies that the author thought it was obvious that that is a reference, therefore stating something without any verifiable source to back it up. In all 300+ articles I changed it in, only 4 or 5 of these statements had references anywhere near by! Sadads (talk) 20:01, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Bot to remove {{Coord missing}} from pages that already have a {{Coord}} template.
Hey wikipedia, Just wondering if people would be OK with me running a bot to remove {{Coord missing}} from pages that have a {{Coord}} template. There are roughly 2,000 articles that would be affected. Thanks, Tim1357 talk 22:59, 25 August 2010 (UTC)- You'd probably need to contact one directly for something like this --When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 23:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- @Mr. Student: ...what? Did you read the few sentences that Tim wrote?
- @Tim: It sounds good, but I'm not sure what the botreq are. I'm perfectly fine with it, for whatever that counts for. :-) Killiondude (talk) 23:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Should be a no-brainer. Unless there are some bureaucratic hoops... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Sounds good, with a good edit-summary pointing to a page explaining it, a good log, and some testing (maybe run on 50 articles or something, and check things over). Sounds like you need Wikipedia:BRFA. Chzz ► 07:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Editor Advocate Admins
I don't trust the admin community to be careful or fair. A few thoughts and a suggestion:- Consensus is process of communication. Generally judging consensus merely by looking at edit histories is a mistake. It will consistently disadvantage minority views.
- The rule is not "Mass addition of material doesn't require consensus, but mass deletion does." Yet, admins act that way.
- Admins clearly default to a position of supporting each other, and making the accused bear a high burden of proof.
- The admin community values quantity over quality. Maybe that's necessary, because of the size and complexity of Wikipedia. But, it leads to a lot of hurtful mistakes, and to errors like judging consensus just by looking edit histories.
The idea comes from a dispute with my broker. They botched a stock trade. I complained to customer service. It was denied very automatically, like the person handles dozens of such issues a day. Quantity over quality. I complained again, and was told it was being referred to a Customer Advocate. The role seemed to involve examining the issue from the customer's point of view, with a quality-over-quantity approach. The problem was fixed. They've probably found it helps with customer retention.
An Editor Advocacy team of admins could fill a similar niche. It could be by referral, to avoid trolling. It could help retain editors, especially those interested in minority views. It would reassure editors who feel admins are just supporting each other that their concerns are taken seriously. Noloop (talk) 23:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- Claiming a problem exists is not the same as showing a problem exists. Can you provide examples of what has led you to this conclusion, and examples of how your advocates would rectify the problems you claim? Resolute 23:23, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- My personal experience is just the background, not part of the proposal. Noloop (talk) 00:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't see a call for your personal experience but concrete examples of where this is seen. You propose a solution to a problem but you haven't provided evidence of the existence of the problem. At best, those examples would demonstrate that this problem is pervasive in admin conduct.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Very well, since you will not provide examples, I am left to respond with my first impression of your proposal: First, it seems very odd that you open by claiming a distrust of administrators as a whole, then propose the value of having a small panel of admins effectively stand above the rest. Your repeated use of "minority views" also caught my eye. As such, my first impression is that you are not happy that Wikipedia does not give greater prominence to fringe viewpoints and are seeking a mechanism to force the community to accept them with much greater ease. As in your example with your broker, the advocate "fixed the problem", and I suspect the board you envision would "fix" your problems with Wikipedia by forcing it to accept your viewpoint. That cannot happen as Wikipedia is governed by community consensus. Resolute 13:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Very well said. I have all the same concerns and more. Most of the points sound like they stem from specific examples, but until one's provided it's just conjecture about some things that admins might do wrong. Even if they had happened, the processes already in place would be far more capable of dealing with them that this idea would. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm guessing it's about Jesus. No joke. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 14:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Very well said. I have all the same concerns and more. Most of the points sound like they stem from specific examples, but until one's provided it's just conjecture about some things that admins might do wrong. Even if they had happened, the processes already in place would be far more capable of dealing with them that this idea would. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- My personal experience is just the background, not part of the proposal. Noloop (talk) 00:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't recognise this description, and it seems predicated on the view that content issues are normally resolved by admins, which is untrue outside well-defined contexts like judging Wikipedia:Consensus in deletion and move debates. In terms of the comparison with your brokerage (assistance with complaint handling), I wonder if you're aware of the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal? But really, the comparison is invalid. Unlike with the brokerage service, you are empowered here in a number of ways (dispute resolution) to address problems you face with anyone, including admins. Rd232 talk 07:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Ombudsman comes to mind. I'm pretty sure there are a few others lying around. --Izno (talk) 13:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- It looks like the Ombudsman was never tried. It's not really analogous to what I proposed, anyway. I didn't propose any system of sanctioning admins. The essence of the point is that admins tend to follow a quantity over quality strategy of handling problems. They aren't very careful. A team of admins dedicated to editor retention might be effective. Noloop (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Again, you are speaking about a solution to a problem you assert is present in vague generalities without providing a single example of existence, despite now repeated calls for any concrete example at all. How could anyone decide your proposal has merit when it addresses a cipher?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- It looks like the Ombudsman was never tried. It's not really analogous to what I proposed, anyway. I didn't propose any system of sanctioning admins. The essence of the point is that admins tend to follow a quantity over quality strategy of handling problems. They aren't very careful. A team of admins dedicated to editor retention might be effective. Noloop (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think Roux is referring to Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates. –xenotalk 18:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- So, we have a group of a thousand or so active admins with a (supposed) problem of using a "quantity over quality" approach. The solution is to handle this problem with an even smaller group? If people are using a quantity over quality approach, that is because the quantity of problems is too large to deal with with sufficient quality. A smaller group would either be overwhelmed or underused. In the case of your brokerage service, that sounds like a rather standard customer service approach. In order to save money, the low-level people aren't authorized to do anything except apologize and make you feel better without actually giving you anything. Once they realize that you aren't going to go away, then the upper level people start giving in. Its more a case of "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" than actually caring about customer service. The loudest people getting their way is already how a lot of things work on Wikipedia, we need less of that, not more. We need to make the existing processes better, not just add more processes for people to complain to. Mr.Z-man 04:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure where you're getting this "smaller group" stuff. I didn't say we should have fewer admins. I suggested a team, specifically dedicated to reducing the unfairness that comes with a quantity over quality approach. It would probably help retain editors, which in turn would help increase the number of admins. Noloop (talk) 05:57, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- There are already mechanisms in place for getting review of administrative actions. They are open to input by all editors: the active admin can explain more detail about why something was done, other admins can criticize, the affected editors can voice their concerns, and other editors can comment as well. Why do we need a new system, involving only some of these communities, to handle it? That seems less open/consensus-based than present (just those chosen few having special review powers), not an improvement for a problem based on claims that consensus is not being read properly. Again (as others have said) without a clearly demonstrated problem (i.e., your whole premise is Wikipedia:WEASEL), there's no reason to make new systems/procedures/etc. DMacks (talk) 10:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't propose sanctioning admins. I didn't propose special review powers. Noloop (talk) 01:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Then how would this team accomplish anything? If they can override another admin's decision then, by nature, they have more power than a standard admin. Going by your Customer Advocate example, these Editor Advocates would have more authority than standard admins. Not to mention you'd have fewer EAs than standard Admins, so you're concentrating more power into fewer hands.
- Oh, and I know a guy who worked Customer Advocacy for a cell phone company. They sat in some cubes and took billing complaints from a queue. They had more access to the customer's records than your normal phone rep, and could investigate all the exchanges in multiple systems to figure out where the error was. This could take a long time in some cases. A Wikipedia equivalent would have some bits that most Admins don't. Right now, those bits tend to be spread out (aka CheckUser rights go to a few people). Without said bits, these EAs wouldn't be able to investigate all the potential issues brought to them, nor would they have the access to fix the problem in some cases (such as Wikipedia:REVDEL).
- Overall, I don't think this is a good idea. We already have several different venues for resolving problems, and the step above Admins is generally Wikipedia:ARBCOM. If it's not something that needs to go to ArbCom, I doubt an intermediate step would help either. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- While I believe that this is a bad idea, I also think that you are over-rating adminship. Administrators are just normal users with some extra tools, and generally you find the same problems with them as you do with any other human being. To put it simply, we trust anyone with sysop tools to use those tools for good. If they assume any sort of "position" within the community as a result of their technical rights, then that is wrong. If they go way overboard, then we take away their toys and give them a time out. I think that the current system works fine. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I also have one prolbom, who would about this Special Admin Service? No doubt it would be made up of the very poeple who are currently abusing adminship to preotect each otehr. If there is a problom wiht adminship (and there may be some valid conceartns here) an extra level is not the answer.Slatersteven (talk) 15:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- While I believe that this is a bad idea, I also think that you are over-rating adminship. Administrators are just normal users with some extra tools, and generally you find the same problems with them as you do with any other human being. To put it simply, we trust anyone with sysop tools to use those tools for good. If they assume any sort of "position" within the community as a result of their technical rights, then that is wrong. If they go way overboard, then we take away their toys and give them a time out. I think that the current system works fine. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't propose sanctioning admins. I didn't propose special review powers. Noloop (talk) 01:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
New ref tag options:
Proposal (respond at discussion area, not here)
- Note: This has been updated after initial round of discussions.
With the current system, you generally have to make a new ref-name each time you want to specify a page or section of the document. Unfortunately, when this is done, citations often end up being all over the place and the ref list gets cumbersome in length.
As you may have guessed from looking at the title above, I propose creating a few additional ref tags to point to specific locations in a multi-page text or web source without having to make a new ref-name. The following demo should be self-explanatory: (ref links coded to click and highlight just like in a real reflist, so feel free to click to see them in action)
Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.[1] Quisque adipiscing, justo ut ultrices scelerisque, leo ipsum lacinia arcu, id euismod arcu ante non diam.[2] Phasellus in metus vitae magna semper interdum sed eu lorem. Mauris vitae ligula erat.[1]Vivamus dictum fringilla magna quis accumsan.[3] Nullam id libero at massa sodales venenatis. Ut adipiscing feugiat erat, quis scelerisque quam porttitor a.[1][3]
Maecenas et elit a magna tincidunt vestibulum.[1][3] Vivamus tempus nunc vestibulum nisi elementum vel interdum arcu iaculis. Integer sollicitudin velit sit amet enim faucibus varius.[1] Pellentesque eu libero augue.[3]
References
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}}_ENDOFTEMPLATE
Notice how you can use standard wiki markup in see= for more interesting effects like linking via url. You can also use sname= if you want to use the same markup again, and do so without typing name=. Also note the truncation if its longer than 10 characters. Moreover, to reduce ambiguity, all ref tags with (and without) see= are clustered together, and those ref tags with identical sname= are also grouped for compactness.
First round new ref discussion archive
- Note: this part of the discussion was for a version that had a url= option, which has since been merged with see=.
- Sounds good, similar solution to Harvard footnotes except integrated into the more standard notes. I like it, not sure how much it would take to integrate it technically, Sadads (talk) 16:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Great idea! Buglet in demo (important point for implementation): refs without see= or url= should be listed in the footnote after those with these tags. The second use of [1] (
at end of first paragraph) is placed as b in References entry 1 preceding c (I assume in order of use in article body). But c is "p.31" (from at end of third paragraph). The resulting layout "b cp.31" suggests that b is also p.31 rather than loose for the whole biblo entry. Would be clearer/correcter as "cp.31 b" (assuming a/b/c in order of link appearance in article) or "bp.31 c" (looks cleaner here, but might require multiple parser passes through the article to collect the data). DMacks (talk) 16:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Ah, I see what you mean. With the way I have above, it seems to imply that both b and c are from p.31. In short, you are suggesting that ref tags with either see= or url= should be group together in front and all those without should be group in the end like this (new labels d and e added):
Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.[1] Quisque adipiscing, justo ut ultrices scelerisque, leo ipsum lacinia arcu, id euismod arcu ante non diam.[2] Phasellus in metus vitae magna semper interdum sed eu lorem. Mauris vitae ligula erat.[1]Vivamus dictum fringilla magna quis accumsan.[3] Nullam id libero at massa sodales venenatis. Ut adipiscing feugiat erat, quis scelerisque quam porttitor a.[1][3]
Maecenas et elit a magna tincidunt vestibulum.[1][3] Vivamus tempus nunc vestibulum nisi elementum vel interdum arcu iaculis. Integer sollicitudin velit sit amet enim faucibus varius. Pellentesque eu libero augue.[1]
References
- I hate the formatting messes resulting from autolinkified URLs displayed in references (http://example.com), and the "url" linktext displayed if "
url=but nosee=" is an improvement. But that's a nonstandard way of hiding URLs from what I can see: a normal URL link that doesn't have a name displays as [8]. That is, in pseudocode:
if (url) { if (see) { "[${url} ${see}]" } else { /* current approach "[${url} url]" */ /* more standard, matching other contexts */ "[${url}]" } elsif (see) { "${see}" }- Although, I'm confused by what happens when both are used anyway. Could you clarify the "ellipsis after 10 characters in the reflist" feature? What is the display-string that is being truncated here ("${see}:${url}", "${see}:url", is see= truncated if no url= passed)? DMacks (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oops, I did mess up on the trunc. The original tag should have been ' but I only typed in "User Talk" in the version you originally saw. I have fixed it. And as for the non-standard url thing when omitting the see=, I guess we can just use the standard [9] to keep it simple, though I think it to be ugly :P —CodeHydro 17:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Brainstorming further (sorry I keep getting ideas after posting previous ones!), what about scrapping
url=altogether and lettingsee=just be normal wiki-markup? That way see=[http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5 p.5] and see=[http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5] behave like editors expect (not have to learn special syntax/feature of linking for this context). And see=http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5 displays the actual URL (autolinkified by wiki engine as usual) and looks terrible just like it always does, again encouraging editors to actually add something intelligent to display like a pagenumber or even just square-brackets. Bonus is that would allow additional standard annotations there, for example, see=[http://example.com/reprint-of-page-5]{{deadlink}} (important type of feature, needs to be targetted to the URL not the whole footnote ref entry and not where the footnote-link is in the article body). DMacks (talk) 16:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)- Hmm, that's a neat idea. I "see" now that url= is probably unnecessary ;) Okay, everybody, hold off on posting for a short while. I am going to update the proposal above. —CodeHydro 17:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- See bug 13127 for a similar proposal. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 17:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hmm, that's a neat idea. I "see" now that url= is probably unnecessary ;) Okay, everybody, hold off on posting for a short while. I am going to update the proposal above. —CodeHydro 17:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- It's a minor detail but I would suggest that "label" is more generic than "see". I'd also lean towards superscripting the entire label, e.g. something like:
- But that's a relatively minor formatting point. In general, I am supportive of ideas like this. Dragons flight (talk) 17:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Simply put, I love this idea. Would solve a lot of different issues that I have grappled with and seen many users complain about. {{Rp}} was created by another user specifically to stop my whining about an aspect of this problem, but this is a better solution than having the page numbers in the article text.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Discussion area for new ref options, update 1
Okay, done adapting suggestions into proposal. As for the last idea before the section break, I decided not to add it because that would make the ref bulkier. By not having what is in see= superscripted, it is more compact by two characters ":" and a space " "... anyhow, there may be bugs in the demo, because I don't want to hold off the discussion too long before updating it. Please let me know if you find any. —CodeHydro 18:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)- You may wish to view Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Citation discussion#Redux, which specifically references a proposal to add what I would claim to be a better set of functionality. This proposal isn't exactly included there, but I'm sure it would be a good improvement to make (I'm more concerned that "see" and such are ambiguous: the software should be dealing with this based on items such as the author name automatically). --Izno (talk) 18:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting discussion there, but I believe this is of a very different nature. Those are suggestions to create citation templates for specify styles like APA or MLA. While those ideas are focused on templates that help other editors retrieve their own copy of a source that's cited, this proposal focuses on locating information within the source that's already on hand but too lengthy for easy verification of individual pieces of information. —CodeHydro 18:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hardly. What I'm suggesting is that we take your suggestion and add it to the other suggestions there. The software should be able to see similar <ref ... > code and put two and two together on its own. For example, the software should see automatically that the "name" is the same, the "work" is the same, but that the "pages" are different, and be able to handle it automatically in the same fashion as your suggestion. That avoids making new parameters and increase usability in the same fashion as you desire. --Izno (talk) 01:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting discussion there, but I believe this is of a very different nature. Those are suggestions to create citation templates for specify styles like APA or MLA. While those ideas are focused on templates that help other editors retrieve their own copy of a source that's cited, this proposal focuses on locating information within the source that's already on hand but too lengthy for easy verification of individual pieces of information. —CodeHydro 18:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- There's a simpler way to do this: {{rp}}. e.g. This text is from page twelve of a book.[1]:12. Fences&Windows 22:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
References- ^ Book title
- Abolish the ref name="..." syntax. Use only numbers to identify specific footnotes.
- Linking to a specific footnote should be as easy as
[[From #2 34-35]]. Although it currently renders as From#2 34-35, it should become, for example, [2b]. (Footnotes that are not citations would use the word Note instead of From.) - Defining a footnote should be as easy as including
[[From #2]] Miller, E (2005). ''The Sun'', Academic Press. Pagesalong with all others within a single pair of - Footnotes should be automatically renumbered whenever the page is saved.
- Example appearance of footnotes (borrowed examples from Wikipedia:CITE):
- Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78). Pages 8-9
- Miller, E (2005). The Sun, Academic Press. Pages a) 80-105; b) 34-35; c) 22
- Is this a reasonable approach? Please'Stand (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- "Footnotes should be automatically renumbered whenever the page is saved." means the whole page content is automatically changed (all the "From #___" actual text strings in the article)? Seems like that would make reading revision-diffs incredibly painful. You're just swapping one weird syntax/feature for another. I think you're addressing an interesting annoyance: if I want to add another cite using an existing one, I have to dig into the article-source to find the tag rather than just looking at the References section. But that seems less of a problem than having small article edits making a huge resulting "change" to the article sources. DMacks (talk) 17:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that would require major changes to the way diffs work. However, even
[[From #Brown2006 34-35]]is much better than. That's six less characters to clutter the wikitext. Please'Stand (talk) 19:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)- Yes — abolish the ref name="..." syntax! It seems its primary purpose is to avoid having to stuff bibliographic details into more than one <ref>, but I say that is misguided, that bibliographic details should not be in the refs in the first place. More generally, <ref> is a structural "container", and modifying it with details of its contents entangles structure with content. (I thought we had learned better with HTML.) So: opposed to adding <ref> parameters that encode content.
- Also yes to automatic renumbering of footnotes. Occasionally it is inconvenient to have them change, but they should be in sequence, so there is no avoiding a change when a note is inserted.
- But the approach above ["Pages a)..."] is misguided. The general approach I recommend is to set up all of the bibliographic details in a References section (using {{cite}} or {{citation}}) templates, then link with {{Harv}}. Sure, Harv has some rough spots, but I don't see that the current proposal improves on it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- There is not a chance in hell that developers will allow any proposal where the wiki source code is automatically renumbered when you save. (It would fail horribly with templates and transclusion, for starters.) The rendered content can be automatically numbered, but no developer is going to allow automatic renumbering to happen in the source code. Dragons flight (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree. We have a system where the software automatically numbers things. Having to put numbers in the wikitext sounds like a step backward. Using names is a lot more intuitive than arbitrary numbers, even if it takes up a little more space. Arbitrary, non-constant numbers are impossible to remember when editing compared to well chosen names. And if the numbers automatically change, how would you handle, say, inserting a reference in the middle of an article (triggering a renumbering) and then linking to that same footnote elsewhere in the same edit? If the new ref would be number 4 but it triggers a renumber, then all links, including the one you just added, would be changed to number 5. Mr.Z-man 03:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- There is not a chance in hell that developers will allow any proposal where the wiki source code is automatically renumbered when you save. (It would fail horribly with templates and transclusion, for starters.) The rendered content can be automatically numbered, but no developer is going to allow automatic renumbering to happen in the source code. Dragons flight (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, that would require major changes to the way diffs work. However, even
Refs - alternate suggestion
"1. ^ a: p.21 b: p.67-80 Smith, John. Encyclopedia of Wacky things." strikes me as extremely cryptic, and if your browser doesn't support the CSS :target pseudo-class (e.g. you're using IE, or a printout) you have no way to know which [1] is which page. I would find something like this to be much easier to make sense of: The in-text refs for b, c, and d should be shown as something like [1.1] and [1.2]. This would also allow the sub-references to sensibly contain quotes from the source and other bulky information, as shown in "b". If I were to choose a syntax for the ref tag, I'd prefer something likeSmith, John. Encyclopedia of Wacky things. ... p.21 ... p.67-80 ...; this naturally allows wikitext in the sub-references. The code must, of course, support the case where the "parent" comes after the "child" (and especially the case where the "parent" is a list-defined reference and the child is not). Anomie⚔ 03:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)- I like this. Its similar to what I suggested on bug 13127 with the benefit that the software doesn't have to guess as often what you meant. As for determining the parent ref, I suggested another attribute (though that was before LDRs existed). So to determine the parent, something like 1) Ref with "parent" attribute set, 2) List-defined ref, 3) First instance in page text. Mr.Z-man 04:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflictTemplate:Safesubst:) I am concerned that the References section would be much "taller" (i.e. if editors do not actually include quotes from sources), making it more difficult to use the scroll bar (yes, some people still do use it) and wasting tons of pages in a printed copy. And using a ref name solely to identify page numbers would be a bad thing. It's already a problem with shortened footnotes since
Smith, 67-80....is far more confusing (when making large edits to articles) thanSmith, 67-80....Smith, 67-80., especially because AWB's general fixes change the latter to the former. Your suggestion also does not address the complexity (as perceived by the user) of the current ref tag system; not everyone understands XML syntax. I suggested[[From #Smith2010 67-80]]for two reasons: 1) is based on the wikilink syntax used throughout articles (looks "easier" to the user); 2) is concise and readable (we don't, for example, make links using "<a href="...">...</a>") for a reason). Please'Stand (talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)- In a tradeoff between length and comprehensibility, I'd pick the latter. Your concerns over people not understanding XML syntax are not really relevant to this particular discussion (and people can always use {{#tag:ref}} syntax if they want), your concerns that named refs are "confusing" do not seem to be shared by the community at large, and your suggestion of using
Smith, 67-80....Smith, 67-80.is contrary to your earlier complaint about the size of the references section. As for your alternate syntax, it would be easy to confuse it with a targeted link to From, and it may be that the devs don't want to add more weird special cases to the [[...]] syntax like we already have for categories, files, and interlanguage links. Anomie⚔ 15:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)- I could go for this alternate idea. Actually, before I decided to go with the more compact version for the proposal, my original idea was to break it up almost exactly like Anomie shows it above with the multi-lines and have them clustered under the main reference (though the ones below the main need not be numbered since there are the tiny letters). Either way, it is better to keep references to the same text in the same area... I don't like looking at disorganized lists like those shown in Latin#Notes. —CodeHydro 17:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- We do need some way to indicate that a particular use of the reference refers to a particular subreference, and without requiring the reader to click and have a browser supporting the CSS :target pseudo-class. Otherwise how do you know if [1] refers to the whole thing (a), page 21 (b), or pages 67-80 (c and d)? While [1a] is a possibility, I thought [1.1] might be easier to follow. Anomie⚔ 19:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I could go for this alternate idea. Actually, before I decided to go with the more compact version for the proposal, my original idea was to break it up almost exactly like Anomie shows it above with the multi-lines and have them clustered under the main reference (though the ones below the main need not be numbered since there are the tiny letters). Either way, it is better to keep references to the same text in the same area... I don't like looking at disorganized lists like those shown in Latin#Notes. —CodeHydro 17:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- In a tradeoff between length and comprehensibility, I'd pick the latter. Your concerns over people not understanding XML syntax are not really relevant to this particular discussion (and people can always use {{#tag:ref}} syntax if they want), your concerns that named refs are "confusing" do not seem to be shared by the community at large, and your suggestion of using
- I don't care how this is done, as long as: using a new system is not required, old system still works as currently, and refs are not nested like the above example. More repeat numbers = more confusion when reading long lists of refs. [a]:p. # seems fine to me, though. —fetch·comms 18:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Generally concur. The concept of nested sub-references seem particularly ill-advised, and tending to impair reading (verification of sources) and deter maintenance editing. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- The problem is that [a]:p is vague and of limited use. There's nothing to indicate that the second number is a page number, especially given that the first number is just a number and has nothing to do with the source itself. It also visually separates the page number from the source; I don't think I've ever seen any sort of referencing system where the page number is completely on its own, with no direct indication as to which source it refers to. With a system like Anomie's, it could also be used for things other than page numbers. How exactly would this "deter maintenance editing"? Mr.Z-man 23:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Generally concur. The concept of nested sub-references seem particularly ill-advised, and tending to impair reading (verification of sources) and deter maintenance editing. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
diffs/line number should be a link
In a diff like this it would be nice if 'line 149' was a link to an anchor at line 149. Just granpa (talk) 12:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)- Good idea, AWB does that, maybe there would be a way to integrate that into the main software?Sadads (talk) 16:15, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- There's a feature request for something mostly like this - #2313 - but it looks like it's not been touched since 2005. Shimgray | talk | 17:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
A rating system
I was at the branch of the English Wikipedia Wikibooks, and I noticed they now have a rating system used as a feedback system, and looking into the page a little more I was thinking, would the main Wikipedia be helped by this too? I mean, it's nowhere near necessary but it would be something to be looked at by the people and editors. It should only be voted on by the Wikipedia users for better reliability. In the end, it's a feedback and voting system. So, what do you guys think? --When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 13:53, 28 August 2010 (UTC)- We already have rating systems for articles, but the concern about the wikibooks type approach is the fear that it might encourage people to criticise things instead of fixing them. I suggest we watch how the implementation goes on Wikibooks and ideally on a smaller language wikipedia, then if the statisticians can come up with convincing evidence that this could be implemented here without diverting editors away from improving articles it would be worth looking at it for here. ϢereSpielChequers 14:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, I do agree I suppose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. High school student (talk • contribs) 17:08, 28 August 2010
- They use the same system (with a slightly different look) at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/. (and please shorten your signature) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, I do agree I suppose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr. High school student (talk • contribs) 17:08, 28 August 2010
Email client built into the MediaWiki software
I am suggesting that an inbuilt email client should be developed for MediaWiki. Every user will have an inbox, and the Special:EmailUser/<username> will be used to send messages to that inbox. I persoally think that is much better than the current system. (Of course, it will need PDF support) Access Denied talk contribs editor review 17:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)- That would be the same as a "private messaging" feature like many forums and social networking sites have. I myself think that would be useful but it's likely to be rejected because there are some that think that would make WP too forumy or myspacey. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:20, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- It's a nice idea but will never be implemented on Wikipedia due to the social networking aspect of it, as Ron Ritzman says. Wikipedia is meant to be collaborative on the wiki. Emails are a privilege. Of course, it could work on other wikis where that's not such a strong ethos. Aiken ♫ 17:28, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Never say "never" :) We do have the "email this user" feature for those occasions where it is necessary to contact an editor privately. A private messaging system would be more convenient for some. I myself check my talk page a lot more often then I check my email. However, I can see the other side if it too. It might encourage people to use WP as a social networking site or even as an alternative to email. On the plus side it might make it easier for those who usually don't use email to contact arbcom, request oversight, etc. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 17:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Is there really a dramatic benefit to this over and above integrating with people's own mailboxes? I can't quite see how it's better to send messages to a site-stored inbox (and then presumably have to send out notifications etc) than it is just to send them directly to the person. Shimgray | talk | 17:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, you could get a notification similar to the (new talk paage message) one we already have, so that we wouldn't have to ping each other's talk pages all day. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 17:43, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- You don't have to "ping" anything all day. You should be improving articles, not chatting all day by email. Aiken ♫ 17:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't ping all day; I have seen it happen with longtime contributors though. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 17:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- You should be improving articles, not chatting all day by email Or, you could remember that everyone is a volunteer, and do what you wish. 18:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Or, you could remember that everyone is a volunteer, and do what you wish. No, you can't just "do what you wish". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a social networking site. Aiken ♫ 13:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- You're missing the point. You said "you should be improving articles", but no one 'should' be doing that if they don't want to. But it seems too many people think WP is some sort of job where people have obligations...but they don't, outside a select few. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- When they are on Wikipedia, that's exactly what they should be doing. Nobody forces you to log on, but when you do use Wikipedia, it ought to be for improving the project, not nattering with mates over email. Aiken ♫ 14:23, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- So I'm some horrible person for being always logged on but rarely doing all that much "improving" of articles. Gee, thanks. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- When they are on Wikipedia, that's exactly what they should be doing. Nobody forces you to log on, but when you do use Wikipedia, it ought to be for improving the project, not nattering with mates over email. Aiken ♫ 14:23, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- You're missing the point. You said "you should be improving articles", but no one 'should' be doing that if they don't want to. But it seems too many people think WP is some sort of job where people have obligations...but they don't, outside a select few. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Or, you could remember that everyone is a volunteer, and do what you wish. No, you can't just "do what you wish". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a social networking site. Aiken ♫ 13:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, but... again, those two users could just use email, which doesn't require you to be logged in to read and reply to it, and allows people the flexibility to handle how they deal with it as part of their normal workflow - including however they manage their message notifications. I really don't see the payoff from implementing this (probably quite logistically complex) system when we can use the existing, far more powerful, and well-adopted email infrastructure. Shimgray | talk | 18:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- You don't have to "ping" anything all day. You should be improving articles, not chatting all day by email. Aiken ♫ 17:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, you could get a notification similar to the (new talk paage message) one we already have, so that we wouldn't have to ping each other's talk pages all day. Access Denied talk contribs editor review 17:43, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see a benefit; I've been discussing similar, re. 'instant message' integration, and suchlike. My first reaction is indeed to recoil at the possible MySpace-type effect, and the huge overhead in policing such a system (taking time away from building an Encyc. by dealing with problems, e.g. what if people abuse the mail, post libel, copyright, etc. etc) and my more considered reaction ('never say never') is that Wikipedia should stick to what it does, and leave other things to other websites; why re-invent the wheel. We're not a telecoms company, so we don't provide voice-chat; others do that better. We're not an instant-messaging thingy, there are plenty of those, so why not just use them. Same for email; other web services do it well, so what is the point in us trying. In addition, for email, people do things their own way; having yet-another-inbox to check would be a pain. Chzz ► 07:05, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- You think its turning into an argument instead of a discussion, so you're turning it into a vote? Mr.Z-man 02:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Polling is not a substitute for discussion --Cybercobra (talk) 02:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Dictionary of National Biography auto-generated content
Hi. i'm in two minds as to whether I should post here given that I know a lot of people are opposed to auto generated content but I was wondering what the views would be on a bot which transfers the 3800 or so missing public domain Dictionary of National Biography encyclopedia book articles on notable UK figures already written and stored in Wikisource. The texts are already written but may require some minor wikifying. If I can sort a bot to transfer these texts with some wikification and would only require manual edits after creation to Categorize and some very minor organization work what would the general view? The text is already written. Its just otherwise its going to take years tp transfer this content when it could be done within days by a bot and more time spent on improving them. I need some form of general consensus here as to whether or not we really want these articles. The vast majority of them are notable biographies from Tudor times to the late nineteenth century like Christian ministers and theologians, naval officers, judges, politicians, antiquaries, physicians etc. In my view they are all articles which an encyclopedia like wikipedia should engulf. If I have some indication here that the community wants these biographical articles I can form a bot proposal which will create these articles with as minimal manual work needed as possible. A trial run of a small number of course would be performed first to see if they have the seal of approval. Any thoughts? Dr. Blofeld 13:06, 29 August 2010 (UTC)- They're certainly all notable figures (indeed, were they not quite notable, we could argue a DNB entry tips the balance there anyway), but the problem is that the articles are pretty elderly. I've written several articles on figures with DNB entries, and almost without fail there's some significant changes made in the newer ODNB entry (the ODNB, a successor project, includes everyone in the DNB); I would go so far as to say that we can probably predict that, overall, every DNB entry contains at least one major error compared to recent scholarship. I'm not sure if we should think of this as a showstopper or not.
- If we do run such an import, though, it might be worth producing a second list - all figures with DNB entries whose articles are currently stubs - for possible manual merging. Shimgray | talk | 13:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't like the idea of copy and pasting it, and as Shimgray says there may well be numerous errors. And I don't believe every entry is notable either. Inclusionists often cite Wikipedia:DEADLINE, so I will too. It doesn't matter if they aren't here yet, Wikipedia will be here tomorrow. Of course, I don't object to manual creation, but umpteen articles which are no doubt badly formatted, strewn with errors and maybe not even notable have no place on Wikipedia. Creating articles should never be a bot process, creation should take as much care as deletion. Aiken ♫ 13:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Can I just say that these articles would be created anyway and are in the process of being copied. The point is that the manual time would then be better spent improving the texts rather than being spent copying and pasting them. Dr. Blofeld 13:41, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Then that's ok. As long as you're taking care when creating them and not copying in the errors, there is no problem. It would be better, imo, to improve texts as you import them, rather than importing them all then doing it after. Aiken ♫ 13:46, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well ideally they would all be like my article Sir Robert Ainslie, 1st Baronet. The idea eventually is that all of these DNB articles I want transferred are written like this. No there is no time limit but I am just looking for something to simulate the manual copying and pasting and to encourage people to build on what we have. Dr. Blofeld 14:04, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Then that's ok. As long as you're taking care when creating them and not copying in the errors, there is no problem. It would be better, imo, to improve texts as you import them, rather than importing them all then doing it after. Aiken ♫ 13:46, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Can I just say that these articles would be created anyway and are in the process of being copied. The point is that the manual time would then be better spent improving the texts rather than being spent copying and pasting them. Dr. Blofeld 13:41, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't like the idea of copy and pasting it, and as Shimgray says there may well be numerous errors. And I don't believe every entry is notable either. Inclusionists often cite Wikipedia:DEADLINE, so I will too. It doesn't matter if they aren't here yet, Wikipedia will be here tomorrow. Of course, I don't object to manual creation, but umpteen articles which are no doubt badly formatted, strewn with errors and maybe not even notable have no place on Wikipedia. Creating articles should never be a bot process, creation should take as much care as deletion. Aiken ♫ 13:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- The Catholic Encyclopedia and 1911 Brittanica templates contain no such disclaimer; adding one would be against precedent. --Cybercobra (talk) 02:45, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, yeah, it's well regarded. I like it; I still keep a printed copy on the shelves at work! It's also unavoidable that once people sat down and rewrote every article, glaring discrepancies occurred - the fact that it was treated as good for so long, and bought as a standard component of a lot of libraries, doesn't mean we should assume it was as reliable as it seemed. It's the fact that there is a better version in existence that makes me a little wary of adding the old material, I think.
- Perhaps a useful approach would be to have the bot explicitly link the "old" articles to the ODNB articles, which are available online, by noting it under further reading as a "revised version" or the like? Everyone with an article should be in the new one, and it means we can steer readers towards the hopefully more comprehensive one until such time as we develop a better article ourselves. Shimgray | talk | 14:47, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- That sounds like an excellent idea. Pretty much the only downside with ODNB entries is that they aren't free (beer or speech), linking to them would be a positive. Oh, and I support the whole project. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 12:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think this is a fantastic idea, if implemented properly. I'd love to see it happen, especially because if it works for the DNB, there are other encyclopedias for which it would be useful. I know dated information is a concern, but we've been using public domain material as the basis for articles for quite some time now, so there is precedent. And I like Shimgray's bot idea as a way to bring the new edition of the Dictionary into the picture. Some things, such as categorization, would need to be done manually, but that's not a tricky task, especially if the bot-generated content is placed in its own hidden category, or marked in some other way to make it more accessible in a block to editors. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 21:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- That sounds like an excellent idea. Pretty much the only downside with ODNB entries is that they aren't free (beer or speech), linking to them would be a positive. Oh, and I support the whole project. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 12:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well, at least form me, there wouldn't me any objections to adjusting the CE and EB templates to add such a disclaimer. I think that the inclusion in the DNB is probably sufficient cause for there to be an article, however. I don't myself know how complicated the bots which autogenerate articles are, but one possibly acceptable option, if it's possible, might be for the bot to simply add certain pre-designated information in the original draft. Things like birth, death, profession, and the like might be included. That would likely resulting in autogeneration of stubs, granted, but even stubs are better than nothing. John Carter (talk) 17:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Problem
I have a problem. Can I whrote a artical, about one person, but, the subject of articls be a ,,Famous people in the shadows¨, or something like that ? --WinstonSims (talk) 17:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)- If you want to write about a person, you should write the article using their name as the title. The person should be notable, as shown by significant coverage of them in multiple secondary reliable sources. We do not write essays or opinion pieces, which is what "Famous people in the shadows" sounds like. Also, this is not really the place to discuss this; this noticeboard is for discussing new proposals of Wikipedia guidelines or policies, not new content. Fences&Windows 18:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Miscellaneous PROD
As I look at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, more and more I'm see utterly uncontested deletes. Now, while MfD doesn't usually have an overly large backlog, many of these uncontroversial deletions are still a waste of everyone's time; the outcome is never really in doubt. What I'm proposing is development of a PROD process for misc pages. This would work essentially the same as the regular PROD process for articles (Wikipedia:PROD), just for misc pages. If such a thing were developed, it might also be a good idea to merge Wikipedia:Proposed deletion (books) into it, although if there was any great desire to keep that separate it wouldn't be a problem. I'm holding off on creating a formal proposed policy page for now, mainly because I'd rather not go to that trouble if the idea is wholesale rejected by the community. Any input would be welcome.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)- Good idea, but with these restrictions:
- User pages and subpages only.
- No user talk pages unless the corresponding userpage is also tagged.
- No userboxes, regardless of namespace.
- Must use one of these reasons:
- Wikipedia:FAKEARTICLE not edited for > 1 year.
- Secret page and/or sister components (barnstars, etc).
- Blatant violation of Wikipedia:NOTMYSPACE or Wikipedia:NOTWEBHOST.
- — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 23:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose everything that removes an opportunity of discussion from the community. PROD is already a disgraceful idea in itself, let's avoid extending its tentacles further more. Deletion of stuff should follow consensus. --Cyclopiatalk 12:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose I agree.Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Watchlists of banned users
Promoted from Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) The thought has occurred to me that blocked/banned users remain able to log in, and remain able to access their watchlists. For short-term blocks/bans, that's fine. But for indefinite-banned users or long-term banned users, it seems likely that this would encourage socking. Of course they can duplicate watchlist behaviour in a number of ways, but a big part of the socks-of-banned-users problem has to be habit: so blocking their watchlist would seem helpful. What if, just as admins can revoke talk page access when blocking, if required, there was an option to block access to the watchlist? This ought to be very easy to implement in the software (he says), and potentially quite useful (in a way that's probably hard to quantify ...) Rd232 talk 09:08, 24 August 2010 (UTC)- Just because someone is banned from contributing to WP doesn't mean they should be banned from reading it. I have many pages on my Watchlist that are there because I'm always interested in potential updates to info about the subject. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- There's something to that point, but it has to be noted that the idea wouldn't prevent anyone from reading Wikipedia; it merely makes it harder to identify recent changes to articles (which is primarily about editing). In addition, there are other ways to keep up with updates to existing articles (which is both a weakness and a strength of the idea) - for example, every article has RSS feeds for recent changes. And to clarify, I imagine that policy on removal of watchlist privileges would limit it to indefinite-banned or long-term banned users (eg >30 days block, or even >3 months). Or even restrict it to cases of proven socking by blocked editors - which would have the distinct merit of providing an additional sanction for people who engage in it! Rd232 talk 14:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- You're right, watchlists of banned users do help them with their socking. Fences&Windows 23:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- You need to distinguish between a ban and a block. Here you mean (I'm almost certain) to say "indefinite block", in place of ban, because a "ban" is a social concept and not a technical one. Which then runs into the issue of "a banned user may be indefinitely blocked, but an indefinitely blocked user may not be banned", which certainly then also implies Melodia's issue. --Izno (talk) 04:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think that's unnecessarily confusing, and anyway somehow (I'm not clear how) seems to prejudge how policy might be written for use of the proposed technical option. Rd232 talk 09:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hardly "unnecessarily" confusing. I'm just asking you to be precise and to use the terms as the Wikipedia culture uses them. I know for one that you might get into hot water if you weren't able to distinguish the terms at, say, RFA. >.> --Izno (talk) 12:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm quite able to distinguish thank you. What's confusing me is you raising the definitional issue at all, since the reference to blocked users was in the context of just the opening sentence, talking about watchlist access (because the technical measure proposed could be applied to merely blocked users if the community so wished). After that it only talks about banned users, because it's those that the proposed technical measure is expected to be used for. Rd232 talk 15:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Hardly "unnecessarily" confusing. I'm just asking you to be precise and to use the terms as the Wikipedia culture uses them. I know for one that you might get into hot water if you weren't able to distinguish the terms at, say, RFA. >.> --Izno (talk) 12:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think this will be effective; most socks don't attack that many articles, and even if the list exceeds their memory, Special:Contributions will have the list of everything they ever edited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- This proposed technical option is not about socks; it is about sockmasters. And in particular, it's about banned users socking, whose socking is supported by allowing them continued access to their extensive watchlist built up over time at their original/main sockmaster account. (So already you can see we're talking about a small number of users - banned users with quite chunky watchlists.) Will removing that access make socking impossible? No, but it'll make it harder, and I think it would also make it more likely that sockmasters trying to be careful to avoid arousing suspicion might find that more difficult too. I mean, RSS or Special:Contribs is certainly an imperfect replacement for the watchlist. Besides that, as I said, some part of the socking problem is people being unable to break the wikihabit; there is an element of addictiveness which hangs substantially on the Watchlist (cf the way people get addicted to checking email). Finally, retaining it as a possible sanction for sockmasters caught socking is an extra sanction when sometimes (for an indef-banned user who can't be hard-blocked due to using too large an IP-range) there currently is none. Rd232 talk 09:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- For someone who can't be blocked by IP, this would be almost trivial to bypass. Mr.Z-man 15:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- What? Please explain? I'm talking about blocking access to the watchlist, which requires the user to log in, making IP issues irrelevant. (Of course RSS access to the watchlist would be blocked too.) Rd232 talk 17:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- All they would have to do is make a "watchlist" sock that logs in but doesn't edit. If their IP was hardblocked, that would make it a little more difficult. Mr.Z-man 20:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- "All they would have to do..." - I don't really care what they would have to do (though with the large watchlists I'm imagining, duplication is non-trivial and doing so perfectly from memory not possible). My main point is that for editing Wikipedia there is a habit element, and turning off the watchlist can help people break the Wikipedia habit, if they have any inclination to do so whatsoever. Normally when they login they see X, Y, Z edits that they can't respond to; with this, they simply won't. Curiosity will make them jump to a couple of pages of recent interest, but it's slightly breaking the pattern, taking away the addictive "rush" element of the watchlist, and they're more likely to look at recent edits/conversation, complain to themselves, but not do anything. Basically, my main angle is psychology: I'm not really making it much harder for determined sockers, I'm making people less likely to sock. Rd232 talk 21:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- This sounds like an inconvenience for some to solve a relatively low-priority issue; users can easily check which pages they edited by using Special:Contributions, so I'm not sure how removing a watchlist will prevent them from following pages that they edited. —Ost (talk) 21:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, did you actually read the comment to which you are responding? It doesn't sound like it to me. This is not about technical prevention of Determined Socker, it is about psychological help for Banned User Who Might Consider Socking If They Keep Logging In, See Edits Happening, And Feel The Need To Respond. Rd232 talk 09:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- In that case, I still don't think it will help that much. If someone gets to the stage that they're considered community banned or banned by ArbCom, then they're almost certainly at the "Determined socker" stage already. If you want to reduce the liklihood of socking, you would have to do it before people start. But that would mean removing watchlist access for almost all indef-blocked users. Mr.Z-man 12:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how true that is: how many bans (and it's not just ArbCom bans - why exclude community bans?) involve socking? Certainly not all. And even having socked before isn't actually proof that deactivating the watchlist (let's avoid the word "blocking" for clarity) would have no effect on the probability of future socking. Beyond that - sure, using it more widely, eg for all indef-blocked users (maybe with a delay to permit appeals) would make it have more impact. But I don't want to get into arguing that at this point because I feel that's a later policy issue which would obscure the basic advantages of implementing this technical option, and deciding actual use now is premature, given that its implementation ought to be quite low-cost. Rd232 talk 14:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think I did exclude community bans (I did say "or" ...). Even if someone hasn't yet resorted to socking, a ban means that they've almost certainly been blocked several times, meaning they're already dedicated to disrupting. I would point out that there also isn't any proof that it would have an effect on future socking. Mr.Z-man 22:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Uh huh, so your answer to my psychological argument that checking the watchlist is an addictive element parallel to the well-established phenomenon of email addiction [10] is... what? These people are all, without exception, so addicted that they cannot avoid socking no matter what help we give them? (Even if they haven't even socked yet.) And you know this how? ... Look, just for fun, what if you tried arguing for the proposal, instead of taking against it and then trying to prove you're right? Rd232 talk 22:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, let me support something that I don't support. That sounds like fun. Though a lot less fun then presenting a proposal with no evidence to support your assertion, then waiting until someone calls you out on it to provide the evidence just so you can act superior. Because obviously I was just supposed to make the connection between "my main angle is psychology" and a "parallel to the well-established phenomenon of email addiction." Mr.Z-man 23:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well (a) I already mentioned email addiction as a parallel above, in a comment you replied to dismissively, missing the point entirely (b) you've still not engaged with my psychology argument seriously (c) you are by far the most consistently negative person around here when it comes to proposals, always ready to criticise. That needs doing, sure, but it would a lot more helpful if you channelled the critiques into some constructive alternative (eg "it's made of straw... but if it were made of brick, it might be worth doing..."). And every time I remark on this (once in a blue moon, but this is hardly a novel state of affairs) you react like I've insulted your mother. I don't mind telling you, given how vocal you often are, it feels quite demoralising. Rd232 talk 23:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- A) You haven't made a substantial reply to any of my points either. My first comment was "irrelevant", then you "don't really care" about my second, then every comment after that has been met with comments about how I'm being dismissive. B) The fact that socking exists is evidence that this may not help much at all. We block a user from editing, they create another account, we hardblock their IP range, they use an open proxy, we have a bot block 150,000+ proxies, they edit from Starbucks, we create edit filters to prevent their edits from saving, they make subtle changes to their patterns, etc. Its an arms race and this is just another weapon. I'm not saying it certainly won't deter any. I'm saying that its not likely to deter very many, especially given the ease of bypassing. Taking away watchlist access seems like a slap on the wrist when combined with being banned from the site; like sending someone a notice of a 25 cent library fine while they're in prison for robbing the library. C) If everyone supported every proposal on this page, we would probably rewrite every policy every month and have 10 times as many processes. I've made substantial comments on 4 of the 21 threads currently on this page. I've supported one of the suggestions ("Refs - alternate suggestion") and of the 3 that I opposed, at least 1 ("Editor Advocate Admins") has nearly unanimous opposition. I may not be as "progressive" as you when it comes to proposals, but I'm hardly the extremist you paint me as. Not every proposal needs an alternative. Sometimes things just aren't necessary. In my opinion, this is one of those things. We have a ton of anti-socking measures at our disposal, each provides some marginal benefit. Though I wonder how many people are more encouraged by their ability to bypass our numerous countermeasures than they are deterred by them (I seem to remember we had a template warning for people who intentionally tripped edit filters, but I can't find it). Some vandals create socks with obvious sock-puppet usernames just because they can. They know they'll be blocked immediately; they do it anyway to create more work for us, and because they can. I don't feel like you've insulted my mother, I feel like you've insulted me. It seems like every time I oppose a proposal of yours you reply with a holier-than-thou attitude like you're a better person (or I'm a worse one) because you provide "new ideas." Mr.Z-man 00:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- (a) I don't need to make substantive replies to irrelevant points. Your criticisms have largely missed the point here. It's the equivalent of saying of Alcoholics Anonymous "but it doesn't prevent people buying alcohol". (b) Your points about socking go off and miss the point again, as if this was a technical measure to defeat someone 100% certain to sock. Those people are not the target audience (although I have argued the measure may usefully inconvenience them in a minor way). (c) I'm not at all claiming holier than thou! I'm asking merely why you always seem to oppose my proposals, without having anything good to say about them at all. Is it just something you have against me then? Given the number of my proposals which have ultimately been implemented it can't be that my ideas are 100% shit (though obvious there's hit and miss). And by the by, asking for something positive to say is not the same as asking for support, which not only implies endorsement of the proposal but also suggests endorsement of the proposal as it stands. But fine, if you're happy you're being as fair and constructive as you possibly can be, then I guess it's my problem. (d) I guess my frustration here is partly founded on your serially missing the point of this proposal - which isn't usually the case. Your criticisms are usually perceptive, even when I disagree about the weight to be assigned to them. Rd232 talk 02:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- A) You haven't made a substantial reply to any of my points either. My first comment was "irrelevant", then you "don't really care" about my second, then every comment after that has been met with comments about how I'm being dismissive. B) The fact that socking exists is evidence that this may not help much at all. We block a user from editing, they create another account, we hardblock their IP range, they use an open proxy, we have a bot block 150,000+ proxies, they edit from Starbucks, we create edit filters to prevent their edits from saving, they make subtle changes to their patterns, etc. Its an arms race and this is just another weapon. I'm not saying it certainly won't deter any. I'm saying that its not likely to deter very many, especially given the ease of bypassing. Taking away watchlist access seems like a slap on the wrist when combined with being banned from the site; like sending someone a notice of a 25 cent library fine while they're in prison for robbing the library. C) If everyone supported every proposal on this page, we would probably rewrite every policy every month and have 10 times as many processes. I've made substantial comments on 4 of the 21 threads currently on this page. I've supported one of the suggestions ("Refs - alternate suggestion") and of the 3 that I opposed, at least 1 ("Editor Advocate Admins") has nearly unanimous opposition. I may not be as "progressive" as you when it comes to proposals, but I'm hardly the extremist you paint me as. Not every proposal needs an alternative. Sometimes things just aren't necessary. In my opinion, this is one of those things. We have a ton of anti-socking measures at our disposal, each provides some marginal benefit. Though I wonder how many people are more encouraged by their ability to bypass our numerous countermeasures than they are deterred by them (I seem to remember we had a template warning for people who intentionally tripped edit filters, but I can't find it). Some vandals create socks with obvious sock-puppet usernames just because they can. They know they'll be blocked immediately; they do it anyway to create more work for us, and because they can. I don't feel like you've insulted my mother, I feel like you've insulted me. It seems like every time I oppose a proposal of yours you reply with a holier-than-thou attitude like you're a better person (or I'm a worse one) because you provide "new ideas." Mr.Z-man 00:57, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well (a) I already mentioned email addiction as a parallel above, in a comment you replied to dismissively, missing the point entirely (b) you've still not engaged with my psychology argument seriously (c) you are by far the most consistently negative person around here when it comes to proposals, always ready to criticise. That needs doing, sure, but it would a lot more helpful if you channelled the critiques into some constructive alternative (eg "it's made of straw... but if it were made of brick, it might be worth doing..."). And every time I remark on this (once in a blue moon, but this is hardly a novel state of affairs) you react like I've insulted your mother. I don't mind telling you, given how vocal you often are, it feels quite demoralising. Rd232 talk 23:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, let me support something that I don't support. That sounds like fun. Though a lot less fun then presenting a proposal with no evidence to support your assertion, then waiting until someone calls you out on it to provide the evidence just so you can act superior. Because obviously I was just supposed to make the connection between "my main angle is psychology" and a "parallel to the well-established phenomenon of email addiction." Mr.Z-man 23:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Uh huh, so your answer to my psychological argument that checking the watchlist is an addictive element parallel to the well-established phenomenon of email addiction [10] is... what? These people are all, without exception, so addicted that they cannot avoid socking no matter what help we give them? (Even if they haven't even socked yet.) And you know this how? ... Look, just for fun, what if you tried arguing for the proposal, instead of taking against it and then trying to prove you're right? Rd232 talk 22:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think I did exclude community bans (I did say "or" ...). Even if someone hasn't yet resorted to socking, a ban means that they've almost certainly been blocked several times, meaning they're already dedicated to disrupting. I would point out that there also isn't any proof that it would have an effect on future socking. Mr.Z-man 22:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how true that is: how many bans (and it's not just ArbCom bans - why exclude community bans?) involve socking? Certainly not all. And even having socked before isn't actually proof that deactivating the watchlist (let's avoid the word "blocking" for clarity) would have no effect on the probability of future socking. Beyond that - sure, using it more widely, eg for all indef-blocked users (maybe with a delay to permit appeals) would make it have more impact. But I don't want to get into arguing that at this point because I feel that's a later policy issue which would obscure the basic advantages of implementing this technical option, and deciding actual use now is premature, given that its implementation ought to be quite low-cost. Rd232 talk 14:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- In that case, I still don't think it will help that much. If someone gets to the stage that they're considered community banned or banned by ArbCom, then they're almost certainly at the "Determined socker" stage already. If you want to reduce the liklihood of socking, you would have to do it before people start. But that would mean removing watchlist access for almost all indef-blocked users. Mr.Z-man 12:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, did you actually read the comment to which you are responding? It doesn't sound like it to me. This is not about technical prevention of Determined Socker, it is about psychological help for Banned User Who Might Consider Socking If They Keep Logging In, See Edits Happening, And Feel The Need To Respond. Rd232 talk 09:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- This sounds like an inconvenience for some to solve a relatively low-priority issue; users can easily check which pages they edited by using Special:Contributions, so I'm not sure how removing a watchlist will prevent them from following pages that they edited. —Ost (talk) 21:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- "All they would have to do..." - I don't really care what they would have to do (though with the large watchlists I'm imagining, duplication is non-trivial and doing so perfectly from memory not possible). My main point is that for editing Wikipedia there is a habit element, and turning off the watchlist can help people break the Wikipedia habit, if they have any inclination to do so whatsoever. Normally when they login they see X, Y, Z edits that they can't respond to; with this, they simply won't. Curiosity will make them jump to a couple of pages of recent interest, but it's slightly breaking the pattern, taking away the addictive "rush" element of the watchlist, and they're more likely to look at recent edits/conversation, complain to themselves, but not do anything. Basically, my main angle is psychology: I'm not really making it much harder for determined sockers, I'm making people less likely to sock. Rd232 talk 21:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- All they would have to do is make a "watchlist" sock that logs in but doesn't edit. If their IP was hardblocked, that would make it a little more difficult. Mr.Z-man 20:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- What? Please explain? I'm talking about blocking access to the watchlist, which requires the user to log in, making IP issues irrelevant. (Of course RSS access to the watchlist would be blocked too.) Rd232 talk 17:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- For someone who can't be blocked by IP, this would be almost trivial to bypass. Mr.Z-man 15:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- This proposed technical option is not about socks; it is about sockmasters. And in particular, it's about banned users socking, whose socking is supported by allowing them continued access to their extensive watchlist built up over time at their original/main sockmaster account. (So already you can see we're talking about a small number of users - banned users with quite chunky watchlists.) Will removing that access make socking impossible? No, but it'll make it harder, and I think it would also make it more likely that sockmasters trying to be careful to avoid arousing suspicion might find that more difficult too. I mean, RSS or Special:Contribs is certainly an imperfect replacement for the watchlist. Besides that, as I said, some part of the socking problem is people being unable to break the wikihabit; there is an element of addictiveness which hangs substantially on the Watchlist (cf the way people get addicted to checking email). Finally, retaining it as a possible sanction for sockmasters caught socking is an extra sanction when sometimes (for an indef-banned user who can't be hard-blocked due to using too large an IP-range) there currently is none. Rd232 talk 09:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think that's unnecessarily confusing, and anyway somehow (I'm not clear how) seems to prejudge how policy might be written for use of the proposed technical option. Rd232 talk 09:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you could clarify what group this is targeted at then. Banned users, who haven't turned to socking before the ban, who are determined enough that they might sock, but who aren't so determined that basic countermeasures will be ineffective? That sounds like a rather small group. Most people in Alcoholics Anonymous are people who want to change their behavior. That doesn't really sound like most banned users. If someone doesn't actually want to stop drinking, then yes, some sort of measure to prevent them from buying alcohol would likely be necessary. Mr.Z-man 02:26, 2 September 2010 (UTC)- See my reply to MBelgrano below. My view is that propensity of banned users to sock is a statistical phenomenon. On the left of the distribution, some users will accept a ban, and sod off and leave Wikipedia alone. On the right, some users will sock come what may (maybe were socking already). In between, there is a group of users who are undecided about socking. How large is that middle group? Who can say; I don't know what shape the distribution is and neither do you. But if we can take simple measures that make it more likely that members of this group decide not to sock, why wouldn't we? Rd232 talk 14:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well, it can't be that large, given that the group of banned users is not very large. If Category:Banned Wikipedia users is complete, then we have less than 700 banned users (Wikipedia:LOBU has less than 500 and includes temporary bans). Even if the group is 90% of banned users, its still only 1 or 2 users per month. I would also disagree that this is a "simple" measure. Changing the software is about as complicated as measures get, short of taking off-wiki action somehow. And, just as a bit of information, I tested how long it takes to copy a watchlist to another account. I copied my watchlist (450 pages) to my sock account; it took less than 2 minutes using Special:Watchlist/raw. Mr.Z-man 14:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well I appreciate the attempt to inject some numbers, but even if they are small, we're talking about the more disruptive users, so even small numbers may be worthwhile. Whilst in general software changes range from the hasslesome to the mindboggling, I do feel this is a very simple thing (for someone who knows what they're doing with the MediaWiki software) which would easily slot into the software at a couple of points without complex knock-on effects. Beyond that, I don't know why you copied stuff using the watchlist, since (a) the whole point is you wouldn't have access to it and (b) once again, the issue is not (primarily) how hard it is to reproduce the watchlist elsewhere (and it's not quite as easy as you make out). Rd232 talk 16:14, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- The comment that I replied to is what prompted me to write, as I check contributions often enough to realize that patterns can develop from techniques that are nearly as effective as watchlists. You acknowledged that it may "slightly" break a pattern; I understand the intent behind the proposal and I respectfully disagree that the option is needed. —Ost (talk) 13:49, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well I appreciate the attempt to inject some numbers, but even if they are small, we're talking about the more disruptive users, so even small numbers may be worthwhile. Whilst in general software changes range from the hasslesome to the mindboggling, I do feel this is a very simple thing (for someone who knows what they're doing with the MediaWiki software) which would easily slot into the software at a couple of points without complex knock-on effects. Beyond that, I don't know why you copied stuff using the watchlist, since (a) the whole point is you wouldn't have access to it and (b) once again, the issue is not (primarily) how hard it is to reproduce the watchlist elsewhere (and it's not quite as easy as you make out). Rd232 talk 16:14, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well, it can't be that large, given that the group of banned users is not very large. If Category:Banned Wikipedia users is complete, then we have less than 700 banned users (Wikipedia:LOBU has less than 500 and includes temporary bans). Even if the group is 90% of banned users, its still only 1 or 2 users per month. I would also disagree that this is a "simple" measure. Changing the software is about as complicated as measures get, short of taking off-wiki action somehow. And, just as a bit of information, I tested how long it takes to copy a watchlist to another account. I copied my watchlist (450 pages) to my sock account; it took less than 2 minutes using Special:Watchlist/raw. Mr.Z-man 14:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see why not - should be analogous to the software option to block user talk editing. All the software needs to do is check whether the "deactivate watchlist" option is on (maybe double-checking the user is blocked too) when serving the watchlist. If it is, it serves an alternate message. Rd232 talk 14:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Watchlists of indef-blocked users should be wiped clean, but not necessarily for the reasons set forth above. They should show up as unwatched pages (unless, of course, someone else is watching them), so we are not lead to believe that they are being watched by someone who might, for example, revert a vandal. bd2412 T 15:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Watchlist and talk pages are of a different nature. The user own's talk page is, in the technical sense, a page like any other, that may be (technically speaking) protected or unprotected from editing like any other. The watchlist is a special page, with an unique way of working and uniques ways of being edited, and it's surely beyond the hability of being protected or unprotected. MBelgrano (talk) 17:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Nobody's suggesting the watchlist be protected from editing. All it takes is a line or two in the MediaWiki code before the watchlist is loaded which says "wait, is the account's watchlist deactivated? No, OK proceed. Yes - stop, and show a No Watchlist For You message". This is analogous to users not being able to edit their own talk pages because that protection is nothing like ordinary page protection either, applying only to the account in question. Rd232 talk 19:44, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- As I said, it should be confirmed if the mediawiki can be altered that way before making such proposal. In any case, I find it a "punishment" so easy to get around that I doubt developers would even take the efford of adding it. Let's say you close the watchlist of a master of puppets, so that he can't get access to it. What's the benefit? Do you think it would be so hard to simply remake the watchlist in one of the puppet accounts? All that would be needed to be done (and any experimented user as to get banned would find out by himself) would be to open the category page of the favourite topic, open all pages in new tabs, and press "watch" in each one. Repeat with other categories, dismiss unwanted pages in the category, and that's all: punishment circumvented. Even more, it doesn't involve a single edit, so nobody would ever find out. --MBelgrano (talk) 23:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- As noted above, the "punishment" element of this is minor, and perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it at all if it's going to distract people that much (though given that it's an additional sanction where currently there is none, I see some use in it even if the sanction is tiny). The primary motivation is to tackle the addiction element of the watchlist (analogous to email addiction - a "hit" from clicking and finding something has happened you need to respond to). There's a case to be made that whilst this addiction element plays some part for all prolific Wikipedians, it especially plays a role for those who continue to want to contribute despite not being willing or able to fit in - and hence get banned. Such social malcontents are more likely to have addictive personalities. Unless we assume that 100% of the target audience immediately go off and recreate their watchlist, then the measure would have some impact. Since the measure is low cost, it doesn't matter if the benefit is low (especially as it's impossible to say how low, and probabalistically it might turn out to be better than "low"). Rd232 talk 02:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- As I said, it should be confirmed if the mediawiki can be altered that way before making such proposal. In any case, I find it a "punishment" so easy to get around that I doubt developers would even take the efford of adding it. Let's say you close the watchlist of a master of puppets, so that he can't get access to it. What's the benefit? Do you think it would be so hard to simply remake the watchlist in one of the puppet accounts? All that would be needed to be done (and any experimented user as to get banned would find out by himself) would be to open the category page of the favourite topic, open all pages in new tabs, and press "watch" in each one. Repeat with other categories, dismiss unwanted pages in the category, and that's all: punishment circumvented. Even more, it doesn't involve a single edit, so nobody would ever find out. --MBelgrano (talk) 23:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Nobody's suggesting the watchlist be protected from editing. All it takes is a line or two in the MediaWiki code before the watchlist is loaded which says "wait, is the account's watchlist deactivated? No, OK proceed. Yes - stop, and show a No Watchlist For You message". This is analogous to users not being able to edit their own talk pages because that protection is nothing like ordinary page protection either, applying only to the account in question. Rd232 talk 19:44, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- It matters little if the intention is to punish, to be harsh "for your own good", or whatever. For someone in that position, it would be an obstacle, and a very easy to evade without leaving traces. Only newbies wouldn't realize it, but we don't talk about newbies here.
- In any case, your logic has a fatal flaw: you consider that such a banned user would check changes through his banned account, then jump to the puppet account to answer, then go back to the blocked one. Unlikely. If he creates a new account to keep editing and evade the ban, he would use the new watchlist, adding to it the articles he may be interested to follow. MBelgrano (talk) 03:14, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I know for certain that at least some banned users continue to log in to their primary account in order to check their extensive watchlist, even with a well-established several months' old sock. Of course once they create a sock they will develop, gradually or in an intensive effort, a watchlist in the new account. But as I keep saying, what I'm imagining is that at least some people would give up, and not sock. Psychology says that there must be some (maybe many) who are in a sort of "oh fuck 'em, let 'em be" kind of mode when banned, but can't resist keeping up with ongoing developments, and only later eventually succumb to the temptation to sock. Some evidence for that: socks are often created some time after the ban, rather than before (the user can usually see it coming, and could take pre-emptive measures) or immediately after (though of course escaping detection is a factor there). I could add that I speak partly from experience on the addictive aspect of the watchlist, both in my everyday use of Wikipedia, and on occasions when I've blocked myself (by a variety of means including actual self-blocking and measures on my computer) to try and get some work done. I can safely say that if I was ever banned, it would be a battle between my conscience and my desire to continue editing; and I know that having access to my watchlist would make i
- Ah, I see what you mean. With the way I have above, it seems to imply that both b and c are from p.31. In short, you are suggesting that ref tags with either see= or url= should be group together in front and all those without should be group in the end like this (new labels d and e added):